By Katherine Berdy, LL ‘14, gcLi Scholar ‘18, Director of the C. Kyser Miree Ethical Leadership Center, Altamont School (AL)
Cairns are man-made stacks of rocks found on little-traveled routes used as landmarks for fellow travelers. Our prehistoric ancestors designed these beautiful and useful tools to communicate, and they still serve as powerful symbols on any journey. Certainly, the hunt for these symbolic little markers has become one of the most powerful metaphors in my life.
I first encountered cairns in the 1990s while working as an outdoor educator leading teens on month-long backpacking excursions through the Rockies and Pacific Northwest. There were days when we traveled off trail with only a topo map and compass, an experience that awakens one to the empowering possibility that perhaps no one else has ever trod on that piece of earth.
I wish all leaders could feel the fear, freedom, loneliness, and exhilaration of navigating through unmarked terrain. Decision-making skills are crucial, as is risk assessment and self-confidence. Mistakes are always possible and consequences range from at best, the need to backtrack, to serious safety and health concerns. So, finding a cairn in a vast wilderness can remind us that others have wrestled with decisions regarding the same difficult terrain. In such times, the cairn emboldens one with the resolve to forge ahead.
Over the past four years, gcLi has become my professional cairn. I was only a few miles down the path of becoming a leadership educator when I attended the gcLi Leadership Lab in 2014. That week gave me the language and information to forge ahead and create a program that worked with the mission and culture of my school. Thankfully, it did not give me a formulaic “trail” to march down. Rather, it marked my path with the first cairn, a cairn that emboldened me to look at all of the factors that are necessary before truly transformative leadership can happen: developmental readiness, group dynamics, self-awareness, cultural awareness, and power dynamics. It would be work, but this knowledge enabled me to step off the trail we were on and to blaze my own trail.
With knowledge and the pedagogical language from the gcLi, we stepped into an unknown space at Altamont with establishment of The Miree Center. We grew a hallmark leadership program that teaches action-based leadership principles through curricular and experiential initiatives in 5th through 12th grades and added three additional programs in Global Engagement, Service, and Teaching Tolerance. There were times on the journey I felt alone and shaky. Creating something in keeping with our mission, needs, and timeframe wasn’t easy, but it was exhilarating. With the trust of the entire Altamont community, we forged ahead to create a comprehensive leadership center that is as unique as each student in our community. While The Miree Center has always been well-received, a few years in I needed confirmation that we were still cutting-edge and compliant with the latest leadership and developmental research. I needed another cairn.
Serving as a gcLi Scholar this summer – four years after my initial Leadership Lab experience – was the second cairn. The reinforced learning and dynamic instruction confirmed that we are on the right path. Remembering the “what” and “why” of our gcLi participant experience, my fellow scholar, Rishi Raghunathan, and I were able to observe the carefully considered “when” and “how” that makes the week successful for so many. We also witnessed the genuine love, humility, flexibility, and devotion to mission that makes a vibrant organization work. I can attest to the fact that the Carney family and gcLi faculty are committed to their belief that teachers teaching leadership can and will change the world.
In 2014 and again in 2018, I left with more ideas than I could possibly implement. Rather than allow myself to become overwhelmed, I found another metaphor. On a field trip to the Olympic Training Center, my new directive came in the form of an inspirational quotation on the wall of the basketball gymnasium:
“I am building a fire, and every day I train, I add more fuel. At just the right time, I light the match.” -Unknown
gcLi has given us copious raw material to build dynamic programs and initiatives for students. Layer after layer, we add fuel: new ideas, carefully researched and curated literature, authenticy, humility, resilience, and resolve. Patiently, we build a fire and wait until it’s time to strike the match – and when we do, we change the world one student at a time.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row]Katherine Berdy is a 2014 graduate of the gcLi Leadership Lab and the Director of the C. Kyser Ethical Leadership Center at The Altamont School in Birmingham, AL, where she has the privilege of connecting students to area nonprofits and businesses for project placement and service learning. Her teaching portfolio includes classes in English, theater, creative writing, leadership, public speaking, and debate. Katherine holds a B.A. in Communication Studies from Vanderbilt University, and a M.Ed. in Secondary Language Arts from the University of Montevallo.