I witnessed three visiting families overlap in the rotunda this morning. The perspective of visitors has been a fascination to me for decades, and today I connected with visitors from southern California who asked in advance to say hello, because they follow the blog.

 

But we have other special visitors today. One of the byproducts of Proctor's extraordinary experiential programs is novel relationship with others: Dominicans (Ocean Classroom next Saturday,) Spaniards, Costa Ricans, Moroccans. Proctor uses the Lycee Saint Gabriel, the local semi-independent high school as the venue for our winter immersion program in France, and our students live with local kids. Eleven students from Pont l'Abbé are visiting Proctor for the next two weeks as exchange students.


 

I visited Proctor In France two years ago, and the program and people at Saint Gabriel are wonderful, but knowing where they're coming from, I am fascinated by how Proctor must appear.  This morning's assembly featured an electrifying performance be Ghanan drummer/dancers, who taught Proctor students to drum (during the previous hour,) and invited students to dance. The crowd responded, and I thought, How does this look to our visitors?

 

Certainly, any visitor is going to remark at the degree of collaboration and energy here. Classes at Lycee Saint Gabriel, for example, are more lecture-based and formalized, with minimal faculty-student relationship as the primary teaching mode.

 

Whatever country or state a visitor calls home, the nature of relationships between teachers and students is evident.

 















Wherever your home, a visit this week would provide a great sense for this community's place in the world.


 







Below, junior varsity field hockey cheers on the varsity. Congratulations to Louisa (lower right,) who has never played before, and scored two goals against Holderness on Wednesday! 






To all our visitors, we say welcome, and bienvenue.