Weekly Message from HOS 2026/04/13-2026/04/17
Dear Keystonians,
If I haven’t had the chance to catch up with you this week, I hope you had a lovely holiday and a smooth transition back to school routines.
I am sitting down to write this on Thursday night after attending Wan Qian (万千, The Thousands), the Chinese dance drama. It was wonderfully beautiful—an abstract story that let each person find their own meaning in the music and rhythms.
My favorite part came after the final bows, when the entire cast—performers, directors, stage crew, and teachers—sat on the edge of the stage, turned on the house lights, and engaged the audience in thoughtful dialogue about the experience. One parent in the audience reflected on how much improvement she had seen from the final dress rehearsal the night before, to the opening night performance.
That observation captures something essential about the performing arts: small steps in the right direction compound slowly, and then all at once. It is worth the patience to get it right.
This comment also reminded me of something we have said for many years at Keystone: the people in the room make the environment what it is.
There is an old saying my mother used to remind me: April showers bring May flowers. It’s a literal truth this month, but also a deeper one. The rainy days are not obstacles to the beauty—they are the preparation for it. If you cannot delight in the rain, you will not fully enjoy the flowers. The same is true for learning, for growth, for art. The dress rehearsal, the quiet practice, the conversations that go nowhere at first—these are the showers. The performance, the breakthrough, the connection in the presence of others—these are the flowers.
Before going to the dance drama, I got to see a little bit of the run- through for the upcoming secondary performance (which is going to be awesome!). It was so fun to see the students getting into the feeling of the production from their classroom in the basement of the PAC. They were calling out for lines and improvising props that are not yet made. They were confident in the “April showers” phase of their show—and loving every second of it!
Earlier this week, at our most recent Education Salon, we had a few dozen people in person and a few thousand listening to the live stream. I am grateful we can scale access to the interesting conversations happening at Keystone. But there is no way to replicate the learning that happens when people take the time to share time and space—to be fully present with a piece of art or a conversation.
Our New World School is continually enriched through dialogue. Our learning community extends beyond traditional definitions of school. It is not just students and teachers, but all of us—parents, faculty, staff, students, neighbors, friends, and global experts—who are part of this conversation.
The word “salon” conjures images of intellectuals sitting in comfortably appointed rooms, discussing books or lectures. That is the vibe we want to recreate, but for our time. In both an event like an Education Salon and in the performing arts, we want our community to be present, to resist the tempting but dangerous notion that all good ideas and beauty can be consumed quickly, alone, or just on a screen. It matters that we are all in this together.
Here’s to the rainy days, and to the flowers that follow.
Warmly,
Emily
