Rock Point School
Burlington, VT

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John Rouleau To Retire

The following article is John Rouleau's thoughts on his upcoming retirement:

Writing this article is an interesting exercise in understanding the frangible link between memory and circumstance. I think of all the people I have known over the past forty years and their entrance and exit from my life at Rock Point School become mixed up and recast as points on a very satisfactory and gratifying tapestry.

I began as a music teacher, teaching banjo, guitar, stand-up bass and anything else we could get our hands on. We did a lot of singing and for a while, we had a pretty good jug band going. The next year when Alice and I moved in with our one year old daughter, Becky, to be dorm parents, we began a long and fruitful series of building a school community in September and watching the graduates fly away in June. We were all part of a wonderful community of challenge, love, discipline, learning and growth. Throughout all of my time with young people as the science teacher, Assistant Head and then Headmaster, it was my goal to help them understand the multi-layered nature of reality and their duty to form themselves as competent and caring adults. I am grateful for the opportunity to do such a personally satisfying mission.

You know, I have made a long practice of writing about this school and the life it leads and it is this assignment that I find most difficult. Not because I am leaving- I am so happy to see the school move along into its new iteration while I move into retirement with Alice. Instead, it is difficult because there is no way for me to adequately summarize or do justice to the wonderful people with whom I have shared my life in this extraordinary school.

This school is a place of hope and affirmation, work and fun, honesty and change. We have all done our share of crying and we have all had our periods of bewilderment at the myriad choices and challenges that life offers us. We have all felt the exultation of excellence and achievement. We have all been sustained by love and comity. Each of us, from the class of 1970 to the class of 2011 could be writing this article. It happens that it is I, a most grateful recipient of the opportunity to work at Rock Point School for so long, who is doing so.

To everyone who has been kind enough to share their life with me during the past forty years, I truly thank you.

John Rouleau

Rock Point School is a co-ed boarding school, with a small day program for students ages 14-19 and in grades 9 through 12, who have gotten off track both personally and academically. Rock Point School is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, is a member of the National Association of Episcopal Schools, the VT Independent Schools Association of Northern New England and the National Association of Independent Schools.