The Power and Responsibility of a Crescent Education

Michael Fellin, Headmaster of Crescent School
One of my favourite childhood memories is collecting hockey cards and comic books with my younger brother. He was a Wayne Gretzky fan while I searched each pack of cards for Mario Lemieux.
When we arrived at the Silver Snail comic shop, he combed for Batman but I collected Spider-Man. In fact, my most cherished childhood memory was waking up after surgery in the hospital to see my dad sitting by my bed with a box of hockey cards and a stack of comic books. I’m not sure I recall loving my dad any more than on that day.

I’ve been thinking a lot about comic book heroes lately. It started on my recent plane trip home from China. I was 10 days into the trip, battling jet lag and unable to sleep. I decided to take out my headphones and watch Captain America: Civil War. Watching it reminded me of the 2002 Spider-Man movie, and of one scene in particular, when Peter Parker’s uncle tells him, “Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.”

It turns out that Stan Lee, author and creator of Spider-Man, was significantly influenced by a collection of decrees made by the French National Convention during the French Revolution. Translated into English, they read:

The people’s representatives will reach their destination, invested with the highest confidence and unlimited power. They will show great character. They must consider that great responsibility follows inseparably from great power. To their energy, to their courage, and above all to their prudence, they shall owe their success and their glory. [emphasis mine]
As I told the boys at our school assembly this month, superheroes have extraordinary ability to do more. Not to be more, but to do more. Superheroes respond when the world is in need – whether for social, political, or economic reasons. They serve to help others regardless of the cost – and they do so without glory. It is in this context that I think of the boys of Crescent School. Like Spider-Man, they have been blessed with an incredible gift. In their case, the gift is the power of a Crescent education.

Whatever his interests, abilities and accomplishments, we are striving to transform the promise of every Crescent boy into moral, performance and civic character – the very point of our great school’s existence.

Here’s how I described this expectation to the boys at assembly:

First, we believe in your capacity to be a gentleman, a moral person who aspires to live the core values of respect, responsibility, honesty, and compassion.

Second, we believe in your capacity to lead others, to be a relational leader who expresses critical thinking, collaborates with others, and communicates well.

Third, we believe in your capacity to be an engaged citizen, to leave the world better than you found it.

In essence, I believe with the great power of a Crescent education comes great responsibility to do more – for yourself, others, and the world.
The message I gave our boys was this: today our world needs you more than ever. It needs your moral character, your leadership ability, and your effort to leave a legacy. In short, the world requires you to do more, because to whom much has been given, much is expected.

Veritate Stamus et Crescimus.

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