ConVal Grads

One of my colleagues told me last week that she'd met a person who, after reading some of my columns, had decided they were 'whiny.' So today, instead of whining, I'm going to brag.

Over the last few weeks I've seen or heard from several recent ConVal graduates who strike me as mighty fine human beings. I guess it started when I got an e-mail from Adar Cohen, who is currently in his senior year at Wheaton College, where he has designed his own major in conflict resolution. He is applying for a post-graduate fellowship and wanted me to look at his proposal and the personal statement required with it.

Adar graduated from ConVal in 2000 and received the Faculty Award as the senior who, in the opinion of his teachers, best represented our school. That's the kind of honor one normally highlights in any application and, typically, Adar doesn't mention it. All he says about ConVal is that it's where he started Backpacks for Mexico. That was a project in which he asked ConVal students to bring him their used or unwanted backpacks, persuaded local businesses to contribute school supplies to fill them with, and finally took them all to Mexico to distribute to students who had never seen a new pencil in their lives.

Now Adar -- the son of a rug merchant, grandson of Jewish refugees who fled Iran to settle in Israel -- wants to travel to Turkey, India, and Tibet to interview rugmakers who belong to oppressed minorities (or, in Tibet, the majority under foreign occupation) to 'discern how their work...may also represent attempts to weave anthems of the forgotten and flags of the dispossessed.'

I hope he gets the fellowship. But, as I said at the staff meeting when we discussed who should get the 2000 Faculty Award, Adar has already earned a far higher honor -- he gets to be Adar Cohen for the rest of his life.

He's just one of many outstanding young people representing our school. Jess Krakow, ConVal O95, who served in the Peace Corps in Africa after graduating from UNH, e-mailed that she'd played the lead in an independent film and is now working for a reality TV show in New York. Callaway Burke, ConVal '97, came back and made a fine presentation to the faculty on behalf of the United Way. Sgt. Jeremiah Vanderneut, ConVal '00, sent me an Iraqi 250-dinar note with Saddam Hussein's picture on it. He found it while he and his Airborne Ranger buddies were searching Tikrit for the missing dictator. Matt Oldershaw, a member of my 1999 Freshman English Class From Hell, dropped by to tell me he'd served in the Coast Guard and the Job Corps and was headed for Alaska. Matt was never much of a student, and he left school before graduating, but he's grown up to be a strong, responsible and confident young man.

These are just the former students I've heard from recently. Any teacher could name a dozen others.

And it's still going on, this mysterious, miraculous business called education. We learned last week that the National Council of Teachers of English chose two ConVal seniors -- Jill Stockwell and Cecelia Webber -- for commendation in its annual essay competition. Out of all the seniors in New Hampshire the NCTE gives this recognition to only four -- and two of them are from our school.

I don't mean to claim that ConVal is wholly or even mostly responsible for what these young people have done, are doing, and will do. But we can at least share some of their reflected glory -- we teachers, administrators, parents, and every taxpayer in every community that supports our work. In the cost-benefit analysis of public education, let's not forget that side.