Commentary

Our Andover Footprints

Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) Day has got me thinking. Monday’s All-School Meeting speaker, Brian Gittens ’89, spoke about his experience protesting for a wider celebration of MLK Day at Andover one fateful January day. Gittens was a Senior in his 11th term of Andover, just like me. He changed both his life and a piece of Andover by courageously taking a stand. In one speech, Gittens clarified so much for me about Andover, myself and what this school has taught me.

In his speech, Gittens encouraged authentic leadership. He promised us a time would come when adversity would test our values and speculated that our moral compasses would guide us to make the right choices. But I don’t think we need to wait — I think such challenges are right here at Andover. After all, speaking on the process that led him towards his protest, Gittens said, “While the decision to act in January 1989 was made in a few days, it had been shaped over the course of a lifetime.”

By challenging ourselves here, we are emboldened to make the right choices, create change and tackle our next big adventures. We need to optimize our time at Andover by cultivating our beliefs and taking risks. While we may not come out of Andover having made or ready to make an impact on the same scale as Gittens’s, we should not discredit our potential.

It is particularly important that we challenge ourselves because rarely will we simply happen upon a challenge that forces us to take a stand and learn about ourselves. We must seek out these opportunities for growth. We must try new things, confront the difficult and risk failure. Just like any other skill, developing good character demands practice.

Inspired by Gittens’s story and the huge mark he left on Andover, I wondered about the footprints I would leave here. I reflected on my own years at Andover: first living in Double Brick House and then moving to Paul Revere Hall, earnestly trying to discover my niche at a place so big and so exciting. One of the truths on which I have more recently settled is that it takes a very long time to find your footing at Andover, to learn its culture and, as Gittens said, to develop “a self that you could take anywhere.” But I worry that, by the time I find that self, it will be too late and I will have already moved on.

What we need to do, to ensure this doesn’t happen, is truly take advantage of Andover. Whether it is through an Independent Project, a Community and Multicultural Development Scholarship or a Brace Center Fellowship, dream large and then take action. Be a presence; be brave. Practice facing up to challenges and turn that preparation from habit to instinct. Shape your life to be conscientious and intentional, and never stop taking stands.

_Tessa Peterson is a four-year Senior from Nederland, CO._