For the past fifteen years, while sophomores and juniors take the PSATs and seniors begin preparations for their Senior Projects, we spend intentional time with our ninth graders hiking to the Proctor Cabin. A month into their Proctor experience, this is one of the first times our 9th graders have gathered together as a group. With so much of the Proctor experience focused on cross-grade groups - advisories, athletic teams, many classes, and dormitories for our female identifying students - we cherish this opportunity for our freshmen to be together and begin to form a class personality.
After phones were collected, peak foliage and crisp fall weather greeted our 64 freshmen as a stream of spry young legs bounded their way beyond Johnson House and into the Proctor Woodlands. A mile of trail and 500 feet of vertical climb later, students found a campfire and hot chocolate waiting for them at the Proctor Cabin.
Originally constructed in the 1930s by students and faculty, and then reconstructed in the mid-1990s after a fire burned the original building, the Proctor Cabin sits at the heart of Proctor’s 2,500 acres of land. As the chatter of students subsided momentarily, Science Faculty Lynne Bartlett shared about the history of the woodlands, the importance of having multi-use land, and the opportunities that abound for our community to enjoy and steward it.
Just as we are the current stewards of this land, we are also the current stewards of the Proctor community. While our ninth graders may be our youngest students, they are powerful culture setters. Over the next four years, this group will, in many ways, craft this community. They will step into leadership roles, support each other, stand up for each other, and, hopefully, live out the values that sit core to our existence as a school community: honesty, compassion, respect, and responsibility.
As this often squirrelly, rambunctious, immature group of teenagers walked, ran, and hiked through the woods to the cabin, we were reminded of the arc of development that takes place during the high school years. This fall, perhaps more than ever, we have seen a group of seniors step into positions of leadership with enthusiasm and incredible ownership of the culture they want to see at Proctor.
We see the delta in maturity between our seniors and freshmen, and remember that our work is to help these ninth graders become those twelfth graders. It is a messy, non-linear, sometimes frustrating, but always rewarding journey, and we are so thankful we got to spend the morning alongside the Class of 2028 as a part of it.
Learn more about the Proctor Woodlands!
- Community and Relationships
- Environmental Stewardship
- Woodlands