T O D A Y - Berwick Academy

4CommencementJune 9,2012The following is Head of School Greg Schneider’s Commencementspeech, delivered at the June 9 Commencement ceremony.President Tay, members of the Board of Trustees, faculty,staff, parents, grandparents, and friends, it is my pleasure towelcome you to Berwick Academy’s 221st Commencementexercises, where I have the honor of presenting to you theClass of 2012. Given that the Schneider family happens tobe waiting with bated breath as to when girl number threemight arrive, it is a particular thrill and relief to be herewith you today. I had worried that I might be Skyping infrom Portsmouth Hospital or calling upon my AssistantHead of School to don this medal and read my speech.Rest assured that no one in our audience today is morejoyous than Mrs. Briggs. Separate from my own baggagethis morning, our graduates will surely be glad to knowthat, on account of my predicament, I have a particularinvestment in moving today’s ceremony along swiftly. Sowhile I kindly ask all of you to turn off your cell phonesas you savor these profoundcomments this morning,I will assure you that myiPhone will need to remainon.More importantly,as I look out at our graduates,this group of 65 individuals,there is an infinite number ofmoments that comprise theircollective story: successes,failures, moments of humor,and examples of resiliency,all of which begin to whirlabout my memory as I standbefore you on this exquisiteSeacoast morning, framed bya fully restored and equallyglorious Fogg Memorialbuilding.Which reminds me– there will be three partsto my comments today.After beginning with a summary of the achievementsof your class, I have decided to focus on a theme and asymbol. The theme will be the nature of memory itself,which feels appropriate, given our graduates today willremember precious little about what is actually saidon this graduation day, wouldn’t we all agree? And thesymbol I have chosen to link with your special day will benone other than my favorite animal, the turtle. You couldask my daughters about my turtle obsession. Today thisultimate mystery of irrelevant Mr. Schneider minutiae willbe revealed to you in full.Let me start by offering what I will rememberabout you as a group. I will remember that you began thisyear wondering what your identity might be, partiallyas you worried about measuring up to other classes, butperhaps more importantly because you cared about yourlegacy. I will remember the staggering impression ofyour academic achievement in considering your collegeplacement results and plentiful academic awards. Youbrought forth causes and ideas for us to ponder in criticalways: issues of gender, equality, social justice, service,and compassion strike me as chief among the list. I willremember that one of you came to my office to interviewme for an article. Probably like most Heads of School,any interview with a student reporter got my wheelsturning about what I had done wrong or what decisionwas coming under scrutiny. But this person, who I believeis unafraid to speak his mind, chose to end that exchangewith his thoughts about how I haddone important work to makeBerwick better during his time here.Now granted this was well before Imade any of my thrilling changesto cell phone policies in the UpperSchool this spring. But his candorthat day stuck with me, and it willbe with me long after this memberof the class of 2012 leaves us. It isnow a cherished memory of myown.Athletically, I will remember theincredible dominance of our threepeatgolf team and the varsityestablishment of field hockey, whoserecord went beyond my dreams.I will remember the beginning ofa turnaround for our girls varsityprograms in general, starting withsigns of brilliance in soccer and thecontinuing excellence in hockeyand lacrosse. Our winter seasonwas the best I have experienced inCommencement Speaker Peter C. Saliba, Outgoing US Directormy time here, highlighted by a NEPSAC appearance forBoys Basketball and the Girls Varsity Ice Hockey threepeatingas EIL champions. I opened the Boston Globe inMarch to see four Berwick students named as Globe All-Scholastic League MVPs during the winter. In fact wehad six of those before the year was over. Spring foundus with a Girls Lacrosse program in the A bracket for thefirst time in recent memory and a baseball team that wonour hearts. They thwarted Pingree in the bottom of theseventh in the semi-finals before going on to capture ourfirst NEPSAC title on the diamond in many years. Not tomention putting out a music video that has now officiallygone viral.What will I remember about your class artistically?I will remember Damn Yankees as the strongest musicalproduction during my five years on account of the acting,vocal performances, and dancing. I will remember thesophistication and maturity of your Shakespearean visionin the fall as well as your dance extravaganza this spring.I will remember the feeling in my stomach when someof you called me up to don a red wig and becomeOphelia in your one act plays this year; I am stillrecovering from that one. I will remember a seriesof concerts this spring that were inspiring in theirquality as well as in their cross-divisional purpose.Your visual artists continued placing Berwick on thenational map in terms of competitions, and yourimagery was inspiring. As a group, you found a wayfor your art to become a vehicle of expression of whatmattered to you, and in turn, to us. When I considerissues of service, inclusion, and diversity, your groupled our community in remarkable ways. Whetherit was a compelling speech about Veterans Day, aGSA assembly that explored gender stereotypes, aSWAT group that was committed to strengtheningcommunity, what was most obvious to your Head ofSchool was simply that you cared.This year, for whatever reason, I found myselfawash in reading literature about the nature of memory.The result was a realization of the imperfect links betweenmemory, experience, and truth. In a literal way, yourexperience at Berwick will be, CAN ultimately only be,what you remember it to be. I am going to urge each ofyou to consider your own role in shaping and nurturingthose memories in the years to come. I begin with a quotefrom Julian Barnes’ book Nothing to Be Frightened Of. Hepoints out the reality that, when you are adults, you willremember a very different Berwick Academy than the oneyou think you remember right now. He states:Memory in Childhood – at least as Iremember it, is rarely a problem. Not justbecause of the briefer time span between theevent and its evocation, but because of thenature of memories then: they appear to theyoung brain as exact simulacra, rather than5