Sometimes, when you least expect it, life throws you a surprise. I flew out to California for a long weekend to see the last game of my daughter’s college career as a lacrosse player.
UC Davis Women’s Lacrosse Beat Stanford in overtime, sending these five girls out in fine style!
It was a grand night and a true testament to grit and grace, no matter the predictions!
BOSTON MARATHON 2013
To help children (and ourselves) stay grounded while sorting through the Boston Tragedy:
Washington Post – How to Talk to Children About Boston Bombings
McConn and Courtney on Shepard Field
At small schools, we plan buddy classes and create opportunities through the ski program for students to interact and mentor. But we also make sure each student is known and valued.
I have been working with a small group of teachers and board members setting some strategic priorities for Tuxedo Park School moving forward. This “think tank” has spent time reading, dreaming and sorting out our thoughts on program, innovation and space use. We have discussed what makes TPS what it is: a vibrant school community, albeit it small, with a tremendous sense of community and purpose. And as we look forward towards our future, we continue to accord respect to the amazing history and tradition of the school. I have since started collecting examples of how communities mark time and pay homage to their roots. This link is a pure pleasure. Watch it for five minutes and just smile.
While I do not always agree with Tom Friedman, this article in the Sunday Times poses interesting questions for the future of education in our schools…
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/opinion/sunday/friedman-need-a-job-invent-
Mission Statement for School? Yes. For family? Hmm.
What I love about this article is that “family” gets raised to the level of any other important organization or community. As we at TPS seek to reaffirm our mission, so too, can parents do so with their children. Each year at Grandparents” Day, I implore our Grandparents to tell their grandchildren their stories. This last year at TPS, we have had many of our alums tell their stories. What a great way to create connection and a sense of something larger than themselves for our students!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/fashion/the-family-stories-that-bind-us-this-life.html?hpw&_r=0
A Room of One’s Own
“…a woman must have money and room of her own if she is to write fiction…”
–Virginia Woolf
And for a head of school to write non-fiction? A funded two-week program and a room of her own! Virginia Woolf famously wrote about being a woman writer in 1920s England and needing a Room of One’s Own for the purpose of writing, thinking, and making meaning of her world. It was, to some extent, a call to arms—
or pens—but it was a manifesto of sorts imploring women to stake their claim in the world, create their own identities, away from male writers, and write their world. My recent two weeks at the Klingenstein Center at Teacher’s College, Columbia University, felt a little like I had been given the enormous gift of a room of my own (at the Hotel Beacon) and the opportunity to read and think deeply, but also to debate furiously with other heads of school from Australia and Germany, Thailand and California, Colorado and South Carolina, Georgia and Washington State, Ohio and Maine. I spent time with seventeen heads of school, telling our stories and comparing our roles and our schools.
In class we read Montaigne’s education of philosophy in his essay entitled, “On Educating Children.” We read John Dewey and David Hansen. We visited three schools in the city and applied our philosophy readings to what we saw. We rode the subway, saw art at the Met, and watched Wicked on Broadway. This entire experience was funded through the generous support of the Klingenstein Center and, specifically, of the Klingenstein family, who have supported Independent School Leadership for over 25 years.
http://www.klingenstein.org/content/heads-schools-program
Back at the Beacon, I had homework, a room of my own, and the opportunity to be immersed in my studies and my thoughts about education. And Virginia Woolf would be happy to know I also had the opportunity to write my world and record my ideas. They were not always clear or concise, but they did create a breadcrumb trail of literature and research that netted one philosophy essay, a joint paper on 21st Century Schools, and my own research on Tuition Assistance at schools across the country. Indeed, having a room of one’s own is something I will replicate back at the Pink House. The ability to reflect and renew, away from the daily work of school, is the sure path to new ideas and a clear direction. I look forward to writing more about this singular experience.
This amazing two weeks came to an abrupt and disruptive end with the arrival of Winter Storm Nemo. Columbia completely shut down Thursday evening for Friday morning, and thus our final research presentations to the Graduate Students and our “graduation lunch” went away! In the end, such a decision allowed most of our International Colleagues to travel early and get out of the city before NEMO struck, so all’s well that ends well. I will be savoring the opportunity to reflect on these two weeks for a long time to come. I am finishing up my research paper on Flexible Tuition models and will share that back at school when the opportunity is right. Since I always ask folks at my school to remember to express gratitude, I do so here.
I am grateful for the TPS board and a school community that supported this amazing opportunity for me by doing what needed to be done over these last two weeks.
I am grateful to the Klingenstein Family Foundation for the support and for running this one-of-a-kind, fully funded program for people in leadership roles in Independent Schools. As we have all said many times, it can indeed be lonely at the top, but I now have a community of seventeen other heads and some terrific resources at Columbia for future conversations.
I am grateful to Pearl Rock Kane, and everyone at the Klingenstein office: Cindy, Adele, Peter and Patti.
I am grateful for the chance to be a student again, to think deeply about moral leadership, to discuss philosophy and to bring home work that will inform some of our biggest projects moving forward.
I am grateful. Thank You!
What an amazing gift these two weeks have truly been!
Watching the sun rise over Manhattan, I am reminded of being back in graduate school, under deadline, finishing off a paper. This gorgeous sunrise almost went undetected as I sit at my desk, in my room, toiling away at my laptop. It is a beautiful thing, and indeed a luxury, to immerse oneself in an academic pursuit and make meaning from a body of literature. As I comb through literature and write about the newest trends in financial aid, tuition assistance and tuition discounting, I will bring home data to discuss these topics thoughtfully at our board meetings and in our future budget meetings as we continue to set the bar high for our school while facing the financial realities all independent schools face in 2013.
More to follow…
Head's Up, Kathleen McNamara 