Yearbook Messages

Each year, I have the honor of writing a message to our graduating seniors in our yearbook. As we rapidly approach the end of the 2020-2021 school year and the graduation of the Class of 21, I’m looking back on the words I’ve written since taking on the role of High School Principal at Lincoln School Costa Rica.

To The Class of 2018…

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.”

-Abraham Lincoln

For the class of 2018, those four hours might feel more like 14 years, or 12, or less, depending on your age when you arrived on campus as a new member of the Lincoln Family. Regardless of the actual time you have spent at Lincoln, the meaning of this message from our namesake about the importance of preparation is the same. At Lincoln you have grown into young men and women with the academic knowledge to carry you on to advanced study at some of the most prestigious colleges and universities around the world. You have practiced critical thinking and inquiry skills in order to discern fact from fiction, truth from lies, and to negotiate the myriad greys of this not so black and white world. You have grappled with conceptual understandings, you have thought about thinking, you have wrestled with the ethical implications of your own actions and those of others. You have dedicated yourselves to service, spending countless hours over just the last four years in efforts designed to provide for the less fortunate and for the protection of the environment not just here in Costa Rica but beyond as well. You have been mathematicians and musicians, social scientists and biologists, innovators and entrepreneurs. This time has not been spent in vain; it has instead made you the change-agents the world needs you to be. The saw is sharpened; it’s time to chop.

To The Class of 2019…

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

-Maya Angelou

For many of us, the 2018-2019 school year was not the easiest. Truly, our community this year has faced the loss of family, friends, and friends who felt like family. The thing is, I have been impressed and inspired by our students and all members of the Lincoln family since before the first day of this school year in the way that we have cried, laughed, learned, and ultimately grown stronger and wiser…together. It may not always have been easy, but we were never alone.

And so here we are near the end of the school year and for some of us near the end of our time at Lincoln. Our seniors are ready to embark upon life’s great new adventure, many of them to distant places the rest of us point to on maps and wonder, “who is there; what are they like?” Soon we will know, because still not one of them will be alone. This has been true for a long, long time…that our students never really leave Lincoln, that Lincoln is a family of which we are always a part. We have been the test to that rule, and we have proven it to be true.

I commend all of our students, from Preschool to graduates, for their hard work, joy of learning, and pursuit of excellence this year. I commend them for their entrepreneurial spirit which can be seen from student gardens to award-winning apps. I commend our teachers, from Preschool through twelfth grade, for guiding, supporting, and challenging our students and themselves to think and learn and grow. I commend our staff, all of them, for their unwavering commitment to providing the very best learning environment possible, for making Lincoln the unquestioned leader in education in Costa Rica.

I commend us all, each of us a member of the Lincoln family, for living up to the legacy that is Lincoln School.

to the class of 2020…

“It is not the critic who counts.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

I have to admit that this is the fourth or fifth version of this letter to our students that I have written in the past few days to include in our annual yearbook. The thing is, this year there is so much to say. I want to talk about how special this year has been, how the senior class of 2020 won four consecutive Spirit Week competitions, how our students at every grade level have once again earned awards, won athletic competitions, and received many recognitions as change-makers in both the local and global communities. I want to talk about how as the parent of a senior it feels like yesterday that I was changing diapers and bandaging scraped knees and now only minutes later I am teary-eyed with pride thinking about the accomplishment of graduating from such a prestigious school. I want to talk about how in awe I am of a senior class that showed such strength and empathy as they dealt with personal loss, and how awed I am too by our freshmen, sophomores, and juniors who are fast-maturing and challenging us to provide an innovative, supportive, and authentic learning environment in which to thrive and be their best selves. I want to say that I know in my heart that we are truly blessed, each of us, to be here together at Lincoln School.

If only I had the words.

Instead, I’m going to give you the best advice I can in this moment, which is to live the words of the 26^th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. Life is full of critics, people who will stand on the sidelines and watch and scream about the things you can’t or shouldn’t do when what they mean but are afraid to say is that these are things they simply wouldn’t do. Don’t listen to them. Don’t listen to the people who see only obstacles, only difficulty, only discomfort. This world is yours, and it is going to be formed, governed, and changed by you. It is yours, and the only people who don’t have a say in how we address issues around the climate, hunger, disease, education, and inequity are those unwilling to try. You show us every day that you are unwilling to tolerate the status quo just because it is so. You show us every day that you are willing and ready to create your own future, to chart your own path. So do so, with all of our love, blessings, and respect. This world is yours; as Roosevelt said, “dare greatly.”