During May in the 1970s, high school students at Parker would spend their days on “passion projects” facilitated in Evanston. According to Upper School History Teacher Jeanne Barr, this program for seniors took place in the second semester and was “internship-based.” It was somewhere between an internship and a seminar. Each Tuesday, the students would report to school to check-in with teachers, while some teachers would go off campus to check in with students.

Neither Barr nor I have an idea of why this program stopped, especially when the notion of such a program so firmly adheres to the values of this school. Since its founding, Parker has educated students with an ethos centered around awareness and responsiveness to the fundamental needs of society. If we wish to stay true to that, it is imperative to try something new and immersive for the senior experience once again.

Of course, I presume there were some faculty who liked the previous program in the 1970s and some who did not. Not to mention the blue calendar is riddled with holidays, writing days, workshops, and the like, and adding another complication would only make it more difficult for the school to meet state-imposed requirements for the number of days of school, as pointed out by senior Andy Wessman in Plenary a month ago.

Nevertheless, Senior Month is an initiative for which we must all be on board in the coming months, regardless of potential hurdles. Sifting through the details and regulations will be a pain, yes, but it is just another part of the process. Not only am I motivated to implement Senior Month as a responsibility of my office, but the program is also personal.

With nearly two months of senior year under my belt, early college applications are on their way, and I now play the waiting game, agonizing excessively with the feeling that I am watching my future hanging in the balance. In no time, decisions will be out, and shortly thereafter will come the regular decision round of this process. Yet murmurings of the word “senioritis” are already reaching my ears, in the hallways, in class, and at my rowing club’s boathouse. However, senioritis is not at all exclusive to senior year. I remember several times throughout middle school during which I felt the same way—which was only exacerbated by the fact that I had such a dynamic lower school experience.

My fifth-grade teacher Mr. Stone helped me immensely in fostering my passion for astronomy. Up until his class, I had been taught in a series of subjects and units—English, math, history. It is a travesty that there are so many classes over a student’s journey, and rarely we are presented with connections between them to find the meaning of it all.

Mr. Stone aided me in seeing that interconnectivity. I got to learn fractions and decimals by following White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko, calculating his batting average and converting them to fractions and later learned percentages by following the stock market. Then, instead of learning how to write, we first learned the practical uses of writing, developing new perspective on refining and communicating ideas before we even started writing book reports, going to the lily pond to write poetry, and watching Shark Tank for inspiration for class presentations. Suddenly, astronomy—or anything, for that matter—was more than a subject, but a fascinating, limitless way of life, and I found myself waking up eager to go to school, rather than obligated.

These connections contextualize the information we take in as students and give it palpable, rather than abstract, importance. For example, if I never studied trigonometry, I could not conceptualize how a violin string makes sinusoidal vibrations in the air for specific notes. If I had never seen a violin, I would not have a reason to care about resonant frequencies in a physics class. 

As I transitioned into middle school, my experience turned to the opposite of this: grades were the priority and the subject matter was more rigid. Most of the time, I found myself taking tests, writing papers, and doing anything else to crank out grades. This kind of experience felt purposeless and left much to be desired. Often, I liken myself at this point in life to Sisyphus from Greek mythology. A crafty and deceitful king, he was condemned to roll a massive boulder up a hill, only for it to go back down to the bottom and start the process again for eternity. I lacked the purpose, the ability to focus my talents, that I formerly had. Reasonably, I fear that I, alongside my classmates, could sink into a deep state of severe meaninglessness and hopelessness again once second semester comes.

Senior Month is not going to solve all of the issues of meaning and being. Even after thousands of years of intellectual discovery, we haven’t quite nailed that down. However, we can make the second semester of senior year a bit more dynamic.

So, in the near future, the student body will have access to a formalized proposal of what we call in Cabinet “Senior Month,” a program similar to the aforementioned one in which students pursue an internship or some form of off-campus enrichment. It will be an education experience “in sync with the world,” to quote the Parker website. The end result of Senior Month will be an abundance of lasting impressions on Chicago’s youth that inspire a lifetime of service and proper citizenship. Indeed, youth of this kind are an invaluable resource to society.

What’s more, there is an upcoming faculty meeting where I intend to discuss the overall senior experience with teachers and administrators. From the looks of it, they seem quite open to new, holistic ideas like Senior Month. If all goes to plan, we will take the first step toward the implementation of this program—or something that resembles it.

Upper School Head Justin Brandon was the one who brought up the idea of Senior Month in the first place when I was in a Senate-recap meeting last school year. Apparently, there was a similar program at Moorestown Friends School in New Jersey, where he served as Upper School Director before coming here in 2017.

Presently, I am working with senior Jared Saef to get in contact with some of the students in New Jersey so that we can get a better idea of how they navigated the logistics of such a program. Hopefully, I can update you on the progress of that endeavor next time.

Until then, I will leave you with this: It is inevitable in the hustle and bustle of life during high school, college, or any point that you and I will occasionally face the existential dread of losing sight of the greater meaning in life, just like those periods of middle school or the present moment. Let’s take some time during the second semester of senior year to make sure the students here leave with a positive affirmation of what this school’s ideals really are, as well as the very meaning of education. For what is the term “senioritis,” anyway, if not a universal, pointless, hysterical attack against the meaning of education itself?

We need to see education in context, and that is the call-to-action that Senior Month answers. It is projected that people in our generation will have 10-12 different careers throughout the course of life. A hot term that I hear for these types of people is “T people.” These are the people who integrate their primary profession with multiple other subjects for more versatility and teamwork, people who will dominate the evolving job economy. If creative students are capable of demonstrating critical thinking and applying their skills to the real world through collaborative internships and community service, they already have an immense head start on their eventual careers, setting them up for success in the long run.