Houston Blog
My blog from Houston, Texas. Updated most weeks, usually on Sundays.
This has been an odd week – hence the title of my blog this week. Not that it has been a bad week, but neither has it been especially wonderful. And yet, it has been strange enough for me to question from time to time whether I might be the unwitting subject of a reality TV show.
The week began (unsurprisingly, and as expected) last weekend. I had decided that I needed a bit of a break, not having had a weekend off for quite some time, so I planned to do what I love best – exploring some interesting geography with a camera in my hand. I usually prefer to do my explorations with some company, either my wife (if the terrain is soft, smooth, easy and comfortable) or with one of my children (if it is more on the wild side). Last weekend’s terrain was definitely on the wild side, but with my wife and all of my children currently located at least 8,500 miles away (even via the most direct air route to Australia), solo travel was the only option for me.
My weekend destination was several of the national parks in Utah which feature some especially spectacular geomorphology. My travels began in Flagstaff, Arizona, where I hired a car and drove northwards, along the southern rim of the Grand Canyon, and onwards to Monument Valley (on the Arizona-Utah border). From there, a zig-zag route took me further north through Natural Bridges National Monument, Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park, before finishing my journey in Grand Junction, Colorado.
One of my aims when moving to the US had been to visit Monument Valley and Arches National Park, and my only regret now is that I had delayed my visit for so long. Eastern Utah is a geographer’s paradise, and as a geographer, I was in heaven. I woke up before dawn each day to catch the photogenic lighting, and I used every minute of every day to explore, sacrificing lunch to avoid the time-wasting activity of eating.
The three small images below will take you to three galleries (of about 30 images each) showing some of my photos from last weekend. I hope you enjoy looking at the images as much as I enjoyed creating them.
So, why do I describe a week that started so inspirationally as odd?
I had travelled to Utah to have ‘time out’. But I soon came to realise that Heads of Schools don’t get ‘real’ time out in the way that most normal people do. For much of my time away, I was out of cellphone reception, and I was able to have a true wilderness experience. However, every time I entered a town (and therefore came within range of a mobile phone tower), my phone went wild with dings, rings and chimes – all emanating from incoming school-related messages. So, I would find myself stopping in each town, answering the messages, before driving on to the next town to repeat the process. As I have found over many years, this is the nature of the way Heads of Schools experience their so-called down-time. I never normally notice the intrusions when spending the weekends at home or at work – I just accept them – but it was far more noticeable in uninhabited eastern Utah.
My flight back to Houston had to be in two stages, the first flight being from Grand Junction to Dallas, and the second being a connecting flight to Houston. I was due to land in Houston at 11:30 pm on Sunday night (I do like to squeeze every minute of time when I am exploring!), but unfortunately (there’s that word again), the flight from Grand Junction into Dallas was late and the connection was missed.
Actually the experience was a little more ‘odd’ than that. There were two planes sitting on the tarmac at Grand Junction Airport, both the same airline (American Eagle), both bound for Dallas, and both due to depart at the same time. I showed my boarding pass, walked onto the plane to which I was directed, took my assigned seat and was settled in ready to depart, when a cabin attendant came up to me and curtly instructed me to make my seat available for another passenger, get off, and board the other plane. Before I even asked, she reminded me of the FAA regulations that require passengers to obey any instruction from cabin staff. So, I shrugged my shoulders and dutifully obeyed, thankfully finding an available seat on the other plane. The problem was – the second plane I boarded sat at the airport for an hour longer than one I had to vacate. Apparently they had trouble finding a fuel truck in Grand Junction, and that’s why I missed my connection in Dallas.
Tuesday was an eclectic day. The highlight came on Tuesday evening when we received the wonderful news about our French Bac results for this year’s graduating students in the French Section. For the 11th year in a row, 100% of our Terminale students passed the baccalauréat. It is the 11th year in a row that Awty International School has achieved this 100% success rate in the Bac. 75% of our students (15 out of 20) passed with honors, of whom 6 achieved the top Very Good / Très Bien result (average between 16 and 20 out of 20), 7 finished with Good / Bien (average between 14 and 15.9 out of 20), and 2 achieved Distinguished / Assez Bien (average between 12 and 13.9 out of 20).
Wednesday was only a mildly odd day. Around the middle of the day, I attended a meeting of the Investment Committee, during which I must confess that I struggled with some of the terminology that was being liberally thrown around the table by our investment experts. I was doing fairly well in following the gist of the discussion until I heard a finance company being described as a typical long-short.
A long-short?
Long-short what?
No noun, and self-refuting mutually inconsistent adjectives; so I felt compelled to interrupt, even at the risk (a very obvious one) of displaying my ignorance. I asked the simple question: “please tell me, what is a long-short”? Having received an almost ten minute long answer that began “It’s very simple really…..”,I would like to claim that I am now much wiser.
And yet that would not be completely true! It is said that the best way to demonstrate that you understand something is to have to teach it to someone else. Let me tell you, this teacher with over three and a half decades experience in the classroom is not about to attempt to explain the concept of a “long-short” to any 14-year-old in the foreseeable future.
In between my various meetings, I have also spent some time this week working on our new Strategic Plan, drawing on the input and feedback received from our school community over the past few months. I think it is coming on rather well, but that will be for others to judge in August or September when the first draft is ready for sharing and discussion.
Somewhat oddly, I found myself being interrupted more than I had expected this week when several of my teachers came individually to ask me questions about an unlikely topic – board governance. It was interesting to hear some of the stories they had been hearing which prompted their enquiries, for governance is usually a remote and distant topic for the average classroom teacher. My advice to all of them was the same – just focus, as I am doing, on making sure that Awty continues to be the very best place for our children’s education. In other words, continue your superb efforts that have made Awty Houston’s best school.
As I see it - it’s that simple.
On Thursday afternoon, following a telephonic board meeting, I travelled to Bethesda to attend a recruitment fair. To be very frank, this was also something of an ‘odd’ experience. I don’t particularly like the model of recruitment fairs at the best of times - they seem reminiscent of speed dating. Nonetheless, I had booked a spot for Awty at the recruitment fair to fill a senior position that we feared might still remain open at the end of term. As things turned out, this senior position was filled from an excellent applicant pool within Houston a couple of days ago. However, another position was emerging by Tuesday afternoon that might need to be filled, but we still weren’t sure by the time the recruitment fair started on Friday (and I am still not sure as I write this blog). Under the protocol of these recruitment fairs, one is not permitted to conduct interviews for a vacancy that may not exist. So, I found myself in the odd situation of being at a recruitment fair with no positions to fill, but with the real possibility that there might be a vacancy next week, by which time the last job fair will be over.
Odd.
But as I said, it has been an odd week.
Given the nature of my recent experiences, I am really looking forward to starting my summer travels tomorrow. Frankly, as I mentioned above, I am ready for a good break! I am hoping that there will not be too many work-based demands on my time, especially as my planned destinations – such exotic locales as Suriname, Guyana, Ecuador and Colombia (specifically chosen for their isolation and geographical exoticism) – are not known for the quality of their internet access. My travels will culminate in Mexico in early July, when I will be attending my first IB Americas annual conference in Cancun.
I hope it is as good as the rumors suggest.
An odd week
Sunday, 24 June 2012
A Navajo mother and her young son watch the sun rise over Monument Valley. Whenever I see a sunrise, I cannot help but see the rising sun as symbolic of the light of hope that education brings to our world. My dream is that one day, everyone might truly appreciate the enlightenment that great education brings to young lives.