By Jake Cohen ’14, Commentary Editor

Every student who graduates from Newark Academy leaves at least one lasting impression: his or her picture in the front hall. Ostensibly trivial, this picture actually represents so much more than just the achievement of graduating high school. It represents the experience of the shared years of our lives. It represents the impact our community has had on shaping who we are as individuals. But how has Newark Academy shaped its students? What does this shared experience really mean?

I have spent four years at the Academy, and in addition to the impressive educational and extracurricular opportunities that I have had, I have also been able to experience the unique community that roams these halls. We can all feel the undeniably distinctive attitude that is fostered by our school. We are taught to think critically, constantly question, channel creativity, and be accepting of all perspectives. But how do we balance all of these positive yet sometimes contradictory values? At Newark Academy, there is a constant divide between criticism and open-mindedness, but sometimes we need to take a step back and meet somewhere in the middle.

For Newark Academy students to be accepting of peers entering our community is second nature. Perhaps this stems from our shared experience—we all were new students in a new place at some point in our careers at the Academy. Yet, it seems that the natural reaction when outsiders attempt to give an alternate opinion is much more like repulsion. Take, for instance, the Global Speaker Series. While it offers such a quintessentially “Newark Academy” approach to education—a new outside perspective on the world around us—it receives a similarly “Newark Academy” response. However, these speakers who address the student body from the outside looking in are greeted with the more critical side of our students. Global Speaker Series Committee member Craig Haratz ’14 noted the incredible difficulty in finding a successful global speaker for Newark Academy students: “we try to find someone who is entertaining and engaging while still having substance […] they can’t just be an entertainer.” Unfortunately, this committee has had its hands full in recent years due to the overwhelming number of negative reactions to speakers.

The case of Sarah Terry (a Twitter employee who worked closely with NGO’s) stands out in my mind. The vastly negative student response to her presentation was unexpected, yet seemed to be normal within the community. Among the chief complaints, she was criticized as being simply a Twitter marketing representative, a person with an ambiguous job description, and a useless perspective on the world of social media—a world teenagers know all too well. Craig noted: “the main thing with Sarah Terry was the community wasn’t asking questions with the right intent. They didn’t want to understand, they wanted to criticize.” While we are taught as Newark Academy students to constantly question, our response turned deleterious much too quickly. While it certainly was not the most professional presentation the Academy had experienced, the values and power of social media in shaping our society were at its core, and could have easily been gleaned by the student body. It is very easy to find surface minutiae that have faults and use them to discredit a whole, but it takes maturity to delve deeper into the points and arguments proposed while discussing in depth.

But how does a community that is so prodigiously accepting become so averse to outside perspective so quickly? Over my four years at Newark Academy I have seen race, age, culture, sexuality, and ethnicity celebrated passionately, but it seems there is an unseen line that students are willing to draw. With the IB style of learning to which we have become accustomed, students at the Academy are taught to always question and wonder. At the same time, we are also taught to accept diversity and be broad-minded individuals. It is so difficult to balance these two extremes of the spectrum—never accept anything blindly but also provide constant open support? In my experience, the answer to truly becoming an accepting yet still inquisitive community lies somewhere in the middle.

Newark Academy students should strive to be inquisitive, yet understanding. Do not be quick to judge and criticize, but do not accept everything as inherently true. I am not saying we should question the value of diversity, nor am I saying we should abandon our inquisitive sides. When I look back at my four years at the Academy, I will certainly remember the ways it has shaped me. I have learned to question—to be open. However, I have also learned that there is a certain need for balance. When I look at the space on the wall that will be home to the faces of future students, I think of the shared experience of Newark Academy. Because that’s what our education is—an experience. If students at the Academy can focus less on extremes of acceptance or criticism, our shared experience of education can be that much better.