<p>Esa: you are suggesting a fairly ambitous but reasonable program for a good to very good math student. Good luck!</p>
<p>Yeah, I love math and my current teacher 'strongly recommended' I take honors math next year, even though I told him it would be really, really hard now that its at prep school.</p>
<p>This is avoco's dad. Funny story, I was at a party the other night where a friend related a story about his grandfather that entered sps in 1930. When he arrived, there were maids to help the young boys unpack there clothes. At the first seated meal, which they were expected to wear black tie, he was asked where was his engraved silver napkin ring? He was coming from Ohio and didn't have one. He went back to his room, packed his bags, left and ultimately went to l'ville. Things have certainly changed!</p>
<p>Whoa, things have certainly changed. Although I am sure some students wouldn't mind the schools reinstituting the "maid" part. :)</p>
<p>My son's teacher also strongly recommended my son for Honors level mathematics (Geo or Alg).</p>
<p>Can anyone who already attends SPS offer some insight regarding the teachers? (You know, the cool ones, the ones to avoid, the ones that are challenging yet supportive...). I know we can't choose teachers for our children, but it would be nice to have a 'heads up' on who they may encounter.</p>
<p>fxmom: I don't think your child would be particularly well served by approaching St. Paul's with strong preconceived opinions about particular teachers. Like everything else it is a matter of chemistry between the individual teacher and the individual child and my two children had radically different appraisals of the same teachers. In the end teaching is more a matter of drawing something out of the student than of pouring something in. Ultimately the student educates himself by participating in the life of St. Paul's, that is why he/she is there in the first place. To set your mind at ease remember Gibbons line about "the faculty of instruction seldom being of much efficacy except in those happy dispositions where it is nearly superfluous". Honors Mathematics is for academic athletes who like math and are good at it. Don't approach math as something outside of which there is no salvation. To my certain knowledge standard mathematics at St. Paul's is perfectly adequate to get into a first tier college. It all depends on what you ultimately want to do. For some students, horribilis dictu, mathematics has neither formative nor instrumental value and taking honors math simply to prove that you can cross a presumptive bridge of fools is almost guaranteed to kill your years at St. Paul's.</p>
<p>Wonderful insight, paleozoic, with the advice well taken. Thank you.</p>
<p>paleozoic, how did you deal with the first few months of separation? Was it as hard as you expected?</p>
<p>avoco: I presume it is actually avoco's dad so that is to whom the response is directed. I find it a difficult question because it begs all the reasons why I encouraged my children to go to St. Paul's in the first place even though in our particular case, since we are over 2000 miles away it meant major separation. I guess in the end we let them go, not because the local schools were bad--the son was in an excellent school-- but because we believed that in any local high school accessible to us the dimension of spirituality and cultural continuity that we value was so sadly lacking that they would grow up with the idea that ugly, pinched and mean was the natural human condition.
The kids thus went to St. Paul's and knew they went to St. Paul's for the right reasons and that colored the initial period of separation which for any child, and parent, is tough. We missed them terribly but they knew this and they also knew that we didn't necessarily think that they had to be a 'success' that they would fail us if they got less than HH in everything. So we allowed them to find their feet.we simply had enough confidence that they would not hide in theri room, that they would be passionate about music, and that they would find likeminded friends--and they did, and quite soon. </p>
<p>The first term they were a little homesick until Thanksgiving when they came home. The period between Thanksgiving and Christmas was too short for them to be homesick and they were going back to a known situation--no anxiety about friends or courses. After Christmas they considered St. Paul's their home or at least the best spot they could possibly be. Right now with the new phone system daughter phones home practically every day to talk with her mom. we are probably more in her life than if she was living with us. </p>
<p>I don't know how representative our situation is but that is more or less as it was for us.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if this question has already been asked, but what does the mission statement of SPS mean? I understand the mission, "Let us learn those things on earth the knowledge of which continues in Heaven." comes from The Bible, but I'm not excactly sure what it means. I've heard some people say it is supposed to represent beauty of spirit. Any insight?!?</p>
<p>I don't know, I'm not good with analyzing literature.</p>
<p>Actually it comes from the school prayer which begins "O God, who through the love and labor of many hast built us here a goodly heritage in the name of thy servant St. Paul...we thank thee and for past achievements and future hopes beseeching thee that both we and those who follow after us may learn those things on earth of which the knowledge continues in thy heaven. "</p>
<p>The prayer is a summary of what St. Paul's is about as a community which values a liberal and humane education and which recognizes that truth is eternal and any but a link in the chain between the past and the future. This theme is reiterated in the St. Paul's First Night Hymn "All People that on Earth do dwell" which end with one of the great lines of poetry in the language "For why? the Lord our God is good, his mercy is forever sure, his truth at all times firmly stood, and shall from age to age endure". The combination, the words, the music, the poetry is what St. Paul's is about, what makes it one of the great schools of the world.</p>
<p>Paleozoic, thanks for the posts. As a parent, I am all the happier with our decision. If a person can have just a few years with this kind of positive teaching of values, I see how it can have a profound effect on a lifetime. Much more than just another level of math or science.</p>
<p>I truly agree to avoco and am very glad to hear again the mission statement of SPS. Just thingking of living 4 years under such positive influence makes my heart beat.</p>
<p>simply beautiful.</p>
<p>I've been counseling the family of a St. Paul's student who is graduating this spring. Wonderful family, great student, and great admissions results!</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the insight on the mission statement. It truly is beautiful.</p>
<p>I hear they've got a new rector, anybody else?</p>
<p>Esa:Actually they will have a new interim rector, Mr. Matthews. It's a long story. Let's not go there. How is your math placement working out?</p>
<p>It's more like they lost the old rector (and the one before him) than gained a new rector.</p>
<p>FYI,,,
<a href="http://www.unionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=55402%5B/url%5D">http://www.unionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=55402</a></p>
<p>article published 05/28 regarding Rector Anderson at SPS</p>