Page 36 - 2004 Wardlaw Hartridge

% Wardlaw-Hartridge '.// School
Preparing Students to Lead and Succeed
Dear Class of 2004:
I remember you as third graders - my first year at Wardlaw-Hartridge
section class. As you can see, the class has more than doubled in size since 1994 - 1995!
You enjoy a number of significant firsts. You were the first class to be introduced to “Early Language Acquisition.” Do you remember Mr. Temme putting on his fake moustache and beret and traveling to the Oakwood campus to join Mrs. Sheedy and introduce you to French? You were also the first fifth grade to be the Lower School leaders and to “move up” from fifth grade into Middle School. You planted the first “Moving Up” tree and started a tradition. This year the eighth will be planted by the Class of 2011.
Some of the firsts have been fun. Some of you took advantage of a Board member’s offer and “Unleashed the Power Within.” You have had fun being the first “Anywhere Anytime Learning” class with wireless laptops, even as you discovered how easy it was to see the laptops disappear if you left them lying around. Morning Meeting was inundated with “If anyone has my laptop . . . power cord . . . battery pack . . . please return it.” Often that would be followed the next day by the announcement, “I want to thank (fill in the blank) for storing my laptop when I left it out.”
Seriously, however, you helped us develop and refine our Agora program and achieve national recognition as a leader in integrating technology into the curriculum. You helped me do the same with Diplomacy, helping me learn how to use technology to make the game more participatory and more fun. As part o f the Agora program, the faculty added a Senior Speech requirement, and you have been the first class to benefit from that added expectation - even if it was not always “fun.”
While you have been accomplishing these firsts, you have also been coalescing as a class. You are different enough from each other that you haven’t always gotten along, but you have done some important work in accepting those differences over the years and have learned to value and respect each other and the impressive accomplishments and talents in your class.
You have learned that leadership is not always easy and does not come automatically. Yet you have also been a class filled with leaders: I think immediately of student council and the girls’ basketball team and yearbook and chorus. As Mrs. Lentz notes, you are a class of characters, confident and complex, dynamic and playful, bright in mind and spirit, independent and determined, still learning about limits and potential. Because you are also unusually introspective and self-reflective, know each other well and are honest with each other, you have learned from each other and grown.
You are very much individuals, each with your own well developed talent, and we agree that we will all hear about members o f 2004 as you move into positions o f extraordinary responsibility and impact, whether it be in architecture, politics, music, medicine, law, art, scientific research, philosophy, mathematics, international affairs, psychology, technology, or fields not fully understood today. As you leave Wardlaw-Hartridge, you are poised to continue your preparation to make a difference in the world. I hope that you will live up to your promise - and that you will return often to tell us how your journey is progressing.
Sincer~ 3/29/04
f 1295 Inman Avenue ♦ Edison, New Jersey 08820 ^------^ 908.754.1882 ♦ Fax 908.754.4922 ♦ www.whschool.org
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