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FACULTY & STUDENT VOICES
By Hayden Vick, second grade teacher
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Here’s perhaps a commonly held opinion: the 2020–2021 school year is simultaneously an interesting, challenging and inspiring time to begin one’s teaching career. Teaching was not on the table whatsoever at the beginning of my college career. Law school was my long-term plan, and deviation from that path did not seem likely. I have vivid memories of assisting my mother in her kindergarten classroom as a child, and this may have laid the foundation for my interest in education. After spending a growing amount of my time throughout college working with children as a classroom volunteer, summer camp counselor and assistant cotillion instructor, I learned that few experiences provide more joy than watching someone achieve a goal you knew they could accomplish. For my final education capstone project in college, I wrote and presented a thesis titled, “The Lack of Men in Early Childhood Education.” In this work, my goal was to highlight and celebrate all the women who impacted my educational journey, while also imparting the need for students to begin seeing both men and women in classrooms starting at an early age. I argued that men and women are equally qualified to teach all grade levels, and, therefore, the lack of men in lower grades is striking. This project definitely pushed me in the direction of K-2 teaching. Whenever I’m asked to share what led me to teaching, two specific experiences come to mind. The first occurred during a college summer in Tuxedo, North Carolina, when I served as the
activity leader of the basketball program at Falling Creek Camp. I was sitting and talking to a middle school-aged camper during a shootaround when one of the 9-year-olds ran up to us in tears and said that one of the basketballs had hit him in the face. As I probably do too often, I resorted to humor and made this camper laugh with some (probably cheesy) joke I don’t even recall. He eventually grabbed a new ball and ran off to join his friends. I turned to the older boy sitting next to me, and I will never forget the unbelieving look on his face before he said, “How did you do that?” He was talking about calming the younger boy down, which my StC Lower School colleagues successfully accomplish on a daily basis. However, in that moment, as a rising junior in college, I was left feeling as if I had stumbled on a skill that could lead to a career working with children. The second moment actually occurred years later, during my two-year teaching residency in the New Teacher Institute at Town School for Boys in San Francisco. I was sitting in a meeting with my supervisor and mentor teacher to reflect on my “solo week,” a culminating time in the program when the resident teacher teaches alone for an entire week. During my two years at Town School, one of my major goals as a young teacher was to successfully strike the balance between being silly and engaging while also authoritative. While going over her notes from observing my teaching that week (and over almost two years in kindergarten and fourth grade), my supervisor looked at me and said, “You’ve made it.” I wrote down this quote word for word, left the meeting nearing tears and officially confirmed my decision to pursue education as a long-term career. Moving from San Francisco to Richmond amidst COVID-19 has been such a unique experience. The challenges of teaching in person during this time are numerous, and among the largest of these is trying to meet my students’ emotional needs while behind masks. I have watched colleagues persevere in awe-inspiring ways. I’ve been grateful to be welcomed to a school that is determined to keep students on campus despite the chaos of this pandemic. I know this is a popular opinion, but it can’t be said too many times: the resiliency of our students has shined forth above all. I feel strongly that there is nothing more important in life than how you treat other people. Courtesy is a commonly used word in our class, and the boys know that empathy and acts of kindness are expected each day. We regularly discuss hospitality and the importance of standing when guests enter our classroom (or any space). Molding young people into thoughtful, selfless and emotionally confident individuals is what I believe to be a teacher’s highest duty and priority. I feel so fortunate to bring my passion into my classroom as a second grade teacher at St. Christopher’s. I cannot wait to meet more students, colleagues, families and other members of this community!
Hayden Vick, a 2018 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, served as resident kindergarten and fourth grade teacher at the Town School for Boys in San Francisco for two years before joining StC last fall.
Striking a Balance
By Mac Suskind ’21
In first grade there were only two times of the day: recess and time not in recess.
It was during this time that my best friend Colter and I found ourselves in the big gym, standing beside the exercise mats. In search of entertainment, we realized that those mats could be transformed into walls. All we had to do was stand them upright and angle the panels. Impressed with our ingenuity, we quickly got to work building houses, then mazes, then forts. The forts were for a special version of dodgeball where normal rules applied, but each team set up a homebase of mats to store ammunition and regroup when needed. Taller now and stronger, we learned to shimmy mats over walls to make roofs. With Nerf balls in hand we battled, trying to outsmart the other team in strategy and design. During faculty camp, we grew bored of Nerf balls and resorted to using our bodies. We divvied up the mats, built the most stable fort possible and raided neighboring forts, in hopes of taking their mats and proving superior strength and craftsmanship. It didn’t take long for the teachers to shut us down, deeming it “too dangerous.” Not to worry, we were on to bigger and better things: Middle School. Leaving behind four square, wall ball, Nintendo DS and forts, we enjoyed two recesses, and the Missionary Society offered snacks. We played World Cup more, this time on East Field. When the fields were too wet, we walked to the basketball courts to play knockout or 2v2. Then spikeball, and we gathered around arenas set up outside the storage shed, waiting 10 minutes for a five-minute game and watching rings of dead grass form around the nets. We were free from classes and without a worry. When the seasons changed and the best place to be was beside the heater near Mrs. Boykin’s room, we had nothing better to do than chat and joke and make the best of recess with friends. Before we knew it, things changed again. Upper School presented a new set of challenges. Suddenly grades “mattered.” Or so we believed.
From that moment on, my blinders went up. I began focusing a lot more on school and a lot less on recess.
I started borrowing time from other activities to study. When break came around each day, I ended up sitting at one of Mr. Cooper’s tables outside Mrs. Livick’s room or in the back left-hand corner of the library at one of those screened-in desks. Those places became my new forts, only a lot less fun and a lot less comfortable. That 20-minute break became more like a 20-minute study hall, and I was always behind. No matter what I did there was more to do. I struggled to keep pace. I started waking up earlier to study before chapel. I started going to bed later to finish up assignments. Time flew. Monday seemed to turn into Friday and ninth grade to tenth grade and so on. Don’t get me wrong: I was doing things other than classwork, but my mind was usually elsewhere, focusing on homework or upcoming tests. I didn’t feel I had the time to enjoy anything like recess. And when I did, I ended up feeling more behind than before.
Not an ideal situation, now that I’m looking back, but you might ask: What about the grades? They must have been better? The short answer is no. Subconsciously measuring all my success on grades never quite felt right and was definitely not as rewarding as I felt it should be, given all the time and energy I put in. Halfway through tenth grade, I decided to put the material first and let the grades follow. Instead of aiming for X number out of 100, I turned my attention to understanding the notes and the material. With this mindset, I immediately felt energized and more sure of what school is supposed to be about: learning, not the tests, quizzes or essays. Ironically, my grades improved. It turned out that focusing so much on grades was actually hurting, not helping, which brings me back to recess. Chasing grades was a time suck that left little room in my schedule to play, and really, in a broader sense, time to relax and goof off, to join another club, go to Donuts and Discourse or play ping-pong. These past few weeks I’ve been thinking more and more about St. Christopher’s and my journey from building forts in the big gym to where I stand now. It’s become more clear to me what recess, forts, World Cup games, knockout and wall ball were all about: balance. What I mean is the balance between work and play. Obsessing over grades, I realized, was the fastest way to lose my balance, to miss out on everything else at St. Christopher’s. By my last count, that’s about 364 classmates and faculty in the Upper School alone.
Because Lower School recess was never really about forts, and Middle School was never really about free play. Even in Upper School, our time outside the classroom is not defined by what we do during it so much as by the people we spend it with. It’s about relationships. It’s about Spencer imitating the jingle of Mr. Smith’s keys before class, Nash and Evan playing catch with Mr. Thomas’ open dry erase marker, games of Psyche with the soccer team on the bus ride back, Morey decorating my car with snow, Nick and I snagging a cookie before the speaker event, and Gaines and Mike trapping me in the J-Lot. Some of the best lessons we’ve learned have been out of the classroom on the playground, where we met some of our best friends, too. Going forward, I don’t want to just check the boxes and just make the grades. I want to continue doing what I started in the Lower School big gym: make the best out of what I have with the people I admire and have a lot of fun at the same time. Of course, this is not to say I’ve got things figured out. I still press the “see grade detail” icon plenty. I sweat grades sometimes, and I spend time in the wrong places, but I’m a lot closer to that balance point, and I know when I’m heading in the right direction. With the end of the school year less than two months out, I hope we can find the time to pause, think back on our experiences here and give special focus to play. Even more so, I hope we will look ahead and aim toward as much fun and play as we can, because this community is what it’s all about.
Mac Suskind ’21 will attend the University of Virginia this fall.
CHOOSING A COLLEGE IN 2021
A Senior Perspective on How Pandemic Restrictions Posed Challenges
By Spencer Villanueva ’21
Some of the college search challenges that the Class of 2021 faced this year included few college representatives visiting our school, online-only college fairs, canceled SATs and limited campus tours. My peers and I resorted to using online college resources to hear about various universities, but this was limited. As it seems, the coronavirus pandemic has left no part of our lives untouched. The college process is one aspect of school life that changed drastically this year. My fellow seniors and I had to make many difficult decisions regarding schools that most of us haven’t even had the opportunity to visit in person. Although I cannot personally compare this year’s college search process to a normal one, the popular sentiment amongst my peers is that finding colleges online was difficult. I found it particularly challenging to create an interest list because no one school really jumped out at me in this online setting. Facts on a webpage hardly gave me an idea of what the true experience of that college is like. Personally, I found that YouTube videos created by current students helped me see a more authentic side of the college than the brochures and websites provide. These videos gave open and honest reviews without all the “propaganda.” Another great resource for getting an honest look at colleges that I took advantage of was talking with current students. Most students are happy to pass along info to a prospective student. Many colleges post contact information of student advisers, so it’s easy to get in touch. This student interaction greatly influenced my college decision. Along with the unprecedented circumstances of this year’s college process, my final college decision has also been unique. While most of my classmates are staying somewhat close to home, I will be moving 4,265 miles away to attend Franklin University in Lugano, Switzerland. I know it sounds kind of crazy, and I am aware of that. However, let me explain how this pandemic drove me to this choice.
I found out about Franklin during a meeting with Mr. Scott Mayer, one of St. Christopher’s college counselors. He mentioned Franklin after I explained my interest in learning more about other cultures and traveling. At first, I dismissed the suggestion, but over time I realized that it was a true option for me. Since I started searching for colleges a year ago, I have never actually visited any in person. I have been on campus at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Virginia before, but not during the pandemic. When Franklin came onto my radar, I never felt like it was truly different from any of the others. I couldn’t go on campus tours or have in-person interviews with even in-state schools, so an international school remained in the realm of possibility. In truth, studying internationally will work well for what I want to pursue. One passion that I developed during the pandemic was connecting with people all over the world. While stuck at home, I spent my time chatting with and learning from people in places like Palestine, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden and countless others. I learned that I love seeing how different others’ life experiences are to mine. It drives me to pursue a degree in international relations, so hopefully one day I can make a career out of it.
I encourage everyone to expand their opportunities. This can apply to college, work or even your life here at St. Christopher’s. We live in a time where anything is possible, and our opportunities are seemingly limitless. My advice to others: Don’t limit yourself to what you think is possible.
BACK IN COMMUNITY Returning to the Classroom After Nine Months Online
By Rohan Simon ’22
Alone and comatose. Without any ability to break the confines of my mind, I have no one but myself. But I persevere, waking up from that bed into an unusual world, confronted with new rules and regulations. Assaulted with unfamiliarities left and right, I begin to feel uneasy, nervous. Friends fill the previously empty space; I remember happier times from the past. The anxiety leaves, the pressure fades — I’m glad to be back, even if the world turned unfamiliar and strange while I was gone. Eternally Zooming, I sat alone in my room, day in and day out for the first seven months of this school year. I always had my family, but as everyone knows, family gets old, quick. I felt increasingly isolated from St. Christopher’s with every passing day, missing out on each Ron Smith lecture, each bird passing by Mr. Van Arsdale’s room, each publications workday. On Zoom, I was lonely, unable to participate in class discussions to the degree my classmates could, while their audio became too quiet to decipher on my end. Obviously, Zoom could not replicate the classroom experience, as I remained trapped inside a computer, unable to talk to anybody, only able to listen. I felt like I was trapped in a coma of isolation. I can’t lie, though; I thoroughly enjoyed going to bed at midnight, waking up at 8 a.m., and still getting to class on time. And having two extra hours at the end of the day leaves me with a large amount of free time. I often found myself deep in the video game grind, for hours at a time, something much harder to do now. But, those are just guilty pleasures. Ultimately, I value my relationships with the people of this school and an in-school education above my simple pastimes. So I decided that I absolutely had to return this year. And, with the vaccine rollout underway, my parents gave me the green light. My surreal experience coming back to St. Christopher’s felt like a complete culture shock; I couldn’t drink any water the whole day because I needed a water bottle, Chamberlayne Hall’s floors became one-way streets, and lunch was a scavenger hunt, as I tried to find my assigned seat. But all my miscues faded away at the sight of my friends, welcoming me back with open arms. I remembered why I wanted so badly to come back — I sorely missed the St. Chris community that was and still is a significant part of my life.
All students engaged in online learning in spring 2020, and Rohan Simon ’22 opted to continue until March 24, 2021.
