Jane's Farewell Tour: The "Tea With Jane" Edition



Seniors taking tea with me up at the Head's House has been a tradition since the fall of year one of my CSW tenure,16 years ago. The idea for "Tea With Jane" came to me thanks to a very early assembly in the 2002-2003 school year, when assembly coordinators Saramax ’03, Isaiah ’03 and Ian ’04 decided to conduct a mock interview for a new head of school. They asked all four "candidates" (I, the newly-minted head of school, was one, thank goodness!) how we might plan a perfect day out for them. I included "taking tea" as part of the day out, and the students loved the idea.

Unbeknownst to me, my new tradition of tea with the seniors harkened back to a much earlier tradition at CSW. Though late afternoon tea time was part of the daily schedule for boarding students as early as the 1930s, it wasn't until later that tea became an "event" for all members of the senior class. John R.P. French was known to host "Walrus" meetings in the 1940s, and when Dolph Cheek arrived as CSW headmaster in 1951, he, too, embraced the nonsensical but delightful literary reference as a hallmark of his teas:

“‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, ‘To talk of many things. Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, and cabbages, and kings. Or if the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings,’"(from Lewis Carroll’s poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter”).

Every Tuesday afternoon after school, seniors would gather at Mr. and Mrs. Cheek's home. Tea, cookies and other delicacies were served in the dining room and then everyone assembled in the living room for a discussion of important matters concerning the senior class, ranging from politics to Lewis Carroll to graduation. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Cheek continued hosting "Walrus" throughout his tenure as headmaster, until 1968.
 
This year Sherrill Bounnell, my colleague in the Head’s Office, set out to make "Tea With Jane" just a little more special for this, my last graduating class at CSW. First we offered more dates than usual, hoping that all seniors might want to sign up, and second, we created commemorative tea cups for a special souvenir. Sherrill found photographs of the first year of "Walrus" in the 1952 yearbook, so at this fall's teas we've attempted to recreate some of those scenes, thanks to the good-natured willingness of the seniors to indulge us — a few of these scenes accompany this post.
 
It has been my great delight to host "Tea With Jane" for the Class of 2003 through the Class of 2019. Though there's never been a year when every member of the senior class took me up on my invitation, I think it's safe to estimate that I've hosted over 700 students in this fashion. School life is so fast-paced and all of us are occupied with numerous meetings and activities and responsibilities — it's been wonderful to have these opportunities to relax and chat and get to know each other a bit better. Sometimes the talk is heavy, with serious issues being discussed; other times there's a lot of laughing and giggling, usually when a student has clued me in to some new pop culture reference or phenomenon. And almost always, one of my dogs has taken center stage in our living room circle, putting on the charm or searching for a dropped bit of salmon or cucumber sandwich.
 
This year's "Tea With Jane" season comes to a close in two weeks, and with its conclusion I will be moving along from another stop on this year's "Jane's Farewell Tour." Thanks, Class of 2019, for making this important stop such a memorable one.

More News from CSW

List of 5 news stories.

45 Georgian Road | Weston, MA 02493 | 781-642-8600

CSW—a gender-inclusive day and boarding school for grades 9-12—is a national leader in progressive education. We live out our values of inquiry-based learning, student agency, and embracing diverse perspectives in every aspect of our student experience. Young people come to CSW to learn how to learn and then put what they learn into action—essential skills they carry into their futures as doers, makers, innovators, leaders, and exceptional humans who do meaningful work in the world.