My blog from Houston, Texas. Updated most weeks, usually on Sundays.
During a meeting I was chairing on Monday afternoon, I was reflecting on the nature of leadership. Having been a Head of School now for some 24 years, I suggested to those present that the easy bit of leadership is to do what is popular, but the tough bit is to do what is right.
Although my most-loved Spielberg movie remains the brilliant “Empire of the Sun”, which is one of my all-time favorite films, I was deeply impressed with Lincoln (the movie, as well as the President). With superb photographic quality and an amazing attention to detail, the film focused on the final months of Lincoln's presidency and the passage of the 13th amendment to the Constitution, which was the Amendment to ban slavery.
It is a film that should not be missed by anyone interested in the curiously common mix of idealistic humanitarianism and the politics of reality. I felt that a review on IMDB summed it up very well indeed:
Usually, the only films I ever get to watch are on plane flights. In a normal, busy week, going to a cinema would be at the end of my long list of things to do; quite simply there is so much work to do at night that I would feel guilty if I took the time out and I would not be able to concentrate. Therefore, a good indicator of the high quality of this film was that it held me captivated throughout its epic duration. It brought alive the person of Lincoln in the context of his times and his challenges, and I felt a better person for having watched it. I don’t really “do” film reviews, but I would definitely recommend this great production as a “must see”.
The following morning, I shared some much lighter literature with one of our 5th grade classes, having been invited to be one of the readers in our “Lire en Fête” (Celebrate Reading) fortnight. I decided that the 5th graders might benefit from a classic children’s story from Australia that each of my own children had loved very much, “The Drover’s Dream” by Deborah Niland.
There is a television quiz show here in the US called “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” in which contestants pit themselves against a group of bright 5th Grade students on primary school standard questions. In my mind, that started me wondering whether our 5th graders might indeed be smarter than our dads, at least on the subject of Australian vocabulary.
Hands shot up immediately. “A rat?”. “An animal that looks like a mole?” “A kind of squirrel”.
There were squeals of laughter when I told them that a drover is actually a kind of shepherd; a person who looks after large flocks of sheep, adding that most of them probably don’t usually think of themselves as rats or moles.
After we translated some other weird Australian words that were required to understand the story – swag, dingo, bandicoot, drongo, goanna, and so on – we had a great time as we read the story together. The 5th graders were a wonderfully responsive and appreciative group of students – dare I say a delight, just like every group of students I encounter at Awty.
On the subject of “delights” I should also add a few words about our new parking garage. As most people at Awty know, we are now using our new 440-space parking garage, which is essentially complete apart from some final work on the elevators and some landscaping. Visitors have told me that Awty now has the most impressive parking garage (as well as athletics field) of any school in the south-west - it makes me wish that there was some kind of organized competition to formalize the praise. Even leaving aside its impressive appearance, the parking garage has made an almost miraculous improvement to our on-campus traffic congestion and shortage of parking spaces.
The completion of the parking garage and the new administration and classroom block at the front entrance of the school has transformed both the appearance and the quality of our facilities in the school in a very short period of time. For interest, I have posted a few photos below that show the transformation of our campus over the past year, comparing some photos taken this week with some that I took when I first arrived at Awty.
Lincoln, a drover, and a parking garage
Sunday, 21 October 2012