Why Prep

April 23, 2025

Hello Sandia Prep Community, 

I hope you have had a great April so far. A few weeks ago, we had our spring vacation, and I had the amazing opportunity to travel with my daughter in Italy and Spain, visiting sites I studied over 30 years ago in my art history classes in college. Not only was I awed by seeing some of these works in person (Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and David, in particular), but I was grateful to spend time with my daughter at this time in her life. 

The trip, however, was a whirlwind, and we found ourselves constantly moving from one place to another, finding it difficult to feel truly settled. Whether we were rushing to catch a train, waiting in line in the rain to see Roman ruins, or carrying our luggage up four flights of stairs, we were often in between places, rather than in them. Rather than feeling frustrated by this discomfort, I sought to embrace it. I also realized that this in-between place was a perfect analogy to my daughter’s situation: she was finished with her program abroad but had not yet started her spring term. She was finished but not finished. It was a moment of transition—unsettling and uncertain, yet also full of possibility.

There’s actually a name for this kind of space: “liminal.” Victor Turner, a British cultural anthropologist, built on the work of Arnold van Gennep, a German ethnographer and folklorist, who first introduced the idea of liminality, associated with rites of passage. Turner writes about the power of liminality in human experience, arguing that these threshold moments -- when individuals are neither in one place nor another -- can be deeply transformative. He also noted that when people go through liminal experiences together, they create what he called “communitas.” Essentially, the idea is that when people navigate the unknown together, they form an intense bond.

I love the idea of embracing these moments and recognizing them for what they are -- powerful opportunities to be introspective, to be vulnerable, and to connect with others. I’d venture to guess that if I ask you to look back at a moment when you felt truly connected to someone else, many of you would come up with moments of liminality. And so while I could tell my daughter was not quite feeling herself, I encouraged her to lean in and to open up, looking more at the possibilities than the limits of this time.

The student experience at Sandia Prep is full of liminal spaces, especially when you think of rites of passage. When students begin here in sixth grade, they are transitioning into middle school, and a few short years later, they make the transition to high school. And our seniors feel like their entire final year is a liminal space with so many unknowns as they apply for college. These are big liminal spaces, but liminality also happens in smaller ways: the moment before a student understands a complex concept, the pause before a student speaks up in a discussion -- really any time someone steps into an unfamiliar situation. These are the spaces where deep learning happens -- where students learn to tolerate ambiguity, build resilience, and forge connections with others who are going through a similar experience.

I’m sure you may have seen graphics or read about the idea of moving out of one’s comfort zone for learning to happen. While there may be discomfort, when students push themselves to do something different, those are the moments they remember. At Sandia Prep, we embrace these moments as opportunities for learning and growth. Liminality may be uncomfortable, but it is also where transformation occurs. When we support students in these in-between moments, we prepare them not only for their next academic step, but for a lifetime of navigating change with grace, resilience, and a sense of purpose. 

As I observed my daughter during our trip, I was reminded that this is where growth happens: in that place between what was and what will be. It can be scary, but embracing these moments is a wonderful lesson for our students and children.