Community Standards

One community that I still consider myself a part of is that of Sidwell Friends School, where I went to high school. Sidwell is a Quaker school located in NW Washington, DC (with a lower school in Bethesda, MD). I only went there for four years, and despite the fact that I initially was unhappy about going there, during that time I found myself developing a strong affinity for the community that exists there. I guess one reason that I still see myself as a part of that community is because the school tries to keep its alumni involved in events long after they graduate. I have already been back to Homecoming at Sidwell three times since I graduated, usually with a friend from my graduating class, and mostly in order to see teachers and classmates that I normally wouldn't see.

The values that are important within the Sidwell community are essentially Quaker values. At Sidwell, each and every person is accepted and encouraged to embrace their uniqueness. Kindness and respect towards others are highly valued. These values are upheld, not only by the school administration, faculty, and staff, but also by the students as well as alumni. Meeting for Worship is a time that Quakers come together once a week to sit together in silence and contemplate whatever it is might be on their minds. Meeting is a time when anyone can stand and speak to the group, or maybe even pose a query, without fear of being judged. While I was still a student at Sidwell, I never noticed the fact that it is its own little bubble removed from the outside world. After graduating, I realized that everything in my life revolved around Sidwell while I was there. I would wake up at 6 am every morning in order to take the Metro and bus to school, after school I always had sports, and on the weekends I would have practice and get together with friends from school.

As a community, I think we were strengthened even more at the beginning of my senior year in high school when a classmate and friend of mine, Tyler Rusch, was killed in a car accident on his way home two nights before the school year started. On that Sunday before Opening Day, my classmates and I had been planning on coming to school and decorating as most senior classes did before the new year started. Instead, as word spread around about the terrible tragedy that had happened, we all just showed up at school anyway, not to decorate, but to gather together in an impromptu Meeting for Worship with parents and students alike. We had gathered out of sorrow and a need to address what had happened; not knowing what else to do we just gravitated towards Sidwell, the community that we all shared. This was probably the day that I knew I would never really stop being a part of the Sidwell community, because if this feeling of togetherness we all felt, even during something we all wished hadn't happened. I guess it sounds a bit weird that something like the untimely death of one of my friends and classmates is what brought the Sidwell Class of 2004 together for life, but it's true. Whenever everyone is home, we all get together and it almost seems as if no time has gone by. We all have a bond between ourselves and our school that can never be broken.