For years I have taken adolescents into the field. My goal is simple--abandon the walls and artificial spaces and barriers of mankind for the primitive, the earthy, to see what we might discover, especially about ourselves. Since arriving at Baldwin, we've explored Kilauea, the Boundary Waters, and the Dingle Way, and are next off to the Icelandic interior in summer 2016.
It was not long ago that I sat with eighteen of our amazing young women and men at the summit of Mount Brandon on the trail to Cloghane. Beyond the breathtaking beauty of Ireland in every direction, the summit represented the culmination of months of preparation and, by then, seventy-five miles afoot with pack. Each student earned their way that day, and each of the preceding days, to the top. They earned the view, earned the summit, earned the respect of their peers and chaperones. They also learned much about themselves; of that which they were truly capable should they put their mind and back to it. There are no kid gloves in nature, no bumpers, no easy fixes. I recall a soggy day, sixteen miles overland, up and down, in a continuous pour; I remember emerging from dense fog in the highlands above Dingle after an all day trek over hill and dale. There were sore backs and sore feet, scrapes and blisters, to be sure. There were also many laughs, warm fires, and the resounding sense of accomplishment for each. They did it all, together, but individually.
Few of us ever hike a hundred miles in the whole of our lives. Most of us are haunted by persistent phantoms that convince us of self-imposed limits. We fall short in our minds long before our mettle is truly tested. We give up, or in, to fear and doubt. Worse still, as parents, we are at times guilty of projecting these same fears and doubts, these phantoms, on our children. We do so out of a well-meaning, but sometimes misguided, need to protect our children from failure or hurt or risk. The great irony of it all is that we are all capable of so much more than we assume, that in failure we often learn the most about ourselves, and that the greatest risk is taking no risk at all. We must not, after all, leave our lives unfinished.
As we begin our new school year, I challenge you to let your kids work things out for themselves. In a world wary of "micro-aggressions" and "micro-invalidations", in which we rob our children of their right to earn resiliency the old fashioned way, where protectionist parenting strategies build bubbles around our children that leave them wholly unprepared for the adult world into which they are emerging, let them fall, fail, cry, gnash their teeth from time to time. So what if they don't get that grade that once came so easy to them. Let them regroup, reassert themselves, figure it out, work harder. So what if their feelings are hurt by a friend or classmate. They need to learn to voice their concerns, stand on their own, and decide what friendship means to them. Watch, listen, support, guide, love, but otherwise let your children figure it out for themselves unless poor performance or emotional fragility become chronic.
Our kids, Baldwin kids, are capable of transformational change and growth, and affecting the same in their world. They are all hundred milers if we let them be.
See you around campus.
Registration is closed for the Headmasters Experiential Learning Trip 2016: Hverfisfljot to Skaftafell Loop, Iceland. All spaces have been filled.
Click here to see photos from the summer 2015 trip to Ireland.