Climbing Beyond the Tree

In August, 2022 part of the faculty orientation for the new school year was for each member to give a presentation on a feature or character of the Academy that they find particularly unique or that they would consider their favorite part of our school. The following is an excerpt of the presentation given by Asst. Headmaster, Sean Fitzpatrick.

In thinking about my favorite part of our school, I am brought back by memories to my own days as a student at this school.

Striding shirtless and filthy through the bottom of the haunted barn, wearing a leather Italian mask of a sun god, holding two flaming torches, with Verdi’s “Dies Irae” screaming from the rusty rafters. That moment taught me something about what it meant to exult in something wild, and human, and divine.

Singing “Annie Laurie” with 59 guys and feeling my heart fill my chest and wondering why my eyes smarted. That moment taught me something about the unfulfillable longing of the human condition.

Seeing a teacher pause after reading the description of a violent and victorious death, grin, and growl, “Isn’t that great?” That moment taught me something about education.

Drinking black coffee in a candlelit stairwell through merry and engrossing dialogues and having absolutely no sense nor care for time. That moment taught me something about friendship.

Though some water has passed under the bridge, I believe that my favorite things about this school are connected with my strongest memories of it when I was a boy, and they are things that are hard to put your finger on. It is difficult to see clearly the integral parts that make up the overall whole and experience of our school. And when I do get into the component parts, it is often a curious exercise because the whole of this school is more than the sum of its parts.

While it’s more comfortable accepting the presence of mystery in mysterious things like human beings and liturgical rites and those things that clearly participate in a spiritual dimension, we should also stay in touch with the very real mystery of our school. And like all mysterious things, it really does possess a spiritual character. There are various aspects of our school—maybe various mysteries of our school—which various members of our faculty prize and see as essential or delightful or fulfilling.

I hope that, in doing our duties year in and year out, we will gradually become more sensitive to elements that haven’t struck us in the same way before. We should become as aware as we can of these and all the jugglery at play here, because it is only in coming to appreciate more of our school that we will come to a better understanding of it all together, and from there unite in a better preservation and cultivation of it.

So, when I spent time thinking about what my favorite part of the school was, it was difficult to decide. But this is what I hit on—and I think it is something that encompasses the essential, delightful, and fulfilling. My favorite part of this school are moments at this school—moments that make me honored and humbled to be a part of all this—and they are those times when students and teachers reach an unexpected height, even for a single instance or instant, accomplishing something that is clearly part of what we are here to do, something no one necessarily saw coming, or that would possibly never have been possible if that person had not been here.

These are memorable moments, shaping moments, inspiring moments—and they are hard to describe or define, which is precisely why they are so important and vital. They are moments when students and teachers enter a kind of transcendence, whether they know it or not, rising above who they are or what they ever thought they could achieve, and begin to interact or respond to something larger than they are with sudden recognition, appreciation, wonder, and gratitude.

“Transcendence” may be a lofty word to use, but I think it is the right word. Let me break it down for you: trans, meaning beyond, and scandare, meaning to climb. So, to transcend is to get to the top of the tree and then keep going. Our boys climb beyond the tree all the time, and sometimes not in a good way, but the transcendent moments I am talking about are moments of high action or elevated experience or uplifting understanding. And it is these moments that are the most touched and caused by the transcendentals—the good, the true, and the beautiful.

We all have seen these times a thousand times: when a cynical kid breaks through his shell and recites a poem beautifully because he sees that it is beautiful; when a quiet kid overcomes his shyness and responds to natural talent and present occasion and leads on the rugby pitch with blood on his face and mud on his knees; when a kid who has trouble fitting in in the dorms sings for the whole school in the chapel and brings a new sublimity to the most important act we do here; when a kid lends a hand to another to do a good turn when he thinks no one notices; when a kid who arrived with a surly attitude because he didn’t want to be here sings with his class six months later with the most energy and conviction; when a kid makes everyone in a classroom swivel in their seats to hear what he is saying because it is true.

None of these things are easy for a boy to attain and it requires an act of self-denial and self-sacrifice to share with others the privacies of the mind and the privations of the body, which are things this school seeks to teach. And when students can be brought to, and into, those moments when they leap out of themselves, there are few things that they would exchange for them, and it is those moments that make me most aware of the goodness, truth, and beauty that I am a part of, and a part of in imparting them.

The other side of these times of transcendence is that when I see the boys rise above themselves or circumstances to go beyond the occasion, that is the rising moment for me, as a teacher—when I see how I, or a colleague or colleagues of mine, have accomplished something that has potentially changed a life forever. In other words, the student’s transcendence is the teacher’s, and this has always made the connection we all hold to our students palpable and terrible. With that leap, whether on the part of student or teacher, comes the self-knowledge and satisfaction which is central to a real education.

We—teachers teaching at an institution that is always taking on huge challenges, and students engaging things they never thought to engage before—together, as a community, we sense the power and precariousness of commitment, but we give ourselves over to the experience, and in so doing seek to perfect our skill and strength through deeper encounters and higher revelations. And those revelations are when I pause and thank God for being here. For me, they are the greatest manifestation of the good that we do and why we do it.