The admission folks are working on a new brochure for Sandy Spring Friends School, and I was asked to come up with a couple of sentences that would serve as a kind of “elevator pitch.” The concept comes from Silicon Valley and is based on the notion that you finally get a meeting with a potential supporter, but it is in the elevator. You both get on in the lobby, and you have the person’s undivided attention, but only until she gets off on, say, the 12^th floor. So you have that amount of time to explain your idea at least so you can go on to the next step. So here goes.

The other day, during the time period usually reserved for Meeting for Worship, the Upper School decided who their officers and representatives would be. They didn’t vote as other schools would do; rather, they used Quaker process. They reached consensus by listening to each other and through discernment characterized by silence.

Infinity is a tough concept and is one of those words that is used by different people for different reasons. Mathematicians, scientists, philosophers and, actually, all of the rest of us have used the notion of infinity at one time or another. For most of us, infinity is short-hand for a really large number. The Romans used the symbol for infinity to represent 1000, a BIG number to them. Today, for instance, we might say that there is an infinite number of mosquitoes out tonight or even that there are an infinite number grains of sand on the beach. And while these may be very big numbers, what if we add one more to the total? If we can add one more, then, by definition, the first amount is not infinite nor will the second amount be. So what is infinite? We might at one time have thought that the number of fish in the oceans was infinite. Later we learned that the capacity of the environment to absorb CO2 was also inconveniently not infinite.

In my last blog, I wrote about What Better Looks Like. This was not what I started out writing about. What I thought I was going to write about was how independent schools are managed and how innovation happens. But before I could do that, I wanted to say a few basic things about our goal to keep tuition at or near its current level (adjusted for inflation), and why I think this is doable.

I have been thinking all year about the independent school value proposition and why parents pay for something that can be gotten for free down the street. There are, of course, plenty of reasons why families make financial and other sacrifices so that their children will receive the best possible education and the best possible life experience during their formative years. Among other things, many parents become committed to Quaker education and the notion that their children are part of a community that strives to see that of God within each person and encourages them to Let Their Life Speak.

In 1975, when I was a senior at the College of Wooster, we had to complete an Independent Study. This is a serious endeavor, almost a right of passage, with the attendant nervousness, fear, sense of hopelessness, fatigue, desperation, possibility, wonder, zillion note cards, manual typewriter, paranoia of losing your only copy, meetings with your advisor, start agains, accomplishment, brilliant expressions that come from who-knows-where, sinking feelings, encouragement from similarly tortured souls, massive adrenaline associated with the last 24 hours, re-reading pages so many times that you couldn't catch a typo if it flew into your eye, and, finally, the dawning realization that you have done it. For the rest of your life, you can look back at the experience with gratitude, delight and a touch of pride. I was a history major, and I was particularly interested in social justice and equality. My first idea was to write about how soldiers are motivated to do things that they would never do in civil society. I started the research and discovered that someone had already written that book ("Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle" by J. Glenn Gray). So I picked another topic: "Dissent and Experimentation in American Schools; 1900-1960". The only problem was that 1960 was only 15 years ago, and some in the History Department didn't think this was really history. I pushed back, and they relented. Actually, I can see their point a lot better now, for some reason. But it was still a good project, and I loved many of the books that I read and still think about the passion, determination and optimism that drove school innovators. Five years later, I was in business school and then Wall Street. It took 35 years for me to return to where I began. A small interruption in the grand scheme of things, but it feels good to be back.

After high school and after college, when you are in the “real” world working in a cubicle, or writing plays, or pounding the pavement in sales, or in grad school, or counting rhinos in the bush, or working on Wall Street, or starting your own business, or lobbying on Capitol Hill or whatever you find yourself doing you will discover that not everyone you meet has learned the values that you were taught and that you caught at Sandy Spring Friends School. I am referring to respect, acceptance, transparency, integrity and fair play. Let’s refer to all this as “Character” and recognize that among the things that happen at SSFS is that students develop a commitment to Character. In business, in your professional career, a commitment to Character is rocket fuel.

We need more entrepreneurs. My experience with entrepreneurs is that they have the ability to gain a little altitude and see the world more clearly from a vantage point that is not overly influenced by what everyone else thinks. To be an entrepreneur means that you are entirely comfortable acting as if the future will not be the same as the past. Entrepreneurs don’t look at opportunities like they are snap shots where everything is frozen in time. Entrepreneurs watch film where you can look at historical patterns, discern hints and project trajectories in order to make educated guesses about what is going to happen next.

I have been thinking about math.

A few weeks ago, the New Yorker published it's end-of-year edition entitled "World Changers." The magazine profiled a series of mostly ordinary people including a nurse, a college professor, and a peace corp volunteer. Folks that could live next door. The reason they are each, in their own way, making the world better is because they each, in their own way, are absolutely indomitable, stubborn, passionate and purposeful. I was also going to say fearless but that wouldn't be entirely true. None of these qualities can be measured by standardized tests. In their pursuits - to stop epidemics before they spread, cure a deadly childhood disease, and re-embolden the Peace Corps, respectively - they each took risks, made people mad, broke down in tears, did stuff they regretted, and never, ever quit. Changing the world is a reach but not unreachable. It starts with a Spark and a Flame and a Torch. It can ignite on the pitch, while celebrating science, becoming culturally proficient, with your PK buddy held high, representing a side of the debate you don't even believe in, watching the Grinch who doesn't steal Christmas, realizing that you really can do anything you set your mind and your heart to. Right here, not even next door, the journey begins.