House Directing – Why Do We Do This?

The most fun I ever had in my life was in my early 20s, backpacking around Australia with one of my best friends. I spent a year surfing, travelling, and meeting new people. When I needed money, I would bartend or wait tables, and when there was an adventure to be had, I was in.

 

When I got home, the lure of long holidays and the possibility of more adventure helped me decide on a career in education, and teaching has been one of the great joys of my life. I would like to think I have been at least modestly successful at it.

 

During last week’s Chapel about vocations, we thought about what we want to do when we grow up. I thought about what I wanted for my life when I was younger; teaching was one of the paths I considered. I thought about journalism, law, international diplomacy, managing Liverpool Football Club – I thought about a lot of paths. The curse of this life is that we only get one, and I couldn’t be all the things I wanted. But I do have to be honest here: there wasn’t a single moment in the myriad of paths I could have taken when I planned to be a House Director. And if your House Director is honest with you, they’ll probably tell you the same thing.

 

And I imagine that if I were to sift through the hundreds of dreams that filled the hummingbird box after last Chapel, I’d be shocked if I found even one person who put down live-in House staff at Shawnigan Lake School as their hoped vocation.

 

Well, joke’s on you – because just wait until I tell you what a beauty of a job this is.

 

Our day starts early – sometimes really early, like 3 a.m. early – because someone came back to campus late, their flight was delayed, and despite the door being unlocked, they felt the need to call us to ask how to open it. After that, we grab a few hours of sleep before being the first up again for morning health checks. That’s when you all come joyfully out of your rooms, perfectly on time, always smiling. Sometimes we even get to go room to room, waking those of you having the sweetest of dreams.

 

The rest of the day brings breakfast and lunch, teachers wondering where some of you are, missed doctor’s appointments, Gathering, co-curricular commitments, and dealing with concerns from Mr. Clinton-Baker. Evenings are for House meetings, inter-House events, roommate diplomacy, and – if we’re really lucky – a GI illness sweeping campus. Nothing brings a House together like a mass-puking event; it’s breathtaking, really. There’s more, lots more, but I think you get it.

 

Somewhere in between, we do our full-time day job, engage in our co-curriculars, and try to see our family from time to time. Weekends are for suckers – am I right?

 

I sometimes get asked, “Tom, why don’t you smile more?” Why indeed.

 

So, if all of this is true – and it is – why on Earth would anyone sign up for this bizarre Canadian form of indentured servitude? If teaching is the noble profession, what is House Directing?

 

Is it for the fortune? Mr. Hyde-Lay did this for 18 years and still wears the same suit. Is it the fame? Infamy, perhaps. The easy life? I live with 50 teenage boys. Do you know what that does to your sense of smell?

 

The reason we do this is because, in order to have a life that matters, you need to matter to someone else. There’s nothing I’ve ever done that compares, and it is the great honour of my life.

 

In 1990, Voyager 1 turned its lens back on Earth as it hurtled through space and took a photograph of our planet – a pale blue dot surrounded by the infinite dark of the universe. It inspired the physicist Carl Sagan to write this:

 

For all our delusions of self-importance, only one thing truly matters in the end: how we impact the lives of those we love in the time we are given. In this ever-so strange vocation of ours, we get to be more than ourselves; we get to extend beyond our own lives because, through you, we embrace your hopes, your dreams, and your wishes for a brighter future. We get to be part of your life in a way that no one else, save for your family, gets to be. For the time you are part of our Houses, we are immeasurably bonded together.

 

They say that to become a parent is like having a piece of your heart removed from your chest to walk around in the world. And here we are – 11 House Directors and our assistants – responsible for the hearts of 50 or more families who have placed in us the awesome responsibility of helping to guide you through this magical journey of life.

 

When you leave this place and the years go by, the decisions you make, the people you become, and the stories you tell about your life will have been shaped, in no small measure, by your time at this school. And the place where so many of those memories are made is in the House you live in. For each of you, you take a piece of us with you, write the story of your life, and we get to be the cheerleaders on the sidelines, quietly watching how each of you, in your own dignity, will change the world.

 

As Tennyson said, “I am a part of all whom I have met.”

 

To be part of a boarding school – and not just any boarding school, mind you, but Shawnigan Lake School – is to be part of the lives around you in an extraordinarily meaningful way. One day, you’ll sit down and think about your Grade 10 roommate, the time you were on Wilber, your favourite teacher, the smell of wet rugby boots, how the sun felt when it was your turn to graduate in the Kaye Gardens, and the happiness and sadness you felt when you left campus for the very last time. And you might even think of us.

 

But we will always be thinking of you. And that’s why we do this.