In Search of Excellence

     I've stolen the title of this post from the classic Tom Peters work. I've been thinking about this idea because he recently published his fantastic The Excellence Dividend, which pulls together myriad points from his long career. If you've read this blog and followed my Twitter feed, you know my thoughts on the excellence dividend of education are clear: when one's endless learning becomes part of a life with distinct meaning and purpose. I hope, to use Tom's standard, that provokes a bit of a "Wow!" response.
     I'm more interested in pondering here why completing that search proves so elusive. Reasons abound, ranging from the pragmatic to the philosophical. I think the latter are the more suppressive ones in that we tend not to think of education in such idealistic terms. Instead, we focus on the utilitarian, the practical. Then the process becomes rather mechanical, overly reliant on systems and measurement. We somewhat de-humanize what should be the most human of endeavors.
     Ironically, or perhaps paradoxically, even when people share my philosophical position, true academic excellence becomes even more difficult. It's because we have to cede most of the time-honored forms of control. We have to rethink the markers of short- and long-term success. We have to trust.
     But it's even more complicated than that. For an education to be truly responsive, it must evolve continually, responding to the vagaries of human nature and culture. Yes, certain questions and topics possess an eternal quality; yet we must consider them in the light of the emerging world. There lies little value in examining the past without using it to figure out the present and shape the future.
     Even then, the challenge remains great because excellence ultimately will mean something different for each individual. It demands the ultimate differentiation. It insists we react, reflect, readjust...over and over and over.  It changes as each student changes. It changes as the teacher changes.
     At its best, it also remains an ongoing search, a quest for a mythical grail. Certainly it is that noble.

A Quick Thought on #Leadership

     During a conversation a few days ago, I was asked to talk about a leader who had influenced me. The question threw me for a moment, mainly because I'm fortunate to have many people I could have cited. I settled on one, and after sharing some qualities and anecdotes, I concluded by saying, "What ultimately has stayed with me was how he carried himself with such an air of integrity."
     Yes, I mean integrity in the way we often use the word, meaning ethical, essentially good. But I meant more than that. I also was referring to a sense of wholeness, the way in which the disparate parts of something add up to a distinct and discernable unit true unto itself. That requires a genuineness; it radiates from an inner core.
     Meanwhile, I regularly see Tweets about different formulas for leadership, whether in books or workshops or videos. I don't dismiss them at all; in fact, I have tapped into them for my entire career. But they don't work...at least not by themselves. Leadership is not a series of steps to follow. It is not a persona one can throw on like a cloak. All those experiences must be part of continual growth, reflected upon and rejected or internalized gradually as we sculpt ourselves. Becoming a stronger leader does not mean being/becoming a certain type of person. It means becoming the best possible person. Your best self. One others want to follow in some sense.
     This essential truth can be lost in our culture, particularly in schools.We can become so caught up in producing the best academic, the best athlete, the best artists, the best student council president--usually per some sharp criteria--that we forget we should be about helping each person develop. That's going to mean different things for each. It also means that each person has the potential to become a leader in some fashion, in some circumstances, if we allow for the possibility.