We had the first indoor dance in three years on Saturday: dorm storm. Every year, dorms get together and come up with a theme for the year’s opening dance. My dorm, Ishizuka (who is new to campus this year), dressed up as construction workers. We all wore neon vests, which looked cool glowing in the dark and made it very easy to spot each other across the stuffed room.
My teachers, subjects, and people in my classes this year have been awesome so far. At Groton, I’ve always had the luck to be part of classes with groups of students with such diverse opinions and little shame to express them wholeheartedly. I don’t think I’m the only student to think that there is a much larger space open for debate in classes at this school than in our previous schools. Many things we learn, especially in history and English classes, are indefinite and all my teachers have made that very clear–we’re not here solely to learn facts, rather themes and opinions and strengthen our ability to express them. That’s a life skill I’ve grown to love practicing–being able to explain your opinions eloquently and mindfully and receive other people’s with grace. The satisfaction of receiving and conversing freely is so liberating and enriching.
Many of my teachers, especially of humanities subjects, started the year outlining the importance of expressing ourselves and our opinions respectfully and proudly. I’m taking a history elective titled “Monuments, Reparation, and the Politics of the Past” which, among other things, encounters the theme of how to teach history in educational spaces. Years ago, in say the second grade, I never would’ve thought that I’d be proposing alternative ways of approaching lessons and ways to teach history to/around my history teacher.
After school, I’m doing a mix of two afternoon activities–a sculling FSA and dance. FSAs (Faculty Sponsored Activities) allow students to have more liberty in what they do after school. People have done horseback riding FSAs, music FSAs, and the sculling FSA is a recurrent one. During the spring term we have sweeping (one oar) teams, but fall term is the only time we can try sculling (two oars).
I did a week-long sculling camp this summer in London, on the Thames, and now coming back to boats on the Nash with Groton friends is beyond great. Our boats also feel much more stable than those I used during the summer (which were also quite scratched on the bottom since we walked them out through a sloped rock dock), and the river–barely 20 meters wide and only frequented by us at the moment and in this stretch–is way less chaotic.
Since we only meet three times a week on the water, though, I can dance on the other days. Before coming to Groton, I only ever did ballet (for seven years). I stopped two years before coming, and was happy to restart last year during fall term. Here, though, we don’t stick to only ballet. We do have a ballet teacher, but we do contemporary/modern on other days, we are working on a Ukrainian character folk dance for Parents Weekend, and we will have guest dance teachers with various backgrounds come throughout the year. It’s weird (after years of only dancing ballet) but also very interesting and fun to be exploring so many styles and ways to move in this big umbrella of “dance.”
It feels so refreshing to be back on campus, on my friend’s mom’s New Mexico afghan, chatting about life and doing some work on a sunny Sunday afternoon.