Congratulations to the class of 2020!
Below you will find the slideshow created by Jacob Fishman ’20 and Dilce Oliveria ’20 as well as the faculty member address from Amy Winston.
Check out the full album on Smugmug!
Amy Winston, Visual Art faculty member delievered the following speech to Beaver’s class of 2020.
“Good Morning Everyone.
Hi 8th Graders-
I’ve been thinking about what to say to you today for a few weeks. I tried to think back to my 8th grade promotion in 1992 but my memory of the event is a little foggy. I do remember disagreeing with my Mom beforehand about what I was going to wear. She was pushing a summery dress with a floral pattern and I was arguing something with a Boston sports team on it and a drawstring…..my Mom won that one.
Although time has passed, I am older, and many parts of my life have changed since then I don’t feel like a completely different person from that 8th grade me. I’m still a quirky kid with frizzy hair, who loves art, sports, and collects Pez dispensers. The difference between you and me is about 25 years of experiences. Your teachers, your parents, and I have survived years of circumstances that have shaped who we are today. You are going to have your own experiences that help shape you. Many of these are going to be memorable, funny, and photo worthy. But some of them are going to be frustrating, ugly, and even sad. These awful and wonderful life experiences are called growing up. In the years to come your responsibilities, your interests, your friends, your living situation, and your opinions are likely going to change but your character will remain. I often feel like a middle schooler with a mortgage.
So in hopes of not sounding hypocritical I am going to impart to you 3 pieces of advice that I try to follow. I don’t always get it right and I remind myself often to get it right the next time. To try and make this easy to grasp I tied it to things you have all heard me say in the art room.
I’m calling this Advice from the Art Room.
#1: Advice from the Art Room
I often have students start a project and then come to me and say “ This is hard, I must be doing it wrong”. Nope…If it’s hard it probably means you’re doing it right.
…darn. I won’t lie, this is a real bummer. Turns out so many things that look so easy are actually so hard but so worth doing, playing an instrument, learning a new language, performing in a play, competing in sports, delivering a promotion speech, just to name a few. These things take practice, patience, and hard work.
In one of my favorite movies (which I hope you have seen….and if you haven’t I demand you watch it this summer) A League of Their Own the star baseball player for the Rockford Peaches named Dottie Hinson quits the team, when asked by her coach the reason she replies “It just got too hard”. Her coach (played by Tom Hanks) replies with one of the best lines, he says “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.”
#2: Advice from the Art Room
If your friend has big mess, help them clean it up.
This may sound simple and something you’ve been hearing since kindergarten but it holds true. Some people are great at asking for help, many are not, so my advice is to not ask if you can help, but to look around, see what needs to get done and jump in. I feel lucky that people around me seem to follow this rule as well when I have the big mess. I promise you will never regret being kind.
#3: Advice from the Art Room
Students sometimes ask me in the midst of a project “Ms. Winston, when can I be done? I try to respond with this is not a race, enjoy the process.
I’m going to tell you a story to help illustrate my point. It takes place in 1980 something and at the time I am a little younger than you. As I tell it I may pause at times to translate the technology…because I am old.
When I was a kid and was home sick from school my mom would usually go to the video store and rent me a movie to watch. (Translation: VHS tapes had movies on them, you played them in a VCR, and a video store was sorta like if Netflix was a place.)
In this particular story the movie brought home to me was called Tiger Town. I looked at the cover and read the back the case. The story was about the Detroit Tigers baseball team, an aging baseball player, and a young fan who believes in him. My mom knew me well, this movie seemed right up my alley.
I got comfortable on the couch and started the movie. About 10 minutes in I start to have some doubts, I went into the kitchen where my mom was on the phone (Translation: the phone was attached to the wall with a long cord…extended translation, my Mom was a real talker and would be tethered to the the kitchen for awhile) This conversation occurs, “Mom, this movie…..” She stops me, covers the receiver of the phone and says, “You just started it, give it a shot”. I return to the family room and resume. Five minutes later I try my mom again, “Ma, this movie may not……”.”Amy!, give it a try!” I give it another try. On my 3rd and final trip to the kitchen I don’t even get a word out, my mom sees me, SNAPS, and whisper/shouts “Enough!!!” (You guys speak Mom right?, that means ‘watch the movie.) so I watch the movie.
A few hours later my Mom is making me some lunch and inquires “How did you end up liking that?” Me, “It was ok, I didn’t love it but it was alright” She asks “I thought you’d like the baseball?” I respond “there wasn’t any baseball” My mom turns around, “Really? What happened with the old baseball player?” I look up from my sandwich “I don’t know…There weren’t even any people in the movie?” “What!???” she says. We eject the movie, the tape slides out. My Mom belly laughed for 5 minutes straight. The title on the tape read National Geographic: The Hidden World of Bengal Tigers.This was the wrong movie, the video store had made a mistake.
Bengal Tigers are the national animal of both India and Bangladesh. They hunt mostly at dusk and dawn, their stripes help them hide in the shadows of tall grasses. Bengal Tigers can consume as much as 88 lbs of meat in one feeding. I can assure you, Bengal Tigers do not play baseball. I’ve been waiting 30 years to use that information.
Over the years I’ve told and heard this switched tiger tape story numerous times, always followed with belly laughs. Something tells me that if I had watched Tiger Town that day I’d have never heard about it again or remembered that sick day. Time has a funny way of showing us what’s important.
This life is not a race, enjoy the ride.
Your teachers and I are very excited for you and proud of you. You’ve demonstrated to us that you know how to work hard, so go work hard. And while you’re busy working hard, take a moment and look around, take a moment to be kind to one another, take a moment to find someone who has made a mess, and help them clean it up.
You have a lot of milestones that are about to start happening, high school, new friends, new classes, driver’s licenses, proms, colleges, (yikes). Sometimes you may feel like you’re waiting for that next big thing to happen already. From one former middle schooler to another, once in awhile this summer take a breath and just enjoy being a kid going into 9th grade; hang out with your friends and do nothing, go swimming, ride a bike, eat a lot of ice cream, get bored, take some chances, watch the wrong movie. That’s the real stuff, the experiences that make you grow as a person, the belly laughs…and possibly the material you’ll need for a speech in the future.
Now go have an amazing summer.”