CAIS in Point

Traditionally, August tends not to be the time of year for reflection. Having spent a few weeks decompressing, by mid-August we are usually already in full flight anticipating the great new initiatives and fresh starts that September always brings us. This year, as has been the case for the last few, many of our schools are enjoying a change of leadership. There is no more exciting time in the cyclical life of schools than those first few heady months of change that typically follow the appointment of a new Head of School. No matter how successful or beloved her or his predecessor may have been, the healthy disequilibrium brought on by a change in style or priorities almost always breathes fresh life and excitement into all of the dusty corners of any campus. Having said that, our schools are not fiefdoms to be held in thrall by the vision, skills and personality of a single leader. In actual fact, for a school to have truly sustainable leadership, it needs to create a culture of continuous growth and change that is not dependent upon any one person to sustain it. You will notice that I used the terms “growth and change” and not “improvement”. I have always felt that the term “school improvement” was a deliberately soft and subjective rationale for change. While it is critically important to have a process through which you can fairly and accurately assess the extent to which your school is doing what you say that it is, and should be, the school assessment process needs to be focused upon the meeting of clearly defined standards and attaining well articulated and evaluated outcomes and not on some perception of whether or not the school is “on the cutting edge”. The very fact that a school conducts an intensive internal review of its policies and programmes; assesses its own strengths and failings; and, then has their internal view validated or critiqued by an independent outside panel would seem to be the essence of a credible quality assurance process (for parents/kids, Boards, governments, etc.). In addition, the creation of a school action plan for fostering excellence, or addressing shortcomings, becomes a logical outcome which should result in some form of school improvement. However, where I think that things get confused is when people believe that they can see into the future and apply their vision of what the next generation of schools will look like in their assessment of what is lacking in the present. For the most part, it is unlikely that any consultant or peer review team would be prescient enough to know whether or not a given school was moving down the right track at all! In fact, if you were to look at the advice for improvement given to schools five or six years ago you would have been unlikely to hear them being told to address – green issues; student diversity; curriculum mapping; internationalism; or differentiated instruction (just to name a few of the current “hot” trends) and, I think that any of us would be hard pressed to predict what a similar list will look like in 2014.   Perhaps we should deep six the concept of school “improvement” and replace it with managing on-going school “change”. The real issue is whether or not schools are researching and applying current educational theory and best practice and are in a constant state of self-directed flux rather than an arbitrary pronouncement that what they are doing constitutes “improvement”. Heads that are committed to the long term sustainability of their schools need to work on developing capacity in themselves; in their leadership teams; and, in potential future leaders in their schools to self-reflect and to manage change effectively.    In the context of sustainable schools and sustainable leadership this means: striving for excellence; putting long-term purpose before short-term gain; preserving institutional values amid the pursuit of  change; starting slowly and advancing persistently; avoiding the cult of dependency on one visionary leader; growing the school’s own leadership capacity instead of importing “stars”; and, learning from diverse experimentation. August is a time of new beginnings in the life of a school. Across the country this month faculties, staffs, leadership teams and Boards will be focused on the coming year’s “big” changes. August should also be a time of reflection to ensure that each new initiative is built on the foundation of the successes of the past and that integrated into each “change” is a strategy for sustaining it into the future. For new Heads it means, in essence, that as exciting as it is to arrive, you should already be planning for your departure. To that end, you should continually set as your priority for change, the goal of leaving the school stronger and more sustainable than you found it. Dr. Jim Christopher, Executive Director

Alfie Kohn comes to The Sterling Hall School!

The Sterling Hall School, The York School and The Canadian Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) proudly present renowned author and speaker Alfie Kohn! Come and hear him speak about his views on "The Homework Myth" and more.

Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. The author of eleven books and scores of articles, he lectures at education conferences and universities as well as to parent groups and corporations.

Kohn's criticisms of competition and rewards have been widely discussed and debated, and he has been described in Time magazine as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores”. To read more please visit Kohn’s webpage: http://www.alfiekohn.org/bio.htm

Kohn will be at The Sterling Hall School, Toronto, Ontario, on Monday September 22, 2008, 8:00pm.

To register for this relevant and informative event, please submit your registration form, and $20 fee, via the CAIS website at: http://www.cais.ca/conferences2

To view the event flyer please see below.                               

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Alfie_Kohn__flyer.pdf

The Terry Fox National School Run Day

Calling all Schools! Please spread the word about The Terry Fox National School Run Day, an enormous event that raises funds for cancer research.

The National School Run Day is held every year on the last Friday of September. It has averaged three million participants per year for the past years - more than half the students in Canada each year. It is one of the largest displays of solidarity against cancer that this planet has ever seen, and we would like to request your help to make it even bigger.

Millions of students and educators are leading the way to a world without cancer; with your help, more will join this movement.

If you require more information regarding the Terry Fox School Run Day please contact:

Peter Sheremeta

National School Run Organizer / Quebec Provincial Director The Terry Fox Foundation Tel 514-499-9747 Toll Free 1 888 836-9786 Fax 514-499-9924 qc@terryfoxrun.org www.terryfoxrun.org

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Board Professional Development

Last September, Educational Directions, Inc. hosted a reception for the annual meeting of Executive Directors of the various national and regional associations for independent schools. Follow up feedback suggested that many people in our Canadian and International schools would be interested in receiving our PDF publications.

In response to this, we are now pleased to offer you the opportunity to receive, as a PDF file e-mailed to you, two publications that consistently receive high marks from Heads of independent schools: The Head’s Letter and The Trustee’s Letter.

As a consulting company that focuses solely on serving the needs of independent schools, Educational Directions, Inc. has the networking and knowledge necessary to provide newsletters that speak to the issues that you face with your schools and your boards.

This convenient PDF option for subscribers to these newsletters is only available for our International and Canadian Heads of Schools. To read more about these publications please see the the attachments below.

Mindful of the important work that you all do, Executive Directors of the associations receive a complimentary subscriptions to both these newsletters.  All we request is that you fill out the necessary forms (found in attachments) and fax them back to us. We will get you in our system and you will begin receiving the publications with our next cycle in Fall 2008.

As we are in the process of adapting our website to handle PDF orders, we request that interested heads either fax or call in their requests until the website changes have been made.

We always encourage Heads of Schools to add us to their distribution lists for newsletters, e-bulletins and hard copy publications – one entire page of The Head’s Letter is devoted to what is taking place in schools around the world, and, we have spotlighted programs of interest in columns as well.

If you have any questions about Educational Directions, Inc. please contact:

Harriet DiCicco
Educational Directions, Inc.
PO Box 768
156 Anthony Road
Portsmouth, RI 02871
Telephone: 800-647-2794 ext. 7
Telephone: 401-683-3523 ext. 7
Fax: 401-683-6120
www.edu-directions.com

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THL_June08_5.pdf

THLflyer_2008_Intl.pdf

TrusteesFlyer2008_Intl.pdf

TTL_MayJune08_5.pdf

Fly the Friendly Skies, Don’t be a ‘Copter

By now we’ve all heard all about Helicopter Parents, or for those of you unaware, the hovering, “involved” parents that seem to be growing in number each year. Recently, msnbc ran an article about summer camp and “kid-sick” parents http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25572453/page/2/ that highlighted some interesting points about this phenomenon of uber-protective parents who find it hard to “let go”.

Of course the world has changed since today’s parents were in school, and parenting styles will evolve with what is happening in the world, but it’s been hard to determine why many parents now feel that they need to micro manage what goes on at school and in their child’s life in general.

The internet would be easy to blame. Too much information has made parents neurotic and fearful. Everyone with a computer now has access to statistics and stories that were not readily available twenty years ago. While this can be empowering if the information is utilized rationally, there is too much information to sift through so some people just believe everything, or the most sensational facts that stubbornly remain fastened in their head. That doesn’t give parents much credit, but fear is a powerful emotion and our children are usually the most important thing in our lives, so it can easy to want to “over” protect them from all the perceived evils in their environment.

The msnbc article notes that some kids camps believe that they have received many more parental check -in calls than they received pre-September 9/11, and ten times the calls from a decade ago. The terrorists happenings are unlikely to strike in a rural camp setting, but the theory is that the world seems less safe than before the World Trade Centre was struck. It’s complicated. While it could be argued that most parents are not worried that their child’s camp or school will be bombed, 9/11 did make many people people feel vulnerable; the disaster was so close to home. When people had watched newsreels of terrorist attacks in far away places they barely seemed real, and were difficult to relate to. Whereas, with the NYC attacks, it was easier to imagine the situation happening to you or someone you cared about.

It is plausible that the September 11 aftermath is part of the clingy parent issue, but surely it can not be blamed for all the parental interference that we are experiencing in schools and extra curricular activities. The msnbc article also alludes to the fact that families now often have two working parents, and instead of stay -at -home moms needing a break from their role, working moms “ache” to be with their kids. Furthermore, coupled with some financial independence, these women may also have more control over many aspects of their lives than women in the past, and this spills over into their children.

With cell phones, blackberries and pagers being de rigueur these days, it is not just our kids who are always expected to be reachable. As a society often times we are being trained that constant communication and quick response times are expected and rewarded. Once we hop on that treadmill it is hard to casually step off, and easy to have the mid-set spill over to our family life. Many parents are used to knowing “everything” at their work, e-mail has made it easy to "copy" people and include everyone on memos / information that is really only targeted to a few key people. People seem to want the same from their kids. Many parents, to feel comfortable in their parental role, want to know everything, be in contact, and feel a strong sense of control.

Most children excel when they are offered some independence. They learn a lot when they are given the room to discover for themselves and experience the thrill of experiencing something new. When given the chance kids are usually happy to be allowed to make decisions and this is a skill that is an enormous asset in later life.

Parents have the tough job of researching and choosing the best school (camp, sports club etc…) for their child, and ensuring that the staff involved with their children are well equipped and possess the qualities that they respect. Most reputable schools schedule parent teacher interviews and issue report cards / updates to keep parents informed. They also let it be known that parents should express concerns or ask questions when necessary. To assess when it’s necessary and not an over reaction, it’s important to monitor the child’s developmental challenges and successes that occur throughout the school year. Often times this means relinquishing the cell phone and focusing that ear on the very individual that shines when relaying their accomplishments that they achieved on their own, or with the guidance of a teacher, counsellor, coach or friend.

Lindsay Ireland, CAIS

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