Williston Northampton School students need to mind their manners and show respect for one another, English Department Head Ms. Sarah Sawyer told students at assembly. On the first day back from Thanksgiving break, Sawyer reminded students that a certain etiquette is required for meals, phone use, and merely walking past people on the sidewalk.

“We are in some difficult times, and they will require us to be braver, wiser, kinder. We will need to show that we respect each other’s dignity,” Sawyer said.

She added, “This means that we need to do the big things, like listen to our friends and even more importantly, our enemies. We need to do the small things, too: we need be quiet and put our phones away when people are giving us the gift of theatre, dance, and music.”

Sawyer said her announcement was prompted by students’ poor behavior at the chorus concert on November 11^th. Students in the balcony were talking loudly and busy on their phones while their peers were singing on stage.

“The recent presidential election prompted me to speak,” said Sawyer. “I think that in general in our society there is a lack of respect for the views of others, a baffling sense that no one should be held responsible for hurtful language or behavior, and a decreasing understanding of why it is important to treat all people, whether or not you agree with them, with respect.”

Along with respect, she said students should practice basic etiquette and politeness, whether that means putting a napkin in your lap or holding the door for someone. She delivered the speech while three students, Noah DeVos ’17, Leah Pezanowski ‘17, and Harrison Winrow ’18, sat on the stage with a books on their heads and under their arms. They had to eat a donut with a fork and knife while balancing and holding the books. This comical demonstration emphasized that students need to keep their elbows in, sit up straight, and bring the food to their mouth at the table. Sawyer’s father had to practice eating like this, she said in her speech.

This year, Williston implemented Residential Life Dinners, where boarding students are required to attend a formal seated meal with their dorm, an event that emphasizes dining etiquette. Dean of Students Ms. Kathy Noble said that the formal dinners encourage conversation and “provide the framework of going home to a dinner table.”

“I think we all, and I say not just students, but adults and everyone, we need to be reminded, sometimes, of manners and etiquette,” says Noble. “There is a subtle message that what we do matters, and how we do it matters. How we interact with others matters.”

Head of School Mr. Robert Hill says at the beginning of every year that the Williston Northampton School prides itself on having really nice students who create a welcoming environment.

Mr. Richard Teller ‘70, archivist and assistant librarian, spoke about the different etiquette of the students from when he attended Williston Academy. He said that the culture has changed and become more informal.

“Everything in the 1960s was very carefully planned,” said Mr. Teller. “It was a very formal atmosphere. You were expected to put on your jacket and tie, and go to breakfast, where there was assigned seating, and you kept the jacket and tie on until the end of the class day and put it on again for dinner.”

In January 1964, Headmaster Phillips Stevens wrote a memorandum, which is still preserved in Williston’s archives. It was addressed to the faculty for the new year and the first item on the list was the boy’s table manners.

The memo said, “Boys must be kept after constantly, to sit up straight, have their collars buttoned, not pass up their plates for seconds until instructed to do so…We all know these things, but we don’t follow them very carefully.”

In the introduction, Mr. Stevens wrote, “Individually, they [the items of the memorandum] are perhaps minor, collectively they make for the kind of school atmosphere of which we can all be proud.”

Stevens’s memorandum expresses some of the same ideas as Ms. Sawyer’s assembly talk. Fifty years later, the Williston Northampton School still believes that “The little things matter,” according to Noble.

Sawyer said there is a conflict between giving students personal freedom to learn how to live and modeling good behavior through structure and rules. “I don’t think our students have better or worse behavior than any other group, but I do want them to think deliberately about the kind of lives they want to lead and the kind of people they want to become.”

Sawyer said her family impressed on her the importance of manners. “I asked my father once what he thought the point of manners is, and I’ll never forget his answer. He said, ‘Manners are our proof that we respect the dignity of our fellow man.’”