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Senior Dinner Address Tessa Johnson Upper School biology teacher Tessa Johnson was chosen by the Senior Class as this year’s Rice Award recipient. She delivered the Senior Dinner Address on June 6, in which she shared the three key phrases that impact her life.
It is an honor and a privilege to be standing here. This evening, there are many welldeserved thanks to extend, so I will begin by thanking the Rice brothers, Tony, Don, Bill, and John who have endowed this award. Thank you to the members of the parent committee who organized this celebratory event, especially Carolyn Carr-Spencer and Jayne Lee. Thank you also to the many, many faculty who have helped to get this class to the finish line. Many thanks to the Dean of the Class of 2022, Melissa Stanek, who has led students and advisors through challenging times and who always leads with her heart—we are so fortunate to have you in our community. Thank you, also, to all you wonderful students for this opportunity to speak with you. I am both a teacher and a mom. I have realized over the years if you want kids to remember something, short phrases repeated often are key. In my family, I have three phrases that I repeat to my own kids frequently— always ask, “How Can I Help?”; Be Brave. Be Kind; and give yourself the I’m Happy With My Life Award. Some of you should already be familiar with “the four most important words,” but you might not know the story behind why I constantly repeat it. I once completed a program called Sea Semester where I spent six weeks in Woods Hole taking classes and six weeks on a 135-foot sailboat learning to sail and doing oceanography research; It was pretty incredible and lifechanging. When we were on the boat, we were split up into watches of about eight students. We were assigned two teachers—one sailing and one oceanography. My oceanography teacher was a recent college graduate by
the name of Jeff Dorman. He was like the pied piper— we absolutely worshiped the ground he walked on. Jeff Dorman had a way of teaching that made you not only want to learn, but to be a better person. In fact, he was one of the teachers that inspired me to teach. Well, it was three in the morning one day on the boat, and we were grumbling about some clean up we had to do. Jeff didn’t really like our attitude and had us gather around for a story, and then asked if we knew the four most important words. We had no idea. Finally, after much guessing, he said, “How Can I Help?” At first, we wondered what he meant. How can those words be life-changing? But he was right. In the workplace, it is good to be helpful. Half the time, people don’t really even need you to do anything, but the fact that you noticed they might need help can lighten a load. In relationships, it is important to be helpful and ask the question—with my daughter I will say it and
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