The ACEL Branch started work for the year with our first meeting of the year on 4th February. Our meeting commenced with discussing Laurie Brady’s wonderful article, It’s all about relationship: A perennial challenge for school leaders, in the last edition of AEL. We also discussed some of our musings from our working group meeting held in December 2024. All our discussions were based on the concept of ‘less is more’!
Our Pivotal People Working Group is well underway with all of their thoughtfully rich work in the middle leadership space, culminating in the Middle Leaders Leadership Summit to be held on the Gold Coast 2-3 June. In addition our membership, in our highly decentralised State, is supported proactively on the Gold Coast and increasingly on the Sunshine Coast. Our membership in Toowoomba and Western Queensland is nourished actively by our committee presence in that region. Our aim is to continue to build our presence in North Queensland. Reaching out to both our metropolitan and non-Metropolitan members remains a priority.
I am very humbled to be assuming the presidency of the Queensland Branch following the leadership of both Karen Fox and Liz Forster. It is particularly exciting to be working with Liz in her new position as National ACEL President.
As the school year starts and the inevitable frenetic pace intensifies, there are two quotes I would like to share. One relates to individual peace and the other perhaps to global peace. One is from theologian and scholar Stephen Cottrell and one is from Toby Ziegler, that intense character creation of Aaron Sorkin, from the television series The West Wing.
Theologian Stephen Cotterell (2008) makes some important observations about the importance of rest, play and being present. He notes:
In doing nothing; in taking rest and play seriously; in unmasking the illusion that meaning and value can only be found in busyness and so-called productivity; in learning to cherish the present moment, we discover that something special and sustaining can best be found in the silences between the notes and what is written between the lines. Not through our effort, or hard work, or even our goodness, but in those moments of forgetfulness, of sleeping and dreaming, when we are suddenly caught unawares by the wild and mysterious beauty of the world.
Cotterell writes much about leadership. These thoughts remind us of some of the essentials of good leadership. The silences are just as important as the noise. Silence gives us rhythm, momentum and hopefully a chance for discernment.
Toby Ziegler in the first series of The West Wing notes at the end of the episode called Mr Willis from Ohio:
…I’ve had an unusual evening. I met an unusual man. He didn’t walk into the room with a political agenda, he didn’t walk in with his mind made up. He generally wanted to do what he thought was best. He didn’t mind saying the words - I don’t know!
There is much to ponder in Ziegler’s thoughts – locally, nationally and globally. I might be presumptuous and paraphrase it just a tad. Wouldn’t it be good if a few more folk (I am particularly thinking men as I write thinking about geostrategic catastrophe) didn’t walk into rooms with political agendas and didn’t mind saying - I don’t know!
Here’s to a 2025 where humanity has a chance of triumphing and our young people learn to smile, play, learn and laugh in environments that are optimistic and possible. A world where the late Professor Anna Craft’s concept of possibility thinking delivers in abundance.
References
Cottrell, S. (2008). Hit the Ground Kneeling: Seeing Leadership Differently. Church House Publishing.
Craft, A. (2015). Possibility Thinking: From What Is to What Might Be in The Routledge International Handbook of Research on Teaching Thinking. Routledge.
Sorkin, A. (Creator).(1999 - 2006). The West Wing [TV series]. Warner Brothers. Television
Dr Bruce Addison
ACEL QLD Branch President