Hell didn’t exactly freeze over, but the guest speaker at January’s Academic Assembly was a surprise nonetheless – longtime Bishop’s College School fixture and recently retired headmaster Lewis Evans.
Introducing Mr. Evans, Headmaster Wolfe acknowledged that inviting someone who “bleeds purple” might seem crazy.
“But let’s think about it for a second. Where would either of our schools be without the other? At a minimum, we’d be spending an awful lot more time on our buses getting to games in locations other than Stanstead and Lennoxville. Beyond that, we’re fortunate to have the relationship that helps to make each of our schools better. Our competitiveness keeps us from becoming complacent. It keeps us on our toes.”
Plus, Mr. Wolfe added, “there are a heck of a lot of really nice people at BCS,” including Lew Evans and his wife Cathy, who was also on hand. Indeed, Mr. Wolfe thanked Mr. Evans for his counsel, support and friendship over the past several years.
Born at BCS, raised at BCS, and having worked at BCS for the past 33 years, Mr. Evans told the students that you’d expect he’d know a thing or two about education. But he acknowledged that the times young people are living through are radically different than what he knew, even a few years ago.
"A teacher from Denver, Colorado – a guy called Karl Fisch – said this: ‘We are currently preparing our students for jobs that don’t yet exist using technologies that haven’t been invented to solve problems that we don’t yet know are problems.’”
Mr. Evans said that young people are also participating in a massive, uncontrolled sociological experiment.
“We don’t know whether a boy with 500 Facebook friends will ever know true friendship. We don’t know if a girl with 24-hour cell phone contact from home will ever develop decision-making responsibility,” he said. “So what have always been difficult years are increasingly difficult… and you’re in them! More than ever, I worry about students coming home from school to the box of their house and going upstairs to the box of their bedroom and finding their interactive reality through their computer screen.”
A solution – or at least a safeguard – is the option of schools like Stanstead and BCS “that provide not just the tools to understand and develop technology, but also the controls to monitor its usage… schools with activities programs that get students away from their technology and bring them together to interact face-to-face with each other… schools with competitive sports teams that stress character and positive sportsmanship.”
What is encouraging, he said, is seeing students perform to the best of their abilities. “Your potential and your resilience give us all confidence in the future,” he said, encouraging the students to take ownership of their education now, while still in high school.
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“We don’t know whether a boy with 500 Facebook friends will ever know true friendship. We don’t know if a girl with 24-hour cell phone contact from home will ever develop decision-making responsibility,” he said. “So what have always been difficult years are increasingly difficult… and you’re in them! More than ever, I worry about students coming home from school to the box of their house and going upstairs to the box of their bedroom and finding their interactive reality through their computer screen.”
