Head of School’s Notebook
March 24, 2023
Head of School’s Notebook: Balance
My father passed away over the Break, finishing his life on the 7th of March, the day before he was to celebrate his 87th birthday. Leave it to Dad to complete the circle of the year before quietly bowing out. He was my hero and always will be. As news of his death has spread, …
February 17, 2023
Head of School’s Notebook: Sport
It is funny how the very things that can bring out the best in us can also bring out the worst. The most recent iteration of that lesson came amidst a flurry of CIF postseason competition. Our teams competed admirably, as they always do, winning and losing with grace and poise despite behaviors by opponents …
February 3, 2023
Head of School’s Notebook: What is History?
February 1st marks the beginning of Black History month, the origins of which date back to 1915 and historian Carter Woodson. It was a week at first – so designated by Woodson’s Association for the Study of Negro Life and History – and scheduled in mid-February to coincide with the birthdates of Frederick Douglass and …
January 20, 2023
Head of School’s Notebook: Circles
On an old Harry Chapin album I used to own – don’t we all wish we hadn’t gotten rid of all our vinyl – there’s a song with the lyric: All my life’s a circle Sunrise and sundown The moon rose through the night time Till the daybreak comes around All my life’s a circle …
December 7, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Free Days
I have worked at three different schools in my lifetime and attended three others from elementary school through high school. Each one had its own unique character, but all had a single similar tradition: free days. They weren’t called the same things in each place. At St. John’s in Houston, Texas, where I worked prior …
December 5, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Chester
Chester was a birthday present. We picked him up on a cold December day in Belgrade, Montana in 2013, 8 weeks old, round and cuddly, with the soft coat and brown eyes so typical of yellow labs. We spent much of the holiday break that year sleeping on various couches and chairs with Chester by …
November 17, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Enough
A friend of mine sent me a poem recently by Naomi Shihab Nye called “So Much Happiness.” It begins: It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness. With sadness there is something to rub against, a wound to tend with lotion and cloth. When the world falls in around you, you …
November 2, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Fortunate Moments
We all tend to accumulate a lot of stuff over the course of our lives, far more than we need. Maybe that is why there is such a proliferation of storage facilities around the country. We need more space for the things that we can’t use or don’t really need. A friend of mine in …
October 14, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: What is Cate?
I’ve spent the last week re-connecting with Cate alumni in various spots around the country. It has been several years since we have done such things, and it was wonderful to see so many thriving young people. They all had questions: What’s happening on the Mesa right now? How’s the volleyball team? Did we beat …
September 30, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Reading on the Road
I flew to the East Coast last week. When I was a boy, airplane travel was a relatively infrequent occurrence. My family took the train or drove most places. My grandparents lived in South Carolina, so at least once a year we would drive from our home in Massachusetts to my cousins’ home in Washington …
September 16, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Outings
Many years ago, I read a piece at our Sunset Ceremony that I had prepared about Outings Week. “Almost before we go to School on the Mesa, we go into the woods,” I said. “Not so that we might escape the work ahead, but so that we might prepare for it, understand its relevance, remember …
June 19, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Juneteenth
Dear Friends, The sounds of the Mesa are a bit different as I write today. The cacophony of machinery and hammering associated with the renovation of Raymond Commons – which will ultimately be our Inquiry Center – is most conspicuous. Preparations for the Cate Summer Institutes are also underway, as we anticipate the arrival of …
May 20, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: The Human Sea
Many years ago, I wrote in this Notebook about a school shooting that didn’t make the front page of the newspaper. I couldn’t understand at the time why such a tragedy could be upstaged by anything else. Maybe the publishers, I mused, or their readers, were no longer shocked by such violence. Or not shocked …
April 29, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Marking Time
It is that time of the year. Spring Family Weekend has passed and the dulcet tones of the musical, Mamma Mia, are a lingering memory. Seniors are counting the days to commencement. Underclassmen are imagining the summer that lies just over a month – and an exam period – away. And faculty are trying to …
April 14, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Gratitude
When Tyler ’22 and Talia Tom ’23 stepped to the microphone last week as co-masters of ceremony for the International Convocation, there was a buzz of energy and anticipation among the audience. Our students have a great many distinctive and inspiring attributes, among which is a profound and enthusiastic appreciation for the countries, communities, and …
March 30, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Friends
I attended a memorial service this past weekend for Tom Jones, the parent of two Cate students, one a member of the Class of ’13 and the other a current sophomore. Tom and I shared a college, but that wasn’t the reason he became my friend. It was Tom’s captivating, adventurous, unflappable, occasionally irreverent and …
March 4, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Joy
In Monday’s Convocation, Cate was visited by a hypnotist. We have had so many marvelous and compelling speakers this year, many of whom our kids are still buzzing about – Athena Jones ’90, Sonia Nazario, Walter Riley and Candida Pugh, Von Miller – but even relative to such luminaries, the hypnotist generates a palpable buzz …
February 18, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Benny Kumiyama Sanchez
On Thursday afternoon, I stood before the Vietnam War Memorial and found myself drawn to a name. The monument is full of names. Just over 58,000 of them, a docent said. But my gaze was taken by one in particular: Benny Kumiyama Sanchez. I was in Washington D.C. with a host of Cate students attending …
February 4, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Senior Small Things
At a boys basketball game last night, a cheer started late in the first half. “We want John! We want John!” Cate was winning by a large margin at the time, but John had not yet been on the floor. A lover of sport and a senior, John Endres is the guy we all want …
January 21, 2022
Head of School’s Notebook: Black Joy
We began our celebration of Martin Luther King Day on Monday with drums. There is something elemental about the sounds and rhythms of percussion. We respond naturally, almost instinctively, even at 9:00 a.m. on a Monday morning. The drummers themselves, led by our own Mamadou Pouye, hailed from Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Guinea, …