I remember watching Easy Rider (two hippie bikers set out to discover "the real America") when it debuted in 1969. Pretty racy stuff back in the day and, not surprisingly, full of action and drama. I had gone to the movies with some friends, and we talked about it on our way out. Bill’s comment was that he liked the scene where Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda pushed their motorcycles (they had broken down) past an old guy who was shoeing a horse. He liked the irony. I think that may have been the first time I had heard the word “irony” used in a way that caused me to light up. I felt like Bill had understood something unspoken about the movie, about art.

Adapted from Tom Gibian’s November 2014 report to Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting

Adapted from an email message from Tom Gibian, sent to all faculty/staff before a called Meeting for Business to continue discussions begun during our Professional Development Day. Marilyn Gilmore and Jen Cort led the diversity training workshops for all SSFS faculty/staff on Oct. 20, 2o14. You can find out more about the diversity training online: http://www.ssfs.org/about/diversity/index.aspx

The following post was adapted from SSFS Head of School Tom Gibian's remarks at the beginning-of-the-year all-school assembly on Sept. 23, 2014:

One of the great pleasures of parenthood is how the things our kids go through remind us of our own early lives, early mistakes and, occasional, early triumphs.

We spend a lot of time thinking about happiness. We prepare, we scheme, we sacrifice so that we can be happy. In America, in 2014, we expect happiness; we can taste it, it is our due.

I remember being in third grade and having to line up and pair off with a classmate to walk down the hallway to some destination beyond our classroom. At Sherwood elementary school, there might have been 29 or 30 nine-year-olds and one teacher. On the day I'm recalling, I was paired off with a kid named Sammy. I was new at Sherwood and someone warned me that Sammy had sweaty palms. As we headed down the hallway, he took my hand. His hand was sweaty, but it didn't matter. We held hands without embarrassment. We were not self-conscious. We were little, at least relative to the world we were living in, and it could not of been more natural to reach out, to partner, to connect. Later, Sam would be one of the first friends of mine to get a muscle car in high school. That is a different story!

Last week on NPR, there was a segment on Brookeville, Maryland, whose claim to fame is that it served as the seat of government for the United States for one day in August 1814. Next August 26 will be the 200th anniversary of Brookeville becoming the “Capital for a day.” You may know the story.

2013 Graduation Remarks