It feels wrong to be trying to shape my thoughts about the Thomas Fire and The Thacher School, the Ojai Valley, the still vulnerable coastal communities, and my little life when the fire continues to rage and rout, advancing mostly …
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Archives: Community
Our House Is a Very, Very, Very Fine House in Ways I Cannot Always Convey
Yesterday morning, twenty-four hours before students and teachers would return from Thanksgiving break, I was cutting across the sunshiny Pergola to fetch from Olympus any mail that might have arrived in the past few days. There, near the toadstool tables …
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Colls
It often begins well before sunrise, that dark time when I’m tempted to grab my headlamp but, in waning moonlight, end up trusting my feet to know the way to our meeting place: up walkway, over speed bump and curb, …
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Kids to Spare
I didn’t see it coming, the “F” I got at mid-term in my Toad Blog “class”–the one I designed and am taking as the only student this year. Oh, I’ve failed before, but this was a surprise because I was …
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Affirming Thacher Values in a Time of Political Turmoil
The following is a talk recently delivered by Head of School Michael K. Mulligan at one of our regular All-School Assemblies. Like many others around our nation, I have not been able to watch the national news lately without wincing. …
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Tough’s Take On Resilience
We have heard and read a lot of late about the importance of grit and resilience, but not so much about how exactly to cultivate these valuable attributes in our students. This article by Paul Tough, who has become something …
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Random Encounters of the Best Kind
I have never taught Fernando Zamora ’16, nor have I coached or advised him. Yet I had three encounters with him in the space of 24 hours last week that made me consider how much I value random paths-crossings in this boarding …
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