{"id":7685,"date":"2017-06-01T14:23:29","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T19:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/?p=7685"},"modified":"2024-11-15T08:55:06","modified_gmt":"2024-11-15T14:55:06","slug":"heads-message-full-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/2017\/06\/01\/heads-message-full-circle\/","title":{"rendered":"Full Circle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Classby Dr. Bill Hudson, Head of School<\/em><\/p>\n

My grandmother used to say that everything comes full circle, that in one way or another, we end up where we began. As we mark the end of the school year, we celebrate the ways in which the academic careers of our graduating seniors have come full circle.<\/p>\n

This past week was the seniors\u2019 last at MPA. They celebrated in a number of ways, including a fun senior \u201cprank.\u201d (I must share with you that MPA is the only school I know of where the seniors work with the administration in advance to plan their prank.) Upper School teachers served them waffles for breakfast and I treated them to Chipotle for lunch. For me, the lunch comes full circle from last fall when I met with them in groups of 10 over lunch and asked them to share with me their college dreams. Having come full circle, they received offers of admission from 113\u00a0different colleges and universities in 31 states, Washington, D.C., and Canada. Next fall they plan to matriculate to 33 different schools in 14 states.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite traditions that marks the end of the school year occurs at the very end of the last day with our seniors. They gather in the Upper School Commons with their kindergarten buddies to offer words of advice and encouragement. The seniors also help the kindergartners fill out a questionnaire about their hopes and dreams for themselves and the world when they will be graduating.<\/p>\n

One mother emailed me the results of her daughter\u2019s questionnaire. In response to the question, \u201cIf you could invent something that you think would make the world a better place, what would it be?\u201d Her daughter said, \u201cMore MPAs\u201d and \u201cCars made out of candy.\u201d That response was profound, simple, and heartfelt. To think that a five year old would think that the world would be a better place if all children could attend MPA was very touching.<\/p>\n

Jack Gangestad offered this advice to his kindergarten buddy, \u201cSometimes your kindergarten passion is your lifelong passion. Don\u2019t abandon it too soon.\u201d What begins as a dream is refined, over time, to become a lifelong passion. It takes patience and perseverance to see a dream through and close a circle. In Jack\u2019s case, his research about Ohio in the third grade \u201cParade of States\u201d project-based learning came full circle when he was offered admission to Ohio State University.<\/p>\n

In her senior speech given last week to all Middle and Upper School students, one senior shared her unique perspective on her time at MPA. She transferred in to MPA as a junior from a large public high school. In a particularly poignant moment, she reflected on how her world was small even though she attended a very large high school and contrasted that with how her world expanded during her time at MPA even though it is a small school. \u201cI have learned that my world has grown more than I could have imagined and I am surrounded by some of the brightest, most grounded people who care more about who they\u2019re helping than who they\u2019re wearing. Most people make friends in high school, but here we\u2019ve made a family.\u201d<\/p>\n

If we are truly paying attention, there are times in our lives when realize we\u2019ve come full circle.\u00a0 As we look back and reflect upon how much we\u2019ve grown, we gain confidence to take on new challenges. We close the circle and begin anew. I will miss this group of seniors but cannot wait to see what lies ahead for them and how they will change the world by dreaming big and doing right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Dr. Bill Hudson, Head of School My grandmother used to say that everything comes full circle, that in one way or another, we end up where we began. As we mark the end of the school year, we celebrate the ways in which the academic careers of our graduating seniors have come full circle. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":7687,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,26,24,14,9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-school","category-blog","category-featured-posts","category-heads-message","category-lower-school","category-upper-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7685"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9358,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7685\/revisions\/9358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}