Head Of School

One of the privileges of being Head of School for Saint Mary’s Hall is the opportunity to occasionally speak during Chapel. On Monday, I gave my first chapel talk of the school year, about the importance of having a vision when making decisions.  
 
I spoke with all of our students about how this past summer, I was on a section of the Appalachian Trail in Massachusetts, hiking a short half-day solo, when I came across a bridge that spanned the Massachusetts Turnpike.  It was on that highway that we traveled to see my grandmother in the summers.  We traveled that highway on the way back from my last high school basketball game when we lost in the quarterfinals of the state championship, as well as my last college basketball game when we lost in the final 16 of the national championship.  I went away to boarding school on that road, and I traveled to Maine during summer weekends when I was in college to visit the woman I would marry, Mrs. Miller. I took that road to move to Philadelphia for my first job when I decided to become a teacher.  You can perhaps imagine how startled I was when I crossed that bridge, looked at that highway, realized what it was, and felt a flood of memories come back to me.  

Dear SMH Families,

Welcome back to another year at Saint Mary’s Hall! It was an exuberant Back-to-School last week as we welcomed our students to a New Year. We began our 2024-2025 journey with new classes, energized students, a beautiful opening Convocation ceremony, and our beloved Blue Tie traditions celebrating our seniors. You can expect the same energy in the year ahead: a commitment to community and belonging, and experiences that challenge and support our students to grow and flourish.

During our chapel talks this semester, Dr. Brock has been speaking with our students about the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Today, he led the students into a deeper examination of “love,” illustrating the lesson with the parable of the Good Samaritan, which asks us to ponder what it means to love our neighbor, and to ask ourselves, “who IS my neighbor?”

Last week I was delighted to have the opportunity to speak to our parents at a Parents’ Circle coffee. I wanted to share the “how” of what we are doing at SMH.  I was eager to share with our community that, in describing our processes and how we go about designing the experience for our students, we consider everything we do as curriculum.  How we gather community, the programs we create, the design of the architecture and the campus —all of these, and not just what takes place in our classrooms—have a pedagogy and a learning outcome.