Upper School Commemorates 9/11
Upper school students and faculty members observed the 16th anniversary of September 11, 2001 with a special Assembly on Tuesday, September 26. The observance was belated due to Hurricane Irma. English Department Chair Perry Feyk worked with the members of the Perry Feyk Project (PFP) to perform three songs that captured the mood and aftermath of the day. PFP, managed by Kailey Graziotto and featuring Andrew DiFerrari on keyboards and vocals, Dean Silvers on drums, Alexandra Denholtz on bass, Ben Lesserson on lead guitar, Alexa McAvoy on backing vocals, and Perry Feyk on rhythm guitar and vocals, played Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, Bruce Springsteen’s “My City of Ruins”, and The Beatles’ “Let It Be.” Between songs, Kailey Graziotto read the The Benjamin School Class of 2002’s Valedictory as part of the remembrance.
That Valedictory was delivered in May of 2002, by the class valedictorian, Michael Bustamante, who, in reflecting upon the events of the 2001-02 school year and the world created by 9/11, noted, “A. Bartlett Giamatti, president of Yale University from 1978 to 1986, once stated that the goal of education should be “far more than a job or career, to forge those links with family, neighbor, community, and country that will allow each to sustain the other.” A lack of perspective may have caused September 11, but this lack of perspective was in turn spurred by a global need for the type of education Giamatti described - an education not just in terms of classes, tests, and the diplomas we will be receiving tonight, but an education encompassing many different grains of thought, cultures, races, and religions, an education involving and, therefore, transcending the distinct views of different socioeconomic levels, an education from diverse sources--an education in perspective.”
Not only was I struck by the beautiful prose and thoughts of a then-eighteen-year-old, I was struck, too, by precisely that perspective of which he spoke - a balanced and humane worldview that he implored the school to continue to work to develop in its students. Sixteen years later, Dr. Bustamante’s words of wisdom resonated with the Upper School community. We will continue to work to cultivate the wisdom and perspective set forth so articulately by one of our own.
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A premier PK3 - Grade 12 independent, coeducational day school with campuses in North Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens. Since 1960, The Benjamin School has provided a challenging college preparatory education to a diverse student body in a structured, nurturing community environment.