Head of School Jim Neill delivered his final Ethics Speech with a powerful reflection on Landon’s core values of courage and perseverance. Here is a lightly edited version of his remarks.  

Courage and perseverance are two values that are essential to living a good life, and neither are getting the attention they need in our times.  

Let’s start with courage. Here at Landon we define it as “being aware of and acting on ethical principles rather than personal fear or concern for consequences.” That’s a good way to think about it. Allowing your actions to be motivated by doing the right thing and not by fear. Unfortunately, I think that we often picture courage as only being in the face of massive danger — images of warfare, racing into burning buildings, or leaping across daunting terrain come to mind.  

This is all courage, no doubt. But if we only think of it in that way, courage becomes something reserved for limited circumstances, overlooking that we have the need for courage in day-to-day life.   

This daily need for courage can be found everywhere at school. Raising your hand in class when no one else will; getting up on the stage to sing for the first time; stepping onto the wrestling mat against someone more experienced than you. These all take courage. 

Courage can also be risking embarrassment or rejection – again without regard for how it might affect you. It can be standing up to someone who made a comment that is out of line or mean.  It’s not easy to be the one to say “Don’t say that” or “That’s not okay” or “We don’t do that here.”  It takes courage to live out the parts of the character pledge that ask us “not to tolerate others” being disrespectful or dishonest. It takes courage to be an “upstander” because it means taking a risk.  

It can also take courage to admit mistakes and own them. To say, “This was not right of me; I’m sorry; I’m willing to accept the consequences.” It takes courage to do that. 

Courage is also not the same across the board. Some things that are easy for one person require courage for others. For example, it has never made me nervous to speak in front of a crowd for whatever reason, but I know that for many, standing up here and talking is massively unsettling and can take tremendous courage.  

Whatever the case, courage introduces you to your potential – to what you can be. Ironically, sometimes we worry so much about ourselves and how others might think about us, that we don’t say or do the thing that needs to be said or done. We fail to be courageous or realize we have the capacity to be courageous – sort of like the cowardly lion – and in so doing, we miss out on potential we have or moments when courage could have helped us grow.  

So courage is a willingness to do what needs to be done. It’s not recklessness or foolishness, but more of living out a set of principles with confidence. And it helps us move through life with purpose and energy. Courageous people don’t just sit there watching; they put themselves out there and engage with life. I hope you will too. 

The second value today – perseverance – is very much connected to courage. We define perseverance here as “drawing on inner strength or determination to persist despite challenge and difficulty – as carrying on with a belief in the capacity of oneself, of others, and of the community.” To do this requires courage. It takes courage to keep going after failure, to pursue a goal when success doesn’t come right away. To do something over and over and over or to keep going when others doubt you.  

It’s interesting we are talking about this the day before spring break because it has been a long hard winter and getting to this point has taken perseverance. I was talking with my wife about this speech yesterday and she said, “I think getting out of bed every morning and getting yourself to school, day in and day out, is actually a good example of perseverance.” She is right. So, well done to all of you. 

Like courage, perseverance is something our world needs. Too often in our computerized and automated AI world, people expect solutions to be handed to or done for them.  

Perseverance is continuing to push forward in the face of challenges, even after repeated setbacks. It is the ability to keep going – to give effort over and over and over and over. I have a cousin who calls it “sticktoittiveness.” You don’t give up and you don’t give in.  

Think about times when you did not get everything right the first go round, but you refused to quit. You kept going. Ultimately, you found either some degree of success or realized you don’t have to give up when something gets tough. You realized that failures aren’t the end; they are part of the path towards growth.  

There’s an expression out there that I really hate — calling someone a "try hard." I get that there is a nuance to it, and it's aimed at someone for being fake or annoying or obsequious or insincere in their approach to a task or a person.  But even so, implicit in the message is the notion that there’s something wrong with giving effort – that trying hard is something to mock. Frankly, I think that’s completely absurd.  I don’t really care what someone’s motivation is when it comes to effort as long as they work hard. In the end there is nothing lame about giving your all and trying. 

The real problem instead is a culture that mocks effort and puts ease over determination – that regards trying hard as uncool, as something to be ridiculed. I hope you guys don’t do that. I hope when you see someone working their tail off— whatever their reasons — that you give them a thumbs up and steer clear of the weak idea that “You’re not cool if you try.”   

As for real life examples of perseverance, we need look no further than our recent campus renovation.  

Some of you weren’t here for it, but the outset of this project, I heard a lot of people say that it couldn’t be done, that we tried this or that before, that we couldn’t raise the money for it. That kind of negativity is the enemy of perseverance. And bluntly, it wasn’t very interesting. We had a job to do, so we began and we decided to persevere until it was done.  

And it was not easy. There were challenges every step of the way — whether getting the proper zoning permissions or constantly changing campus logistics or issues that came up in the actual spaces while we were in construction.  

But collectively, we just kept going. And now I think we see what came of that perseverance. It took some courage and belief to endure it, but we kept putting one foot in front of the other, making a little progress, a little more progress, a little more progress. By the end we achieved something special. 

There’s something of a broader metaphor in this example of how perseverance – that is, deciding that you are going to keep going — can serve you and take you far. 

Please take this message to heart. There are too many people who want things to be easy and quit when they’re not. Don’t be those people. Your life will just be better if you reject that lazy mindset.  

We spend time focused on values like these because they are the foundation of good character. And above all else, that – being a good person – is the most important thing we are trying to teach here. It’s the reason we have assemblies like this and have you sign the character pledge and post the values around school and talk about this stuff in class. 

It occurred to me while writing this that it would be my last ethics speech here at Landon. So, I will admit that I feel a sense of urgency around speaking about these values. And the reason is that I really want you to take these things seriously.  

And while I can want that for you, in the end that’s not enough. You have to want that for yourselves. You need to embrace them and make them your own. You have to buy in. And I guess to do that, you have to trust us – trust me and all of the faculty here — when we say that these things matter. You have to believe us when we say these things are the most important things we are teaching. I really hope you do.