Giving Thanks

It is tempting to fall into the pop trap of creating a catalog of things I’m thankful for about Chinquapin. I won’t do that however long the list is, because I don’t want to trivialize my thanks into a kind of advertisement. My thanks are deep and wide. Let me try to express something of them here.

I am thankful for the leadership of Chinquapin. From its earliest days, its leadership has been inspired. From all I have read and heard, Bob Moore must have been one doozy of an educator, but he and Chinquapin’s other early designers also made so many right decisions to guide the school successfully – among them the desire to create an educational setting away from the negative distractions of the students’ lives, also imbuing the school with a meaningful quid pro quo philosophy that binds the students to the school they serve and that serves them -- they earn my deep respect and thanks.

Closer to home for me is the leadership provided by Bill and Kathy Heinzerling. Each embodies a seemingly boundless commitment to the school that earns the respect of everyone who comes in contact with it. More than serving as models of dedication to this cause we believe in, however, they direct the school as exemplars of democracy, decency, and empathy. I don’t mean to make them sound like saints. Anyone who has experienced Bill’s slightly off-color humor or Kathy’s growls of frustration knows that these two complementary forces are real people who relate to all of us as real people deserving of respect and dignity and love. They are not the kind of walking egos who allow their own sense of self to get in the way of meaningful interactions with the people with whom they are working side by side. I am thankful for Bill’s overwhelming kindness, a quality that imbues his leadership, as it does his teaching, with humanity. I am thankful for Kathy’s straightforward, no-nonsense advice, for her patient listening when I have been worked up over a problem, for her wise way of seeing through to the core of things. Together, they are one powerful pair. I’m thankful for that too.

Early in my career, before I went into teaching, I remember being envious in more than one instance of offices or groups of people who worked together towards a common cause in seemingly blissful harmony. It’s not that these were Stepford Offices; rather, there was an aura of purposeful camaraderie and pleasure in working together that emanated from them. The places where I worked, in contrast, were divided by political in-fighting or dominated by personalities loaded with so much psychological baggage they trampled the rest of us because they simply could not see where they were going. So what I want to say is that I am thankful for the atmosphere of congeniality and shared purpose that is created by the faculty and staff at Chinquapin. I have been warmly welcomed, trusted and listened to, respectfully engaged and challenged. I have found in Chinquapin one of those special places I was always so envious of.

I am thankful for Chinquapin’s students, too, who are the reason we’re here. Though they are not always easy to teach, they are easy to love. Their desire to learn inspires me to find ways to teach them better, give them more. Even the students who trouble us are often seeking knowledge and ways of learning outside the scope of their classes. We may think of these things – sports, personal relationships, the Internet -- as distractions, but we have to respect our students’ desires to expand their knowledge beyond the streets of their neighborhoods. Then there are other students who eat up what we feed them in the classroom. They are hungry; they are becoming gourmets of learning. We should all be thankful for that, and strive to provide more than just the bland stuff of your average public school. They are hungry, also, for us to show them how to succeed, how to make something of themselves. How inspiring is that.

I am thankful for the beautiful, comfortable campus that makes me smile every time I step out of my car in the morning or when I walk across the quad to a class. I am thankful for the freedom I am given to teach what works, to experiment (and sometimes fail). I am thankful for the forward-thinking donors to the school, to its dedicated board whose personal, gut-level attachment is evident in all they do. I’m thankful for the gracious help my husband and I received when we moved here. I am thankful for “a room of my own,” the office where I can meet with teachers and students and work effectively. I am thankful for the thanks I have received – I feel appreciated. I am thankful for the good people of Chinquapin, the good it does, the good it can engender.