It was Donald Winnicott, of course, who coined the phrase good-enough in connection with parenting. He first introduced the term in 1953 although he had worked on the concept for years and the idea is there in his advice to parents in his wartime radio broadcasts. Basically, it recognizes the need for children to learn … Read more
The signs are everywhere. Along with so many other institutions, schools – and all those who work in them and for them – are in great distress. Just look at the teacher responses to this tweet from yesterday One thing you wished that people understood about being a teacher in 2020 below… — Nicole Biscotti, … Read more
What Schools Have To Be About Now A colleague shared an article – That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief from the Harvard Business Review and it struck a chord. Suddenly – with the pandemic – the future, that had been lurking and looming on a horizon in plain sight, had arrived all at once. And … Read more
They say the war is over. But water still Comes bloody from the taps. from ‘Redeployment,’ Howard Nemerov In April 1961 the BBC Light program broadcast the first episode of a new radio drama: The Avenue Goes to War. It was based on the R. F. Delderfield novel of the same name. It’s the story … Read more
The schools we attend and work in help shape the people we become. Seven of my sixty plus years in school were spent here – at Headlands Grammar School, Swindon. It is long gone and the site redeveloped. When people go into education as a career they sometimes seek to replicate the good experiences of … Read more
Scooterons-nous vite. It’s Back to School with Angela Brazil Long before Harry Potter – and indeed long before all those school story authors who gave us Malory Towers and St. Clare’s and the Chalet School and the Abbey School and Jennings and Billy Bunter – there was Angela Brazil. Brazil – rhymes with dazzle – … Read more
It’s graduation season and across the land schools are saying goodbye to students and students are moving along and into the next phases of their lives. It’s all very heartwarming and etc. I usually couldn’t wait for them to be over. All that dressing up and ceremony and sitting and waiting in uncomfortable chairs. At … Read more
Just a few pictures of very lovely evening at Trevor Day School. Great appreciation to all who helped make this reunion celebration so successful. It was good to be back among Trevor folk and to catch up with so many people. And congratulations to the ever wonderful Diane Tisman, head of the world languages department, … Read more
It was Robert C. Parker Day at Robert C. Parker School in Rensselaer County, NY – just across the Hudson from downtown Albany. If you don’t know Parker, it’s one of those schools that legendary educator Tom Little lauded in his book Loving Learning as “schools for the ages”. Parker is a school in that long – … Read more
Those of us who were heads of school in 2008-9 probably remember all too well the pain of school downsizing and some may still bear the scars to show for it. It was a tough time all around. And that’s what made it easier. The whole world was struggling and any particular school or enterprise … Read more
The simplest poems can be amongst the most profound. On the Steps of the Jefferson Memorial We invent our gods the way the Greeks did, in our own image—but magnified. Athena, the very mother of wisdom, squabbled with Poseidon like any human sibling until their furious tempers made the sea writhe. Zeus wore a crown … Read more
As Donald Trump spirals deeper into madness and depravity the toll on the collective psyche just grows. Fortunately help is at hand in the form of the example of Hillary Clinton who recently demonstrated her tremendous problem-solving and self-calming abilities. We all know that cats saved the internet. Now it seems they are saving people … Read more
My title line is from Kevin Kelly whose new book The Inevitable is about the deep trends in the next 20 years that will shape our lives. And a little reflection helps us understand that truth. The future happens very slowly and then all at once. First it seems outlandish, strange, unusual and possibly impossible. Then it … Read more
Ok – so you wanted to be a head of school and you applied for a job and then you got it. Congratulations. Among all the things that you now have to make a priority is becoming the expert on the history of your school. This will take time. Schools are not alike and independent … Read more
“You Have Sacrificed Nothing” Grieving father Khizr Khan said four simple words: “You have sacrificed nothing”. It was one of those moments of astonishing clarity. A father grieving over the loss of his son – and speaking without notes or a teleprompter – delivered a resounding rebuke of everything Trump is and stands for. These … Read more