3 minute read
From The Head Of School
At Delphian, students are consistently challenged and encouraged to review the difficult situations they find themselves in and to purposefully work toward a resolution from a viewpoint of responsibility rather than as the “victim” of the situation.
The following is an excerpt from the Head of School Trevor Ott’s address to parents on Parents Weekend. In the full address, Trevor discussed responsibility as a viewpoint and its importance relative to success in Delphian’s program and in life. The following is an excerpt from his closing remarks.
Let’s talk about grit. Grit could be defined as determination or strength of mind, spirit, and character. You probably know this already, but it takes real grit to make it through the program to Form 8 graduation. You probably don’t know that, in terms of sheer hours, our high school program’s minimum requirements have been calculated to be as much as two and a half times more than the average.
Why? In addition to all the traditional subjects expected of high school students, our students spend valuable time studying the tools of study, ethics, and administration created by L. Ron Hubbard. Students do a ton of reading and writing. A ton. Every student spends hundreds of hours on projects and apprenticeships, not counting the summer internship, which alone amounts to about 400 hours of work. Despite this, parents expect all of this to happen in the usual number of years! Well, so do we.
We don’t talk about the effectiveness of the Study Technology™ developed by L. Ron Hubbard in terms of the speed of study very often—certainly not often enough.
Our high school program tends to run for about four years—sometimes more, sometimes less. So how is it possible our students cover as much as two and a half times the work in roughly the same amount of time? Well, today, I want to say it’s two main things:
The Study Technology we use allows students to move more and more confidently and competently forward as they master its application. This increasing speed can get masked by all the other things they are simultaneously working on as Delphian students. By the end, the amount of material students cover per unit of time, with rich comprehension, is remarkable.
Grit. It’s just plain old grit. Determination, perseverance against all odds, courage, strength of mind and spirit, toughness. Graduating from Delphian takes an immense amount of responsibility and hard work.
It takes true grit to make it through the Delphian program, and, in my experience, there is a big difference between the grit of an individual who believes responsibility can be pushed off on another and that of an individual who knows without reservation that responsibility for the accomplishment of a task is theirs alone.
So, we come back to the topics of responsibility, self-determinism, and reason.
As a parent, I find that I feel hope for my children and a sense of security about their future to the degree I believe they will be self-determined, well-reasoned and responsible, confident in their ability to modify their environment to their will, to their goals, to their dreams. The Delphian program can only build towards this upon a foundation of personal responsibility.
As you read the remainder of this magazine, please take a moment to consider the inspiring grit, hard work, and responsibility each student demonstrates through their accomplishments highlighted in these pages.
