HEAD OF SCHOOL LETTER
Keeping Values at Our Core
Stephania Bendek ’22, Bella Smith ’22, Head of School Adam K. Man P’15, and Dean of Students Annie Crawford
I was once told that expressing to someone they were kind was a backhanded compliment. This individual explained that kindness is rather weak or bland of all the qualities you could praise in someone. That to be called things like brave or intelligent is a genuine compliment, but when calling someone kind, it appears like you have nothing significant to say about them or that you find them rather meek. I could not disagree more with this sentiment. Our ability to live together in a community productively is
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based upon kindness. It is kindness that holds together the social bonds of our society. Any group filled with brave and intelligent individuals will eventually collapse if people lack kindness. You can know all the answers to a test or be willing to head off to war, but if we cannot empathize with others, extend assistance, be humble, and think about the needs of others, we will quickly be at each other’s throats. I know that it can often be hard to be kind. We live in a society enamored of the soundbite, the more outrageous, the
