Knowledge & Success

In a recent Globe & Mail, there was a provocative piece on success in education entitled An A+ Student Regrets his Grades by an undergraduate student at Queen’s. It is a great piece and I recommend it as delicious food for thought.

Great schools (and other organizations for that matter) are driven by a crystal clear sense of purpose or mission. I’ve had many conversations with colleagues in schools and universities who have shifted from the private sector, and how many of them take a while to adjust to relative ambiguity of the definition of success in education (i.e. not the clarity of shareholder value or profit.)

We have a most ambitious mission at Appleby:

To educate and enable young men and women to become leaders of character, major contributors to, and valued representatives of their local, national and international communities.

If you believe that this is more than lofty marketing, and really focus on its core meaning, there are two overlying conclusions. The first is that we are in an endeavor, like parenting, where the measure of success is not taken at age 19 or 25. It is best taken at age 45 or 75.

The second reminds me of something my first year Geology professor told our first-year engineering class back in September, 1982. Dr. John "Hockey Stick" Hanes (named because he has been using a big hockey goalie stick as his pointer in class for decades) is a classic geologist – long hair, plaid shirt, seemingly happier outdoor than in. His words are crystal clear and stick with me 30 years later. He told us that the details of what he was going to teach us we will most likely forget within a few short years. But what will stick with us is a way of thinking – an orientation to being a problem-solver, including understanding and using data, applying creativity to coming up with new solutions to the society’s challenges, and having the management skills to make it happen. He was right.

The second conclusion from the Globe story is another version of what Hockey Stick Hanes was saying. In a 25 or 50-year horizon, while knowledge is important, there are other attributes that will likely be far more important in achieving success – things like ethics, teaming ability, creativity, critical thinking, communication, resilience, persistence, courage and empathy. Of course, a perfect scenario is having students graduate from Appleby with all of these (and more) as well as high marks. But in some ways these are in tension. If a school produces graduates with high marks but little depth in these broader attributes, then we have not really succeeded.

Over the next couple of years, I would love to hear the thoughts of alumni, parents, faculty & staff, and students on the following questions: 1) How you think success should best be defined 25 years out? 2) What are the most important timeless attributes that define “leaders of character, major contributors to, and valued representatives of their local, national and international communities?” and 3) How should we best balance out the multiple goods in tension?

Alumni Journeys

January 18 - I’m just on my way back from the Halifax branch event, which I attended with Tom Karcz, our Assistant Head of School, Community Life, and Caitlin Ford, our Director of Alumni Relations. On Tuesday evening, alumnus and long-serving teacher Dave Suchanek joined Caitlin and me at the Kingston Branch event. A variety of unexpected travel complications in Halifax have provided me an opportunity to jot down some thoughts … time to make some lemonade.

I really enjoy alumni events and spending time chatting with former students about their recollections of Appleby from their student years, their impressions of Appleby today, and their thoughts on the meaning of education seen through the filter of subsequent life experience. Most attendees at the branch events I’ve been at so far are fairly recent grads – those who are either at university now, or who have recently completed it. However, there is usually a smattering of not-so-young alumni.

I am left with a couple of impressions. The first is that recent grads are almost unanimously very happy with the Appleby experiences and feel well-prepared for university. Most significantly, they (and their parents) think that the Senior Two (Grade 12) mandatory boarding program was incredibly positive, especially in how well it prepared students for living away from home and having to develop self-management skills. Ironically, this subject is often a point of great concern for parents of prospective students, especially younger ones. As a parent of a Grade Six student myself, I can appreciate that the thought of having your 11-year child go into boarding can be a bit ominous. But the “half step” towards university seems to be a perfect transition. Having spent the first half of my career in the university sector, it is clear that most students who get into trouble do so not because of some intellectual short-coming, but because of issues with the lifestyle, being able to cope with the freedom, and the need to self-manage without parents or teachers hanging over your shoulder. Spending at least a year in boarding provides the optimal (although not fail-safe) inoculation against these pitfalls. Moreover, the whole Grade 12 class living together forges a powerful bond that will stay with most of them for a lifetime.

I know that this has always been the “official line” about Senior Two boarding, but all of my interactions with recent alumni and their parents have provided the proof – they are raving fans, and there is no more important indicator of success.  It also reinforces why there are a number of heads of other schools who believe (privately) that this is an optimal educational approach. Their problem is that it is almost impossible to start a mandatory boarding requirement in a mixed day/boarding school. It is probably Appleby’s most impactful differentiator.   

In speaking with the not-so-recent alumni, there are a couple of other points that stick with me. The first is that Appleby has changed a great deal over the last 50 years. More than most other schools, there are quite distinct generations of Appleby alumni who, while they had some very similar experiences, also had many profoundly different ones. These changes mean that the nature of alumni connections is quite variable, which challenges us to come up with a variety of ways to stay relevant in the lives of different alumni generations. I have been struck, however, by how many of our more senior alumni have become very comfortable and proud of Appleby today, despite it being in many ways quite different from the school they experienced, and even if they had issues with some of the decisions along the way.

It is also interesting how many alumni have “taken the path less travelled.” I have met with numerous alumni who have spent most of the careers doing different things or in living in different places. The last three discussions I had with grads of my age or older featured one who was a great athlete but a mediocre student. Through some help from Headmaster “Rusty” Bell, he went on to do an undergraduate degree (while playing sports) down East, then surprised many by kicking it up a notch and getting admitted to, then completed a Masters of Economics at the University of Illinois. He worked in labour relations in the shipping industry – certainly not for the faint-of-heart – before a highly successful career in human resources consulting.

The second came to Appleby on scholarship and was one of three outstanding boys from the same Appleby class who went to MIT. He studied engineering at MIT then, after further studies, settled in Silicon Valley just when it started to boom – a trajectory that hasn’t slowed. A very wise soul, I enjoyed talking with him about challenges facing education.

The third graduate came to Appleby to get onto a different path than the one he was on in small-town Lambton County. After finishing at Appleby, he bounced around some colleges, was in a rock band, lived a hippy life on the West Coast, worked as a lifeguard in Australia, then went to university to study education. Partially native Canadian himself, this alumnus has spent most of his life teaching and advising on education in First Nations communities, including some that are only accessible by plane.

I believe that there are many paths to success and it is important to open our students’ minds to some of the potential routes. Often young people feel confined in their plans for the future. Alumni can be helpful by providing examples of outstanding success on in both traditional paths as well as those less travelled. I am hoping that we can have many of these examples brought before our students in the years ahead.

The Change We Don't Expect - Start of Winter Term Address to Students

We’ve just completed the second week of school, although for many students, staff and faculty, it feels like we’ve been back for a month already. That’s the nature of winter term. I thought that I would share a paraphrase of my remarks at the first all-student assembly of 2013, delivered Wednesday last week…

Good morning, welcome back and Happy New Year to each and every one of you!

Those of us who have been around for much of the last three weeks have seen winter finally arrive to campus, and have been able to bask in the beauty of snow and a quiet campus. Having said that, we are all delighted to see you back – the energy level jumped way up yesterday and it is wonderful to see so many smiling faces.

Because if how much is on the agenda this morning, I promised Alex that I will be briefer than usual. There are two things I would like to leave with you.

The first is to say congratulations on the Fall Term. While everything wasn’t perfect (it never is,) last term was impressive on many fronts. As someone new to Appleby, I was taken with the level of activity. The range of events, practices, shows, games and other happenings is amazing. You create a very positive energy, which makes this the special place it is. I was also very pleased to see so many acts of kindness and a sense of optimism – two things we talked about at the start of the Fall Term in the context of what makes a great class. Many of the Senior 2s showed superb examples of leadership and role modeling.

The second thing I wanted to talk you about relates to a story I read last week in the New York Times. I was drawn to it because of the title: “Why You Won’t Be The Person You Expect To Be.”

The article is based on the results of a study of 19,000 18 to 68-year-olds by psychologists at Harvard and Virginia. It deals with how we look back on how lives, and how we look forward, especially about how we change. It included a story told by one of the researchers about his daughter (now in her 20s) and how, when she was 4, she was sure that she would love Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles forever. This was because she couldn’t imagine what would substitute for them. I suspect that, if I asked her the same question about One Direction today, my 13-year daughter would feel the same way and give me the “talk to the hand" move.

We often look back with a combination of amusement, chagrin, and embarrassment with what we said, what we did, how we felt, and what we loved in years past. We are often amazed about the change and how different we are today. Think about yourself three, or five, or ten years ago.

But looking forward, we don’t imagine that our attitudes will change very much. This is called “The End of History Illusion.” We will change far more than we can imagine. An 18-year-old looks back and sees huge change from when she was 14, but doesn’t think that her views will change very much going forward. The same thing for a 22-year-old looking back to when he was 18; and the 35-year-old looking back on 25, and the 60-year-old looking back at 50. While it is true that the younger you are, the more change you will experience, and the greater is the gap between the actual change and the expected change, the illusion actually applies to people of all ages. I think about myself. If you asked me 13 years ago whether I would be the principal of an independent school, I would have that thought the prospect unimaginable.

It is an important thought – you will change far more than you expect.

One of my less-favourite American political figures is Donald Rumsfeld, who was both the youngest and oldest Secretary of Defense in US history. Rumsfeld was well known for an interesting quote about three spheres of knowledge – those things we know that we know; those things that we know that we don’t know; and – the most interesting – those things that we don’t know that we don’t know. To paraphrase a wiser man than Rumsfeld, Socrates, true wisdom comes from the realization of how little we know. In some ways, the End of History Illusion is a reflection of the I don't know what I don't know sphere.

Many teenagers feel that their parents have been sprinkled with a healthy dose of lameness. My children believe that I have been fermenting in the lame tub for way to long. That is one reason why we have a sign at the back door of our house that says “Just remember, as far as everyone else is concerned, we are a nice normal family”, even though my kids would adamantly disagree.

One of our traditions has been the family meeting over Christmas Break when we look back on the past year – what we were happy about and disappointed with, and consider the year ahead – hopes and goals. Every time we call this session, my kids’ eyes roll back into their heads better than any great white shark.

But I think, though, that it is a really healthy exercise, which is further reinforced by the End of History Illusion. We will all change a great deal in the next couple of years – far more than we expect – so it is important for us to own that change. In schools we talk a great deal about reflection: recognizing mistakes and weaknesses, as well as celebrating successes and happy moments. This is an important step towards making at least some of the future change we will experience deliberate.

So, I’d like to ask you to take 15 or 20 minutes over the next week to have that discussion. Maybe your parents are the best people to have the conversation with, maybe it’s a mentor, maybe it’s a brother or sister, or  maybe it’s just a buddy. The point is to have the conversation. Because, if you can start to imagine the future, the likelihood of it actually happening goes way up.

If the Fall term is a long distance race and the Spring term is a middle distance race, the Winter term is a sprint. There are only 9 weeks in the Winter term – that is only 60 days, and now it’s down to 59. Just think about that … 59 days to get a lot done.

For new students to Appleby (fellow 12ers), many of you will be feeling good about the transition. Some of you will still feel like you are working your way through it academically or socially. This is very normal and you will do just fine.  Remember to lean on people – older students, classmates, advisors - for help along the way.

For Senior 2s, you are in the process of going through that right of passage called the university application process. You will also get through it just fine.

For the Upper 2s, you have the winter Temagami trips coming up, and I am pleased to joining some of you on one later this month.

So … lots to do and only 59 days to get it done. Be deliberate, define what you want, plan it, and go after it. It will be over in a flash.

Finally, to the Senior 2s, stay focused on what you want your legacy as the class of 2013 to be for the next 50 years. How do you want to be remembered?

And to every one of you – stay focused on acts of kindness to others, maintaining an enduring sense of optimism, and enjoy the changes ahead.

Have a great winter term!

Start of Year Look Back

The campus looks beautiful with a thick blanket of snow, and more falling this morning.

Overseas, Canadians are famous for a few things, including manners (notwithstanding the tempest in a teapot in Russia regarding how dirty we play hockey,) and our genetic imperative to talk about the weather. On the first point, a good American (now dual citizen) friend of mine considers this his favourite Canadian joke: How to you get 50 drunken, rowdy Canadians out of the hotel pool at 2 am? … You say “Please get out of the pool.”

With respect to weather, maybe we talk about it because it changes so much, and often has a profound impact on our day-to-day lives? Or perhaps it is one of those great neutral subjects that we can discuss daily and even disagree about without it being tied to any potential personal conflict (unlike politics, religion, sex, etc.) One of the great Canadian questions is whether someone prefers a cold snowy winter or a milder green version? I am very much in the former camp and link a good blizzard to beauty, play, quiet, slowing down the pace of life, and a sense of energy that, to paraphrase Stephen Leacock, confirms despite winter’s chill that we are very much alive.

Now that I am back at the office, and before the energy level cranks up next week with the return of students and faculty, it seems like a good time to reflect on the last while.

December is a bit of a surreal month and has always seemed to be the focus of many huge events – both good and bad. Because life is so busy (see my last two posts in December,) many of us aren’t able to internalize what all these events really mean, let alone talk about them with our children. And with the half-life of issues is being squeezed smaller and smaller by the ever-increasing crush of information coming at us, some really big things seem to sail by. The fiscal cliff – feared to be catastrophic for the world’s largest economy – was temporarily solved less than 24 hours ago, but is already being psychically passed-by. Canada’s semi-final loss at the World Juniors Hockey Championship, which will drive the country into a mournful and anxiety-laded haze for a few days, will go away. The Newtown shooting, which grabbed the US by its collar and shook the country to its knees, was only 21 days ago, even though it seems to me like much longer.

That is why the start of a new year is a good time to look back. There is no shortage of year-in-review sports highlight packages, “best of” packages, and lists. A recent CBC show asked what events will be judged to have the most lasting impact on society? That is an excellent question for our children. (What a great subject for a dinner table conversation involving the whole family.) What are the local, national and world events that will go down as having the greatest effect … in human lives, emotionally, behavior-changing, economically, politically, environmentally, or in other ways? And (perhaps more importantly) why?

Here are some of the events that may be on the list:

·         The US election

·         The rape/murder of the young medical student in New Delhi

·         The ongoing civil war in Syria

·         Hurricane Sandy

·         The Newtown shooting

·         Quebec Corruption

·         Amanda Todd’s suicide related to bullying and depression

·         The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

·         The London Olympics

·         The sinking of the Costa Concordia

·         The campaign and shooting of Malala Yousafsai in Pakistan

I also took a look back a year ago to see what were judged as the most significant events in 2011:

·         The Arab Spring

·         The Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

·         The death of Steve Jobs

·         The death of Jack Layton

·         Harper election with a majority

·         The killing of Osama Bin Laden

·         William & Kate’s wedding

·         The crash of the KHL hockey team’s plane

The Month of Contrast

Even beyond family (see my last post – The Turbo Season), December remains very much a study in contrasts. I always love Christmas festivities: things like carol services, shows, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day celebrations (not to mention the holidays); but am struck by the pressure that accompanies December. There are often more tears, more guilt, and more anxiety in December than in the rest of the year, which seems so ironic for a season of joy.

For students, in large part this is due to exams. Based on the number of people I know who still have nightmares about exams (often decades after writing their last one,) they must rank up with fear of public speaking, arachnophobia, and fear of heights in the hierarchy of phobias.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we were in the middle of the Appleby carol services. While I am only halfway through my first year here, it is hard to imagine warmer, more beautiful, and more community-fulfilling events. And now, the Gym and the Bubble are full of Upper and Senior Schools students in exam mode. They must feel a bit like they have run out of a sauna and dived into a snow drift. The prospect of holidays in only a week must also seem like an invitation back into the sauna. But first is the task of digging out of the snow bank.

Not surprisingly, exams have been the focus of a great deal of conversations around here over the last few weeks. People have suggestions about the length of exams, formats, locations, how to deal with health issues, and whether they should be held in January rather than December. Exams are important on many levels. From an assessment standpoint, they provide a common platform for teachers to understand how successful each of their students has been. But there is also the question of stress. Stress is a good thing … in the right dosage and circumstance. Most of us have achieved our greatest triumphs in stressful moments. They are almost over-stated realities that we grow most when we are outside our comfort zones, and we learn the most about ourselves in times of failure.

While performance in school, university placement, and preparation for success in university are all important aspects of great schools, our real game is a 25-year one: our number one priority must be preparing our graduates with the attributes and attitudes – things like empathy, creativity, a strong moral compass, critical thing skills, courage – to be successful throughout life. While there is an immediate argument for the benefits of exams, I am most compelled by the longer term view.  It’s a bit like Senior 2 Boarding at Appleby. While we are interested in how students perform today, we are trying to prepare them for university when they may be facing 100%, three-hour exams; or making it through the defense of their doctoral thesis; or making the pitch to their company’s most important client, after staying up all night with a screaming newborn, and knowing that jobs are on the line; or dealing with a crisis involving life and death. Exams here are a baby-step towards life readiness.  How we – as parents and educators – help prepare them to address stressful situations is profoundly more effective in the long-term than helping them avoid these times. It becomes a critical, iterative process – face a tough situation (like an exam)… succeed or fail … reflect and adapt … face the next situation … get better … reflect and adapt … etc. If you take this perspective, it becomes more relevant to focus on effort than result. So long as the student shows commitment to the “reflect and adapt” steps, s/he will continue to get better prepared for life’s challenges. With that attitude, the process becomes a virtuous circle. Without it, it can become a destructive vortex.

There are two cautionary points. The first is to recognize when kids end up “over the line” in terms of the impact that stress has on them. One of the recent positive trends in education and society in general has been the more deliberate approach to mental health, especially relating to anxiety and depression. Organizations like CAMH, The Jack Project, and Queen’s University, among many others, are lending voice and providing tools to help young people and their families recognize and address these conditions. It’s important to recognize when our kids are dealing with challenging stress in a healthy way, versus when it may be contributing to mental illness.

The second caution is to try and keep the long-term perspective when reacting to sub-par performances. We have to know our children well enough to understand how to keep them motivated to be in the “reflect and adapt” mode, rather than either tuning their parents out, or living in fear of the parental reaction. Fear as a motivator is neither sustainable, nor healthy in the longer-term.

And if anyone knows how to get me to stop dreaming about showing late, half-dressed and not having attended any classes prior to my 100% Civil Engineering 293 final exam, please send word ASAP.

The Turbo Season

So many of us have this either wonderfully or excruciating complex relationship with December.

For most, be they Christian or not, Christmas is a dominant catalyst for what we do and how our relationships play out. It seems turbo-charges everything – from shopping to family dynamics to social interactions with friends and colleagues. Whatever usually happens during the rest of year seems, for better or for worse, to be magnified three-fold in December (just like the Grinch’s heart!) This applies equally to joy, loneliness, anxiety, happiness and generosity of spirit.

One aspect of this dynamic is how we see our families. Many of us look at other families assuming that they are “perfect” and wondering how we can ever compare with whatever our own blend of weird uncles, intra-sibling conflicts, control fixations, and off-beat traditions. I was reminded of this when our family attended Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Café Christmas show last weekend.

(For those who don’t know about The Vinyl Café, it is a CBC radio show that is a bit like Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, with a blend of music and stories, either sent in from listeners or written by the show’s creator and host Stuart McLean and his team. Many of these are about the fictional family headed by Dave and Morley and relate to interactions with families, neighbours and life. Dave seems like a hybrid of the cartoon character Herman and a Bill Cosby creation, all neatly wrapped in a stereotypical, earnest Canadian package. The Christmas stories about Dave and Morley are often the best. You either love The Vinyl Café or hate it, and I am devotedly in the former camp. McLean takes his show on tour across the country on a regular basis, and Alison and I have been going to the Christmas show for about a decade. For the last few years, we have included our kids, my mother and aunt, as well as a variety of friends and relatives. It is one of those experiences that cuts across generations and I always leave with a smile on my face and my heart feeling just a little bit warmer. I highly recommend it.)

This year’s Vinyl Café Christmas show featured, in addition to the usual amazing and often little-known Canadian musical talent, two new terrific Dave and Morley stories. One of these dealt with Dave and Morley’s first meeting with their daughter’s boyfriend’s family, and over Christmas dinner no less. McLean does an inspired job humorously capturing the angst created by the collision of a teenager’s two previously separate worlds.

The older I get, the more that I realize that there is an absence of “perfect” families (the Cosby Show was just that – a show, not reality,) and that all of our families are quirky in their own special ways. The major differences are in terms of degree and specifics. The quirkiness of great aunt Edna in your family is matched by, but completely different than, old weird cousin Harold in mine. And while your brother may be completely fixated on how to cook the ham, my sister has meticulously strong views where every light bulb should go on the Christmas tree – exactly. (And none of these may come close to our own personal peccadillos.) In many cases, there comes a time when we have learn to do more than accept – we have to embrace our quirkiness and realize that it can be fun and interesting … and even enjoyable. Imperfection at Christmas dinner will make it more memorable, more exciting and more entertaining, if we choose it to be.

A Different World

Appleby has had a long tradition of great hockey, a tradition that has included boys hockey for more than a century and girls hockey for close to 20 years.

During our centennial celebration last year, the school hosted an invitational start-of-season hockey tournament with separate divisions for both men and women. What could have been a one-time event was so successful that I had the pleasure of watching most the games in the second annual Appleby Invitational Tournament three weeks ago. My youngest son Alec and some of his young cousins accompanied me to some of the games and the intensity, speed and agility was riveting. While standing in the arena and taking in what seemed like mid-season performances, any worries about the NHL lockout vanished. If you have an opportunity, come and watch one of these games. They are really entertaining.

Both Appleby teams acquitted themselves well during the tournament, but the thing that has stuck with me most relates to another team. One of the girls teams was a select team visiting from Moscow. To the best of our knowledge, none of the team members – coaches or players – spoke English, so some of the Russian-speaking Appleby students helped out with translation over the weekend. The women’s final featured the Moscow team versus Appleby. Sadly, we lost with 14 second left in the game, but it was a superb match. (There is a photo in the slideshow on the right of the two teams at the end of the game.)

The incident I remember happened at the start of the game. The Russians were a fairly dominant team during the tournament and expected to win. Appleby took the opening face-off. Our right winger blew by her mark outside, then cut inside the Russian left defense before roofing the puck over the goalie’s right arm. We were up in spectacular fashion after less than 30 seconds.

The Russian coach called over the five girls who were on the ice. He didn’t go into a long diatribe, nor did he bench them. He ordered them off the ice, to go to the dressing room and change. Their tournament was over. I was at the door when the five 14 year-olds (+/-) came off – all of them either in tears, or fighting to hold them back. Everyone in the vicinity was stunned.

For a hockey-mad country like Canada, this was a poignant reminder that different cultures have very different ways of operating. (The 5 girls aren't in the photo.)