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Dear FA Families,
As a part of the FA Board of Visitors semiannual meeting this past Thursday, a panel of six Upper School student leader underclassmen shared their thoughts and observations related both to their FA experiences and their respective lives. That time together and the glimpse into these six student’s lives was both revealing and heartening for me as a Head of School.
I came away with two dominant impressions from listening to Grayson Caine, Travis Cavalier, Mary Wallace Champion, Lily Najawicz, Aubre Smith, and Trey Walbridge that morning.
First, not surprisingly, was that there was a great deal of commonality within the group of six. They were all sincere, relaxed, considerate, and well-spoken in their responses to the prompts; and they were all equally focused and deeply committed to the core activities that interested them or that they thought were important. Also, they each had side interests that tempered the singularity of their core focus and appeared to offer a more balanced daily life.
The students were both confident and appropriately hesitant in some of their words, and they all appeared comfortable moving down their life’s pathway in these high school years, each fully capable and desirous of forging the unique direction of their adventure into tomorrow. Because I am somewhat familiar with those six and their backgrounds, I may be projecting a bit here, but these students also came across as a collection of youth who knew right from wrong and were willing to work hard and invest much to achieve their desired goals.
Second, not surprisingly, was that there was an enormous range of differences within the group of six. In terms of personalities, ways of comfortably relating to the world, specific passions and interests and then correspondingly how they spent their time and energy, it was a complete menagerie of diversified characters. And, truth be told, it took scarcely a few moments for each to reveal his or her authentic selves. In the buffet line of Upper School, each of these six have - through the years - loaded their trays uniquely as they saw fit with the five main courses of academic, arts, athletics, service leadership, and friend groups.
In that hour, I was reminded time and again that FA is both a very small tent and at the same time a very large tent. It is a small tent in that a handful of common core beliefs and core traits are essential to personal fulfillment and harmony within our school community, and it is a large tent in terms of accommodating both divergent pathways and different destinations.
Respectfully,
Scott L. Hutchinson
Head of School
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