On Friday morning, we held our annual tree lighting ceremony in the PAAC. Now that the tree is aglow with hundreds of twinkling little lights, everyone knows that the holiday season is rapidly approaching!
Being from Australia, I have not experienced as many tree lightings as most people who live in America. In fact, this was only my second tree lighting ceremony, the first having been Awty’s ceremony last year. Not many people can claim,
as I can, that I have never been to a tree lighting ceremony where I was not the person who helped to turn on the light switch.
Somehow, we managed to squeeze almost all of our 1500 students into the PAAC, and there was a great sense of anticipation as everyone knew what was ahead. After I welcomed everyone, we enjoyed a great repertoire of music led by our students from all sections of the school. Some of the songs, like Rudolph, Jingle Bells, Feliz Navidad and O Tannenbaum, were sing along numbers. Other songs such as Super Santa, I believe in Santa Claus and Wonderful Christmas Time were performed by our students, and the songs were interspersed by other
performances such as a Vivaldi instrumental piece by our orchestra and the dance ‘Santa Baby’ by our dance ensemble.
After the
performance, it was time to introduce my helpers for the tree lighting. We have a tradition at Awty that the helpers are the youngest student in the school, and the students who have been in the school for the longest time.
This year, our youngest student was Lenaïc Huon de Peanster, who started at Awty just one month ago, the day after he turned three years old. Holding his stuffed puppy, Lenaïc bravely stood on a big box
and smiled while I introduced him to the huge assembly of students in the school, every one of whom was older than he, as they clapped and cheered our youngest student.
I
then introduced the nine students who have attended Awty since they also were just three years old and presumably the same size as Lenaïc – Daniel Alexander, David Alexander, Assalia Boulos, John Ellis, Shelby Flavin, Sam Franklin, Alex Howard, Francesca Pacifico and Viviana Stellenwerf.
Just as I finished introducing my helpers, I was upstaged dramatically as Santa Claus (Père Noël) entered the PAAC. Of course, everyone wanted to shake Santa’s hand, so while Santa was the center of attention, I escorted my helpers to the stage where the unlit tree was unveiled for the first time. After a few minutes of pushing his way through the friendly throng of students, Santa managed to join us on stage, and after a countdown by all the students in unison – 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – Lenaïc and I flicked the switch and the lights on the tree sprang to life. Now the entire Awty community could appreciate the tree, which was a work of art in itself assembled by our our brilliant Head of Visual Art, Ms Becky Johnson.
This was a week of lighting - on Friday I helped to light up a tree – on Wednesday I spent a day helping to light up the minds and aspirations of some fellow educators. This happened as Houston is currently hosting the annual
People of Color Conference (PoCC), organized by
the peak independent education organization in the US, the
National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS). About 3500 educators have converged into Houston for the conference, which has been organized by a small steering group, one of whom is Mr John Hoye, Awty’s Director of Athletics.
On Wednesday, the conference began with a full day leadership seminar on ‘Leadership for People of Color and Women’, led by
Steven Jones, author of the book “
Journey to Excellence” who has been named a national Top Diversity Expert by
DiversityInc magazine. Heads of Schools are expected – really obliged – to contribute to the wider educational environment, but it was a great honor nonetheless to be selected as one of just eight Heads of Schools from across the US to assist with the seminar as a member of the Leadership
Seminar Faculty. The role involved (to quote my instructions) serving as a role model of enlightened leadership, facilitating a range of small group discussions, informal coaching throughout the day, and sharing best practices and insights as an experienced independent school leader.
As a gesture of gratitude for my input, NAIS offered me a complimentary registration for PoCC 2012, which would have been great if I had actually been able to get away from school on the following three days to attend – an impossibility for a Head of School at this time of the year.
Each of the eight members of the Leadership Seminar Faculty brought a different perspective to the workshop, and in my case, it was the intercultural and international perspective of having been a Head of School for almost a quarter of a century in three different continents, combined with the challenges of being a school leader from a minority background (in my case, a ‘foreign resident alien’ to use the correct terminology). I really enjoyed sharing ideas with the participants on a range of issues through the day, ranging from leadership assessment, trust building, personal brand management, effective networking, finding a mentor, building and leading high performing teams, change management, and
creating action plans.
For me personally, the workshop was a great example of life-long learning in action. Although I came to the workshop to give by sharing ideas with aspiring school leaders, I felt (as happens so
often) that I seemed to learn far more from those around me than I felt I was able to teach to the others. It was great to reminded of significant skills such as knowing when to strategically slow down in order to speed up, the importance of forcing oneself out of comfortable routines, and of course, the fundamental difference between leading and managing. I especially appreciated an exercise that we all participated in that was based on
The Change Cycle model, during which we conducted self-assessments of our own reactions to sets of specific changes
– very revealing and extremely helpful for everyone involved.
I loved my day of helping to light up the minds of the young, aspiring school leaders with whom it was a privilege to work. I found it to be personally enriching (I am, after all, an educator at heart!) as well as very affirming – I lost count of the number of times I shared my reasons for doing this or that in a certain way to be told in response “that is SO enlightened; I wish it was like that in my school.”
Of course, being ‘enlightened’ is not always the same as ‘being welcomed’, as I pointed out to the workshop participants, especially when one is from a minority background, but that is where leadership comes into play – perhaps combined with a healthy dose of patience and blind optimism.
As I commented (only somewhat tongue-in-cheek) to one of the aspiring leaders on Wednesday, to be a successful Head of a school, you must have the friendliness of a child, the enthusiasm of a courting teenager, the confidence of a soccer player, the diplomacy of a wayward husband, the curiosity of a cat, the memory of an elephant, and the good humor of an idiot.