Message from Riverside's Headmaster
RPDS is a community of gifted educators and support staff dedicated to educating children and their families. In all we do we seek to develop hands, hearts and minds for healthy, successful lives.
Palmer Bell
Headmaster
Any great school invests extensively to deliver an outstanding academic curriculum. At RPDS we augment such a curriculum with superior programs in the arts, character formation and spiritual nourishment.
Recently I was surprised to discover a small rodent in our home garden shed. He was a persistent pest and a nuisance that proved quite difficult to vanquish. How like that rodent are the little flaws that take root during our intellectual, spiritual and character development and then seek to strangle the healthy traits also growing within our lives!
C.S. Lewis too must have experienced pests around his house. Lewis reflected,
"Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is. If there are rats in a cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats; it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way, the suddenness of the provocation does not make me ill-tempered; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am."
Great schools encourage students to understand that within each assignment, service project, decision and spiritual experience – hour by hour and day by day – the building blocks of our lives are erected. A mistake laying foundational blocks affects all that will be laid above. It bears remembering that just as one little rat can wreck a tool shed, it is the singular, seemingly insignificant events in life that threaten to weaken the people we will become.
In our fast-paced world the urge to overemphasize the "sprint" rather than the "marathon" approach to personal development is a strong one. At RPDS we nourish children academically, spiritually and physically, believing that the foundations we build will create successful developmental journeys that should not be rushed and that will never be completed. I look forward to meeting you and your children as you visit our campus to learn more about RPDS!
H. Palmer Bell
Headmaster of Riverside Presbyterian Day School
