Steward's 2019 Convocation ushered in a new school year with a huge turnout to witness inspiring music and messages.

The event began with JK/K students teaming up with their senior buddies on the Colonnade and accompanying one another to the ceremony hand-in-hand, after which Head of School Dan Frank welcomed attendees with a game called "System or Thing." By considering different images — a rope; the Bryan Innovation Lab garden; a coffee maker; Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia — Mr. Frank asked the audience to identify which represented systems and which represented things. With little consensus across the board, the exercise raised an important question: what makes a system special?

"A system has parts that affect each other," Mr. Frank explained. "When those parts work together, something different happens than if those parts were to work alone. Often, the effect of that cooperation — its core purpose — can persist over time, even when things change drastically. That's resilience."

Resilience is The Steward’s School's theme for the 2019-20 school year, and that theme played a prominent role during this year's Convocation. Mr. Frank invited Mike Mailey, Middle School science teacher, to the stage to talk about tardigrades, which Mr. Mailey described as the science department’s "resilience mascot."

"Tardigrades are the heroes of resilience in the microscopic world," Mr. Mailey said, comparing their ability to survive in extreme climates to that of hobbits. "This year, we endeavor to learn from tardigrades to become tardigrade tough."