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Founders Day 2023
348B0713
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Founders Day Remarks 2023 by Georgia Summers
Last fall, for reasons I didn't fully understand then, I volunteered to chaperone the upper school Halloween dance. Love Halloween…don't exactly love chaperoning dances.
Last fall, for reasons I didn't fully understand then, I volunteered to chaperone the upper school Halloween dance. Love Halloween…don't exactly love chaperoning dances.
But as I stood leaning against the KVB wall, watching students dance in their costumes, and feeling impossibly old, I noticed something.
Over and over again, groups of students, in twos and threes, pulled their friends off the dance floor and came over next to where I was standing:
Mr. Stephens, take one of us!
All night, all kinds of students, same refrain:
Mr. Stephens, take one of us.
Having been a student at Bryn Mawr myself, I went to my fair share of dances in KVB. And for a moment, I saw myself as a student again:
Mr. Stephens, take one of us.
And I just couldn't get it out of my head. I graduated from Bryn Mawr in 2001, six years before smartphones were even available. We had no way to document our experience beyond the invaluable service Mr. Stephens provided then, and still provides now.
So much has changed. But not this:
Mr. Stephens, take one of us.
Taking photos is kind of a perfect metaphor for being a teacher when you think about it. You remain behind the scenes, but you get to observe something, capture it, and then, if you're lucky, show it back to your subject to let them see themselves in a new way. Let them see their own intelligence and potential as you see it. Unfiltered. True.
No matter how much technology we have, even as we bury ourselves in it, we will still need people to do that for us.
To pay attention to us. To see us as we are; to see us as we wish to become.
Mr. Dave Stephens has been doing that for Bryn Mawr students for the last 37 years. He did it for me, he does it for you.
I am so honored to be part of that legacy of service and to be here today to celebrate all Bryn Mawr teachers, those whom we will see on stage later this morning, but perhaps more importantly, those we won't.
When I talk about teachers, I just want to make one thing clear; I am not only speaking of the faculty. I am speaking of all the people who care for you, guide you, serve you, and protect you in this community.
This beautiful September morning, we are here to pay attention to these dedicated educators, to each of you, and to the task we have before us: the task of teaching and learning. Asking and answering.
Founders' Day is a ritual built to remind us why we are here at school together. After the bustle of the start of the academic year, we take a deep breath. We pay attention to our purpose.
At the start of each fall I have a personal ritual of returning to theorist bell hooks' book Teaching to Transgress. Those of you who have taken my class will be familiar with her words:
As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another's voices, in recognizing one another's presence. (bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress)
Dr. hooks is asking us to pay attention to one another. The way Mr. Stephens, and all your teachers, pay attention to you each day.
It can be thankless work. It can be joyful work. There's nothing else on earth I'd like to do.
I once read an interview with Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor that has stayed with me my whole career. When asked about her secret to a happy life, the Justice replied, firmly: “Work worth doing.”
Work worth doing. Work? The secret to happiness? What is work worth doing? Your math homework? Your reading for English class?
The teaching and learning we do everyday. That is the work worth doing. What a privilege to have that work ahead of us. Not easy work. But good work. What Edith Hamilton called the delights and demands. The considered and consequential. The work worth doing.
Okay, now. Where are my lower school friends? I'm hoping you can help me out. I'm wondering if any of you are familiar with a little indie flick my daughter and I like, called Frozen II? [Todd start intro]
Yes? Okay, well, maybe you know this song. And no matter how old you are, sing along!
Mr. Twining?
Well the wind blows a little bit colder
And we're all getting older
And the clouds are moving on with every autumn breeze
Peter pumpkin just became fertilizer
And my leaf's a little sadder and wiser
That's why I rely on certain certainties
Some things never change
Like the feel of your hand in mine
Some things never change
Like how we get along just fine
Like an old stone wall that will never fall, some things are always true
Some things never change. And I'm holding on tight to you.
Like an old stone wall –and don't we have plenty of those surrounding us –some things are always true: as the long, proud, complex history of this school marches on, and you – yes, you, lower schoolers, too – are a part of that.
Much has changed. Much remains exactly the same. Every person in this garden has a part in the work worth doing of building the Bryn Mawr community.
As I close, I want to leave you with a line for Mary Oliver:
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
Attention must be paid. That is what we do here. That is our ritual on Founders' Day. We pay attention, as the wind begins to blow a little bit colder, as we grow older, to remember that we are gathered in this sacred place to do work worth doing together, to pay attention to one another, to acknowledge that we are all a part of something real and unchanging in this beautiful space.
So why did I volunteer for that Halloween dance? I think it was for the same reason Mr. Stephens has been taking pictures of all of us for the last four decades.
I volunteered for that dance because everything, everything, everything changes. But because we are of Bryn Mawr we also know that two seemingly contradictory things can be true: Everything changes. But some things never change: the passing of the seasons, the work worth doing, our human need to have attention and to give it to others. Hold on tightly to each other to prepare for the good work ahead.
And thank you for your attention to me. I wish you a very good year.
