I’ve always considered myself a Bostonian. While I have never actually lived in the city, I grew up about an hour south of the Hub, and have spent my entire life travelling into the city, visiting Faneuil Hall, ceaselessly cheering for all 4 of the hometown teams (even in the pre-Pink Hat era) and visiting brothers and friends who have lived there. As a result of my ties to the city, when I heard about the bombings last Monday, it hit me a little harder than I really expected it to.
I, like thousands of other people, was shocked by the brazen nature of the bombings, was amazed at the selflessness of police, firefighters and civilians who immediately rushed toward the bomb site to help, and had a lump in my throat every time they showed a picture of young Martin Richard and his cardboard poster stating, “No more hurting people. Peace”.
The image which sticks in my head most clearly, though, is that of f 78 year old Bill Iffrig who was knocked down by the blast, and seemingly without missing beat got up and started running again.
I thought to myself, after watching this image hundreds of times on Monday, would I do that? If I was knocked down, literally or metaphorically, would I get up and just keep going? Sure, I’d like to think I would, but I’m not sure that I would.
The kids at ASR have been knocked down; whether it be by school, drugs, poor choices or whatever it is, and many of them don’t have the tools yet to help themselves get back on their feet. At the School we like to afford them opportunities to make choices, and learn from those choices. Recently we have been able to incorporate a couple of additions to the school which have epitomized this concept.
In December we unveiled the new Journey 4. When an ASR student reached this level of responsibility, there is a great deal expected of them; peer leadership and stellar academics among them, but with that comes some eagerly anticipated privileges including off campus time, computer usage and extended phone opportunities. The idea being that we are preparing the kids for that ever-elusive life after ASR.
Also, in May (we hope) we will have the first school-wide election for our Student Council. To date I have had a series of weekly meetings with a group of dedicated students who have not only developed a mission statement for the student council, but have also developed a series of by-laws by which all future student councils will run. This is especially exciting because it is completely student driven, and is for, by and about the kids.
Will these run perfectly? No. I am under no illusions that with these changes things will be perfect for these kids. I know things will still go wrong, but I also know that as a result of these new initiatives at the school, these kids will learn an important lesson about taking responsibility and ownership.
As any new parents who comes through our door knows, I tell every student a version of the following, “I know you’re going to mess up, you’re going to make mistakes and we fully anticipate you doing so, we aren’t here to judge you or to pick you up; we’re here to get you to the point where you learn how to pick yourself back up”.
Kind of like Bill Iffrig…
