by Jeremy LaCasse, Executive Director, gcLi, Assistant Head of School for Student Life, Taft School (Watertown, CT)
“No man is an island”–John Donne
Poet John Donne wrote in a very different time and for, arguably, a very different audience than this one. Still, his sentiments are both apt and accurate for our moment: We are all interconnected and would be less were any of us not to be part of the greater whole. As we consider leadership and the teaching of leadership, we know well how critical inclusion is for the success of any group.
Similarly, we must help each individual, and particularly those taking on the mantle of leadership, to understand interconnection and its importance for self and others. Dr. Jennifer Breheny Wallace writes about how we go about teaching and fostering interdependence in a way that is essential to health and wellness, not to mention being a successful person. In an article in The Washington Post, she describes an activity that teacher Mike McLaughlin uses with his classes. He has students write two columns on a page and asks them to note things that they have done for themselves in the last 24 hours and things that others have done for them in the same time frame. The results, when pressed, demonstrate how dependent the students are on others and how critical it is to their success.
I suggest adding a third column to Mr. McLaughlin’s activity, asking students to think about the things they have done for others in the last twenty-four hours. Helping students see and engage with the many supports available to them is critical. Seeing how dependent others are on you–in whatever capacity an individual might be functioning–and how important an individual’s contributions are to others, completes the communal circle, one where the individual and the group work together to support and benefit each other.
Seeing ourselves, understanding our context and ourselves, is essential to our ability to successfully navigate the world and help others. Dr. Gregory Walton, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, notes that “When students question whether they belong in school, especially a school they value, their classroom performance and health can suffer.” Belonging is not simply a spot where one arrives and then stays. Our social worlds are ever evolving and transitioning, requiring that individuals continually evaluate their level of connectedness.
Thinking back to Mr. McLaughlin’s prompt, teachers, leaders, and developing leaders need to be mindful of each member of the class or group. The leader needs to gather regular feedback to assess the level of connection and the factors influencing the level of connection. To further complicate this work, the leader is attempting to understand extrinsic and, more with greater difficulty, intrinsic factors affecting an individual’s sense of connection.
Using practices of effective feedback and building a culture of feedback, founded in mutual trust, is central to both creating a sense of connection and to understand the forces influencing that sense of connection. I might argue that connection and trust are synonyms and helping individuals see and be part of the interconnected system helps to foster that trust.
As a final thought, a solitary person can accomplish individual things. The example that comes to mind is running a marathon. Still, to run a marathon, one must enter a race and, during that race, is benefiting from others running the same race and the many support people positioned along the route to supply water and other assistance. None of us is an island, and our willingness to work and be together in ways productive to each of us is essential to individual growth and development and the successful functioning of our communities. Let’s all come together and do some good!
No Man Is an Island – John Donne
Opinion – Forget independence. Teach your kids this instead. – Jennifer Breheny Wallace
Stanford researchers explore how the human mind shapes reality – Nathan Collins
The Importance of Belonging – CNN
—
Jeremy LaCasse, Executive Director of The Gardner Carney Leadership Institute, is currently Assistant Head of School for Student Life at the Taft School. LaCasse held the Shotwell Chair for Leadership and Character Development at Berkshire School. He also directed the Ritt Kellogg Mountain Program; served as Dean of the sixth and fourth forms; taught European history and Medieval history; and coached the ski and crew programs. Following his time at Berkshire, he served as the Dean of Students at Fountain Valley School of Colorado, and following FVS, he was the Head of senior school at Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh, PA; the Head of Kents Hill School in Kents Hill, ME; and the Assistant Head of School at Cheshire Academy, in Cheshire, CT. He graduated with a B.A. in History from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and earned an M.A. in private school leadership from the Klingenstein Center, Teachers College at Columbia University.