Welcome back! The students returned from a seemingly long Spring Break brimming with energy, mostly reserved for time with friends, and have now settled back into their routines and all is running smoothly and productively.

The Kassen family had an invigorating Break. Deciding it was time for our kids to see the nation’s capital, my wife and I packed the car and off we went down I-95 to Washington, DC. We visited museums and memorials, landed on the edge of a major demonstration for immigration rights and had many mealtime conversations about government, history and democracy. Our trip coincided with the health care debate/vote, leading to even more conversations about governance, compromise and representation. At the end of it all, the most important thing we took away with us, more important than any gift shop knick-knack, was the fact that all of the museums and memorials, statues and pictures that we saw, visited and learned about represented real people; that society and leadership require regular women and men to take on significant responsibility and to act for the common good. The words and ideas seen in the National Archives have less meaning when not seen in concert with the actions of the men and women represented by the World War II memorial who had responsibility thrust upon them, for the most part, or, a short walk away, with the life of Honest Abe, who sought out his participation. In both cases, these memorials represent real people who took on life altering responsibilities in order to protect the common good.

From DC we continued on to Williamsburg, VA to visit historic Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg. We had a terrific few days visiting the site of the original Jamestown colony, the recreation of Jamestown fort and the Powhatan Village and Colonial Williamsburg. I found that even though I had visited these sites in years past with LREI’s seventh graders (who make this same pilgrimage to Virginia each fall) there was so much to learn and do. After three days of doing our best to live in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries we felt that we had gained some sense of what life must have been like back then. It became clear, as we discussed the trip on our long drive back north, that the Powhatan, and their new neighbors, were incredibly resourceful and resilient people. Life was hard back then, with few safety nets and many life and death consequences. Survival required a mix of self – reliance and true reliance on your community. (We learned that one way to accomplish all that had to be achieved each day was by giving real work and responsibility to the children in the community, beginning at a very early age. This was not a popular “take-away” for two members of the Kassen clan.) Our conversations did prompt me to think about the skills that LREI should be teaching in order to help your children be resourceful and resilient in the 21st century. Some are similar to those taught and learned in the 17th and 18th centuries, others would have been unimaginable then. This is a conversation that we are having with increasing frequency in all three divisions of the school. I wonder what you find you need to know to be a resourceful, reliable and resilient person today? What will you need to know to be so tomorrow? Please share your thoughts on this.

Responsible, resourceful, reliable and resilient—an important roster of attributes and, while we do a good job of fostering them in our students, always worth reflecting on and discussing.