Who They Become

There is a moment every spring in schools where time feels both incredibly fast and strangely suspended. The days fill quickly with AP exams, performances, games, final projects, celebrations, difficult goodbyes, moments of reflection, and occasionally a little hair pulling. Everyone is trying to hold onto the final moments of the year while simultaneously racing toward the finish line. Things move so quickly that it becomes difficult to fully absorb what is actually happening in the lives of our students and in the life of a community. Each of these moments carries its own story that has unfolded over the course of the year through successes and failures, joy and uncertainty, and the resilience our students developed along the way.

During this final stretch of the school year, I could already feel the nostalgia that I knew many of these moments would hold for me over time. Even while they are happening, part of me already missed them.

A few weeks ago, I spent an evening with our 9th graders as they shared their slam poetry. Sitting in that room, listening to them speak with vulnerability, humor, honesty, and courage, I found myself unexpectedly reflective. I was struck first by how connected and grounded that class already feels. There was a comfort and authenticity in the way they interacted with one another that made it easy to look forward in time and imagine who they will become as seniors. I left that evening feeling excited and hopeful about what they will bring to this community over the next three years.

What struck me even more deeply, though, was the realization of how much they have already changed in the short eight months they have been at Proctor. Their confidence, voice, presence, and willingness to take risks in front of one another have all grown so noticeably since September. It is often difficult to recognize growth while we are living inside it day to day, and yet it becomes remarkably obvious when we pause long enough to breathe and look back.

That evening, I found myself thinking about Joni Mitchell’s song The Circle Game. It's a song that would take on even more meaning weeks later, when Ada Goren sang it during this year’s Commencement ceremony. There is something about the song that captures the rhythm of school life so perfectly. Every year, students arrive uncertain and new. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, they begin to change. They find their people, discover new parts of themselves, experience success and disappointment, fail publicly, pick themselves back up, and grow alongside one another. Then, impossibly fast, they become the older students who help shape the culture of the classes behind them.

 

 

The remarkable thing about schools is that while every year feels entirely unique when you are living inside of it, there is also something beautifully cyclical about it all. New students arrive unsure of themselves and eventually become the ones cheering loudest for those around them. Younger students slowly become leaders. Traditions are inherited and reinvented. Proctor evolves while somehow remaining deeply itself – a community where students and adults live alongside one another in ways that feel increasingly rare in the world.

I find myself nostalgic for moments that seem like they have barely passed.

• Candy breaks on a long hike day during Orientation.
• The green and white energy and spirit of Holderness Day.
• Overloaded banana splits at the Head’s House.
• Project Period belly laughs during a barn-burning game of Taboo.
• Very cold afternoons standing on the sidelines of spring games.
• The sound of teams ringing the victory bell outside my office.
• Assembly moments that made us cry laughing one minute and emotional the next.
• Conversations in snow pants while eating ice cream in the dining hall.
• The quiet moments after difficult days when people showed up for each other anyway.

I already miss the Class of 2026. They lived and learned together, taking this culture and making it their own. That is what each graduating class does at Proctor. They inherit this community, shape it through their own personalities and experiences, leave fingerprints all over it, and then pass it forward to the classes behind.  Now they become part of the larger Proctor story, joining a powerful and deeply loyal Proctor alumni community connected by a shared love for this place.

I have also found myself deeply grateful for next year’s student leaders. During these busy final weeks of school, they have already begun coming together to think intentionally about the future of this community and the kind of culture they hope to foster next year. The culture has now been handed to them, and it is abundantly clear how deeply they care about this community and the responsibility that comes with helping shape it.

Next year, our rising seniors will do what generations of Proctor students before them have done. They will take this place and make it their own. It will be awesome, messy, and incredible all at once, just as this year has been. The circle continues.

One class leaves and another rises. Traditions are passed forward and reimagined by the people who inherit them next. Proctor evolves, and yet the heartbeat of this place will remain remarkably constant.
Thank you all for welcoming me so fully into this community and for being on this journey alongside me. I am deeply grateful, and I would not trade this first year at Proctor for anything.

Read More from Head of School Amy Smucker