Inaugural Entry

Friends of Prep,

In his book The Global Achievement Gap, Tony Wagner quotes the renowned educator Anthony Alvarado who said "isolation is the enemy of improvement."
That concept is applicable not only to educators but to just about every human endeavor. It is the wisdom that built and sustains monasteries. It is the wisdom that forms tribes, villages, towns, cities and countries. Is is the tendency of human beings to seek community as a way of surviving. Isolation invites sickness, weakness, fear and misunderstanding. To not interact breeds resentment, anger and even hatred. To build bridges between cultures and societies is one of the best antidotes to what ails our modern world. It is a healing balm to bring people together to share their food, their music, their dances, their stories. To become acquainted with someone from the other side of the world is to realize they are people first, not ideologues.

Saint John's Prep School is a place that provides the bridge between these distant cultures. In one community, we have students from 18 different countries around the world, 7 different states in the USA and many different cities within Minnesota. Every one of those numbers represents diversity in grand ways but also in small ways. One wouldn't typically think that a student from Deerwood and one from Sartell would be all that different. But their stories are quite unique and what they bring to our school is a perspective that we must learn to treasure.

Of course, our enemy, isolation, is not just about being from different parts of the world or state. It's also about faculty, staff and administration. If we see ourselves as "islands of excellence" instead of a "culture of excellence" (a distinction I first learned from Pat Bassett) our quality will suffer. Without connection, interaction, challenge and growth, we will chug along in mediocre ways but never achieve that level of greatness for which we long. It is my hope that the Prep community will continue to believe in and work toward the phrase that sits right under our logo: Your World Awaits. I truly believe it is necessary for us to ramp up our efforts to bring our world closer not only by enrolling international students but also by working collaboratively and igniting the creative spark that comes from parents, alums, regents and friends. 153 years of existence is an amazing accomplishment for our school but that was not achieved by isolated success stories, rather, it was the ability to share the conceptual and actual work that it took to build all this. As the "new generation" of this inheritance, I hope we can continue to strengthen what we have so we can entrust to those who follow us the same quality academic institution.