Every year at Thanksgiving, alumni of Friends’ Central School flock home.  They drop by campus and visit their old classrooms and teachers.  And every year I go back, I’m struck by a single realization: so little has changed.

It’s been over six years since I graduated from FCS, a small and intimate Quaker high school near Philadelphia’s Main Line.  In that time, the country has been through several presidents, wars, terrorist attacks, and a recession.  In the technology world, dozens of startups have grown from idea to multi-million dollar acquisitions, and thousands of others have faded into obscurity.  In my own life, I’ve moved to NYC where I started and finished college, I’ve met thousands of people, cycled through different apartments, jobs, and friends.  My world view has changed radically.  But somehow FCS hasn’t changed a bit.

In a world where two years is considered a ‘long’ time to hold a job, FCS seems like an anomaly.  The place seems ageless.  The same faculty has been there for decades.  The same photographs, plaques and decorations are on the walls.  The classrooms look the same — the chairs and desks are in the same arrangements as the day I left.

In a world that seems to move a mile a minute, it’s nice to know that some things never change.

Happy Thanksgiving.

  • Nice to hear :)
    Had a similar experience today. My 12 year old cousin in 7th grade has the same Spanish teacher I had when I went. She was even there when my brother was in middle school. This sort of stuff blows my mind!
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