An Inclusive Welcome for Groton Faculty

Headmaster Temba Maqubela welcomed back Groton’s faculty with an inspiring talk that not only shared his usual message of inclusion, but also told stories of several students who, once skeptical, bought into the importance of inclusion and are carrying the ethos with them to college.
 
Speaking during the opening faculty chapel service—an annual tradition held several days before students arrive—Mr. Maqubela greeted returning teachers with tough questions. “How can we know if we are developing in our students or modeling for them empathy and inclusion? How can we ensure that, as a collective, we are developing responsible and versatile current and future participants in the local, glocal, and global communities that they will inherit?” he asked. “What are we doing to prepare them for the world beyond Groton?”
 
He had some answers. First, the headmaster related stories from two faculty members who had led Groton Global Education Opportunities (GEOs) this summer to very different parts of Africa, to South Africa and Tanzania. Both faculty members reported how proud they were of Groton students’ attitudes toward their hosts. These faculty leaders—and the students they led by example—“are aware that inclusion starts with humility and listening to other perspectives rather than the typical ‘I-know-what-is good-for you’ approach,” Mr. Maqubela said. “I am grateful to the GEO leaders for their emphasis on serving and engaging respectfully with others rather than ‘saving them.’”
 
The headmaster also used the opening chapel service to remind faculty that students buy into the school’s emphasis on inclusion at different times—and that adults have little control over each student's timeline. He shared stories of several members of the Form of 2016 who once rolled their eyes at talk of the “I-word” but later admitted, in some cases with great emotion, that they indeed “got it”—they understood the importance of inclusion.
 
“Students are, as we are, constantly evaluating and re-evaluating ideas,” Mr. Maqubela told the faculty. “Their world views are not fixed or static; rather their imaginations can be ductile and stretch to places that even we never imagined. This is the vitality that makes working with teenagers so affirming.”
 
Groton students’ world view, he went on, “is transformed by the spaces they occupy, the time they spend with us and their peers, and the embrace they feel in their formative years—the Groton embrace. Our role is not trivial in that transformation.”
 
Before sending teachers off to their opening meetings, to arrange their classrooms and open their dormitories, Mr. Maqubela recognized the adults who are influencing these impressive and thoughtful Groton students. “I stand here to thank you, dear colleagues, for the important role you play in transforming the malleable minds of our learners, thus transforming some of them into empathetic and inclusive beings.”
 
He quoted educators Nancy Faust Sizer and Theodore Sizer, who warned that “the students are watching.” In this case, said Mr. Maqubela, they are watching how impatient Groton is for inclusion. “If as educators, we are not impatient for inclusion,” he added, “where is our relevance in our profession or in society?”
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