Dear Parents,
Earlier this week, I attended the annual senior class luncheon hosted by the Lab Schools Board of Directors. One of the speakers was senior class president, Sam Larson, who is a Lab "lifer." Sam took us briefly through what a fifteen-year Lab School "life sentence"looks like, beginning with Nursery School days (his were with Vivian Paley), to the present days that are filled with (but not limited to) senior getaway, AP exams, May project, and, of course, saying good-bye.
Based on conversations with these seniors and many others over the years, I know that most of them are more than ready to take their leave (thank you!) and for all the right reasons. They are confident, independent, well educated, and happy to be moving on to the next phase of their lives. Well, maybe they're a little anxious, too. A source of strength will be the many friendships they take with them and which will always be part of their lives.
As we enjoyed our reminiscences over lunch, I couldn't help but think about how few opportunities we have as families or a community to pay attention to what we already have. In a school community that frequently begins to plan for college and set critical goals from the day our children are born, I am sometimes concerned that we forget the importance of living in the moment. Certainly, no one disputes the significance of planning for and looking forward to the future. Life is just too complicated to do otherwise. However, in our busyness and haste to get things done, the words of Dr. Ned Hallowell remind us that "What we've already got is with us now aching to be noticed".
In a Newsweek article, Anna Quindlen wrote that her biggest mistake as a parent was not "living in the moment enough...This is particularly clear now that the moment is past...I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing...that I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less".
To our seniors, their parents, and all of us who have the privilege of shaping the lives of young people, I would ask that we heed the wisdom of Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks expressed in this little poem.
Exhaust the little moment.
Soon it dies.
And
be it gash or gold
It will not come
Again in this identical
Disguise.
With much appreciation,
Beverly Biggs
Interim Director