ST SEBASTIAN’S

BROTHERHOOD
Growing Together
Kevin Patterson ’13 discusses the bond he and his classmates share.
By James O’Brien ’06
Pictured: Kevin Patterson ’13 as Elisha Whitney and Maggie Fitzgerald as Mrs. Wadsworth
Harcourt in the St. Sebastian’s production of Anything Goes this past November.
Sitting across from Kevin Patterson ’13 at the Communications
Office conference table, I cannot help but wonder if I
was this articulate as a high school senior. I have just asked
him what he likes about the School, and the speed and clarity of his
response astound me.
“The fact that class sizes
are so small really helps foster
the community,” he stated. “If
classes are large, you don’t really
get to hear from each person.
With small classes, you’re going
to be hearing from everyone a lot
more on average. You can build
a relationship with kids based on what they say in the classroom and
take it outside the classroom.
“The teachers bring something more personal than what I’ve
seen at other schools and students can react with their own thoughts.
You learn a lot about what everyone else is thinking.”
Patterson gives a great deal of the credit for the attitude at St.
Sebastian’s to Headmaster Bill Burke, recalling how excited Mr. and
Mrs. Patterson were the first time they heard Burke speak.
“I remember [my parents] came home from an Open House
and told me I had to come check out this school because they had
just heard the most amazing speaker—and he looked like Albert
38 | ST. SEBASTIAN’S MAGAZINE Volume VIII, Issue I
The sense of brotherhood comes
from a great sense of leadership...
It’s a virtuous cycle.
Einstein! But when they described what he looked like, I said, ‘Oh
no, you mean Mark Twain, not Einstein,’ because I love to correct
my parents,” he noted.
“Mr. Burke plays such a huge role here at the School. He tells us
how we’re all brothers and how
we all interrelate. And we feel a
responsibility to keep that up.
“Mr. Burke likes to quote
Abe Lincoln, who said, ‘I’m a
success today because I had a
friend who believed in me and I
didn’t have the heart to let him
down.’ And I think, in a lot of
ways, Lincoln is the student body at St. Sebastian’s and that friend is
Mr. Burke. He’s such a positive role model, and I’ve never seen him
disappointed or unhappy in any way. It’s hard to be unhappy when
you have people like that around you. He really helps to build the
familial aspect of this School.”
Coming from a very rigorous and academically-focused middle
school, Patterson was concerned as a matriculating freshman that
he might finish the predesigned math curriculum at St. Sebastian’s,
but he soon learned that St. Sebastian’s emphasis on the individual
meant that one can never outgrow the curriculum.