2026 - Encounter's year of Compassion

A new year in a school is a powerful thing. It’s a chance to reset our intentions, to remember why we do this work, and to recommit ourselves to the values that shape our identity as a community. This year, I want to invite us to gather around a single word—compassion.

“Finally, all of you,” we’re reminded in 1 Peter 3:8, “be like‑minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.”

It is a simple instruction, but not an easy one. Compassion is always simple to name and complex to live.

But compassion is what our Encounter community is built upon. It’s woven through our beliefs about learning, our relationships with students and families, and our commitment to one another as colleagues. Our motto captures it crisply and courageously: See. Feel. Act.

To see with compassion means slowing down long enough to notice. Notice the student who seems withdrawn. Notice the colleague who is carrying more than they say. Notice the patterns, the inequities, the voices that are quieter or not yet heard.

We believe that learning opens our hearts and minds to the diversity of human perspectives, and experiences. Compassion begins with seeing how wide and varied humanity is—how richly different our students are, and how deeply each one carries both light and struggle.

Seeing compassionately means we are attuned to injustice and bias. It means we enter dialogue with openness rather than defensiveness or judgment. It means we anchor ourselves in an understanding of the inherent dignity of every single person in our care.

As Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations:

“If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.”

Clarity and integrity in our seeing become the foundation of compassion in our actions.

To feel with compassion is not weakness—it is courage.

The Dalai Lama reminds us that compassion is a deep form of strength. It’s the strength to let someone else’s experience matter. It’s the courage to let a student’s frustration or fear touch us—not to overwhelm us, but to awaken us.

Compassionate feeling is not about sentimentality; it’s about connection. Desmond Tutu captured this so beautifully when he taught that our humanity is bound up with one another’s. When one person in our community suffers, we are all in some way diminished. When one is lifted, we are all lifted.

And as Maya Angelou so wisely said, people may forget what we say, but they will remember how we make them feel. This is especially true in schools.

If you think back to the teacher who shaped your life most deeply, chances are you remember their presence more than their content. You remember the compassion, the humanity, the way they made you feel seen and valued.

Compassion is not complete until it becomes action.

“Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon,” prayed St. Francis of Assisi. He doesn’t say, “Where there is hatred, let me think about sowing love.”

He says, let me sow it—let me act.

Learning is enacted in service and advocacy. Our classrooms and offices are places where love and justice take practical shape—not in grand gestures but in everyday choices.

When we offer a student a fresh start after a difficult day—compassion is acting.
When we challenge a biased comment with humility and courage—compassion is acting.
When we step in to support a colleague who is struggling—compassion is acting.
When our policies honour dignity and our practices prioritise belonging—compassion becomes culture.

We say that our learning communities are ethical places of inclusion, understanding, compassion, justice, and love. This is not just a description—it is a calling. A standard. A hope. A promise.

And this year, as with every year, we will fall short at times. We will get tired. We will feel frustrated. We will have moments where compassion feels like the heaviest option.

But compassion is also renewable. It grows through God’s provision and in community—through supporting one another, through grace, through the courage to begin again. We can only offer compassion sustainably if we also receive it—from each other and from ourselves. Please extend compassion to yourself in the year ahead.

So as we begin this year, I offer this encouragement:

May we see with clarity: the needs around us, the humanity before us, and the biases within us.

May we feel with courage: allowing connection, empathy, and vulnerability to guide our relationships.

And may we act with conviction: choosing what is right, what is true, and what is loving, even when it asks us to go above and beyond.

Because in the end, compassion is not an extra. It is not an accessory. It is the very heart of our vocation and our Call to our work with young people and their families.

Thank you for your continued work, your kindness, your resilience, and the compassion you not only teach—but embody.

Here’s to a year where compassion shapes every step of our shared journey.