By Ryan Ryu’25
With AP exams less than a week away and the final weeks of the school year picking up speed, there has been a quiet intensity building across campus. Students have started moving a little faster between classes. Teachers are distributing review packets. Schedules are filling up. It’s that unmistakable moment when spring stops feeling leisurely and starts feeling real.
So when Jessie the Bagpiper stepped onto the Glade on Wednesday night and students gathered for an unexpected evening of Scottish dancing, the timing felt just right.
The surprise was announced two days earlier during an all-school meeting when Head of School Mrs. Gum walked onto the stage. Most students expected reminders about focusing and finishing the year strong. Instead, they got something else entirely: a Ceilidh dance, open to the entire community, followed by a day off from classes on Thursday. The room erupted not just out of disbelief but from the rare feeling that something joyful had been planned for no reason other than to bring people together.
By 8 p.m. Wednesday, students were spilling onto the Glade as the music began. Live bagpipes, guitar, and drums echoed across campus. There was no formal dress code. No pressure to know the steps. Just open space, fading sunlight, and room to move.
Gary, the evening’s emcee, stood at the center of it all. With a thick Scottish accent and the energy of someone who loves what he’s doing, he guided students through every dance. Some picked it up quickly, while others stumbled through it with friends, laughing and spinning in all directions. No one was checking their phones.
“I’m not usually into dancing,” said Mairin Hoffman ’25. “But I danced with my best friend, Skyler, and with people I don’t usually dance with, and suddenly it just felt natural. Like something we didn’t know we needed.”
The Glade had transformed into something else for the evening: a place not just to relax, but to engage and participate in something shared. Even students who might have felt too self-conscious at first ended up in the circle, pulled in by the rhythm and the community around them. In between dances, there were bowls of strawberries and whipped cream, a small, quiet detail that somehow made the night feel complete.
There was no speech or announcement about tradition, but it didn’t need one. The celebration spoke for itself. Since becoming Head of School, Mrs. Gum, an alumna of the University of St Andrews in Scotland, has gently incorporated parts of Gunn’s Highlander heritage back into school life. The Ceilidh didn’t feel like a history lesson; it felt like a continuation.
It’s easy to let the last month of school become a countdown to summer, finals, and graduation. But this night resisted that. It wasn’t about finishing or preparing. It was about showing up, turning toward each other, and doing something just because it made us feel good to be there.
In the end, no one needed to be told it was special. You could tell by the way people lingered, by how they danced with those they hadn’t spoken to much before, and by how everyone seemed just a little more relaxed and happy the next day.
There’s no neat bow to tie around it. No morals to declare. Just a night on the Glade, music in the air, and a school that, for a few hours, forgot the rush and remembered what it’s like to enjoy each other’s company.
