Headmaster's Thoughts: December 2020

12/1/2020

This month you will get both my normal Headmaster’s Thoughts and our nurse’s. Let us start with our nurse’s thoughts since this is a first for him. He is a wonderful nurse and we are lucky to have him at this critical time.

Education and personal development in the age of COVID-19

by Richard Loo

The nuances of excellent teaching done here at York are not lost on me even on my busiest of days. On any given day, onlookers passing by can observe Mr. Sam Gordon teaching students about the importance of the Freedom of Information Act and the dangers of confirmation bias. They can overhear students complaining about the volume of work that Dr. Kaczynski gives them and then, within the same breath, fully acknowledge the advantages he is providing them in teaching them how to properly write a research paper. They can be in the hallway and run into students studying for Ms. Pierce’s Microbiology class by quizzing each other. Microbiology? I did not get to learn that until I was in college! And as the day draws to an end, within the confines of my office, one can hear Ms. Borelli in the adjacent room masterfully redirect one of her more anxious Jump Start students while teaching them to focus on completing the task at hand rather than to dwell on the less savory aspects of the day. This is done in a way that utilizes positive reinforcement, fostering their strengths but with caution to not come off as either dismissive or patronizing. I have seen licensed therapists do worse. Despite the inherent limitations of on again/off again remote learning, it is difficult to argue that our students are receiving anything but a world class education. This has not changed even with a worldwide pandemic.

My primary goal as a school nurse has remained the same as well: to ensure the safety and well-being of all members of the York Prep community. Oftentimes, this entails being able to differentiate between a student’s true physical ailments and their more carefully crafted cries for emotional help. Although pain is subjective, a student with a pulse of 60 BPM claiming to be in severe, crippling, 10/10 pain probably is not, unless they are severely dehydrated or there is something else going on that requires further assessment. The COVID-19 pandemic has not changed the developmental and emotional needs of our youth, merely the logistics in pursuing the fulfillment of those needs. During mid-morning break, one student came to me and initially reported issues with his mask. He eventually acknowledged that there was nothing wrong but sought my counsel on whether or not he should continue to reach out to another student that he was actively pursuing romantically. I told him the same thing that my friend Ali told me long ago: “You cannot play tennis by yourself. If you already reached out, the onus is on her to hit the ball back by responding. If she does not hit the ball back, the game ends, and her lack of response is in itself a response. You should assume low interest and move on. A woman with high interest will not risk losing a man she is extremely attracted to by being completely ambiguous.”

The student paused, and then asked, “How do I change her mind?” I responded by saying, “You cannot manufacture attraction. You can only work on self-improvement. There are no secrets or tricks, despite what ‘experts’ and ‘gurus’ (who all want your money) will tell you. When I suggest self-improvement, I am not suggesting that you attempt to tailor your personality to suit the person you are interested in. Instead, it is best to work on improving yourself for the better (e.g. work out, improve your diet, acknowledge and temper your flaws, educate yourself further, etc.). In doing so, you might eventually learn that you have outgrown the person you used to have high interest in and simultaneously, you will begin to attract even higher quality candidates. If you want to be with someone you consider to be of value, then you yourself must ascend to that level. ” I reminded him that we are in the midst of a pandemic, and as such, the focus should be less on romance and more on how to stay safe. I added that this would be the perfect time to work on personal development. Success in romance should be a side effect of that effort, NOT an end goal.

Not completely satisfied with my response, the student began to switch gears and lament about the “uselessness” of some of the subjects he was learning. In that moment, I began to see that this was the same mistake I made when I was in school.

“Realistically, when would we EVER use this in practice?”

The preceding words that I quipped in nursing school to my friend Kaela during a medical-surgical class with Professor Emerson Ea echoed back at me when the aforementioned student challenged the practicality of what he was being taught. The depth of my own hubris began to come into even closer focus as I was administering a saliva PCR test to students while instructing them on how to expedite saliva production by massaging the salivary glands; the very thing that I was convinced I would never find any useful application for. I have since used this example as a way to illustrate the importance of a well-rounded education. Students would sometimes ask questions along the lines of, “Well, I plan on becoming a lawyer, why would I need math?” I would explain that the purpose of grade school is to provide one with a generalist education – to learn the basics of a broad range of topics. The benefits are not always immediately apparent, but they exist to serve you when you least expect it.

Students are excellent to work with at this age because they are so malleable. Even the worst behaved students have great potential towards improvement, so long as they are given incentive to improve. As we get older, we tend to become more hardened because life experiences chisel us. Our pre-existing beliefs, if we are too afraid to test them, become calcified. We have more of a tendency towards falling into the same habits and patterns of behavior if we do not take care to exercise self-awareness. Self-improvement as an adult requires much more effort, and there is less incentive to change, especially if we have been able to coast through life without changing much fundamentally. This is the frame from which most unhappy adults operate from. If they were to work on themselves internally, their external problems would seem less daunting. It is a privilege to be given the opportunity to observe students as they learn and grow. If we can teach them something useful along the way, then that in itself can already be considered a measure of victory. As teachers, parents, and students, we are all at our best when we collaborate as a team. If we were to ever doubt the gravity and importance of our efforts, it would be as though we were trying to convince the judges to take the trophy back after we were already declared the winners.

Headmaster's Thoughts: December 2020

I am not fond of Keats. His poetry strikes me as word-music, with sickly syrup added. Most English majors, Jayme included, are appalled by my antipathy to his poetry. And they wonder who I prefer.

In previous “Thoughts” I have indicated my admiration of Jennie Joseph and my favorite poem of hers which begins: “When I am an old woman”. In that tradition of “naughty” verse, I have to add that I am drawn to gallows humor. No one did that in poetry quite as well as Harry Graham, born in 1874 just over 50 years after the death of Keats, who, unlike Keats, is virtually unknown in America. A member of the wealthy English class, Graham was educated at Eton and Sandhurst Military Academy. He had a distinguished military career and, after becoming a journalist, ended his career as a successful lyricist for operettas. But it is his poetry, published under the pseudonym of Col. D. Streamer when he had been a member of the Coldstream Guards, that he is rightly remembered for. They are gloriously grotesque and very funny.

“Auntie, did you feel no pain

Falling from that apple tree?

Will do it, please, again?

‘Cos my friend here didn’t see.”

Invariably, Graham’s poetry was a four-line affair with a simple rhyming pattern, and usually four stresses in each line. The pure perversity of them (and how many times can one use the word “perversity” about a poem, nowadays?) is consistent and totally unsentimental.

Billy, in one of his nice new sashes,

Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes;

Now, although the room grows chilly,

I haven’t the heart to poke poor Billy.

His poems also represent a past era when servants were common, and there was a British tradition of children being brought up by a nurse. Graham loved making fun of this institution.

Making toast at the fireside,

Nurse fell in the grate and died;

And, what makes it ten times worse,

All the toast was burnt with nurse.

His favorite agent of mischief was Willie. There are, at least for Graham, long poems about Willie (maybe even 10 stanzas). But, like most of his, I prefer the short ones, and there are a lot of them.

Little Willie with a thirst of gore

Nailed the baby to the door

Mother said, with humor quaint

“Willie, dear, don’t mar the paint”

And Willie was sometimes combined with the ever-suffering nurse or aunt scenario.

Little Willie, with a curse,

Threw the teapot at the nurse.

When it struck her on the nose.

His father cheered, “How straight he throws!”

Willie poisoned Auntie’s tea.

Auntie died in agony.

Uncle came and looked quite vexed,

“Really, Will,” said he, “What next?”

One can anticipate the success of the lyricist in anyone who can rhyme “tea” with “agony”. Perfection!

In the end, Willie dies multiple deaths. Of course!

Willie saw some dynamite,

Couldn’t understand it quite;

Curiosity never pays:

It rained Willie seven days.

The longest poem I know by Harry Graham is called “Bluebeard”, in which a man cheerfully describes killing all of his eight wives. And, always, with just a tinge (no more) of regret. He ends that poem with the mass murderer commenting about himself: “But still- a good chap after all!”

Just a touch of regret. A Graham trademark.

When the line he tried to cross,

The Express ran into Jim;

Bitterly I mourn his loss-

I was to have lunched with him

Graham’s use of a semicolon at the end of the second line is also a common feature. We know what is coming. It is going to be absurd, dark, and funny. And it succeeds every time.

Baby in the cauldron fell,-

See the grief on mother’s brow;

Mother loved her darling well,-

Darling’s quite hard boiled by now.

So, when I compare these masterpieces to Keats’ most famous poem, “Autumn” well maybe you will see it too:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun,

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit that round the thatch-eves run.

Enough! Too much treacle! A little bit of sugar in one’s tea is fine, but all sugar? No thanks!

Let us finish with a rare Graham six liner:

Nurse, who peppered baby’s face