By Linda Pryor, Executive Director, The Center for Mission & Academics
This year has been an inspiring celebration of 60 years of excellence at Brookfield Academy…a celebration of the wisdom, courage, and perseverance of a few families that wanted something more for their children and took action. We have all enjoyed the fruits of their efforts. Our school has grown and impacted many, many families. We are grateful to all the people that have been a part of our school community.
This year we created several
podcasts talking with different teachers and leaders at BA, hearing their perspectives and personal experiences as they shared what makes Brookfield Academy excellent. These conversations were varied and affirming.
But as the year is coming to an end, I have reflected often on what has kept our school firmly grounded in practices and programs that create excellence for our students. Every time I find myself returning to our Five Stars: Truth, Character, Intellect, Individuality, and Heritage.
While the decades have gone by, times have changed. Society has emphasized new concerns, new areas for growth, new technologies, new challenges. Yet, we have found our answers at each new moment by relying on those Five Stars that our founders provided back in 1962.
Truth - This Star reminds us - assures us - that not everything is relative. There are absolutes and we treasure them. At Brookfield Academy, we will always seek what is good, true, and beautiful in the world. We will strive to teach our scholars to take this search to heart in their own lives. We do not try to force truth on them but to guide them and encourage them to study their world, evaluate, reflect, research, and stretch - always seeking the truth. As faculty and administrators, we work to model this same approach. Our school was founded on enduring principles such as a theistic view of life, a Judeo-Christian ethic, personal responsibility, and the fruits of an education. Perhaps the greatest truth lived out each day is the power of love - love of freedom, love of learning, and most importantly, love for our students.