The Commencement Addresses

32 HACKLEY REVIEW COMMENCEMENT SUPPLEMENT 2021 click here for video of the Address 

Doug Clark

This year, both Doug Clark and Philip Variano delivered commencement speeches, ensuring that we learn from their 41 years at Hackley (each!) before their July 1st retirement. The first speaker was Upper School math teacher Doug Clark.

Back in February when I was contemplating retiring at the end of this year (my 41st at Hackley), I thought, “Well, there was one good thing that came out of this pandemic . There was no big fuss made over the gargoyle that was put up to honor 40 years of service and there will be no big to-do about my retirement, and, thankfully, I won’t have to give any speeches .

Well, here we are.

When I told my friends that I was asked to give a speech and that I wasn’t too confident that I could pull it off, some tried to comfort me by saying, “Don’t worry. Half of them aren’t even listening, and, fifteen minutes after you’ve finished, the other half won’t remember anything that you said.” So, raise your hand if you’re not listening. I don’t know that any of that is true, but I appreciated their telling me that I can’t really mess this up too badly.

After 45 years of teaching, I have found out quite a few things that I wish I had known when I was your age, things I wish someone had told me. I might not have listened to them, but it would have given me something to think about, and I might have done some things differently. One thing that I found out through experience, and that our professional development recently confirmed, is that saying too many things at one time is not productive. So, as one of my students said before making a presentation, “I will make this short but brief.”

It was 1981 or 82 and I was teaching an Algebra II class. We were solving trigonometric equations. One of the students was leading me through his solution, which I was writing on the board. He took 10 or 12 steps to solve the problem, which he did correctly. I then wrote another possible way to solve the problem using some trig identity that took just 3 or 4 steps, and I said for the first time, “It’s good to know stuff.” I’m telling this story because, now that it is literally written in stone, I want to say what it means to me and what I hope it means to my students and to all of you. People who haven’t been in class with me might think that it has something to do with winning at Jeopardy or solving the Sunday Times crossword.

But actually it was and is about having more ways to think about how to solve problems. And not just math problems but problems in life.

For example, over the last decade, I have had an occasional problem with my lower back. I looked on line for ways to relieve lower back pain and found several stretching exercises for the lower back, none of which helped. Talking to a friend who had a similar problem, he showed me stretches given to him by the trainer at his gym that targeted specific muscles. These were different from those that I had seen online, and, happily, they worked for me. When I played sports in high school, coaches introduced me to stretching, but never told that stretching one group

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of muscles might benefit another group of muscles. They also never mentioned that stretching is beneficial whether you are playing sports or not. So, I learned from this whole back pain experience that, although all of the answers might be somewhere online, you need a certain amount of knowledge to find what you are looking for and then to understand it.

Knowing more about individual muscles might have helped me find those exercises online. So, although the information may be out there, you need to know stuff to be able to find it and to understand it. It really is good (and often less painful) to know stuff.

Sports were a big part of my life. I played soccer, basketball, and baseball in high school. It was intramural soccer, football, basketball, volleyball, and softball in college, then various men’s leagues throughout my twenties and thirties. Time to play these team sports felt limitless. There was always tomorrow. But the time came when my body told me that my days of playing those team sports were over. I’m not going to play soccer, basketball, baseball, or rugby again. I have to admit that I miss the joy of playing those games, the pure delight of running, jumping, shooting baskets, making a nice pass, scoring a goal. I’m sorry that it is over for me, but I’m glad that I did it and I enjoy the memories.

For me it was team sports. For you it may be something else that can only be done while you are young. My thought for you is: take advantage of and savor that time. You probably will be young enough to do whatever it is for quite a long time, but it will not be forever, so treasure the time that you will have to do those things.

When I was your age, I thought that I understood how things should work. There was right and there was wrong, and the wrongs needed to be righted. There were so many things that needed to be fixed. I am certainly not alone in that appraisal. There are those people who see this and have a vision and somehow find a voice that people will listen to on a large scale. Perhaps some of you sitting here today will be that kind of visionary. I was not. I did not have whatever it took to have people listen and want to join up and make positive change. I came to that place where I thought, “What’s the use? What can I do?” I felt powerless until I came to an important realization. Maybe I cannot change the world, but I can work to make the little part of the world that I’m in a better place to be. I can do the right thing, I can be helpful, and I can be kind. Whatever the situation or circumstance, I can take a breath and ask myself,

“What is the kindest and most helpful thing that I can say or do right now?” Please know that I understand that this is no simple task. It is human nature just to react when someone does or says something that we perceive as wrong or hurtful. It is difficult to stop and think of an appropriate response, one that is both helpful and kind. It takes practice and conscious effort. As with many things, the more you practice the easier it gets.

I want to give a special thanks to those of you who were in my classes this year. In a difficult time, you made my last year at Hackley more fun than I could have imagined.

And congratulations to all of you for making it so successfully through a year difficult in a way that no one could have foreseen. You should be proud of all that you have been able to accomplish during these weird and trying times.

I am, after all, a teacher, so here’s the recap. It’s good to know stuff. Enjoy your youth and youthfulness. Make the space around you a safe and happy place. And, above all, be kind.

34 HACKLEY REVIEW COMMENCEMENT SUPPLEMENT 2021 click here for video of the Address 

The Commencement Addresses

Philip Variano

This year, both Doug Clark and Philip Variano delivered commencement speeches, ensuring that we learn from their 41 years at Hackley (each!) before their July 1st retirement. The second speaker was Phil Variano, Associate Head of School for School Operations.

While I'm thrilled and honored to be here, I am not convinced that I have special wisdom for you, so I will instead tell a story . It's a bit about me, a bit about you, and a lot about Hackley . It starts right where you are sitting . Except, in the late summer of 1980, none of “this” was here . Instead all around us was a large forest, untouched for perhaps a hundred years .

You'd think this plateau was chosen for a football field because it was flat, but in 1980 it wasn't flat at all. Actually a large hill rose in this very spot. At the top of that hill was a peaceful, grassy patch, not unlike a small orchard. And I, at age 23, sat in the middle of that spot knowing that the next day I was to begin teaching middle school children for a living and wondering what I had gotten myself into.

My “choice” of teaching was completely random. A friend I shared an apartment with taught and coached at a prep school in New Jersey. He disliked teaching, but at one point he casually mentioned “I bet you'd really enjoy it.”

I was skeptical. I did not love school, perhaps because I had graduated from a high school so large that my senior class had more students than all of Hackley does, but I was not fond of my own job either so I thought “Why not?”

And so a few months later I found myself in Tarrytown with no teaching skills, no lesson plans and a schedule of five classes a day to teach.

As I look back now it's obvious to me that at that moment, coincidentally only a few meters from here, I, like you right now, was on the verge of great change in my life. But it wasn't obvious then and frankly what I most felt was anxiety bordering on panic.

Hackley itself, at that time, was dramatically different from the school you know now. Hackley has a lot of land, but by almost any measure, we are not a big school. And back then the school was even smaller than it is now.

There were fewer teachers and fewer students, and the campus was considerably smaller and a bit... shabby. In classrooms tests and homework were different because there were no copy machines. There were no computers, either in classrooms or offices. But (to my mind) Hackley was smaller in dreams and aspirations as well.

Our hook to families was that we were “rigorous, traditional, and personalized”. The range of ability between students was so wide compared to now that we ran classes called “Two-Year Algebra” and “Introductory Geology” to accommodate the spectrum of learners.

Our boarding program consisted of 44 boys, 43 of whom played football, wrestling, or lacrosse, and who

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resided, alongside me, on the upper floors of Minot Savage Hall, in other words just above admissions.

The Head of School at the time, Donald Barr, was quite an accomplished educator, and as a strategy to attract students and differentiate Hackley, he had been recruiting scores of international faculty members.

So Hackley offered science classes taught by European scientists; 8 different foreign languages taught by (native speakers) and also math and physics classes taught by Russian emigres.

The idea was to attract students away from Scarsdale High School and other similar Westchester public schools which had turned away from reading and writing in the wake of the cultural revolution of the 60's in America.

Now let's move from this uniquely-shaped tent for a minute, and imagine you are standing in the center of Akin Common. Back in the 1980's that area was not a commons nor any other category of open space.

The Upper School sat tall on the south, dominating your view just as it does now. But as you faced the river you'd be confronted with two squatty brick buildings which connected back to Goodhue by concrete and iron walkways.

Those brick buildings were the science and middle school buildings and they in turn led to the geodesic dome of the swimming pool which the Lifers in the audience will remember.

And on the other side of this “commons” was the old Lower School, and a small house containing the infirmary. Finally on the left or north side sat, for reasons unknown, a large bocce court and a prominent hut where students were allowed to smoke during their free periods.

So this was the environment where I taught middle school for a decade. And while it was not easy at the beginning I managed to both trust and follow my instincts, and things got better. During that time, the school was not so much thriving as simply surviving.

Looking back now I can recognize how badly we needed to change if we wanted to secure an identity and to grow. “Hard work and traditional reading and writing” were not sufficient to define us as we moved nearer to the decade of the '90s.

We couldn't wait for change; we needed to create change. And I was in a similar paradigm to the institution. I was getting a little tired of teaching and coaching and wanted to make my mark professionally. So I began attending graduate school, turned to administration, and in my personal life began to raise a family.

Maybe I was wiser, or more aware, or maybe just older, but rather than letting circumstances randomly change me this time, I leaned into change with volition and intention.

At this time, and fortunately for all of us, new leadership came to the school, ushering in an era of institutional growth that continues to this day. School and Board leadership enacted by administrators like myself established strategies for Hackley to grow, modernize, and shed our sleepy past.

The school was slowly embracing change, planned change which derived from vision and forethought. And at this moment something critical occurred when out of the blue we learned that the Rockefeller family was in the final stages of selling 172 acres of land, (yes the

36 HACKLEY REVIEW COMMENCEMENT SUPPLEMENT 2021

land under our feet right now,) to one of three housing developers. Well spoiler alert: the developers did not get the land….we did...and...

Hackley School was finally on the move.

We had the vision and now had the land to execute the vision. You now all enter the story because the year you were born was the year we sat with architects to begin planning our new Middle School and Science buildings.

Soon thereafter came the beautiful Lower School (in 2007), and in 2008 all of you entered kindergarten, either here or elsewhere….and of course your Kindergarten year is also remembered as the year Andy King became Director of the Upper School.

We had succeeded in growing the school and adding the kind of dynamic student that sits here today on the brink of their adult lives. No more Rocks for Jocks or Truck Driver math.

With the ability to pay teachers more, we pivoted from hiring mostly young, mostly single teacher-coaches to more experienced faculty leaders who were masters of best practices.

Our classrooms became lively places of exploration and exchange of ideas. Students were thinking, questioning, debating, and learning. Even the devastating fire that burned down Goodhue Hall along with nine classrooms when you were in preschool was an opportunity for growth and change for us.

So as we recovered from the fire, rebuilt Goodhue, and constructed the new athletic center, you grew from kindergarteners interested in Ninja Turtles to talented curious students.

Our current strength as an institution is in no small way due to students like you who are both invested in your success and accountable, but who want the school to be accountable as well.

The ending of my story coincides with the story of your next steps, and while you've lived through calamity these past 15 months, you handled it with the grace and integrity you've demonstrated for years in our classrooms. And now it's time for your big changes. In minutes you will receive your diplomas and walk away from here. What particular quality of change awaits you?

When you think about it, while you might have chosen to attend Hackley itself, You certainly did not choose to go to school, you had to. Dropping out was a choice not available to you. But now, as a graduate, you're becoming an adult. And you have chosen to go to college from among 100's of other possible choices.

In the last two years you've probably asked yourself in fifty different ways “Where will I go to college?”, but how many times did you ask yourself why? or what will I do when I get there?, or what do I want from college? I'm going to assume that most of you have decided what you'll study in college, and a fair number of you may already be thinking about a career after that.

Yet, A famous cultural anthropologist recently completed a study of college graduates and found that only slightly more than a third strongly agreed they had discovered a work path with a satisfying purpose once they graduated. So college, for two-thirds of you, is going to be a start, albeit an excellent one.

By graduating today and moving onwards and upwards, you are now entering the phase of your life where you will decide things for yourself and will live outside your family's influence. You'll live by your value system now, your internal gyroscope.

And you're definitely ready, you've proven that to all of us. So, with minutes to go before the big moment of this wonderful event

I ask you to consider the way that both individuals and institutions can and do change, either rapidly... or over decades... by surfing the waves of unintentional change that life gives us, but also by imagining and planning change that can be deeply meaningful and purposeful.

So if a moment of anxiety hits you this fall, perhaps you can take comfort that the power of change not only flows around you, pushing you onwards, but also resides inside of you, ready to be tapped.

I wish you all the best, and my sincere congratulations!

click here for Commencement photo gallery  click here for Diploma Ceremony photo gallery 