Junior Chapel

I have had the privilege of teaching many of you as Ninth and Tenth Graders and have gotten to know many of you as your Grade Level Leader these past three months. You are a group of students who are caring, compassionate and genuinely supportive of each other, as you navigate both the challenges and the joys of being a Junior in high school during a global pandemic.

When you entered the Upper School in the fall of 2019 as Ninth Graders, Laurel, the field of education, and the world looked very different. You were adapting to high school and all the expectations that come with it as well as adjusting to new schedules, friends, and opportunities. Many of you participated in the Halloween Costume Contest, bonding with your big sisters, and looking forward to the second quarter of your Ninth-Grade year. You were beginning to feel more comfortable in the Upper School. You successfully completed your first and possibly last set of mid-term exams, which were frightening for many of you. You experienced your first Winter Concert where you joined in with the rest of the students in the Upper School and sang traditional songs such as "Let There Be Peace on Earth", "Somewhere in My Memory", and the "Alma Mater". Your class performed songs from the Generations of Music at your first Class Song Contest, with this very gym filled to capacity with alumnae and faculty cheering you on. Socializing with your friends, attending school dances, stressing over grades, assessments and participating in extracurricular activities such as athletics, Speech and Debate, theater and clubs filled your days. You didn’t even mind it that much when Ms. Hacala and I constantly reminded you to be quiet in the hallway outside M222, the “quiet study hall”, then where students gathered to study or take assessments.

March 12, 2020, was the last day of “normal school” at Laurel due to the Coronavirus pandemic. We left for Spring Break hoping to return to school in three or four weeks, adopting School@Home strategies and truly believing it was a temporary change in our daily lives of teaching and learning. Little did we know how very different the future would be.

Fast forward to today, November 18, 2021. The day that the Laurel community officially recognizes you as “Upper Classwomen” and future leaders of the school. Here we are in the Tippit Gym, gathered as a class with family and friends joining us in-person while others are streaming this very ceremony. Today we get to celebrate how special, amazing, unique, and resilient the Class of 2023 is. You are a group of young people who are MORE than resilient. Let me explain what I mean. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “resilience is defined as an ability to recover from or adjust to misfortune or change.”

You began your Sophomore year of high school learning remotely from home or in a designated classroom here at school because the pandemic was still rampant and necessary precautions were called for. I remember wondering and worrying how we all would adapt to this way of teaching and learning, and how we all would manage. As a natural “worrier,” I was concerned about so many things that sometimes I just wanted to cry. Things were not perfect, but your class adjusted. You masked up, maintained social distancing, cleaned your spaces and did your best to maintain your friendships, and most importantly, of course, your studies. Some of you really enjoyed learning in your pajamas, while others needed to be in school with a set routine. I recall meeting many of you for the first time on Zoom and being surprised how tall or short you were when I finally met you in person. Truthfully, your optimism in those computer classrooms is what buoyed me and other faculty and staff here at Laurel to keep doing our jobs.

Your desire to learn and maintain a sense of normalcy inspired me both personally and professionally. THAT is resilience! You adjusted to change and did so with a sense of purpose and optimism and it was contagious! We all looked forward to the 2021-2022 school year.

As you began your Junior year this past fall, the school experience was normalized a bit more. We returned to traditions like the fall dance, the Halloween Costume contest, competitive sports, field trips and desks that were now three feet apart instead of six. Even though some of your classmates and teachers left Laurel, you were energized by beginning the school year “normally,” welcoming new faculty and classmates warmly and openly. You were determined to have a fantastic Junior Year, and you are well on your way to doing so. As a class you have identified yourselves as energetic, bold, funny, tight-knit, helpful, polite, and enthusiastic, and you share a deep sense of community. Your teachers and I think you are determined, inclusive, passionate, reliable, perseverant, deep thinking, hardworking, and so very, very talented. Albert Einstein once said, “Not everything that can be counted, counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” You have rearranged the priorities we all thought were so dire and important and reinforced those that matter most, community and belonging, by being a caring, compassionate group of students who truly do want to better the world.

THAT is resilience! Maybe the dictionary should redefine resilience as Laurel School’s Class of 2023.

I look forward to what you will do as future leaders of this community, our country and the world. THANK YOU!