Schedule for the Twenty-Third Seminar-Treat
for the Head of the School
Wednesday,
April 8, 2009 • Thursday,
April 9, 2009
Friday,
April 10, 2009
| 10:00 to 12:00 noon | Arrival and registration, settle into rooms, meet other participants. |
| 12:00 p.m. | Buffet lunch at noon. (People coming from long distances are urged to make special arrangements to come into the Conference Center Tuesday night.) |
| 1:30 p.m. | Opening Session: Being
Head of the School Where are the real pleasures? Where are the real drags? Where does enjoyment happen, and how, and how often? How are my own skills, arts, gifts used, valued, brought to bear? How am I perceived by students? By teachers? By division administrators? By parents? By trustees? How do I perceive them? How do I manage a personal life, as member of a family, as a friend, as someone living life beyond the role of Head of the School? Am I the Head that Does Everything? Do I delegate all the good stuff and get left with the dismal stuff? What would I like to change in the way things are going? What do I want to cherish, keep, develop, in the way things are going? and How is my career pleasing me? Am I on a good journey? If yes, how can I keep it that good or make it even better, fuller, more satisfying? If not , how can I re- design, shift, turn it so that it is a good journey? Conversations, reflections, sharing of experiences and reflections. David Mallery, session leader. |
| 5:00 p.m. | Social Hour. |
| 5:30 p.m. | Dinner |
| 6:45 p.m. | Part I "School" in our literature, our drama, our films... Our own lives as A Story... Part II John Greeve, the central character in Richard Hawley's extraordinary novel, The Headmaster's Papers: Greeve as person, as head of a school, as a person with values, strengths, weaknesses, challenges, vision, talent. We see Greeve filtered through the experiences and perspectives of the seminar participants. Speaking and leading discussion will be Richard A. Hawley, Head of The University School, Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and author of the The Headmaster's Papers, Seeing Things: A Chronicle of Surprises and Boys Will Be Men. Note: Mr. Hawley's book, Seeing Things: A Chronicle of Surprises, (Walker, 1987) is extraordinarily rich and stirring and he will also be drawing from material in it. The seminar participants are urged to read that as well, for, indeed, a unique treat in itself. Paperback copies of The Headmaster's Papers are available from David Mallery's office. We will assume that all the Heads will have read or re-read the novel shortly before coming to the seminar. Hardback copies of Seeing Things: A Chronicle of Surprises and Boys Will Be Men are also available on request from this office. At the end of the session, there will be refreshments, snacks, social time together. |
| Thursday, April 9, 2009 |
| 7:30 a.m. | Breakfast. |
| 8:45 a.m. | Dealing with the
Adults of the School: A session in which Heads explore and share ways they deal with new
and experienced teachers, real aces, perhaps some less-than- aces,
encounters with parents, educator of trustees, the whole world of adults
that surrounds and interweaves with the people and events and life
of School. David Mallery and the group. |
| 11:00 a.m. | Coffee break. |
| 11:15 a.m. | Career, Life,
the Journey: Presentation
by and conversation with Sara Lawrence - Lightfoot and the school
heads. She and the group will reflect on and explore experiences,
styles, complexities, juggles, convictions, doubts, meanings for
leadership and for a head's and a school's flourishing, personal-professional.
Dr. Lightfoot's book, The Good High School has been called "the
finest book about school in thirty years." It paints "portraits" of
six school heads and six schools so movingly, and the session will
draw from those "portraits" as well as from the richness
and variety represented in the seminar participants themselves.
Dr. Lightfoot's session may also deal with her 1989 biography of her mother, Balm in Gilead: Journey of a Healer, a work she first discussed with the second of the seminar- treat-groups as the book was in progress. Our group will be able to discuss it with its author, respond both to the person portrayed in the book, a remarkable, gifted woman, and to the remarkable, gifted woman who has portrayed her in the book, Dr. Lightfoot herself. Her 1994 book, I've Known Rivers: Lives of Loss and Liberation will have special attention in our seminar. And topics will range across the experiences and journeys the participants and Ms. Lightfoot weave together. Note: Copies of The Good High School, Balm in Gilead: Journey of a Healer and I've Known Rivers: Lives of Loss and Liberation are available from David Mallery's office. |
| 12:30 p.m. | Lunch. |
| 1:30 p.m. | Conversation continues with Sara Lawrence Lightfoot and the participants. |
| 3:00 p.m. | Session ends. Free time. |
| 6:00 p.m. | Social hour. |
| 6:30 p.m. | Dinner. |
| 7:45 p.m. | Movie classic treat: Goodbye,
Mr. Chips (1939) starring Robert Donat and Greer Garson. The
story goes from 1856 to 1936. The setting is British, the focus
is on male students and teachers in the school. The woman is "outside," is
powerful, influential, pervasively there but still "outside." How
does this vision connect with our experience in 1997? How similar
or different are our assumptions? Our obsessions? What do we invest
most in, as schools? Where are we now on what men do and are, on
what women do and are, in relation to what the film portrays, in
our schools, in our lives?
At the end of the session, we can have some sharing of responses, reflections, together, then move to refreshments and social time together. |
| 7:30 a.m. | Breakfast |
| 8:30 a.m. | We gather together, and work
on choosing a specific plan, topic, issue, vision of something each
person may want to pursue, work on, shape, Once this is chosen, we
scatter around the grounds of the ACE Center for a solo time of 30
minutes. During that time each Head has the chance to list strategies, actual things-to-do, however practical or impractical, realistic or fantastic, as he or she looks at the chosen plan, issue, topic, vision of something to move on. At the end of the solo time, we will gather in the main room and go into partner groups of four people, each person having a chance to be "on," describing the chosen plan and sharing the strategies, and getting some perspective, encouragement, suggestions from the other three, each member helping to clarify, advise, listen, build with the one who is on, and each one having the chance to be on. |
| 11:00 a.m. | Coffee break. |
| 11:15 a.m. | Group gathers for final session: resolves, sorting out, looking back and ahead...The Heads of School and David Mallery. |
| 1:00 p.m. | Adjournment. Lunch available for those who would like it. |
