From The Head of School

“’Tude” - Honors Assembly Speech 12-11-07
12/11/2007
Good morning. Today we gather to recognize the hard work of those students who earned places on our effort and achievement honor rolls during this year’s first trimester. For parents in the audience who are new to St. Andrew’s, this occasion also serves as a golden opportunity for me to indulge in one of the true pleasures of headmastership, opining to a captive audience of loyal supporters. So sit back for a few minutes, and enjoy.

In Chapel last week we had the treat of hearing Hannah Hawkins, the founder and director of the Children of Mine center in southeast Washington—a place committed to saving and improving the lives of children, with which St. Andrew’s has worked for more than a decade. Ms. Hawkins—an incredible woman and an electrifying speaker—visits St. Andrew’s every year. Hannah’s themes—the importance of hard work and responsibility, appreciating our blessings, and helping others—are consistent from year to year, each time she speaks I pick up hear something new and important.

This year, Ms. Hawkins talked about teenagers she encountered on the streets near her center, and what she thought was getting in the way of their success. I was struck by how much emphasis Hannah put on those young peoples’ attitude—or as she said, their “’tude”—how boys and girls would either deny that things were difficult for them—because none of us likes to admit weakness, fear, or uncertainty—or if they admitted problems how quick they were to blame other people, to act like powerless and blameless victims. From talking with Ms. Hawkins over the years, I know that one reason she is so committed to working with young children is that she hopes to prevent them from slipping into this kind of self-defeating attitude as they grow up.

Well, here we are at St. Andrew’s, many miles and—metaphorically—a world away from the place that Hannah Hawkins serves. So why did her words strike a chord with me? Because attitude matters at St. Andrew’s every bit as much as at the Children of Mine center. I’d like to talk with you about attitude, but to pay homage to Ms. Hawkins, I’ll use her great term—I want to talk to you about your ’tude.

Fortunately, most of us come to school each day from comfortable and supportive homes, so we should be able to focus on learning, on unlocking our intellectual and personal potential fairly easily, right? Not necessarily. Lots of things can get in the way of that focus: maturity level, learning challenges, ups and downs in our personal lives. And oh yes, attitude. How do you approach school? Not how “good” at school are you, but what is your ’tude about school? I’m not talking about whether you got every math problem right on your math homework last night, or whether you’re starting on varsity this season. I’m talking about your attitude. Your teachers know that a positive attitude—believing that you can learn and being determined to learn—is a critical part of success in school. I expect that the students who made honor roll have at least decent attitude towards school. I expect that our best athletes believe that they can play well and with practice will get better—nothing wrong with their attitude. And I’m sure that our leading artists are confident that they can not only memorize lines but communicate the spirit of their work—art is all about the right ’tude.

But this is bigger than your next test or project or game. Your attitude will determine how you live your life, how much you will accomplish, and what kind of a world you will leave for your children. When you go to your first job interview, how will you act? Will your nervousness indicate to your prospective employer that you’re not ready for responsibility? Will your cockiness indicate that you’re particularly bad at hiding your self-doubt, or worse, that you don’t think the job is good enough for you? Or will your attitude show that you’re both confident and open to learning more? Confident, and open to leaning more. That’s the ’tude I want for each of you. That’s the attitude that will get even more of you up here at the next honors assembly, and which will launch and sustain your careers.

The right attitude will also shape the relationships that make life rich and rewarding. As you make new friendships, fall in love, raise children, the quality of those relationships will depend on whether you live your lives with hope, or with fear. We’re all well acquainted with fear and its close cousin, anxiety. We’re warned to watch out for potential dangers everywhere, and told on the news nightly about the many ways we can be hurt or killed by accidents, disease, crime, or terrorism. Our culture encourages suspicion, and oftentimes seems to be more comfortable with fear than trust. The result? We live lives that are more and more isolated, and we teach our children that the future is a worrisome set of frightening possibilities. We are lured by the politics of fear and division; we assume that tomorrow will be worse than today, and so we worry about stockpiling assets and opportunities for ourselves before the well runs dry. We look at our personal and societal challenges as either hopelessly insurmountable (think about persistent poverty or the threat posed by global warming), or deny their reality or seriousness in order to avoid taking responsibility for them (the boys in Ms. Hawkins’ neighborhood may sound more familiar to us now).

So do you need a massive ’tude adjustment? Don’t worry: I have a simple, brief two-step plan to get you started. Ready?

#1: Be thankful.
When you say thank you, you focus on what you have, not what you don’t; on what you can do, not what you can’t. You realize that you have gifts that others—your parents, your teachers, perhaps God—have given you, and that you are able and obligated to use those gifts well.

#2. Think more about what you hope for than what you hate or fear.
Most of you have heard Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech, perhaps the most moving and effective piece of American oratory in the last half century. In that speech King didn’t pull any punches: He deplored “the manacles of segregation” and “the chains of discrimination.” He told white America in no uncertain terms that black people were living as exiles in their own land, suffering outrageous poverty, outright injustice, as well as the equally pernicious racism of a fearful country that ignored the problem or refused to advocate for equal opportunity.

But the power and endurance of King’s speech was his ability to see and speak the failings of his nation without—as he put it—“wallow[ing] in the valley of despair.” King electrified his audience—and spurred on a generation—by invoking his dream, “rooted in the American dream,” of an America that recognized and freed itself from deeply rooted prejudices, a nation that preached and practiced trust and relationships across race and religion, a country in which freedom and respect were universal values. It was Dr. King’s ability to inspire us with his vision—to tell the truth about this country’s enormous failings while tenaciously and poetically holding up his faith in its potential—that galvanized the civil rights movement and made a generation of people believe that the world could and should be a better place.

We won’t all become as great as Dr. King, but we all can adopt some of his attitude. Don’t ignore problems; recognize and name them. Don’t blame others or wait passively for things to get better; take responsibility for your own actions and future. Keep asking yourself what you can do rather than what you can’t, what you believe in instead of what you hate. And remember that fear is a four-letter word for a reason.

When Ms. Hawkins comes to preach to us next year, let’s make her proud by showing her how well we’ve adjusted our ’tudes. Thank you, and to parents, my early and best wishes for a peaceful and joyous holiday season.

Robert Kosasky Head of School