American Politics

Dear Parents,

This week I was watching the inauguration of Joe Biden as he became the next President of the United States and three things struck me about the event.

Firstly, Donald Trump’s behaviour, being the first President since Richard Nixon (1974 because he had resigned) not to have attended the inauguration and by doing so relinquished the usual symbolic act of a peaceful transition of power. In its very basic terms, it was a reminder to all of us that when we lose at something, we have the humility to ‘take it on the chin’ and shake the hands of the winner and to wish them well.

Secondly, I was impressed by the National Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman, and her recitation of her poem The Hill We Climb that was written soon after the riots at the US Capitol. She was Los Angeles' youth poet laureate at 16 years of age, went to Harvard University where she studied sociology and then became National Youth Poet Laureate. It was the final words of her poem that resonated with me when she shared such optimism for the future:

So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.

With every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.

We will rise from the golden hills of the west.
We will rise from the wind-swept north-east where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states.

We will rise from the sun-baked south.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.

In every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country,
our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge, battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.

The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.

(* maybe someone might learn this poem for the Handcross Park poetry competition next term?)

Finally, although the Donald Trump presidential journey over the past four years has been a mixture of shock, uncertainty, concern and, on occasion, amusement. I feel that we all need some sense of normality and with Joe Biden and particularly his vice-president Kamala Harris, one hopes that they will be able to give that to the American people and on the world stage.

It has been another successful week in school and I have seen so many wonderful pieces of work from the pupils – lots of focus and engagement.

Richard Brown

Headmaster