Head of School’s Notebook
January 21, 2020
Head of School’s Notebook — Raindrops
During the Memorial Service for Liam Mundy ’19 on Sunday, one of our seniors suggested that we are all like raindrops running down a window. As we travel, our paths converge with those of other raindrops. Often we join for a spell, and then new branches form. We always take some of the other …
January 8, 2020
Head of School’s Notebook — Peace
On Wednesday morning, just prior to the opening of classes after the holiday break, the community gathered in Hitchcock Theater. It is the place we go, it seems, when there is something that deserves our collective attention. Sometimes it’s a concert or a speech or even periodically a hypnotist or the famed regurgitator. We …
December 3, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook — My Father’s Porch
On the porch off the kitchen at my father’s home in Connecticut is a series of birdfeeders. To sit in that kitchen on a winter morning is to be witness to a never-ending series of comings and goings. So ravenous is the local avian population that my father refills the quite substantial feeders each …
November 19, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook — Thanksgiving
Around the time that this Notebook entry is published, we’ll all be sitting quietly in the Katharine Thayer Cate Memorial Chapel. Since faculty member Peter Arango began the tradition over a decade ago, we honor Thanksgiving with a Quaker meeting. 297 students and nearly 80 faculty join in complete silence until someone is compelled …
October 30, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook — What is an education worth?
During a recent visit to Beijing, several of our families took us to the campus of Imperial College, a 700-year-old school that until the early 20th century was the defining educational institution in China. Formed at least in part to further the wisdom of Confucius, Imperial College was testament to the value of education in …
October 25, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook — May My Ashes …
“May my ashes, when you have them, friend, and give them to the ocean leap in the froth of the waves, still loving the moment,” These are lines from Mary Oliver’s Prayer that a Cate senior read this week in the chapel, to preface a talk she gave on the journey that took her to …
October 11, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook — Perspective
I love Westerns. I always have. Lonesome Dove totally captivated me when I read it as a teenager. It was the only book—besides Where the Red Fern Grows—that had me in tears by the end. Something about the relationship between Gus and Woodrow struck a chord with me. So when Jay Dorion gave me a …
September 27, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook — Voice
I visited a senior English class recently, where the students were gathering feedback on personal essays by reading them aloud. Their teacher had given them a host of potential prompts the day before, all of which had been gathered from various college applications. One student wrote about the game of soccer, and its impact on …
September 13, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook — Cold, Wet, and Content
Around 3 p.m. on Thursday, September 5, I was beginning with my pod of about 14 juniors to prepare a massive pot of chili for the entire junior class and 15 or so faculty who were just completing the 20+ mile trek into the Kern River Valley. The day had begun with rain and the …
August 30, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook — Where to from here?
I read a Frank Bruni editorial in the New York Times recently entitled, “The Surprising Path that Some Kids take to the Ivy League.” It isn’t about money or privilege or scandal. It’s just about remarkable kids and the life journey that somehow lands them in a well-known college. It’s pretty inspiring, as great human …
May 17, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook — Inquiry Question
We held our annual Inquiry Day last Monday, during which fifteen seniors presented anywhere from a trimester to a year’s worth of work on projects of their own design. Their guiding questions tell us a good deal about the scale of their ambition: What is race? Can we stop aging? Who lives outside of nation …
May 3, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook — Last Times
Back in August of 2009, my daughter went to the annual Cate square dance. She was beginning her senior year and she and many of her friends were determined to make it a great Ho-down! She returned bereft. “What’s wrong?” I asked. The dance seemed great to me, but Grace was clearly in distress. “Dad,” …
April 16, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook — No Problem
We held our second set of community conversations this week. In lieu of convocation we met in groups of eight to share a meal and a story (no more than three minutes long) that guides us in our lives. There were several compelling ones in my group: stories about life without the internet (it is …
April 5, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook — Finding Our Place
I was talking with one of our seniors this week about the things he has learned at Cate in his four years. The young man is currently trying to decide where he will go next. Pretty much every school to which he applied wants him, and with good reason. He is brilliant and kind, generous …
March 22, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook — Good News
I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point in my life the idea of sitting down with the newspaper became really enticing. I was a pretty normal kid (or so I thought) which means I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the world when I was growing up. And then suddenly …
March 8, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook | Mary Queen of Scots
Ginger and I watched Mary Queen of Scots this weekend. We knew the story, generally, but we weren’t really ready for what we saw. It is hard to imagine an 18-year-old widow arriving in Scotland to claim her throne in any context, but in the 15th century the array of forces mobilized against Mary were …
February 22, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook | What Makes a Good Cate Student?
What makes a good Cate student? For the fourteen members of our Admission Committee, that is not simply an existential question. Over the last six weeks the faculty members and admission officers who comprise that committee have been poring over every detail in somewhere north of 700 applications, trying to get a sense of each …
February 7, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook | Present in Our Thoughts
I have a nostalgic streak in me which seems to be gaining influence as I age. There is more to be nostalgic about now than there was ten, twenty or thirty years ago. But volume of memory isn’t the only change. The memories themselves seem to have more meaning. Maybe I understand the past better …
January 24, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook | Love and MLK
Many of us on the Mesa have been talking about an editorial that David Brooks wrote last week in the New York Times. “Students Learn from People they Love” it’s called. Hardly a revelation, especially if you are a boarding school teacher or student or parent, but it’s a potential lightning bolt to mass market …
January 10, 2019
Head of School’s Notebook | Welcome Home
On our way back from Montana we were stopped by the Highway Patrol at the Nevada border with California and turned around. An accident closed the freeway at Primm for over twelve hours. So we improvised, traveling the highways and byways of Nevada to make our way slowly back to the Mesa. Two of our …