What Others Say About Khalsa Montessori School

Graduation 2004

 

Graduate Speaker

Leah Caglio

I can't say that I was bubbling over with ideas when they told us to write our speeches.    Before I even sat down and put pen to paper, I figured that anything I had to say certainly had been said before by some other graduate.

But those graduates have never been to Khalsa School.    They've probably never sat at Circle, never laid a hand on a golden bead, and had seldom called a teacher by their first name.

So I looked to the source.    Why not compare Khalsa School to Khalsa School itself?    I was sitting and trying to think of something inside of Khalsa, a person, a thing, a place that could mean something to me as much as the school itself does.    There are so many things here that I treasure and love that I couldn't possibly decide on one.

Then it came to me - why not talk about something that I usually DON'T like to do at the school?

My list of choices were slim to none.    There aren't many things that I dislike about Khalsa. It's all such a wonderful environment and I have amazing people surrounding me.

And then I looked out of the window and saw the pond.    As a member of the middle school class, I am given the task to clean out the pond every so often.    To say the least, I don't like to do it very much.    The cold water isn't very pleasant to stick your hands in very early in the morning and I don't often like feeling around for algae.

As I thought of cleaning out the pond, I realized that it isn't so bad of a thing.    It's actually something that I could compare to my entire experience at Khalsa.

At first when cleaning out the pond, one comes across a very dirty, murky-looking area with algae all over the rocks and dead leaves covering the water.    It is untouched and unexplored.    That is a bit like my first day, or first year or so, at Khalsa.    Things are confusing and it's not very easy to tell what might be under that algae and that blanket of dead leaves.    It's like the task ahead, seeing what mysteries you have to deal with and what you must do.

The first job at the pond is always pulling out the dead leaves.    The dead leaves are usually floating on the surface of the water, and while picking them out, you may get a feel of something slimy on the rocks.    Pulling those leaves out of the rocks is like pulling out memories of this school, and the slimy feelings are the memories that I may have wanted to forget, such as getting in trouble many times as a little kid, but I can't quite forget them .  Now these leaves don't come out easily.    As soon as you pull up one, it seems like many more take its place.    This is because there will never be a way to remember every single day lived, every single moment spent, every single word said during my beautiful experience at this school.

After most of the leaves are picked out, and of course some still remain in the water, still to be remembered later, it is the gruesome task of pulling the slimy, wet algae off the rocks of the pond.    In a way these rocks are like the countless people I've met at Khalsa School, and the task of pulling off the algae is the difficult task of uncovering these peoples' great and loveable personalities.    After taking off this algae, you get to see the rocks how they really are, just as I have my classmates as they really are. Prominent rocks like the kind and gracious leadership of Satwant Singh, the faculty, and my best friends are side by side with smaller rocks, such as people I have only exchanged a few words with, or someone I have passed by only once.    Together they make up the body of the pond, or the body of Khalsa School.

I remember one time while we were cleaning the pond, and I had to pull the skimmer basket from its hiding place under the rocks and clean it out.    This is usually the easiest task of them all, and I wasn't worried about it.    I wasn't even paying attention when I pulled the basket out of its place.    When I did look around, all I saw was a huge, wriggling thing in the basket.    I screamed and dropped the contents of the basket into the pond.    I was terrified and angry at finding something ALIVE in the basket.

The wriggling thing in the skimmer basket turned out to be the fish that we had just gotten for the pond.    The fish was stuck in the basket and happily swam away as soon as it hit the water.

Experiences like this fish that I screamed at on first seeing and smiled at on seeing again are the most important.    Those times when we may have thought that it was scary, boring, stupid, or even repulsive.    Those times that may seem that way, but turn out to be the things that we'll remember the longest.

It's those surprises in life that is what I'd like myself, and everyone else graduating with me, to take with them.