Headmaster's Thoughts Detail
Headmaster's Thoughts: January 2021
I want to wish all members of the York Community a Happy New Year. Let us wish for a better one than 2020; a future year of joy and companionship, when New York City returns to being the vibrant, exciting place it was before COVID.
Since we are not yet at the end of the COVID pandemic, a recap of the past events of 2020 would be like judging a court case before all the evidence is in. There have been inspirational moments in a year of sickness, but I shall leave that for another time, and continue to write my “Thoughts” this month in the normal way. That is, most often frivolous and occasionally serious. This month’s piece is serious.
I want to tell you of a conversation I witnessed a number of years ago. I was going to ride in an event in Thomasville, Georgia. A friend of mine, who is an orthopedic surgeon, was lending me a horse, and I was going to stay with him overnight. I flew to Tallahassee and drove across Florida on Interstate 10.
I realized, while on the highway, that I would arrive early. My friend is a working physician, and we had arranged to meet at his house at about 5:30 in the afternoon. Here was I about to arrive at 4:00 pm. So I stopped in the small town of Monticello, Florida, just south of the Georgia border, for a cup of coffee to let some time go by. There were only two other people in the coffee shop; an older man who seemed to be the owner of the establishment and a large young man, about 25, wearing a white tee shirt with the sleeves so high cut that I could see his “Brothers of the Confederation” tattoo on his bulging biceps. He was called “Bubba” by the older man. I kid you not!
They were having a discussion on Jews. Being Jewish, I slipped into a corner and listened.
“Them Jews started World War Two,” Bubba was saying.
“Nonsense, Bubba!” replied the coffee shop owner, whose name I never heard.
“Oh yes they did. All that nonsense about camps and stuff. All propaganda by the Jews.”
Since my father had been in Dachau for a while, as an involuntary guest of the Nazis, I was tempted to intervene but thought that it would be wiser to just listen from the corner seat.
“I fought in Korea in the Air Force,” said the older man, “And the very best officer we had was a Captain Walters, who was a Jew. You don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Well, I’m telling you what everyone round here knows,” was Bubba’s reply.
Seeing me, in the corner, and realizing that I must have heard their argument, Bubba turned to me as the only audience around.
“What do you think, sir?” he asked, in a perfectly respectable tone.
I was not going to convert Bubba, so I answered in a strong English accent. “Have you traveled much, and seen the world?” I asked Bubba.
“Oh, yes. I’ve been down to South Florida and seen all them Jews down there, in their rich houses and fancy cars.”
“Have you ever traveled outside the country?”
“No, but why?”
“Well,” I might as well stick my foot in, “I think travel broadens the mind, to quote others, and I think it might change your view.”
And, as quickly as I could, I left the coffee shop.
The purpose of my telling this story is not to stress the prejudice in northern rural Florida, but to point out the dangers of being brought up in a culturally narrow society, as Bubba clearly was. I doubt that he was exposed to many immigrants or a diverse school population. I am sure he did not socially interact with them.
I strongly believe that our advances in human achievement have been propelled by the integration of new ideas from members of international cultures. Without immigration, without mixing outside of a very narrow grouping, I fear that little progress can be made.
I maintain that the explosion of knowledge from the Industrial Revolution onwards, came from the sharing of ideas across the intellectual communities of the world. And this expansion of knowledge came from interaction not just with fellow Europeans, but with peoples of all continents. This global knowledge-sharing continues today to the benefit of all. “Bubba” is therefore an anachronism. He represents a small (hopefully declining) group who accept what their fellow group members say, without possessing the intellectual curiosity to question their group’s established dogma. There may always be “Bubbas” in our society but I would be embarrassed if they graduated from York Prep. It is one of the reasons that the predominant theme of my Senior Ethics Class is “curiosity”.
Diversity is not tokenism. It is education in a true sense. We need to continue to learn from each other, and to always challenge what is given as the “truth” by the politicized press, and the convinced beliefs or prejudices of others. The world, to take an example, is not flat, and, despite appearances, we do revolve around the sun. The view from the spacecraft of our planet was not a hoax. There, travel (a long, long way) truly proved how the truth-revealing capacity of our senses is flawed. I look up and the sun seems to go around us. It does not!
Bubba, I hope you travel and question. And teach your children to challenge what they are told.
Happy New Year!
Ronald P. Stewart
Headmaster
York Prep
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List of 20 news stories.
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Headmaster's Thoughts: May 2023
Read MoreThis month I am cheating by reproducing a presentation I made to an educational conference, this April, on the teaching of Ethics to high school students. Last month’s “Thoughts” were hopefully amusing. The same cannot be said for this presentation:
Good Morning. My name is Ronnie Stewart and I started York Prep School in 1969 with my wife and have been Head of School for the 54 years it has served its students in New York City. For most of those years, I have taught Ethics to all members of the Senior Class. -
Headmaster's Thoughts: April 2023
There are tea ceremonies all over the world, but nothing quite like the English tea ceremony. Since it may become a fading institution, I want to give it a review before it goes away with the steam locomotive. You can find this odd ceremony practiced in the better English hotels and a few department stores in London.Read More -
Headmaster's Thoughts: March 2023
Read MoreI love going to the opera, and drag Jayme along about five times a year. When I was a young man, I would sit somewhere near the roof but now we are fortunate to be closer to the stage. We saw Fedora very recently. It is not a great opera. The story is absurd, and it has not been performed at the Met for over 20 years. Whenever the Metropolitan Opera returns a rarely-heard opera back into its repertoire, they bring out the superstars to perform it. And so it was with this revival, which starred Sonya Yoncheva and Piotr Bezcala. The music was fair, but the singing was superb. Going to the Met, one often sees great performances, sometimes only good ones, and, rarely, average ones. But the experience of sitting in a vast hall covered mainly in red velvet, the visual spectacle of the sets, the professional excellence of the orchestra and chorus (and occasionally dancers), still makes each performance (regardless of the opera itself) a special New York evening. -
Headmaster's Thoughts: February 2023
Read MoreWelcome to February. As a second child, until now I never thought of myself as a “Spare”. Of course, I am not the son of a King either. I married a second child and have no idea, or much interest, if this is a sociological factor or just chance. Currently, I have noticed a tendency to find deep psychological reasons for simpler issues. -
Headmaster's Thoughts: January 2023
Welcome to February. As a second child, until now I never thought of myself as a “Spare”. Of course, I am not the son of a King either. I married a second child and have no idea, or much interest, if this is a sociological factor or just chance. Currently, I have noticed a tendency to find deep psychological reasons for simpler issues.Read More -
Headmaster's Thoughts: December 2022
Read MoreAs we approach the winter holidays, let me wish all of my readers, few as you may be, a very joyful New Year.I started writing these thoughts in December 2004. So, this month, to celebrate the beginning of my 19thyear of producing the pieces known as “Headmaster’s Thoughts”, I thought I would leave the essay format and indulge myself in making up a list. I really like lists. Good bibliographies have helped direct me to reading great works that I otherwise might not have read. Recommendations by friends have led me to places that I greatly enjoyed, and also to watch productions that I probably would have missed. I do know that every list is very personal, and, arguably, a self-indulgence on the part of the list maker, but this is a case of hoping that if I share my list with you, that you might share your list with me. I would certainly appreciate that. -
Headmaster's Thoughts: November 2022
Dreams are interesting. In mine, I am always a young man dealing with absurd situations in my former body. I think of myself as a young man in an old body, but dreams do not work that way, at least not for me. I youthfully run, duck, advance, and do all the things that I would have great difficulty (which is a euphemistic phrase for “impossible”) doing with my current creaky limbs. There is something reassuring in that dream world, even though when I wake, I realize it is completely non-realistic.Read More -
Headmaster's Thoughts: October 2022
Read MoreA ball is thrown into a room. The baby looks at the room’s entrance, curious as to how the ball arrived. A dog jumps for the ball. The difference is curiosity, and we are discovering that even two-month-old babies have an inherent sense of the laws of physics. They look for reasons. A ball is bounced and stays suspended in the air; babies are puzzled and look for reasons for this suspension of the law of gravity. The dog leaps up to grab the ball, indifferent as to how it got there. -
Headmaster's Thoughts: September 2022
Read MoreWe were once teenagers too. And got into trouble.It probably is difficult for present day adolescents to appreciate that all of their school administrators were once as young as they are, and although the avenues of “troubles” were very different, nonetheless all of us got into trouble in our own way. Teenagers have always tested limits, and we all went through that challenging period of our lives. -
Headmaster's Thoughts: August 2022
Read MoreDear Incoming York Prep Student: This month’s essay is primarily addressed to you. Often my monthly essays are deliberately not serious (I even attempt humor), and written for the enjoyment of the reader and myself. But not this month. I want to give you concrete advice on being successful at York, and, indeed, at any school you attend. -
Headmaster's Thoughts: July 2022
Read MoreIn many lists of top international undergraduate universities, my university, Oxford, ranks in the top three. This includes rankings by American based institutions. In the QS World university rankings (who is “QS”?), Oxford ranks second to MIT. In the U.S. News and World Report, it is number three after Stanford, and then UC Berkeley. In the Times Higher Education ranking, Oxford is number one. The reason I am giving you this statistic is not just for pride in a place I attended but, primarily, to note that virtually all of Oxford’s undergraduate degrees take only three years. Apart from the Classic Greats; a hallowed if slightly dated course, Oxford undergraduate degrees are only three years long. So why do American degrees, apparently considered lower on these rankings (and you may note that Harvard and Yale did not appear) take four years to complete? Since Oxford is the only university to come in all three rankings as one of the top three, that indicates excellence. Hooray! Why be modest? -
Headmaster's Thoughts: June 2022
Read MoreAs in all previous years, June’s “Headmaster’s Thoughts” is the speech made by the Head at the 2022 Commencement Exercises.Congratulations to the graduating Senior Class of 2022, and your families who helped get you here. This is a great group of young people, and all of us applaud your success. You have contributed to so many parts of our school academically, socially, in the performing arts and athletically. I note that over 10% of your class brought home our first Basketball State Championship since 1992. That is just a sign of the spirit of this group. In all arenas, I give you my congratulations. -
Headmaster's Thoughts: May 2022
The day before I started writing this piece, I watched our first League Boys Varsity Volleyball game of the Spring Season. They won! And they beat a school that is three times our size. What is happening? Are we becoming a sports powerhouse without knowing it? Since we won the State Basketball Championships this year, we have had a few applications from basketball players eager to join our program. I should also proudly state that both our Girls Varsity Basketball and Boys Junior Varsity Basketball teams won their League Championships. Hooray, I say. But, without disappointing the applicants, I should also add that we are not the University of Kansas. The last time we won the State Tournament was 30 years ago. 1992! Not exactly a dynasty.Read More -
Headmaster's Thoughts: April 2022
Read MoreI have two numbers on our home phone. Whenever a call comes into the second number (without anyone being on the first line), I always answer, “F.B.I.”. This seems to work. -
Headmaster's Thoughts: March 2022
Read MoreI want to tell you a story about my life. Sorry to be self-absorbed, but maybe you can learn a general lesson from my particular circumstance. Back in 1969, I was a very young and, surprisingly, successful barrister. I was in the right Chambers (what you might call a sort of partnership) at the right time, and I had been chosen as the Junior (what you might call “second chair” ) to defend Charles Kray in the Kray case, which turned out to be the longest criminal murder trial in English history. In the middle of that trial, on October 6th 1968 to be precise, I married Jayme. -
Headmaster's Thoughts: February 2022
Let me categorically say that we all need fun in our lives. COVID, unfortunately, has robbed us of our opportunities for silliness. I remember having a family Thanksgiving dinner party with friends and extended family, and providing them all with clown’s noses. The wearing of those red squeaky sponges added to the event. Now, we do not have those parties. I remember blowing up balloons on a plane and making animals (some of which popped), which I gave to other passengers, to the extreme embarrassment of my son. Now we do not take planes anymore. I remember…no, I will not bore you further. I think most of you know what I mean. Our whole way of life has been affected by the pandemic. And I know that I have been lucky. No one in my family has been hospitalized yet. Some have had COVID, but only mildly. I am still untouched but waiting.Read More -
Headmaster's Thoughts: January 2022
Read MoreAnother spin around the Sun. Another year.Is it the eternal optimistic nature of our species that we expect next year to be better? Because I think most of us do. We really look forward to getting over the pandemic, seeing each other’s faces without covering, socializing together. And if we adults have had a hard time of it over the past two years, how much worse has it been for our children? The time spent in school is the most critical time to develop the skills of understanding how to get on with peers, how to share, how to be a member of a community. For too many children, that avenue of progress had a major break. They were homebound. Should they have been in school? I think so. -
Headmaster's Thoughts: December 2021
Read MoreAs we all look back over the year of 2021, it would be nice if we could compare it to previous years. How comforting to give a detailed analysis of growth, and achievement. Sadly, 2021 will go down as a year marked by extraordinary events. We have had a pandemic such as we have never seen in our lifetimes. Thankfully, due to the miracle of vaccines, we are now seeing a slow recovery. Yet the statistics for inflation, employment, and climate control, are uniformly sad. And no one can say that the quality of life in our great city is yet back to normal. -
Headmaster's Thoughts: December 2021
Read MoreAs we all look back over the year of 2021, it would be nice if we could compare it to previous years. How comforting to give a detailed analysis of growth, and achievement. Sadly, 2021 will go down as a year marked by extraordinary events. We have had a pandemic such as we have never seen in our lifetimes. Thankfully, due to the miracle of vaccines, we are now seeing a slow recovery. Yet the statistics for inflation, employment, and climate control, are uniformly sad. And no one can say that the quality of life in our great city is yet back to normal. -
Headmaster's Thoughts: November 2021
Can I be the only person who does not carry a cell phone? It seems that modern society is run on the basis that one will always have a cell phone at hand.Read More
