Looking for a pithy quote or a good story?

You might just find it here.

I love these quotes from 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People' by Stephen Covey:

Listen with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply. 

Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships.

To learn something but not to do is really not to learn. To know something but not to do is really not to know.

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.

There are three constants in life... change, choice and principles.

Tim Minchin, the former UWA Arts student described as "sublimely talented, witty, smart and unabashedly offensive" in a musical career that has taken the world by storm, is awarded an honorary doctorate by The University of Western Australia. The full transcript of Tim Minchin's address is available here:

http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201309176069/alumni/tim-minchin-stars-uwa-graduation-ceremony

I have told this story to parents in each of the four schools I led. Maybe that's why I ended up having such a varied career in Headship! I think I heard it first at the IAPS conference in Harrogate in 1997.

Two headmasters are on a walking holiday in the wilds of North Western Scotland. They reach the top of one of the more imposing hills and as they do so the sun comes out from behind the clouds and illuminates some of the most stunning scenery in the British Isles. As they sit, leaning against the cairn which marks the summit the one says to the other:

‘What a truly wonderful view.’

‘Yes,’ says the other, rather wistfully, ‘not a parent in sight!’

'Love'

From ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’, by Louis de Bernières

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou

Letter from a prospective parent

Dear Mr Griffith,

We are writing to inform you officially that we will not be requesting a place at Winchester House for our daughter. After careful though, we have decided to send her to a school closer to our home.

Thank you for your time when we visited. Our decision has nothing to do with Georgia’s temporary imprisonment in the lavatory!

Yours etc…..

Thanks to the late, great Peter Cook for this. Watch the whole sketch (and others) if you have time. 

I could have been a judge but I never had the Latin to get through the rigorous judging exams. They’re noted for their rigour. People came staggering out saying “My God, what a rigorous exam.” And so I became a coal miner instead. I managed to get through the mining exams – they’re not very rigorous, they only ask one question, they say “Who are you?” and I got 75% on that.

Some wisdom from Steven Winkley, former Master in College at Winchester, Head of Uppingham and ultimately Rossall School. What a great man he was.

Running a school is a tightrope act. We balance every day on the thin line of tradition and innovation, between formality and ease, between collective collegiate community and individual aspiration.

These are the words (in 2002) of Oliver James, psychologist and author of ‘Britain on the Couch’. Chillingly, they seem to hold truer than ever today. 

The trouble is we live in a society where a sort of two-faced chamelianism is strongly favoured both in business and in fact in all areas of society; it’s a deregulated society with deregulated individuals where morality has gone for a burton and psychological integrity becomes harder and harder to achieve.

Joe Joseph, writing in the Times in 2002:

Being clever isn’t enough: kind people who are not clever are some of the nicest people you will ever meet; clever people who are not kind are some of the grimmest. People who are neither kind nor clever frequently become politicians!

I always enjoyed telling this story, all the more so because it is absolutely true.

A friend of mine at the Dragon School in the early 80’s  struggled admirably with a very small group of nine year olds who found the language impossibly difficult but always showed massive enthusiasm and never gave up. 

The moment of truth arrived at the end of the summer term when the day of their oral exam dawned. They had been practising the essential questions and answers all year. Comment t’appelles-tu? Je m’appelle Georges, Quel âge as-tu? J’ai neuf ans. Où habites-tu? J’habite à Oxford.

After struggling through the first seven candidates my friend ended up with the last child in front of him. To make the test just a little bit more challenging the questions were not necessarily asked in the same order each time.

He launched into the final candidate’s exam with ‘Quel âge as-tu?’ There was a long pause while several varieties of puzzlement overtook the boy’s facial expression. Eventually, screwing up one eye and pointing a finger of enlightenment in the air, he uttered the immortal words ‘Je m’appelle….. Oxford’.

Fortune cookie

After all is said and done, more is said than done.

Tony Blair (remember him?) story

When Tony Blair was visiting a school the teacher asked him if he would like to lead the class discussion on the word ‘tragedy’. So our illustrious leader asked the class for an example of a ‘tragedy’. One boy stood up and offered, ‘If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a tractor runs him over and kills him, that would be a tragedy.’

‘No,’ said Blair, ‘that would be an accident.’

A girl then raised her hand: ‘If a school bus carrying 50 children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a tragedy.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ explained the PM. ‘That’s what we would call a great loss.’

The room went silent. No other child volunteered. Blair looked round the classroom. ‘Isn’t there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?’

Finally, at the back of the room a small boy raised his hand. In a quiet voice he said, ‘If an aircraft carrying you, Mr Blair, was struck by a ‘friendly fire’ missile and blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy.’

‘Fantastic!’ exclaimed Blair. ‘That’s right. And can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?’

‘Well,’ said the boy, ‘it has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn’t be a great loss and it probably wouldn’t be an accident either.’