When I started this blog, I set as a goal for myself to post at least once a month. This past year I haven't even come close to that, but I blame it on deciding to go back to school and how much time that took. Just a few weeks ago, I completed my second Masters. My first is in Special Education and this one is International School Administration. I learned much about leading change, got a refresher on completing action research, began to understand schools and how they function on a very different level, and got to spend a lot of time with the wonderful people in the picture below. I was honored to be chosen to speak at our graduation and have included it below as my way of recommitting to the work of this blog now that my courses are completed. More to come soon.
Welcome friends, families, fellow graduates, and distinguished guests. I’d like to especially welcome the Ott Family whose vision and dedication to this school have given us such a beautiful and special community in which to have spent these summers studying. The Otts are especially important to this cohort and have a special place in our hearts. We just heard Christoph Ott speak for us and Marc was our first professor in this program last summer and we were his first class. It was during a grueling 2-hour mock-interview in his class that we cemented our bonds as both a learning community and a family of friends who could work and laugh together. Additionally, this summer, we were Dr. Steven Ott’s first class in the Endicott Program. We learned much with and from him and he, Doris and Segrid very generously opened their home to us for a lovely evening. Thank you for sharing this journey with us.
And it has been one long, strange trip. There have been quiet serious moments of reflection and thoughtful questioning about what makes a good leader and how to best manage change. There have been sacrifices of time with our families and friends and things we enjoy better than homework. There have been the week three frustrations and the wondering of how it will all get done. But most of all, with this group, there has been laughter. This is a group of people who can work hard and play hard and you are the reason this year has been so special and so I thank you.
Those of you who know me a bit, know that I have a particular love of a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke that I have carried with me for a long time. I return to it because I find it always reminds me that this life we lead is about the process and the journey. He offers this advice to a young poet and I offer it to you today.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
The quote was given to me when I was a young 19 year old filled with confusion about the meaning of life and my role in this wondrous and complex world and I find it still so relevant for me as a 40 year old wife, mother and educator still confused about the meaning of life and my role in this even more wondrous and complex world. I think the questions we ask shape the path our lives take and each of us came to Leysin with our own questions because we are lifelong learners and inspire our students to be as well.
Daniel came wondering if there wasn’t a better way to be a leader than the examples that he had seen. Bridgette was curious about how to manage curriculum change. Destyni came to learn more about this international teaching thing and I think she is hooked. Lienne brought a passion for inquiry learning and a desire to spread it. Jason seeks to be a leader who can help teachers and students to live more balanced and mindful lives. Tricia brought her passion for math and infused it into our work at every chance. And Elizabeth, she wants to know how to run her own school some day and I am sure she will.
So we came for our different reasons with our own questions about leadership and what we hoped this Masters would help us to learn and along the way your questions became our questions and we explored and considered them together. Plus we considered a few more along the way. We pondered such esoteric queries as:
How is change like poop?
What does impressive empathy look like?
Did Fullan use congruent in every chapter?
How else can we use an apple?
Just what is so urgent about that next slide?
Has it really only been 3 minutes?
How do you clear the morning fog?
What to do when in doubt?
And perhaps, most quixotic of all -
How do you feed the pony?
But in seriousness, as we set off to pursue what comes next for us as individuals – team leaders, principals, directors - the strength of this experience is that we will have each other. We may not have answers for each other, but we can live the questions together and live our way into our answers with the support of a group of professionals, a group of students, a group of strangers who arrived in a Swiss mountain town and became family. I have been so fortunate to have learned and laughed with you. You inspire me. And I wish you and all the graduates today what you in your hearts wish for yourselves. Don’t be afraid to be the dancing man who risked humiliation by being the first and only out there in his own groove. Keep dancing your dance and know you will always have us as your second followers to support you on the way. And most of all, believe in your questions. Share them with the world and inspire others to do the same. Live your questions now. Congratulations!
Thank you.
And it has been one long, strange trip. There have been quiet serious moments of reflection and thoughtful questioning about what makes a good leader and how to best manage change. There have been sacrifices of time with our families and friends and things we enjoy better than homework. There have been the week three frustrations and the wondering of how it will all get done. But most of all, with this group, there has been laughter. This is a group of people who can work hard and play hard and you are the reason this year has been so special and so I thank you.
Those of you who know me a bit, know that I have a particular love of a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke that I have carried with me for a long time. I return to it because I find it always reminds me that this life we lead is about the process and the journey. He offers this advice to a young poet and I offer it to you today.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
The quote was given to me when I was a young 19 year old filled with confusion about the meaning of life and my role in this wondrous and complex world and I find it still so relevant for me as a 40 year old wife, mother and educator still confused about the meaning of life and my role in this even more wondrous and complex world. I think the questions we ask shape the path our lives take and each of us came to Leysin with our own questions because we are lifelong learners and inspire our students to be as well.
Daniel came wondering if there wasn’t a better way to be a leader than the examples that he had seen. Bridgette was curious about how to manage curriculum change. Destyni came to learn more about this international teaching thing and I think she is hooked. Lienne brought a passion for inquiry learning and a desire to spread it. Jason seeks to be a leader who can help teachers and students to live more balanced and mindful lives. Tricia brought her passion for math and infused it into our work at every chance. And Elizabeth, she wants to know how to run her own school some day and I am sure she will.
So we came for our different reasons with our own questions about leadership and what we hoped this Masters would help us to learn and along the way your questions became our questions and we explored and considered them together. Plus we considered a few more along the way. We pondered such esoteric queries as:
How is change like poop?
What does impressive empathy look like?
Did Fullan use congruent in every chapter?
How else can we use an apple?
Just what is so urgent about that next slide?
Has it really only been 3 minutes?
How do you clear the morning fog?
What to do when in doubt?
And perhaps, most quixotic of all -
How do you feed the pony?
But in seriousness, as we set off to pursue what comes next for us as individuals – team leaders, principals, directors - the strength of this experience is that we will have each other. We may not have answers for each other, but we can live the questions together and live our way into our answers with the support of a group of professionals, a group of students, a group of strangers who arrived in a Swiss mountain town and became family. I have been so fortunate to have learned and laughed with you. You inspire me. And I wish you and all the graduates today what you in your hearts wish for yourselves. Don’t be afraid to be the dancing man who risked humiliation by being the first and only out there in his own groove. Keep dancing your dance and know you will always have us as your second followers to support you on the way. And most of all, believe in your questions. Share them with the world and inspire others to do the same. Live your questions now. Congratulations!
Thank you.