It's the eve of the first day of school for students. After a great planning week with staff, we're ready to kick the year off tomorrow with what we expect will be an outstanding first day.
I had the opportunity to read the book The Art of Possibility, by Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander, this summer, and I'm so glad I did. Although the book was published a decade ago, its content is as fresh and relevant as ever. It's a great book for anyone interested in examining the way they live their life, but I think it's especially relevant for educators. Ben Zander is conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and a teacher, and thus so much of what the couple writes about has such resonance for all educators.
The basic concept of the book is that if we live our lives focusing on abundance, on the possibilities within ourselves and others, it can reframe every experience we have, can positively impact every relationship we're in, and can result in amazing things both in ourselves and in others.
It's not a naive, pollyanna-ish view of the world, thinking that if we just wish it so, it will happen. To the contrary, the Zanders know that making those possibilities real may not happen... but they also know, just as strongly, that such possibilities will NEVER become real if we don't at least BEGIN from the point of believing it may be so. From there, we act toward possibility, and the Zanders lay out twelve practices that they articulate as important in helping to live from a place of possibility, in ourselves and in others. It's not easy, wishing-it-to-be-so, but instead is focused, determined, CHOICES every single day and in every single interaction.
Although simple and in many ways common-sensical, I found the book also to be profound, both personally and professionally. I shared pieces of it with our staff during the planning week, and will continue to do so as the year goes on... as I work to "grow into possibility" as a person and a principal.
And so here, on this night before the first day of school, a day which is filled with possibilities everywhere we will turn, I share this from the Zanders:
A shoe factory sends two marketing
scouts to a region of Africa to study the prospects for expanding
business.
One sends back a telegram saying,
"SITUATION HOPELESS. NO ONE WEARS SHOES."
The other writes back triumphantly,
"GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY. THEY HAVE NO SHOES YET."
(From The Art of Possibility, by Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander)
How would you walk, how would you talk, how would you BE, if you just thought... it's a glorious opportunity! They'll all want shoes... they just don't know about them yet!
To all educators and students about to embark on school year 2010 - 2011... it is a year of glorious opportunity. May you make the most of it!
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