December 2022

Late one afternoon nearly a decade ago, two second grade children peered around the corner of my office door. “Hello there,” I said, in a vague echo of Ben Kenobi’s iconic greeting from Star Wars. “It’s her birthday,” I heard in a bashful celebration. “Would you like a piece of her cake?”

“Of course! That would be nice.”

On the obscured platter, I noticed significant remnants of cake but no actual pieces. Recognizing their predicament, the children devised a solution. “I’ll just make another one,” I heard in a whisper as small hands molded my piece from the remains, like some lump of dark dried cottage cheese.

“This is for you!” The three of us peered down at a mashup that embodied their blend of fading childhood and emerging adolescence, the parts clinging to each other simultaneously unconcerned about quality and aware of external expectations. 

“Happy Birthday…and thank you for the cake,” I said, with the depleted treat resting on a napkin in my hands. Their response filled me with wonder because in this fleeting moment of their lives it could be said without irony:

“You can eat it later if you want.” 

With the holidays upon us, we may find value in reflecting on the gifts we give and receive. That gift of chocolate cake affirms a sentiment Fred Rogers shared, “The best gifts are often wrapped in the most unspectacular ways. You’ve probably had many fancy wrapped-up gifts—gifts which dazzle the eyes and impress the neighbors; nevertheless, isn’t it the ‘heart-surprise’ that lingers in your memory and serves to nourish you from year to year.” 

I rationalized not eating the cake by cherishing the gesture’s heart-surprise, the essence of which could not be seen. Yes, the reconstructed and germy treat itself was a humble gift. But the gift’s invisible and nourishing marvel transcends time as a reminder of childhood’s fleeting innocence and the wildly curving problem-solving skills that age will flatten.

Given the value of invisible gifts and the ravages of excess sugar, we traded birthday cakes for birthday books several years ago. Just recently Ms. Mahoney, Director of Early Childhood, read Happy Birthday, Moon, at Malcolm H’s request to celebrate his 5th birthday. Malcolm and his friends laughed together as the bear climbed the highest mountain hoping to find a perfect birthday gift for the moon.

Back in November, Ms. Miller, Director of the Lower School, read, The Snail and the Whale, at Adele W’s invitation for her 7th birthday. Adele and her classmates sat at rapt attention to a story affirming that anyone, no matter how small they are, can achieve great things if they put their mind to it.

St. Edmund’s Academy children bring countless gifts to our classrooms, playing fields, and performance stage. Emerging and unrefined, their contributions require encouragement and cultivation. When we do our work well, they will come to know they possess something which no one else has—or ever will have—and their gifts are needed in our world. In the experience of being known, cherished, and challenged, they will find the courage to offer their gifts. 

Yet, presenting humble gifts carries a unique vulnerability. Those with the courage to give will at some level question if it will be valued. Imagine my second graders’ apprehension, their eight-year-old minds bursting with ideas and prone to taking on more than can be managed. Consider the frantic calculations leading to the resourceful—even if unsanitary—decision to give a gift when none remained to be given. Consider the bravery it takes to give.

Offering an unspectacularly wrapped gift requires courage—a word boldly bearing the weight of its Latin origin, cor which means heart. Emerging from one heart and arriving at another, is it any wonder that those humble gifts engender what Mr. Rogers called a heart-surprise?
 

Such courage abounds in Preschool. “Well thank you! What is this?” I asked, my hand extended to accept some pale-sheened fake food. “It’s pancakes! You can eat them.” The child’s plastic pancakes were an invitation for connection, offering sustenance not for the body, but of the heart requiring only that I play the required role in return, “Oh wow,” I exclaimed pretending to chew, “these are so syrupy and delicious.” The child smiled, a heart-surprise surging in both directions. 

While Preschool children freely offer humble gifts, their 8th grade counterparts proceed with greater caution. At times they can seem like strangers to themselves, simultaneously seeking adult connection and fighting for their own identity. Their sometimes-brash certainty belies a deeper insecurity. 

Parents of Upper School students may find a humble gift in this child’s self-reflection shared with a teacher at the first trimester’s end, “My life hasn’t gotten any easier. Turning into a teenager is a lot and that causes a lot more responsibilities in life, such as being a role model, being responsible, and most importantly being a nice person. Life gets harder and harder, which results in you being mad. That should not cause you to be rude to other people.” Self-awareness starts as an inner gift and ripples out humbly to everyone else on our path.

As we prepare to close school for the Winter Break and turn the calendar to 2023, I am thinking about so many humble gifts offered throughout the past several years. The Upper School child reflecting on personal responsibility, along with all of us, has lived through a global pandemic spanning four years. I am grateful to our students for their resilience, families for their compassion, and teachers for their dedication. 

I hope to close 2022 with one final heart-surprise. On a typical day in the pandemic’s exhausted middle months, children entered the school building at St. Edmund’s Academy. They passed through a temperature check and sat silently in masks, communicating with their eyes. They avoided cross-contamination of zones by remaining with their class and they protected themselves through plexiglass partitions and social distancing. Many of their classmates joined remotely, flattened to images on a screen. Teachers, already stretched by the need to prepare two sets of lessons, coordinated conversations across dual platforms.

On that day between classes, a child walked down the Center for Integrated Discovery’s art and music hallway. The child purposely stepped into Ms. Adams’s room, parting momentarily from the group. Without saying a word, the child handed Ms. Adams a piece of paper colored with green marker and in the shape of a heart. This child, having done so many hard things, gave Ms. Adams a green heart with this personally written message: Art is Possible.

I hope your holiday is filled with the wonder of humble gifts. We appreciate the trust you place in St. Edmund’s Academy and eagerly anticipate all the ways your child will grow in the years ahead.