It was a seven-year-old who taught me how to lead a school. On my first day as Head of School, he looked up at me with wide eyes, slid his fingers into my hands, and asked, "What do we do now?" I answered simply and quietly, "Go learn something new." It was a lightning bolt and a catalyst for everything that followed. I approach every situation as an opportunity to learn something - to humble myself to expand and clarify my thinking.

Years later another wide-eyed boy walked into my life and told me he couldn't learn at his old school. Everything changed. Seeing the learning differences in EVERY child was a paradigm shift in my educational philosophy. From the school's leader to the youngest child each person must push out of a comfort zone where one must humble oneself to truly learn. 

 

The leadership and culture of any organization has to believe in the potential that inherently lives in everyone in the building - but especially so in a school.

 

That's the lightning in a bottle - every individual as a learner, as a risk taker with a mission to leave something better than we found it and with the scaffolding to support possibility for all kinds of minds.