A New Year

What did you do this summer?

I took time to get into better shape and to think deeply about our school and how we can become the best school we can be. Throughout the blistering days of July and August, I sweated and struggled with weights, I did sit-ups and leg curls, I became familiar with medicine balls and purple stretchy oval things, and I paid attention to what and how much I eat.

The results weren’t immediate and I have a ways to go, but I can tell you that being able to fit comfortably into my pants and belts sure feels good. In hopes that I don’t lose the momentum, I have asked Mr. Pena to ask me relentlessly if I’ve done what I said I would do. If I haven’t, I’ve given him the permission to ridicule me. Having another person to whom you’re accountable is helpful, and I believe that Mr. Pena has just the right kind of personality to get the job done.

As the summer progressed and the workouts became routine, I decided to invest in new shoes. Being a bit unaware and clueless about things from time to time, however, I thought that my lack of proper athletic shorts would go unnoticed. I didn’t think that sock color and khakis mattered since the critical work was about health and wellness.  

I cared more about how they fit, not what they looked like. I did, from time to time, however, think that a pair of athletic shorts might complement my shiny new Nikes and athletic socks (brown socks are apparently a no-no) so I made one lame attempt to secure appropriate shortwear at the Half of Half store, but emerged unsuccessful.

Only recently did I become aware that my choice in attire had, in fact, been noticed by others. My wife, after the faculty dinner on Friday night, told me that Mr. Pena had some fairly strong opinions about my lack of appropriate athletic gear. She shared his concerns about my appearance, but out of respect for my feelings she hadn’t said anything.

Now I’m faced with a choice – do I cave in to peer pressure and put on the uniform others expect me to wear or do I stride confidently with my own clothes toward my own unique destiny?

What would you do?

Despite the way I look and how I dress, my body strengthened and my mind cleared. I even started a blog to document my thinking and hopes for my health. Through that I have found that the journey I’m on parallels the journey I’d like our school to be on. Obviously, physical health and wellness is important for each of us, but it’s also important that our curriculum and our programs strive to achieve similar aims.

Although it can be difficult to look at ourselves when we’re not doing what we need to do, it’s of critical importance that we confront the brutal facts and find a way to deal with them. Institutions are like individuals – they have identities, hopes, and dreams. They also have warts, scars, and scratches. Until we know ourselves, good and bad, the work we will commit to will only take us part way toward our goals.

It’s our job, together, to decide what to do. Your teachers are here for you and it’s their job to help you build the tools you’ll need to follow your passions and to become the best you you can be.

No matter what you’re wearing, make sure you wear it with confidence and the knowledge that your choices are yours and they make you who you will become.

Here’s to an excellent start to the school year – May your minds be enlightened, your bodies strengthened, and your spirits in harmony with one another.

The Odyssey

Having driven over 3,800 miles in the past couple of weeks with my family and Joel, the dog, I can, with confidence, report that there's nothing like a road trip to put things back together.

As the miles ticked by, hours passed like minutes, and as each day wore on, the chaos that became the inside of the Honda slowly overtook us. The rising tide of granola bar wrappers, Pringles cans, pillows, blankets, and books (7-11's don't stock Lotus flowers) signaled the inevitability of the approaching dusk and we began our nightly search for accommodation and renewal. 

Must Eat. 

Must Sleep. 

Must Reorganize.

Each morning we'd put things back in order and head on down the road toward another adventure. Over time, as we climbed hills and crested mountains, the winding roads that crept up steep grades finally gave way to the interminably, impossibly straight interstate that is I-40. Along the way, we remembered how to be together again. Having no choice but to interact with one another and to figure things out, we communicated; we "made common" our ideas and our hopes. 

In normal life, we're saddled with distractions that make it difficult to remember where and why we go where we go. But when all the doors are shut and we're moving down the road together, we have no choice but to cohere and deal with each other. We came together as a family during (and in) our Odyssey as we traversed the northern plains and mountains; our trajectories, at least for awhile, were in alignment.

To sustain this as a family and in our work at Casady, we have to keep putting things in order. Our community is incredibly complex and diverse. When we take time to address this complexity and converge on the big questions that frame us, we learn how to be a place where we do good work and serve our students well. 

We must pay attention to each other and take time to reshuffle and find a place for our things, otherwise our true destination gets obscured and overshadowed by various and disconnected endpoints. Although it's trite, the destination isn't where you stop, it's how you get there.

Summer is always a time to recharge and rebalance priorities, and while schedules tend to become less structured and busy, our capacity for divergence remains. This summer has reminded me that divergence without convergence leads to chaos, and that we must strive to find the right balance - to commit to the process of living in order that we might live with and for one another in the best ways possible.

So, as we packed our belongings and headed out for the final stretch home, and just as I was basking in the warm glow of family and togetherness, a troublesome blinking light flashed on and off indicating 'a potential issue with your transmission'. The next seven hours were an exercise in trust - not blind trust, but a hopefulness associated with the understanding that difficulty and chaos may lurk just beyond the next mile-post.

We made it home without incident, but it certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't take a look under the hood...

Goes with the territory, don't you think?

Time on the Road

Today we drove a few hundred miles across Wyoming. Heading to Yellowstone tomorrow.

We spent a couple days in Boulder - hiked to a waterfall and drove over the Continental Divide. Last time I did that I was seven. There's a picture of me bawling like a baby next to the stone marker.

I must have hated that sign.

35 or so years later, I liked it.

I've never seen so much beautiful and expansive land in my life. There are endless hills, dotted by sparse and infrequent trees. Shadows of clouds blacken hills, valleys and roads alike and the emptiness of the highway begs intrusion and definition.

Alternating between greys and a burnt orange tarmac, the road shoots straight toward more open space; more hope and opportunity. The hours pass quickly and I feel subsumed into the wholeness of the sky.

Now we're in Sheridan, WY. I'm charging my camera's battery for tomorrow's sojourn into the great wilderness with hundreds of other like-minded tourists.

No matter. We will put up our tent, start a fire and eat over the earth.

It's important to be in places you've not been before. It makes one remember those core values that sustain while immersed in another set of things to do. The minutiae of daily life and work can impede us as we strive to make meaning in our lives, which is why it's so important to check yourself against the unfamiliar, the foreign.

Looking forward to starting the new school year with a renewed and refreshed view of the landscape of school life. Embodied in each of our students is a similar landscape - beautiful, open, optimistic.

Alive with possibility.

Creativity and Time

Here's a link to a recent Newsweek article on the Creativity Crisis. 

And, here's a repost of a fascinating piece on time and education.

They go well together. 

New Shoes

I bought a pair of tennis shoes a couple of days ago while on holiday in Dallas.

The color: blue. 

The brand: Nike.

The size: 9 1/2.

As mundane as this appears, it's actually significant. Committing my own non-temporal resources to this exercise program further ensures my continued progress . And, this is the first piece of official athletic apparel I've purchased in nearly a decade. 

Decadent, yes?

While I've never gone to a gym while staying at a hotel, this time I felt compelled. Could it be that I'm developing an addiction to endorphins? Time will tell.

In Dallas, my trusty partner Matt Pena was nowhere in sight, but as much as I enjoy Matt's company, he doesn't compare to my wife Jana who joined me, my new shoes and my new hip t-shirt in celebration of our 13 years together. 

I realized as I pulled the laces tight that I have missed the feeling and familiar smell of that new shoe moment when the salesperson asks if you want to wear them out or keep them in the box. 

I always kept them on. Not only that, but I always walked out of the store with a feeling of hope. Those light spongy springy clean and squeaky footsteps echoing along the corridors of Penn Square Mall were possibility incarnate - the sound of opportunity. 

Of course, there was the commensurate burial of the tried and true - the well-worn and comfortable footwear of days gone by. Dropping these worn and tired reminders of things lost and forgotten into their dark and tissue-lined box was a closing of a chapter. Gone, but not forgotten. 

I loved my blue and red Reeboks...

Summer was new shoe time in my house. It was also new binder time, new spiral notebook time, new pencil time, new organizational system time, and new highlighter time. Everything crisp and ready to go. 

Entropy, however, is real. Things definitely become less ordered over time.

By early October, my binder's three ring system was out of alignment, the spirals were more like flattened ellipses, and each and every pencil I owned were unsharpened stubs somewhere in the bottom of my backpack next to a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich.

Although the slow drift from sweltering August to a bearable autumn also witnesses the dying of grass and the beginnings of a dormant time, September is also a time of renewal and focus - especially for those of us who are in the world of school and schooling. Our rhythms are geared to to September as  a time when our shoes are most fresh and the inevitable scuffs and worn spots haven't appeared quite yet.

At Casady, our shoes have served us well, and yet there are times when we must slip on a new pair; a pair that's better suited to stride into our future. We'll endure the occasional blister, of course, but as we learn to live with them, we'll flex and adapt and walk confidently toward excellence.

The Real Bastille

I've seen the key to the Bastille hanging in Mount Vernon. A gift from the French Government to George Washington, apparently. No way to know if it was actually THE KEY used to free the prisoners during the French Revolution in 1789, but it could have been. Good enough for me, I suppose.

I've also seen the caves at Lascaux but my French being poor I didn't realize that what I was seeing was a facsimile until many years later. Had I never known that the original caves were closed, I would've gone on believing what I wanted to believe. Since my language skills were obviously lacking, I missed critical information that would've allowed me to see them in a different light. Now I wonder why I wasted my time. I'd like those hours back, actually. That being said, hitchhiking back to Thonac was interesting - definitely more memorable than forged cave scribbles.

So today, on the anniversary of French independence, I raise a glass to the Acadamy Francais and their relentless hold on all that is the French language. The precision and attention to detail they've provided over the years has stood a pillar of truth and belief in the power of words -- their words. I wonder, however, how long they will be able to withstand the encroaching globalization that is life in the 21st century. Recent attempts to ban head coverings is a stark example of a society that is trying desperately to retain what once was. The fear inherent in this latest move is another cultural backlash against a rising tide of interdependence and interconnectedness. It's a losing battle.

On a seemingly unrelated, but not entirely unrelated topic, I continue to believe that I'm really only 25 years old and that my body is lithe and nimble.

It isn't.

Yet.

In the gym, as I  regain the good parts of my twenties and as I avoid the stupid parts, I'm reminded that change is inevitable. Whether I want to admit it or not, through inactivity, laziness, and general inertia (doing nothing) I've caused my body to change, but not in a good way...

Doing nothing is no longer an option. When noon rolls around, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I know that I've committed to a fight toward something; a direct action conceived to bring something positive into the world and to be less of what I used to be - to be a more authentic me.

While I hesitate to always bring these experiences and thoughts back to my work as Head of School at Casady, I can't help it. My life is completely intertwined with this institution and its identity.

Our School will commit to a similar program and journey. Not only health and wellness-wise, but more importantly, a commitment to the health and wellness of our curriculum, our facilities, our program, and especially our students, in mind and body and spirit. If we can do that - if we can build on the positives and shear away those intrusions and obstacles that cloud our vision - the authenticity of our work will be clear and powerful.

Facsimiles are everywhere, but we don't always recognize them for what they are until it's too late. While the paintings in Lascaux were a close approximation of the authentic item, I still haven't seen the real thing and I'm no better off for having gone (hitchhiking aside). At Casady, we can and must create authentic and meaningful educational programs that prepare our students for the real world.

Hammering out an idea.

As I sit here in my office, trying to stay focused on a couple of writing projects I'm working on, the roofers are hammering out an ADD rhythm that has restricted my thinking to half a sentence at best. Therefore, I'm here on my blog typing my way toward noon when I will cross the campus, change my clothes and engage once again in battle with sloth and lethargy.

While the benefits of my exercise regimen are certainly noticeable around my mid-section, they are even clearer in my own head. My thinking (today's hammering notwithstanding) is sharper and more focused. Maybe the brutality of 15 reps on the bench or those horrible medicine ball sit-ups so completely occupies my energy and focuses it on the task at hand -completely present in the moment - that the litter and detritus of idle ramblings has nowhere to go but into an all-hands-on deck devotion to ensuring the survival of the host through a self-imposed struggle against aging. 

I'm not sure what today will bring, but as I've committed to this process, I must accept my orders as a soldier stepping into the fray. 

Wish me luck.

When we are engaged with our work or our play we enter that 'flow' state and time takes on a wholly different character. When I used to paint, I would often continue throughout the night and into the early morning without feeling any emotion other than those directed at correcting careless gestures in paint and building an image that fits within the structure of the frame. 

Engaging and meaningful educational experiences lie at the center of our aim to create thoughtful, passionate learners who want to do their best and make their world better. As a faculty, it is our primary duty to ensure this school is fully committed to that purpose.