Interim Head of School Sarah Pelmas shared the following letter with the Beaver community on January 12, 2026
Dear Beaver Community,
I love vacations and, to be fair, I think I am pretty good at them. I do a lot of wooden jigsaw puzzles, there’s always some travel as a family and, this past break, I taught my sons how to play poker. I try not to make New Year’s resolutions—at least not the traditional kind—because that just seems like too much pressure and, as a friend of mine said, “January seems a bit early to experience so much failure.”
But I could not be on vacation for a long time. When I am away from school, I find myself missing many different things, large and small. I miss watching the kids tumble out of cars more or less at 8 a.m. I miss the enthusiastic screaming of friends sharing news, almost always in an echoing stairwell, it seems. I miss seeing the teachers light up as they walk into class, the depths of the students’ thinking, their poise and brilliance when they present their work, and the creative ways they engage with everything they do. And I miss middle school recess.
I am lucky enough to help out with recess once a week, and I love watching the kids play. There is quite a lot of research about play and its importance in the lives of children. Over the past few decades, we have moved away from free play and unsupervised interactions to play dates and children who are accompanied everywhere they go. When I was young, we were kicked out of the house as soon as we got home from school and told not to return until dinner. Such was the nature of things that our parents would all yell from the back doors when it was dinnertime, and maybe you would hear your mom and come running. But maybe not right away. I was often in the woods with friends, playing “house” or “school” or something more fantastical that required role-playing, imagined characters, long plot arcs, and demands for justice and fairness. My childhood relationship with my friend Lynn Webster was fraught; we would often “break up” in a spectacular fight at the bus stop and then make up in the lunch line—a huge relief for me because Lynn had the best sledding hill in the neighborhood, which doubled in the warmer months as a way to escape from the castle and roll down the hill, and you wouldn’t want to be excluded from that.
There are many reasons we are too anxious to allow such play anymore, which is where Beaver’s middle school recess comes in. It is perfectly timed, there is a choice about activities, and there are adults nearby. One of the teachers brings out the large bag of rec balls, and the kids dive for them. In the warmer months, a group of boys has taken to using a soccer ball as a football, in a legit football game with sidelines and pass rushing, and touchdowns. At one point, I was tempted to intervene and ask if they wanted a real football. But then I realized: they have made their own game, with their rules, and they do not seem to see the soccer ball as a problem. Why should I impose my perspective on them? They were playing hard, appreciating the various passing and blocking talents of their classmates, joking with each other over bad passes or missed catches, and operating with fairness and kindness.
Since winter has descended, they have taken this energy to the basketball court, where there is a lively game among about a dozen boys of varying grades and abilities. They do not discriminate based on talent or size. There are a few leaders who always give a chin nod to a good pass or shot by someone. There is one boy gamely playing with only one hand while the other has been bandaged. There is the known ball hog, the reliable outside shooter, and the one who can weave his way to the basket every time. The size differences among them are breathtaking, as often happens in middle school, and yet it’s as if they do not notice. Everyone is equal, everyone gets a chance, and everyone is a teammate. And there is so much laughter, shouting, joking around—they are the embodiment of joy and kindness.
As an aside, I should say that others are playing games as well, with their own approach and rules, including the girls who practice all recess and then perform a dance competition for each other, the trio counting how many times they can pass the volleyball before it touches the ground (feet are fair game), and the ones who sit talking in the corner but occasionally get pulled into a quick game of catch.
These are the students who will be leaders in the future, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. They are figuring out, as they should and as they absolutely must, how to be together with one another, how to design and apply rules, and how to delight in the varying talents and gifts each one brings. They are kind, they are funny, and they are a pure delight. (Do they listen to me when I tell them it’s time to go back to class? Well, maybe.)
Beaver teachers carefully design and implement curricula to ensure that students are developing robust mathematical thinking, clear and expressive writing, confident public speaking, systematic scientific experimentation, and creative artistic output. And there are some things that our young people need to do on their own, with and around each other—things that help them learn who they are, how they operate in a group, and what teamwork really is. People often see middle school as a thing to endure and forget, and perhaps above all, recess seems quite fraught. But at Beaver, it is spectacular, and it gives me hope.
Warmly,
Sarah Pelmas
Interim Head of School