A wonderful book I discovered this time last year is Edward Abbey’s (1968) Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness. The following quote is apposite:
I wait. Now the night flows back, the mighty stillness embraces and includes me; I can see the stars again and the world of starlight. I am twenty miles or more from the nearest fellow human, but instead of loneliness I feel loveliness. Loveliness and a quiet exultation (pg. 34).
As 2025 draws to its inevitable close, the concept of seasonality embraces us all. Schools and institutions of learning have an inevitable rhythm echoing well-established patterns within their own unique settings. As the Australian summer beckons, a familiar seasonality stretches before us. The light lengthens, the hug of humidity envelops, the heat embraces, and the stormy rains intensify our tropical and sub-tropical lushness whilst simultaneously unleashing the ferocious consequences of nature’s fury. There is a restorative rhythm to it all amidst the unwanted harshness of the storms, hail, rain, and mould.
In schools, too, a similar shift occurs. The daily rhythm, so insistent across the months, relaxes its grip as our students farewell their year, soon followed by their teachers and professional staff. An emptiness and silence descend to replace the familiar bustle – a bustle having its own jagged and gentle counterpoint. This shift into summer reminds us that our campuses, as in nature, lilt with a necessary continuity – a continuity that is subtle, familiar, and in its own way gently reassuring.
In these blogs during the year, I have reflected on leadership as an act of finely tuned attention. The silences are just as important as the noise. It is so important to think spatially when thinking about leadership, to remember the importance of silence to our professional practice. As in musical notation, the silences dictate the rhythm.
Just as life experiences teach us to recognise the shifting signals of a changing season, so we learn to sense the underlying and, at times, understated cues shaping the life of a school: the changing moods of a staffroom, the healing that occurs when a team has moved through temporary dysfunction, the maturing of a unique cohort of students, and the emotions as one era of school leadership moves to another. Generally, this attention is observational, patient, and deeply relational. At year’s end, it offers us a wide-angled view of what has been and what could be. This attention is seldom dramatic. Of course, on occasions it can be challenging, if not dramatic.
As the pace relaxes, hopefully we all rediscover a restorative presence as the professional rhythm slows. Earlier this year I wrote about the renewal that occurs with stillness – a space that is precious when we finally allow our minds to settle. Many traditions talk about a guiding light visible only in the calm of night. In the Christian tradition, the Star of Bethlehem is one such symbol, offering travellers direction rather than certainty. Whether viewed through a spiritual, cultural, or purely metaphorical lens, the notion of a gentle, orienting light resonates deeply – especially at this time of year when there is time and space to consider what’s next.
For many Education Queensland colleagues, this period of reflection is overlaid with the complexities of the ongoing enterprise bargaining process. Such discussion and disruption echo the tensions found in any season of transition: a mixture of uncertainty, hope, negotiation, and the desire for contemporary conditions that honour the complexity, expertise, and soul-work underscoring what Parker Palmer would call “The Courage to Teach.” In this time of unrest, as the workplace processes continue along their inevitable trajectory, the importance of silence, stillness, and calm could not be more important.
As 2025 draws to a close, may some quiet time marked by light, stillness, and awareness guide your thinking and being. Let us all allow the illuminations of the past year to guide us towards the next. May the coming year be grounded and hopeful – attuned carefully to a quiet and sustaining rhythm that underscores all that is wonderful and relational on our campuses.
Wishing all members of ACELQ a happy and restorative holiday season as a springboard into another year of activity, wonder, and learning on our campuses.