letter from the editor

Courage in Unexpected Places

Sixth and seventh graders, who courageously embraced the creative process during the spring Gates competition

When I look back over the many months it takes to produce an issue of the Chronicle, and I think about the countless conversations I have with the people in this community, there are always details that overlap unexpectedly, adding surprising nuances and subtleties to the stories within each magazine; history repeats itself, characters long forgotten resurface, faces in archival photographs look eerily similar to faces in the present. While preparing for this issue, I couldn’t help but notice how Cardigan’s Core Value of Courage was playing out in multiple stories I was writing, both past and present.

Take for example the Classes of 2024 and 2025 and Director of Gates Eric Escalante P’20,’22. Ushering an idea from its first spark to a working prototype and presenting that idea to a live audience takes courage; I remember being 11 and 12 years old, and I avoided presenting to my peers and teachers at all costs. ese young scholars, however, stood tall during the Charles C. Gates Invention & Innovation Competition, looking directly at their audience and giving articulate sales pitches without hesitation; Wallach was filled with an energy and enthusiasm that any high-tech cutting-edge engineering firm would welcome in its lab. e sixth and seventh graders are an impressive bunch with more than a modicum of perseverance and enthusiasm, and yes, courage to literally try something new. You can learn more about their Gates inventions on page 32.

Assistant Dean of Academics and PEAKS™Department Chair Jarrod Caprow’s story begins with courage as well. He was one of several faculty members responsible for developing PEAKSand I interviewed him about the origins of the Habits of Learning for the magazine’s feature (found on page 20). “It was 2008 and the economy was crashing, and [Head of School] Dave McCusker ’80, P’09,’10 was asking me to help him get rid of a fee-based program and replace it with a program for all students that wasn’t going to generate any income,” Mr. Caprow explained to me. “It was only my third year at Cardigan and Dave put his trust in me and several others to develop a completely new approach to study skills at Cardigan.” e possibility of failure was real, and very public. anks to Mr. Caprow’s quiet determination and unwavering leadership, Cardigan’s PEAKSprogram evolved and continues to thrive, still preparing middle school boys for life beyond e Point. en there was the unexpected letter I received in June from alumnus Richard Meynell ’59 in which he shared his memories from his time at Cardigan. As with many boys, his start at Cardigan was not easy. A self-confessed loner, he found it difficult to make friends and spent much of his first year struggling with homesickness. While he recalled many good memories—sailing and canoeing on the lake, playing imaginary soldiers in the woods in all seasons, listening to his English teacher Mr. Brayshaw read Greenmantle by John Buchan—in his letter he confessed to a sadness at the time that he found difficult to express openly to his peers and dorm parents; he had lost his mother to cancer prior to attending Cardigan and continued to mourn for her during his first year. At Cardigan, he found comfort in an unlikely place: “I sought refuge in the top of a large white pine that stood in the bottom of the field behind Brewster Hall. Somehow I had the feeling that that tree was motherly. She consoled me with gentle whispers…To this day I remain grateful and feel very fortunate for having her in my life; that I found a second mother in a tree.” It must have taken a great deal of courage for Richard to persevere through his loss and eventually to discover a path forward.

Courage is oen seen as a very public and masculine trait, one that involves the gnashing of teeth and deep guttural exclamations—the kind of energy it takes to fight a dragon. But there’s a quieter version of this trait that I frequently encounter at Cardigan, behind the scenes, persevering and persisting where there is no one to witness its strength and power. Fighting dragons is all well and good, but I am proud to work in a community that understands a different kind of courage and nurtures it in unexpected places. r

Emily Magnus, Editor emagnus@cardigan.org