[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
it was September in 1999 and I was the
new principal assigned to a small school
in an urban setting in a big city this
small school had four stories 1st
through 4th stories and an elevator that
ran down the middle
lucky for us and I was invited to come
and see a classroom and a teacher in
action I was anxious to see what was
going to happen she was going to give a
lesson to the children and then set them
off on a big project and this particular
teacher his classroom was on the first
floor and there was another classroom on
the first floor they both worked
together off and on and the two of them
had a lot of tension between each other
I had heard that there were tensions
going on over the years I had also
noticed as I came into the school that
in general there were people around the
school that weren’t getting along so
that was something I was interested in
learning more about well I came into the
classroom and I sat down in the back and
was excited to see what would happen and
what really happened was this teacher
began to present a lesson but she was
very emotional it almost looked like she
was going to cry and she was clearly
stressed
what I noticed next is that there was a
ripple effect with the children and they
were becoming stressed and actually kind
of out of sync and so there was clearly
something going on
and I was anxious to get to the bottom
of it so at the end when the class was
dismissed I caught her in the hallway
and I said you know come on in to my
office tomorrow morning and let’s talk
about how it went yesterday and so she
did she came in to my office and sat
down and I said well you seemed very
stressed yesterday what do you think was
going on with you and she started to
talk and then she stopped and then she
started to cry and she really just
melted down before my eyes and I said
well what do you think is going on here
and she said well I’m not getting along
with this other teacher and what
happened yesterday just was the tipping
point it sent me off over the edge and
so she explained what happened
apparently they had both gotten on to
the elevator on the second floor
together and she had pressed first floor
and the other teacher had pressed fourth
floor well the other teacher turned to
her and said oh I’m on my way up and you
and so that was the tipping point of
tensions between them and she had never
really gone to the teacher and shared
with her you know what was bothering her
over all these months so I asked myself
two questions what was going on with
this and also how was I going to fix it
so that’s an interesting question I
bring those answers today to you because
we’re going to go on a journey of
talking about some of the solutions so
our work in education is to so-called
prepare children for the 21st century
were already in it and actually what we
should be doing is preparing children to
transform the 21st century thank you
[Music]
and how can we transform the 21st
century when we haven’t transformed
ourselves in the workplace actually in
schools it’s extremely important that we
as the adults in the school are the role
model for the children well the next
thing that happened that fall was that I
received an amazing invitation and this
invitation was for all the principals in
this city to come together to study
about the work of dr. Marie Bowen dr.
Marie Bowen was a psychiatrist in the
50s who made an enormous discovery that
discovery was that if you work with a
family system rather than just a
particular person who is ill especially
mentally ill that interestingly the
person got better so there was this
understanding with Murray Bowen that we
are all as human beings deeply deeply
interconnected and I think we’re
starting to all know this in the world
but what was notable about this was that
we have this phenomenon in our families
but also a school is a larger family
system they’re really anywhere that
we’re working in a workplace we have a
family system that is about us as adults
so what is interesting about this
discovery is that there is an emotional
force field that runs through all the
humans in the family system there’s a
force field you remember the Star Wars
the force be with you
yeah so that that force field is a
emotional field that runs through all of
us together actually Murray Bowen told
the story of the cows because humans are
mammals this is in all of us
the cows were the one cow goes up to the
edge of the the fence and gets electric
shock well within less than a second the
whole herd is anxious and stressed well
guess what the same thing happens to us
and in a school I think most of you that
are running a school if you’re a school
principal know the phenomena of a parent
in the parking lot and they have a group
of parents surrounding them I see some
heads nodding and you know it doesn’t
take very long before that whole group
of parents is upset just like the person
who is upset in the beginning and that
runs through the whole school so this
understanding of an emotional force
field was what was so interesting about
our family system of our school so I
just I really found that as an
outstanding discovery then Murray Bowen
went on to say that well when we’re
stressed as an emotional field then we
try to get relief so all of us as humans
try to get relief in this situation and
what’s interesting about that is that we
try to get the relief but it actually
doesn’t relieve the whole family system
it actually makes it worse so that way
that we relieve things is by creating a
triangle and really all of us do this
and so what is that triangle the
triangle is when we have an issue with
someone just like that teacher we don’t
go to the person we have the issue with
that takes a lot of courage
instead we go to a friend and we
complain you know basically we kind of
complain behind the other the person’s
back that we have the issue with and
that’s that is a triangle and that
triangle holds stress within the family
system so it really doesn’t solve
anything so part of that solution is
learning to develop the courage to go
directly to people that we have an issue
with to talk it out so that was a whole
interesting learning for me about what
was happening in this school actually
there are studies now being done about
the fact that the stress among teachers
impacts the stress and the lower
performance of children so we have a
huge responsibility as adults in our
workplace of the school to not be doing
that there’s preliminary studies going
on in British Columbia and also in the
US and it’s going to be interesting to
see how that evidence comes out in the
end but it’s really showing that there
is this direct correlation so basically
there’s a lot going on that we’ve got to
remedy among ourselves as adults how
many of you in your own workplaces
wherever they are have not had the
courage to go directly to a person that
you have an issue with are there any of
you here yeah thank you one person
raised their hand well I was at the
airport coming here from the US and I
got there early and I was at the gate
and that aryl an airline manager was on
the phone and he says to somebody on the
phone no you tell her no I’m not gonna
tell her you tell her you know what get
Sharon to tell her because she’s got
real guts so you know it’s really
everywhere in us so there’s another
piece to this and that is that if we are
to prepare children to transform the
21st century they need to be creative
because we are in the most complex time
on earth and to be creative you can’t be
in a reactive mode and we all know that
reactivity shuts down the brain and we
can’t be creative and so this whole
dynamic that goes on is it’s just so
important that we play our role
in the most optimum way in getting along
with each other so the whole proposition
for me was transforming ourselves to
allow the children to go on and
transform our world and I have a one
suggestion that I want to make in terms
of solutions
there’s many solutions as to how to do
this but this is really an outstanding
how-to and it comes from the Yale Center
for emotional intelligence you’ve heard
of Yale University on the east coast of
the US they have formed a whole Center
for emotional intelligence into motion
illan telogen cyou can remember through
the acronym ru le our ruler and it means
recognize our emotions understand our
emotions label our emotions express our
emotions and regulate our emotions and
it’s the regulating emotions that we
have a hard time with so they offer a
wonderful tool and that tool is called a
Charter it’s something that you
co-create together as a team as a staff
and then you make a commitment to it
it’s sort of like a constitution and so
that Charter we we did in my school and
we we formed the Charter by filling out
three parts and those three parts were
how do I want to feel when I come to
work at the school each day how do I
want to feel and how I want to feel is
well people said appreciated heard
recognized and then the next question is
well if we want to feel this new way in
our school how do we implement this what
are the practical ways that we would
implement this and so then that’s
co-created
the last part that’s co-created is when
there is conflict and there is
inevitable conflict among every place
that we work how do we solve it how do
we work together to to dissolve this
conflict so you do that all together and
you fill it out and you sign it and you
essentially make a vow to each other you
make a commitment to each other that
this is the new way that we will be
together as we work and so I find that
to be a wonderful solution to the how-to
of deciding as grown-ups as adults how
we are going to work together I wanted
to leave you with a wonderful quote from
Lawrence van der post who was from Great
Britain and when he was freed after
World War two from a prisoner camp he
gave the world this message and this is
the message it always comes back to this
we cannot take the life of our times
further than we have taken ourselves so
that is our challenge and I hope that we
all embrace that challenge as the adults
in the world for our children thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you [Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
it was September in 1999 and I was the
new principal assigned to a small school
in an urban setting in a big city this
small school had four stories 1st
through 4th stories and an elevator that
ran down the middle
lucky for us and I was invited to come
and see a classroom and a teacher in
action I was anxious to see what was
going to happen she was going to give a
lesson to the children and then set them
off on a big project and this particular
teacher his classroom was on the first
floor and there was another classroom on
the first floor they both worked
together off and on and the two of them
had a lot of tension between each other
I had heard that there were tensions
going on over the years I had also
noticed as I came into the school that
in general there were people around the
school that weren’t getting along so
that was something I was interested in
learning more about well I came into the
classroom and I sat down in the back and
was excited to see what would happen and
what really happened was this teacher
began to present a lesson but she was
very emotional it almost looked like she
was going to cry and she was clearly
stressed
what I noticed next is that there was a
ripple effect with the children and they
were becoming stressed and actually kind
of out of sync and so there was clearly
something going on
and I was anxious to get to the bottom
of it so at the end when the class was
dismissed I caught her in the hallway
and I said you know come on in to my
office tomorrow morning and let’s talk
about how it went yesterday and so she
did she came in to my office and sat
down and I said well you seemed very
stressed yesterday what do you think was
going on with you and she started to
talk and then she stopped and then she
started to cry and she really just
melted down before my eyes and I said
well what do you think is going on here
and she said well I’m not getting along
with this other teacher and what
happened yesterday just was the tipping
point it sent me off over the edge and
so she explained what happened
apparently they had both gotten on to
the elevator on the second floor
together and she had pressed first floor
and the other teacher had pressed fourth
floor well the other teacher turned to
her and said oh I’m on my way up and you
and so that was the tipping point of
tensions between them and she had never
really gone to the teacher and shared
with her you know what was bothering her
over all these months so I asked myself
two questions what was going on with
this and also how was I going to fix it
so that’s an interesting question I
bring those answers today to you because
we’re going to go on a journey of
talking about some of the solutions so
our work in education is to so-called
prepare children for the 21st century
were already in it and actually what we
should be doing is preparing children to
transform the 21st century thank you
[Music]
and how can we transform the 21st
century when we haven’t transformed
ourselves in the workplace actually in
schools it’s extremely important that we
as the adults in the school are the role
model for the children well the next
thing that happened that fall was that I
received an amazing invitation and this
invitation was for all the principals in
this city to come together to study
about the work of dr. Marie Bowen dr.
Marie Bowen was a psychiatrist in the
50s who made an enormous discovery that
discovery was that if you work with a
family system rather than just a
particular person who is ill especially
mentally ill that interestingly the
person got better so there was this
understanding with Murray Bowen that we
are all as human beings deeply deeply
interconnected and I think we’re
starting to all know this in the world
but what was notable about this was that
we have this phenomenon in our families
but also a school is a larger family
system they’re really anywhere that
we’re working in a workplace we have a
family system that is about us as adults
so what is interesting about this
discovery is that there is an emotional
force field that runs through all the
humans in the family system there’s a
force field you remember the Star Wars
the force be with you
yeah so that that force field is a
emotional field that runs through all of
us together actually Murray Bowen told
the story of the cows because humans are
mammals this is in all of us
the cows were the one cow goes up to the
edge of the the fence and gets electric
shock well within less than a second the
whole herd is anxious and stressed well
guess what the same thing happens to us
and in a school I think most of you that
are running a school if you’re a school
principal know the phenomena of a parent
in the parking lot and they have a group
of parents surrounding them I see some
heads nodding and you know it doesn’t
take very long before that whole group
of parents is upset just like the person
who is upset in the beginning and that
runs through the whole school so this
understanding of an emotional force
field was what was so interesting about
our family system of our school so I
just I really found that as an
outstanding discovery then Murray Bowen
went on to say that well when we’re
stressed as an emotional field then we
try to get relief so all of us as humans
try to get relief in this situation and
what’s interesting about that is that we
try to get the relief but it actually
doesn’t relieve the whole family system
it actually makes it worse so that way
that we relieve things is by creating a
triangle and really all of us do this
and so what is that triangle the
triangle is when we have an issue with
someone just like that teacher we don’t
go to the person we have the issue with
that takes a lot of courage
instead we go to a friend and we
complain you know basically we kind of
complain behind the other the person’s
back that we have the issue with and
that’s that is a triangle and that
triangle holds stress within the family
system so it really doesn’t solve
anything so part of that solution is
learning to develop the courage to go
directly to people that we have an issue
with to talk it out so that was a whole
interesting learning for me about what
was happening in this school actually
there are studies now being done about
the fact that the stress among teachers
impacts the stress and the lower
performance of children so we have a
huge responsibility as adults in our
workplace of the school to not be doing
that there’s preliminary studies going
on in British Columbia and also in the
US and it’s going to be interesting to
see how that evidence comes out in the
end but it’s really showing that there
is this direct correlation so basically
there’s a lot going on that we’ve got to
remedy among ourselves as adults how
many of you in your own workplaces
wherever they are have not had the
courage to go directly to a person that
you have an issue with are there any of
you here yeah thank you one person
raised their hand well I was at the
airport coming here from the US and I
got there early and I was at the gate
and that aryl an airline manager was on
the phone and he says to somebody on the
phone no you tell her no I’m not gonna
tell her you tell her you know what get
Sharon to tell her because she’s got
real guts so you know it’s really
everywhere in us so there’s another
piece to this and that is that if we are
to prepare children to transform the
21st century they need to be creative
because we are in the most complex time
on earth and to be creative you can’t be
in a reactive mode and we all know that
reactivity shuts down the brain and we
can’t be creative and so this whole
dynamic that goes on is it’s just so
important that we play our role
in the most optimum way in getting along
with each other so the whole proposition
for me was transforming ourselves to
allow the children to go on and
transform our world and I have a one
suggestion that I want to make in terms
of solutions
there’s many solutions as to how to do
this but this is really an outstanding
how-to and it comes from the Yale Center
for emotional intelligence you’ve heard
of Yale University on the east coast of
the US they have formed a whole Center
for emotional intelligence into motion
illan telogen cyou can remember through
the acronym ru le our ruler and it means
recognize our emotions understand our
emotions label our emotions express our
emotions and regulate our emotions and
it’s the regulating emotions that we
have a hard time with so they offer a
wonderful tool and that tool is called a
Charter it’s something that you
co-create together as a team as a staff
and then you make a commitment to it
it’s sort of like a constitution and so
that Charter we we did in my school and
we we formed the Charter by filling out
three parts and those three parts were
how do I want to feel when I come to
work at the school each day how do I
want to feel and how I want to feel is
well people said appreciated heard
recognized and then the next question is
well if we want to feel this new way in
our school how do we implement this what
are the practical ways that we would
implement this and so then that’s
co-created
the last part that’s co-created is when
there is conflict and there is
inevitable conflict among every place
that we work how do we solve it how do
we work together to to dissolve this
conflict so you do that all together and
you fill it out and you sign it and you
essentially make a vow to each other you
make a commitment to each other that
this is the new way that we will be
together as we work and so I find that
to be a wonderful solution to the how-to
of deciding as grown-ups as adults how
we are going to work together I wanted
to leave you with a wonderful quote from
Lawrence van der post who was from Great
Britain and when he was freed after
World War two from a prisoner camp he
gave the world this message and this is
the message it always comes back to this
we cannot take the life of our times
further than we have taken ourselves so
that is our challenge and I hope that we
all embrace that challenge as the adults
in the world for our children thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you [Applause]
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