Browning's Mission in an Uncertain World
Browning exists to foster the growth of courageous and compassionate men of intellect and integrity who aspire to contribute meaningfully to our world. I love our mission; I love that it calls us to speak to the fullness of our boys, and rouses them to use their talents for the good of things beyond themselves. But as I’ve often written, I'm not fully certain what it will mean, precisely, for Browning graduates to deliver on our promise in the years to come, in an environment that continues to spin and to jump chaotically, to ebb and to surge with variability. We surely have our best guesses, yet we don’t yet know what exactly “our world” will need from our young men. As baseball’s great philosopher Yogi Berra once mused, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
In my writing, I feel as though I often fret about that future—about the political, technological, economic, epidemiological, and ecological environment that our boys will enter. That fretting, however, is never a match for the senses of hope and possibility that are inextricably bound up with working in education more generally, and especially with working at Browning. We don’t know the future, but we do know the boys of our present, and the past three weeks have profoundly affirmed my belief in our students and their worthiness in all walks of life. Since mid-May, I have seen:
The Class of ’23 make their way to our kitchen, unprompted, to thank the dining hall staff for all that they do for Browning.
A Lower School boy offer to help our facilities team to set up chairs for an assembly.
Grade 12 students present their independent learning in Data Science, Engineering, Fine Arts, and Humanities, as our first graduating cohort in the Certificates of Distinction program.
Middle Schoolers reveal their capacity for synthesizing ideas and questions across academic disciplines with their production of the annual STEAM Expo.
Lower School boys hold a math bonanza, throw publishing parties, and sponsor an invention convention, all to showcase their skill and independence via formal “celebrations of learning.”
A social impact practitioner with whom Browning partners describe our Upper School students as “exceptionally large” in their store of empathy and kindness.
The point is not to produce a comprehensive catalog of all our boys’ recent accomplishments and accolades; to be sure, a quick snapshot cannot capture all the excellence that Browning students have expressed in recent days. Still, this brief glimpse can frame our reasons for optimism as we set Browning’s story against the unrevealed challenges over the horizon. As our year draws to a close, we see our students expressing the best of our values and aspirations—as independent thinkers, as helpful collaborators, as engaged with the world around them, and as attuned to the hopes and needs of others. And if these are the qualities with which our boys will address and shape an unknown future, how can we help but be hopeful about the days to come? How can we help but believe in the wonder of our students, the skill of our teachers, and the vitality of our mission?
“We don’t know the future, but we do know the boys of our present, and the past three weeks have profoundly affirmed my belief in our students and their worthiness in all walks of life.”
Next Tuesday, Browning will graduate 32 exceptionally purposeful, caring, talented young men, a class which has learned and led with wisdom, courage, and compassion. They have been special to all of us on 62nd Street, and it will be difficult to see them go. It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future, but I have every confidence that the Class of 2023 will indeed contribute meaningfully to our world, no matter what that world demands. And, given what I’ve been shown, I expect that the boys who follow them will offer precisely the same thing.
I look forward to watching all of it with you, as it unfolds. Until we start again, I wish you health, happiness, and time—I wish you a wonderful summer.