Prior to his departure from LFA, Dr. John Strudwick selected the Head of School Symposium topic for this 2019-2020 school year. The subject of Inequality and Global Poverty is greatly prevalent to the issues of class and status, education, healthcare, and opportunity (to name a few) that impact the communities surrounding LFA and the lives of those within our community. This subject is arguably one of the most pressing HOSS topics in recent years as it addresses realities we all face.

Given the gravity of the topic, it was a shock to many to learn that there will not be a Head of School Symposium Day reflecting on this topic. In the past, Head of School Symposium Day was a day either in regular classes that covered a lesson connected to the topic, or a day in which people learned in mini class rotations that taught about specialized aspects of the subject. This year there isn’t such a day for two primary reasons— the topic can be emotionally heavy to focus on for an entire day, and the topic is so objectively significant that it wouldn’t do justice to focus on it for a day and then store the issue away.

“I thought this was a tough topic to spend an entire 6-7 hour day on, it could be draining as it’s not very uplifting… some may even tune out this discussion if continued for the length of a school day,” said Mr. Vaughn, who is part of the Head of School Symposium Committee this year. The committee is also comprised of Mr. Chris Tennyson, Mr. Jose De Jesus, Mrs. Jaclyn Leib, Mr. Jamal English Mrs. Erin English, and Mr. Matt Nink.
“At the same time,” Vaughn continued, “what we decided to do was team up with Multicultural Day and Service Day and have more of a collaborative experience. Service day would have service more geared toward the topic. We thought about doing something a little bit different or new, which at large I think some kids may tune out, this way we hopefully get the best of both worlds.”

Community, one of the four pillars of LFA, is presented in the continuous creation of student driven service projects, and being able to connect giving back with the concepts of poverty and inequity is an ingenious marriage of the lessons to be learned through both. The Food and Story Drive, a sophomore seminar project spearheaded by Kelly Lombardo and Andrew Zengler encouraged the community to contribute several non-perishables to the North Chicago Community Partners Family Care Closet. The food desert of North Chicago often faces a decrease in available resources following the bounty of food provided during the preceding holiday season. The great participation in food donation was successful in contributing nearly 510 pounds of food. The story drive was the aspect of the project with more of an impact on campus, as members of the community shared about their interactions with poverty and inequity.

The Food and Story Drive was a project partnered with the Stuart Center, and the story share event they hosted on Monday February 19, 2020 was an evening to gather and hear submissions from the drive read aloud or to speak from the heart with personal anecdotes about family experiences and observations of society. “It’s challenging to successfully talk about this topic in a format other than stories, because then it becomes statistics or numbers on a graph and it’s easier to stay shielded from it,” said Nink. It’s easy to miss the humanity that we are all living through. Stories are the best way to handle the nuances of this topic.”

Listening to and picking up on the ways in which poverty and inequality impact the people that surround us is a more resounding lesson to learn in comparison to disconnected lectures or abstract figures.
“Poverty is not the state of being extremely poor or not having a lot of material items. Poverty transcends social, economic, and political elements so it can’t just mean being poor. Poverty is a mindset, a mindset that one can’t help but snap into when facing difficulty.” This is an excerpt from Story #33, an anonymous perspective on what the Head of School Symposium topic meant to them in relation to their own interactions with poverty. Other shared stories had themes of happiness in the face of adversity, lessons taught by immigrant parents and grandparents, and gratitude for recognized privilege among many others.

Fostering empathy and compassion is the ultimate goal for this topic. Awareness of each other’s differences in such a diverse setting as LFA will behoove each community membering in making this school even more supportive, welcoming, and close-knit. Mrs. English attested to the potential positive outcome of building a more empathetic community as she said, “It  allows for deeper connection and it allows us to really hear each other, to see each other, and to allow us to belong here in a way that’s going to make us all the richer.”