First Night With All of Our Students

After the afternoon's orientation programs had finally ended, the now completed student body assembled in my favorite building, the auditorium, to hear a talk about afternoon activities. When I first looked at the school's list of offered afternoon activities, I couldn't believe how few choices there were. It seemed as if the students' choices were pretty much soccer, basketball, and dance/theater. Even though I wasn't required to play any of these sports, I was still required to coach them. But then when the day for coaching signups arrived I managed to find my niche in the hallowed afternoon pastime of "Recreational Fitness". After I was officially assigned to help coach recreational fitness I didn't give athletics another thought. But when I saw this evening's presentation on afternoon activities I started wishing that I was a student here. King's Academy doesn't offer just soccer, basketball, and theater/dance but also community service, fencing, visual art classes, swimming, and horseback riding. The cool thing about horseback ridging, though, is that it's held at his majesty's personal stables 15 minutes from campus and primarily open for beginning riders.
Then, after dinner, the student body and the faculty made there way to the academic building for one of the school's most important opening year traditions. The tradition I think is called "introductions" and it lasts about 2 hours. I said that the students and faculty made their way to the academic building, but, in fact, we actually walked into an open air courtyard in the middle of the academic building. Once inside the courtyard all 267 students sat on the ground in the middle while the faculty sat/stood around the edges. Leading the event were Dr. Eric and his wife, Dr. Meera, both sitting in chairs in front of the students. They asked that everybody in the courtyard, one by one, stand up, say his/name, grade, and city and country of origin. With that, Dr. Eric and Dr. Meera introduced themselves and then, after the rest of the faculty had introduced themselves, asked a nearby faculty member to read off a list of student names. One by one the students sprung up from their sitting positions and introduced themselves. After about an hour of this I started to think that the whole tradition looked a lot like whack-a-mole. But when everyone had introduced him/herself I decided that this was a great tradition and a great way to start the year. I felt more part of a community sitting on the ground with these people than I had ever truly felt at any other school. This was also because there were only 260 students and because Dr. Eric and Dr. Meera are two of the kindest people I've ever met and simply a great team. The highlights of the evening were of course Dr. Meera say that she is "married to a man who has a dream" and a student, when telling us where he was from, saying that "my country was demolished by a monkey named George Bush". Considering the enthusiasm of the students and the current mood surrounding the election I'd say that these were both very appropriate comments.