Head of School Jay Rainey Addresses the Class of 2029

As the Class of 2029 enjoyed their Eighth Grade Celebration, Head of School Jay Rainey offered his thoughts about relationships, which are so important to our MICDS community.

Good evening, everyone, and congratulations to the MICDS Class of 2029. One more day until you are officially Upper Schoolers!

Parents, you may or may not realize it, but many of today’s students, when they are writing their essays, research papers, and so forth, have begun to refer to the decades that we call the 1980s and ’90s as “the late 20th century.” For example, they might say, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Seinfeld were popular sitcoms back in the late 20th century.” Such ageism! My understanding is that our faculty are doing the best they can to teach these young people to respect their elders; but alas, time marches on.

In anticipation of my moment with you at this wonderful celebration, it so happens that—between AARP podcasts, of course, and episodes of the Matlock reboot—I have been reflecting on two popular songs from the so-called late 20th century. Both of them address the complexity of human relationships as well as the metaphorical walls that gradually intrude themselves between friends, family members, and loved ones through situations of conflict or otherwise difficult lived experiences.

The lyrics of the first of these musical artifacts, Don’t Dream It’s Over by Crowded House, while they do not include a single instance of the word “cloud,” are nevertheless largely about clouds, which are both dreaded and envied by their overwhelmed singer with his broken-down car with “a hole in the roof” and the “tales of war and of waste” in the morning paper. Managing such occasional downpours of stress and misfortune in our lives is likened in the song to trying “to catch the deluge in a paper cup”; and the same clouds that darken our horizons are themselves threatened by nothing, and are free, unlike us, to float along as they please and rain down their pent-up burdens when they become too heavy to bear. “Only shadows,” complains the song—only clouds in the sky—“get to know the feeling of liberation and release.”

And yet Don’t Dream It’s Over is also about the eternal hope one discovers in friendship and love, notwithstanding the cloudbursts in our lives. “There’s a battle ahead / Many battles are lost,” it sings, “But you’ll never see the end of the road while you’re traveling with me”; and again, in its insistent chorus, “Don’t dream it’s over / When the world comes in. / They come, they come / To build a wall between us…. / Don’t let them win.”

Another late-20th-century pop-music artifact concerned with the walls in our relationships is called, well, Walls by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Its lyrics, too, respect how bonds between friends, family, and loved ones can fray “when the world comes in”; it, too, is sung by one person to the other in a relationship under strain; and it, too, finds hope in friendship and love. “Some days are diamonds, / Some days are rocks,” it sings. “Some doors are open, / Some roads are blocked…. / But you’ve got a heart so big / It could crush this town, / And I can’t hold out forever. / Even walls fall down.”

Our school—your school, Class of 2029—is a happy school, with a strong, supportive community; but your time of life is a famously challenging one. I first met 31 of you back when I arrived here in 2019—you know, in the early 21st century—when you were in third grade. You were doing a whole lot more hugging that year as I recall; and I’m sure the other 103 of you were doing a whole lot more hugging at your former schools, too. It’s impossible to hug through a wall. When you think about your relationships with each other now, where do walls intrude where not long ago there weren’t walls, and what are you going to do about them? What are you going to do to make your own “heart so big / It could crush this town”? Your old friend or loved one on the other side can’t hold out forever. Even walls fall down.

I know you are good to each other. Be great to each other. Our troubled world needs all of the kindness it can get, all of the friendship and compassion you can give. The clouds, and the shadows they cast and the downpours they rain, we cannot remove from our lives; but the walls of our own making we can—and you’ll never see the end of the road while you’re traveling together. My best wishes to you all as you begin your Upper School journey.