Weekly Message from Head of School 2023/11/06-2023/11/10
Dear Keystonians,
As I am writing this, from my window in the west residential tower, I can see the thin crescent moon high in the sky fading as the sun rises over capital airport. The first light of this chilly morning is setting aglow the plumes behind the departing planes making them look like a trail of red comets in the sky. Our campus is quiet in the early morning hours—a perfect time for reflection and preparation.
The moon is setting, the sun is rising, everything is always in motion. You can’t pick sides between the moon and the sun, they aren’t competing, they are in perfect harmonious balance. As humans we can be drawn to seeing things as this versus that, or one or the other. This week in preparation for a faculty meeting I returned to a book I read years ago in graduate school called Shaping School Culture. This short, beautiful book was first published almost 25 years ago, but it offers some enduring truths about the work of leading schools. I was drawn to a page on which the authors described the paradoxes of leading.
A paradox, they note, is not a problem, it is not something you pick sides on, it is something you are constantly balancing, or--like the sun and the moon demonstrate every day-- aligning yourself and adapting to harmonious interplay of alternating phenomenon.
For example, they talk about the paradox of change, and how as school leaders, we continually assess what needs to change, and what needs to be celebrated (or tolerated) and stay the same. They describe how leaders “must perpetuate what is thriving in the present while reaching for what may be even better in the future.” This is one of the important calls of our mission as a New World School at Keystone. We won’t ever arrive; we will always be reaching for “what may be even better”.
Another important paradox the authors describe is the paradox of leadership. In great schools, leadership must come from principals. That leadership is necessary, but insufficient to have a strong and positive school culture. For optimal cultures, they argue, “leadership must come from everyone.”
I have seen this paradox in action throughout Keystone recently. I saw a foundation student help another foundation student up the stairs with their heavy bag of library books. That small child saw a problem, a community member struggling, and grabbed a strap of that book bag and got their classmate up the stairs to class on time. Some high school students helped us to interview candidates for the Head of High School search, taking time out of their day to benefit (in the cases of the 12th graders) a school they will no longer be attending. That is leadership—serving a future you will not personally enjoy. Parents of Keystone students organized our first in-person PTA town hall since 2019, creating space for diverse voices to be heard, strengthening our community through dialog—that is leadership.
As we move smoothly towards winter, let’s continue to embrace the challenges and opportunities of paradoxes, the flow of what’s to be calmly taking the place of what was. We mustn't struggle to stop the sunrise, nor grieve the loss of the moon, it’s all still there—and will always be.
Yours,
Emily
