The Head of School commemorates the Class of 2024.

Friends, you have done a remarkable job of leading the School during a difficult time. Even within the privileged confines of Wisconsin Avenue, we have felt acutely the complicated forces that shape our world. Our political differences, our collective inability to find common ground, are plainly displayed on college campuses, across continents, and in the courts. 

Our world has felt especially chaotic and unkind during your high school years, which on a global scale have been fractious and destructive and stressful. And yet, while the world has been turning and burning, something remarkable, something sacred has happened at Sidwell Friends. A kind, caring, and thoughtful group of young people—the Class of 2024—has demonstrated tremendous capacity to learn, grow, and lead.

Our presence here today reminds me that this ceremony consecrates a shared learning and social experience grounded in the love you have for one another and your families. It celebrates a shared ethos based in our School’s long-standing tradition, one that has been strengthened immeasurably by your presence. 

Thank you for what you have given to one another and to Sidwell Friends. We are a better school because you have been here. And we have deep love and respect for each one of you.

In spite of the trials the world has witnessed, you have allowed love and respect to flourish in your midst. You have embraced what one Friends educator describes as the “peculiar nature of a Quaker school,” an institution that seeks always “to educate for goodness.” After the manner of Friends, we have tried to teach you, and you have in turn taught us, to develop and live according to conscience. You live with and share your goodness. And as you leave, your awareness of this peculiarity will likely deepen. 

As you grow in years and experience, as you invariably reflect on your time here, I hope three components of our peculiar nature will remain integral to your conscience and consciousness.

First, regardless of your religious affiliation or lack thereof, never stop believing that there is “that of God in everyone.” This tenet inspires compassion, stymies mistrust, and inoculates against hatred. When you find yourself beginning to draw distinctions about or dismissing another human being or group, challenge yourselves with the advice of William Penn. The founder of the first Quaker school in the United States wrote: “a measure of divine light is in every transgressor, even at the instant of his committing the vilest sin, yet it consents not to it, but stands as a witness against the unrighteous soul.” This advice is perhaps the most difficult Penn offers. I am sometimes challenged to believe it. His words nevertheless invite us to expand radically our thinking about humanity and the possibility of redemption. They lead us to wonder how our world might change if we all demonstrated the depth of grace and forgiveness for which he calls.

Penn points us to a second peculiarity of our ethos, one that you have fully embraced. Learn from and listen deeply to others, especially to those with whom you disagree. You have learned to think critically, creatively, and compassionately. Continue to approach conversations with humility, openness, and empathy, adopting a posture that seeks both to understand and to be understood. Be engaged and attentive listeners who seek to discern truths deeper than words might convey. Use silence to gather your thoughts and reflect upon what you hear, but avoid silencing those with opposing perspectives. Understand that complex moral and political issues often have competing and in some cases irreconcilable truths. Strive to discern nuance, tolerate ambiguity, accept uncertainty, and coexist and collaborate with those who have opposing worldviews. 

Coexistence and collaboration bring us to a third essential component of our ethos: peacemaking. “The peace testimony is a tough demand that we should not automatically accept the categories, definitions and priorities of the world,” wrote London Meeting of Friends in 1993. In both faith and practice, the Meeting understood that making peace is much more challenging than waging war.

Sidwell Friends wants our students to think deeply, even counter-culturally, and to act on their conscience. We want you to do so not in accordance with a narrow political agenda but in service to our common humanity. In this time of intense conflict, Class of 2024, you have helped us build a peaceable village at Sidwell Friends. You have done so because you have cared about each other and the community, and you have treated both, even in the face of disagreement, with respect and forbearance. This behavior has sadly become strange in our society. I ask you to hold on to this strangeness. Doing so will distinguish your spiritual and intellectual lives, for Quakerism shapes not simply your values but the depth and clarity and creativity with which you think. This weirdness will inspire you to build inclusive coalitions, to make new discoveries, to engage conflict authentically and productively. It will enable you, as it did today’s commencement speaker, to search for complex and novel solutions, to open the path to human wholeness and progress and justice. It will give you the tools to share your goodness far and wide.

Embrace this framework. Cultivate it in others. Walk gently and bravely and purposefully over the world.