Thoughts on SYA's 40th

By Crayton Bedford, SYA France teacher (1967-68), Resident Director (1971-1974) and Executive Director (1974-1976)

(Reprinted from SYA’s 40th Anniversary Commemorative)

I arrived in Andover to teach math at Phillips Academy in 1962, and a year or two later I heard about a kind of “junior year abroad” program that we might get involved in. The idea had come from Clark Vaughan and Dan Olivier, both teachers at Wilbraham Academy. Wilbraham could not develop the program, so they approached John Kemper, then Headmaster at Phillips Academy. Kemper liked the idea because it would get PA students overseas without risking a loss in their academic program. The faculty, however, was not convinced. Perhaps our institutional ego was wounded by the fact that the idea came from a school whose teams we regularly beat. We talked more about our concern that the spirit of the 60’s would lead students astray if we didn’t keep a close eye on them. And surely most of them would simply be trying to avoid the rigors of a true PA education. But John Kemper was willing to take the risk, and so Schoolboys Abroad was launched in Spain in 1964.

Over the next few years, Andover was able to enlist administrative and financial support from Exeter and St. Paul’s, and more faculty members became involved. It was only a matter of time before a program in France was proposed which would more than double the student participation.  

And now they had my interest. I had always been good in French, largely due to my French teacher at Phillips Exeter, Harris (Tommy) Thomas, who was to be the first director in France. Though my wife, Ann, had only done the obligatory three years in high school, she also knew Tommy from our days singing together in a choral society when I had been on the Exeter faculty. But what about my career as a math teacher and the book I was writing? What about our life here in Andover? Our friends, our family? Ann finally asked the deciding question: What will we think when we’re 65 if we don’t go? And off we went.  

This was 1967, the start-up year in France, and we got to experience lots of unpredictable turbulence. The faculty apartments weren’t ready when we arrived. Lunches at the Restaurant Universitaire left a lot to be desired. The classrooms were unimaginably small. Yet somehow, this was but background noise that all fit into the Spirit of Adventure.  

One example of the unpredictable in my life was a toothache that hit about a week after we arrived. Where would I find a dentist? What was the state of French dentistry? Would they still be using 19th-century instruments? After getting a recommendation, I sat in a waiting room trying to calm my anxiety by memorizing the 18th-century architectural details. Suddenly, I heard the whine of the high-speed drill in the next room, and I felt a rush of relief. The 20th century lay behind the door!  

The dentist turned out to be both skillful and friendly. After my second visit, he asked if I had friends in Rennes. When I responded in the negative, he said he and his wife wanted to invite Ann and me over. I was very touched by the warmth and sincerity of his gesture. We accepted and spent about two hours with them one evening, perhaps the most exhausting two hours of my young life. My French was barely adequate to the task of translating for Ann, and every sentence was hard work. But that evening turned out to be the beginning of a friendship which extended to our families and continued throughout our years in Rennes. I am still grateful for the blessing of that toothache.

My toothache story is similar to many that other teachers and students could tell. It somehow stands for one of the remarkable qualities of School Year Abroad. The program presents us with problems, difficulties to overcome, experiences that make us fearful. And time after time, these problems transform. We find abilities we hadn’t known before. Or fear melts into confidence. Or a creative solution bubbles up out of an inner world closed to us in our more familiar and comfortable home environment. Plus we all learn French. What a deal!

We might have expected turbulence at the beginning of the year, but it was nothing compared to the turbulence at the end. May 1968 still stands as a turning point in recent French history. Everyone was out on strike and Charles De Gaulle was frequently on the airwaves. We were to sail on the Aurelia from LeHavre, but the port was closed down. Public transportation was at a standstill. We finally found a bus company with enough gas (and courage) to take us to Barcelona where we could join the Spanish group and take the boat from there. Ouf.

So why, you might ask, would we want to go back three years later as director in France after Tommy’s retirement? I guess ours was the same reason the students continue to give for their loyalty to the program: That was the best year of my life. We loved France, but more important, we loved who we became while we were there. It was a profoundly transforming experience, intellectually, psychologically and emotionally. It is a cultural equivalent of Outward Bound, the great challenge that supports personal growth and flowering.

By now it was 1971, and Phillips Exeter Academy was coed. So Schoolboys Abroad evolved into School Year Abroad, and we had our first girls in the program. I had only worked with boys in my career, so I had a new challenge. Though French families at first were worried that girls would be an extra responsibility, they seemed to present no more problems than the boys and gave just as much pleasure. The next three years flew by as I and my family added them to "The Best Years of My Life." The program was continuing to gain support on the faculties of the home schools, but we had not won over some of the more curmudgeonly of the critics. SYA needed a new executive director, and in 1974 I returned to Andover to take that position.  

While I was busy solving some of the financial and legal problems behind the scenes, more and more students were returning from France and Spain having developed in ways that many of the critics found astounding. Some who went over on probation came back as mature and contributing members of the community. Some who had relied on chemical substances for their excitement found inner resources were much more exciting and fulfilling. The program worked. And the AP language scores were off the charts. By the end of two years, I had done what I needed to do. It was time for me to attend to more personal, inner work of my own, and I left the program in the strong hands of Hal McCann.

Though I am no longer professionally connected to School Year Abroad, it remains in my thoughts and in my heart as the greatest educational program I’ve ever been involved with. Most students deepen and broaden in astonishing ways. They gain confidence and poise. They develop an understanding of themselves and their own culture that can only come from being immersed in another. They gain extraordinary facility in a second language, a skill shared by few of their compatriots. They make long-lasting friendships on both sides of the Atlantic. And they have fun. When I have returned to celebrate the milestones in SYA’s life, I am moved anew by the creativity and resourcefulness of the students, the dedication and support of the faculty, and the warm, loving strength of the French families.