learning from the best
When I arrived at Collegiate full time in September 1972, I was one of the youngest and least experienced members of the faculty.
Thinking far into the future wasn’t even a consideration.
All I was concerned about was keeping a day ahead of my students, surviving the last period study hall I covered each day, and paying the bills.
Here I am, though, almost four decades into a career that I planned to stay with maybe two or three years before I went out and got a real job.
Suffice it to say, I’m glad I stuck around and very grateful to Collegiate for giving me the opportunity.
Like most of my fellow teachers and coaches, I’ve always tried to think positively, embrace new ideas even if they seemed to refute time-honored practices, keep up with the technology, and be better today than I was yesterday.
I haven’t figured all this out on my own, of course.
If anything, I’ve been astute enough to learn valuable lessons from my long-time colleagues, many now fellow senior citizens, who carry their lunch pails to work each day and do their best for the children entrusted them.
They’re my friends, my role models, my mentors.
They inspire me with their humility, dedication, and sense of purpose.
There are many.
Here are a few.
Bill Reeves arrived at Collegiate in 1976, headed the Boys School and the Middle School, and taught ethics. He’s a gentle, compassionate, non-judgmental soul who has been there for many of us in the toughest of times and has always found the best in everyone. A visit with him is like a trip to the mountaintop.
Jim Hickey headed the track program for 37 years, and I learned from him early on that a successful coach is one who hires quality people, empowers them to do their jobs, motivates his athletes with positive reinforcement, and accepts success without fanfare and faces obstacles with humor and without complaint.
Alex Smith has been the vice-president for development since the mid-‘70’s, and much of the success of Collegiate’s fund-raising efforts is the direct result of his and his staff’s hard work. He also provides an incredible institutional memory and a voice of reason. During his tenure, he’s served as a confidant for many, and anyone who has sought his counsel has come away with a much clearer sense of direction and perspective.
If, to borrow from the title of Robert Fulgham’s best seller, all you need to know you learn in kindergarten, Betty Hotchkiss has taught those lessons with excellence.
Since she came aboard 41 years ago, Betty has provided a warm smile, a loving hug, and a reassuring word for the five-year-olds who have crossed the threshold into her classroom and embarked on the adventure of education.
She is encouraging, nurturing, and loyal to Collegiate.
She personifies service, as evidenced by her work with the William Byrd Community Center, and has sensitized a host of little ones to the world beyond North Mooreland Road.
Foremost, she is dedicated to her students past and present, and those whom she has taught (including my own two sons) reflect on the experience, even years later, with gratitude and fond memories.
Ann Griffin has taught biology for 39 years, and there’s many a successful physician who attributes his (or her) career path to Ann’s passion for her subject matter.
What I’ve learned from my friend, though, is that truly caring teachers love their students unconditionally, whether they’re strong or weak or somewhere in between, and that academic rigor, compassion, and fun are in no way contradictory concepts.
My guess is that Maria Benson, who teaches Middle School French, has accrued more frequent flyer miles than anyone in Collegiate history.
Since she joined the faculty in 1983, she’s led a host of student trips to Spain and France and traveled often to Wales and Italy to visit family.
She’s also taught French at Virginia Commonwealth University. She exercises daily. Her cultural and social schedule keeps her moving at a dizzying pace.
In what she terms the watershed moment of her life after the death of her husband Ron in 1995, she walked (over two summers, actually) the 650-mile medieval pilgrimage route from St. Jean Pied de Port on the French side of the Pyrenees to the tomb of St. James at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.
Her true masterpiece, though, is the example she set by almost singlehandedly raising three sons, all Collegiate graduates.
Richard is a graphic designer in Boulder, CO, Alexander works for Merrill Lynch in Tokyo, and Tristan serves in the Peace Corps in Chongqing, China, which translates, of course, into even more frequent flyer miles for Mom.
The tenacity, courage, and unflagging optimism of John Coates (Middle School English) and John Chewning (Upper School math) never cease to amaze me. Despite physical challenges that the rest of us can only imagine, they remain dedicated to their students and true to their calling.
John Chewning’s wife Blair teaches in our Lower School, and during much of their marriage John has fended off one serious health problem after another.
She’s stood by him every step of the way, holding true to the promise they made almost 38 years ago and providing for all of us a supreme example of loyalty and dignity in the face of, at times, incredible adversity.
I’m not sure who has the toughest job at Collegiate, but Charlie McFall and Karen Doxey, our co-athletic directors, could easily lay claim.
Though they have their coaching areas of expertise, they convey by word and deed that all teams deserve respect, and, trust me, not every AD in every school is perceived that way.
In a world where athletic competition can be cutthroat, they’ve maintained a steadfast adherence to doing the right thing, to the bedrock principle of sportsmanship, to achieving excellence but not at the cost of our institutional integrity, and to developing the athletes who cast their lot with our program early on while welcoming others, duly qualified, who join the family along the way.
I’ve never been a meeting person, but I truly enjoy my time with Charlie Blair, Fletcher Collins, Sally Chambers, and (joining us this year) Debbie Miller, my colleagues on the Middle School administrative team.
What I’ve learned so well from sharing the journey for the past 25 years is the importance of working as one for the common good, mixing fun and seriousness in just the right doses, and, most important, making Collegiate School a better place without regard for who gets the credit.
