from thE hEad of school

Live from the Garage

By EDwaRD V. PaRSonS P’17

Over the past several years, a new phenomenon known as the coffeehouse has taken hold of the Rivers community. It started as a senior project a few years back, when three members of the Class of 2017 revived an earlier coffeehouse incarnation. What began as a one-off launched a tradition that has become a beloved component of Rivers life.

This winter, we saw yet another exceptional set of coffeehouse performances, live from the parking garage on the lower level of The Rev. COVIDera restrictions kept us from crowding into a tightly packed (and newly renovated) Black Box Theater to enjoy the show; instead, the February performance had audience members sitting in the exceptionally well-ventilated confines of the garage. I watched the livestream from home, as I never miss the tour de force that is the coffeehouse. And, as I marveled at what I was watching, it hit me that the evening is one more extraordinary example of Excellence with Humanity at work.

The performances cover a range of genres, from rock to spoken-word poetry to classical ensembles to folk to show tunes; there are solos, duets, full bands, and family acts. Students, faculty, and staff perform, many for the first time in a public venue.

The program is not perfect. Logistical and technical snafus sometimes pepper the student-run and studentorganized evening. Many performers are appearing in front of an audience for the first time; missed lines, missed notes, and restarts are commonplace. No matter. The Black Box (or parking garage) erupts at the close of every performance in a cacophony of enthusiastic appreciation.

To be sure, the excellence we are known for at Rivers—particularly our musical excellence—is on full, jawdropping display, along with the talents of less-polished performers. But all are welcome. All are inspiring. And in this way, the program is perfect.

The philosophical underpinnings of Rivers appear in microcosm at the coffeehouse. That philosophy, which we sum up in the phrase Excellence with Humanity, puts students at the center of our work and encourages appropriately supported risk-taking by our students as they develop their skills and confidence. We start our work with relationship-building between students and faculty for a reason— because we know that children who feel safe and supported will take more risks, and taking risks is how we grow as human beings. Our students know they can step outside the proverbial comfort zone to test a hypothesis or ask a difficult (or mundane) question. They see that engagement is the key to learning, and they engage through their forays into uncharted territory, knowing they can trust the community around them to hear and encourage them.

Every coffeehouse brings its memorable moments. In this latest, I watched a young woman perform for the first time in a coffeehouse setting, solo, playing guitar and singing. She started out fine, clearly nervous, but stopped as she played a wrong chord. With the crowd’s encouragement, she started over. She was moving through the song well, but the guitar continued to prove a challenge. So she stopped, put the guitar on the floor, and finished the song, beautifully. It was an amazing moment of risk that she embraced, faced down, resolved, and moved through. As she exited the stage to applause, the mask she re-donned could not hide the smile beneath it.

Education, done right, doesn’t move in a perfect or flawless progression. Students need to be empowered, to own the problem-solving as they traverse the continuum of their learning. Adults are patient, supportive guides and facilitators, cheering with the crowd when excellence, for now, means putting the guitar down and finishing the song on one’s own.

I have so many reasons to be thankful in my role as head of The Rivers School, among them living and working in an environment that nurtures talent and passion for the arts, where children cheer their peers when they see a risk taken, and where excellence lives and is shared in all its forms. Excellence with Humanity isn’t just what we say. As the coffeehouse beautifully demonstrates, it’s what we do, what we believe, and who we are.