The Importance of Reflection
The tennis player, Goran Ivanisevic is best known for winning Wimbledon in 2001; at the time, he was ranked 145 and only entered the tournament through a last minute ‘wild card’. Wimbledon is one of four major tennis competitions each year (the others being the French, US and Australian Opens), whose winners form an elite group. Excellent players can, in the course of a 15 or 20 year career, win not a single grand slam. To win five would put a player in the ranks of the all time greats. Ivanisevic stopped with the one. He currently coaches Novak Djokovic, who has won 24 grand slam titles, more than any has ever done. Far more than the greats of yesteryear like Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe or Boris Becker. At this stage of his career, why would Djokovic pay someone at least £250,000 a year to help improve his game? And with respect to Ivanisevic, someone no-one near as good. The essence of excellence is not the desire to be the best, but the desire to improve. Djokovic routinely reflects on his performances, not in a ‘yeah, that was quite good, I won’ sort of way, but systematically, looking at details and using precise language. He doesn’t need a teacher for this - someone better than him to show the basics; he needs an expert: someone who can see the right things, use the right words. ISA aspires to excellence: we will only achieve and maintain it if we have the same desire to continually improve; a willingness to listen and reflect. If we put all our energy into showing that we are ‘good’ at what we do, we will never get beyond being good at what we do. Our coach is the accreditation process. Every five years we are re-accredited by the Council of International Schools and the Middle States Association. The purpose of this is not to prove that we are doing well, but to systematically reflect on what we do, to acknowledge areas of strength but to think about areas to improve. They will visit us in May and again later this year. It will be useful to talk to experts who can observe us from the outside. We begin this process next week on our in-service day. We will start by thinking about our mission statement - what we say we are trying to achieve (see Stuart MacAlpine’s blog for more about this) and then will examine different aspects of the school from our guiding statements, facilities, management, and staffing to curriculum, student wellbeing and community relations. If you have ten minutes or so, please fill in this survey which will sharpen our thinking on some key areas. Schools don’t have grand slams, and education is not a competitive sport. Unlike Djokovic we are not looking to beat everyone. We do want to be better at what we say we want to do: to provide an excellent education in a safe and caring environment. That’s our match winner.
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