Experience Rundle
"What does a Headmaster do?"

September 17, 2014

This past week I've been able sit back a little bit and reflect on my first month at work.  I have been assisted in this reflection by many of the students at our campuses.

Early this year I promised the teachers that prior to the end of October, I would visit each of their classrooms.  In an attempt to fulfill this promise, I visited about 20 of our Primary and Elementary classrooms at the College and the Academy.  At these visits the teacher has always graciously greeted me and welcomed me into their room.  After a brief introduction, I always ask the question, "Does anybody know 1) what is my job title (headmaster for those of you who are wondering) and 2) what does a 'headmaster' actually do?"  As is almost predictable - the responses have been spectacularly entertaining!

A few responses went a little bit like this:

"You look after all the kids in our school."

"You are the head hauncho ..."

"You make sure our hallways are clean."

"You are the principal of the principals."

"You are responsible for our milk program."

"You make sure the teachers are doing their jobs."

Aside from maybe the milk comment, the K-4 students were actually pretty close to the description our board of directors provided to me.  Needless to say, it has been a fascinating week of visiting our staff and students.  

This brings us today, the day that may well be the quintessential 'Headmaster' day of all days.  Here's a brief synopsis.

7:00 AM - Meeting with Mr. Clark - Elementary Principal 

8:00 AM - Supervising students arriving at the Elementary Program

9:00 AM -  Attending Rundle Social Meeting with parents and advancement (you can get your tickets here!)

11:00 AM - Meeting with Ross Glenn of RGO Furniture to discuss interior furnishings of our schools

12:30 PM - Attending the Opening Ceremonies of Spirit Day at the Junior High

1:00 PM - Enjoying lunch with some fantastic Senior High faculty

1:30 PM - Conversing with my CAIS Headmaster mentor, Paul Kitchen from Rothesay Netherwood School in New Brunswick 

2:00 PM - Attending  the Closing Ceremonies of Spirit Day

3:00 PM - Visiting with our Academy staff

4:00 PM - Viewing the Rundle College Cobras vs Rundle Academy Rockies Volleyball Game
5:30 PM - Answering e-mails, writing this blog and connecting with our community through Twitter

By no means is this list comprehensive or aimed to draw sympathy - this is a list to be celebrated!  Our schools are alive and vibrant with the Rundle Spirit!  Each and every time I turned around today I saw students making connections, I observed teachers building trusting relationships with students and I witnessed kind acts of giving.  

Really, when you think about it, being Headmaster is a dream position, as I am able to enjoy the successes the 'Rundle Experience' affords everybody inside our community.  If I was to answer the question, what does a Headmaster do... I'd have to say 'a headmaster creates a vision for our society; all the while sharing in the spirit and success of a program that is committed to excellence.' 

All the best,

Jason B. Rogers

Save the Small
subtitle: Is this what makes Rundle so special?

September 8, 2014

Last week I was driving between the Society Office and our Jr. Sr. High campus and I had my radio tuned into CBC.  Fortuantely during this very moment, The host of Q was just about to introduce a guest 'ranter' Torquil Campbell.  For those of you who do not know, Torquil is a member of the Montreal band, 'Stars.'  I was compelled by Torquil's words.  He speaks about trust and about the importance of 'taking care of the small in your life.'  If you have 4 minutes, give it a listen by following the link below.  I will refrain from editorializing too much, Torquil's eloquence speaks for itself.

Podcast - start listening at 4:10

As I was listening to Torquil's rant I reflected on why Rundle is so special.  Quickly, it became abundantly clear that our real strength is in the connected and trusting environment that can be established when classes are under 14 students and entire schools are under 250 in population.  It is that kind of place where 'everybody knows your name' and 'they are always glad you came.'  Rundle - from the top to the bottom - is committed to this philosophy.  Which brings me to this morning and more proof of the power of connection.

A wonderful parent of one of our Primary students brought in this basket and thanked me for my talk at the Meet the Teacher Night.  The basket and these apples are small, but they are a titanic symbol of being 'kinder than is necessary' and the importance of smallness.  I cannot imagine receiving such a kind gift if we were a large district or school division and if we did not connect with each other.

I am looking forward to the coming days and continuing to be a part of the kind, trusting and connected community that embodies the 'Rundle Experience'. 

All the best,

Jason B. Rogers

Meet the Teacher
subtitle: Headmaster meets parents & vise versa

September 5, 2014

This past week I have had the opportunity to attend and speak at the Primary and Elementary's  'Meet the Teacher' nights.  For me, this has been an absolute highlight of my initial experience in my role as Headmaster.  These night have really illuminated the fact that we are all on the same page.

My conversations with parents at the events have been filled with optimism and support.  I have left each event feeling energized and enthusiastic about the coming months and years!  To keep these words and sentiments to myself would seem like a little bit of a crime - so on this blog I thought I'd share a few of them with our community.

Here are some of your words:

On how you found Rundle College:

"Our friends have been sending their daughter to Rundle for years and we just had to come over and see what they have been talking about!  It has been a great experience for our son and we look forward to the coming years."

On our students: 

"You know what I love most about these schools, we've simply got great kids in this program!"

On returning to school after summer:

"As a parent, I tried not to take offence, but my son was actually excited to go back to school?!?"

On what Rundle really offers:

"I want my daughter to receive a well rounded education, I know Rundle will provide that for her."

On my choice of cheering for the Riders:

"It's okay that you cheer for the riders... secretly we do too."

On what really matters:

"Everyday my child comes home from Rundle, he has a smile on his face.  

Nothing else matters to me."

On the future of education:

"In a world of change, we need to offer an education that will prepare my son for a world that is changing faster than we can predict.  With small class sizes and outstanding educators, I am able to ensure I am providing my son with the best opportunity to be prepared for the world he is inheriting."

Upon leaving a teachers classroom:

"These teachers are just the best."

I am looking forward to the coming open houses and even more opportunities to connect and to discuss our shared 'Rundle Experience'. 

All the best,

Jason B. Rogers

Trust, Connection and Kindness

Headmaster's Message - Staff Opening

August 28, 2014

Yesterday I had the immense honour and privilege of addressing the outstanding faculty of Rundle College Society.  In true Rundle College form and fashion, we took some time to talk about our program's potential and to celebrate with our colleagues.  In particular, our community took the opportunity to salute Bob Foreman and Pietro Sarro for serving Rundle College for 20 Years!

Perhaps the most touching moment of the gathering was a standing ovation that was given to Mr. Dave Hauk as he officially stepped down from being our Headmaster.  Mr. Hauk has been a tremendous inspiration to all members of our community and his day to day contributions are going to be dearly missed.

Much of the inspiration for my closing comments came from the image of one hiker helping another up a cliff of a mountain.

For me, this image is really the embodiment of who Mr. Hauk has been for the Rundle College community.  Each person he has come into contact with has learned to Trust him to help them up when they needed it, he reached out to each of us and made the Connection you might feel as one hand grasps the other and every step of the way we all realized the Kindness of his being.

Given this inspiration, I put the challenge of trusting, connecting and being kind to our faculty.  Asking them what we can do on a daily basis to embody these characteristics and values.  Knowing the calibre of our staff, I have no doubt that they will live up to the challenge.

As we move forward, I will ask the same of our parents and students.  Rundle College Society is a strong team and will only become stronger as we consider these values in the coming year.

To close, I know our teachers are filled with optimism and enthusiasm.  We cannot wait to see our students on this coming Tuesday and we genuinely hope they are excited to see us too.

All the best,

Jason B. Rogers

The Gift of 'Wonder'

Book of the Month

July 11, 2014

In the last week of school I had the opportunity to sit down for coffee with Mrs. Danis, the principal of Rundle College Primary School.  The topic of our conversation was wide ranging; from a review of the school year that had just past, to our summer plans, to family updates, to great movies and books we had recently seen and read.  As always, I took an opportunity to share about the wonderful year Rundle Academy had just had.   A key component of this sharing involved the success of our school's focuses.  Rundle Academy had keyed in on the core values of 'Grit' and 'Responsibility.'  Students, staff and parents all seemed to embrace the idea of 'true grit' and I think it helped us all reach our potential.

As our conversation continued, we eventually started talking about the 2014-2015 school year at Rundle College Society. In time, we mused about what Rundle College, as a whole, might focus on next year.  It was obvious that we would continue to emphasize a 'safe and caring environment' and we would continue to help students discover their potential, challenge them to do their best and celebrate with them when they do.  Beyond the mission of Rundle College Society, we discussed values such as 'courage,' 'friendship,' 'character,' and 'creativity.'  After a short while, I asked what she thought about simply asking our students to consider 'kindness' as a key core value for the upcoming school year.  It was at this point that Mrs. Danis  asked if I had ever read the book 'Wonder' by R.J. Palacio.  

I had to admit I had not heard of the book but would see if I could find it this summer and give it a read.  Needless to say, I picked up the book 3 days ago and have now completed reading it.  I am so very happy that Mrs. Danis suggested this read.  Even though it would be classified as a young adult book, it is filled with universal truths that every person can learn from.  R.J. Palacio does a spectacular job of telling the story of the main character, August, through multiple perspectives that demonstrate an uncompromising empathy for all things that are true and good.  Beyond this, I am going to refrain from saying too much more because I believe everybody should give this book a read.  

I'll just leave you with this teaser.... if you want a preview of the Headmaster's 2014 Key Precept.... make sure you get to the last chapter.

All the best to you and yours during the summer of 2014.

Jason B. Rogers

The Courage of a Mountaineer

Lessons from CAIS Heads Institute

July 6th, 2014

This past week, I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to sit down with a dozen Headmasters from across Canada, Dr. Robert Evans and Dr. Michael Thompson.  

As one might expect, these meetings are inevitably filled with insights, big ideas and worldly viewpoints.  In spite of the vast amount of information that is shared, whenever I am away at any type of session like this, I’m always asking myself the question:

How will this session improve the experience for our students at Rundle College?  

In the nearly 30 hours of conversation, there were quite literally hundreds of take-away learnings.  Of the most impactful and pertinent was a conversation around courage.  Even though much of the conversation revolved around courage in school leadership, there is much that can and should be transferred to our student’s experiences in growing and learning.  

The five domains of courage as described by Dr. Michael Thompson are:

Courage of the Mother - the kind compassionate courage we all feel when we are in the care of another.  The acts of strength that come when you love something so deeply that you cannot imagine a life without it.

Courage of the Mountaineer - the courage to undertake the long, arduous journey.   

Courage of a Comedian - the courage to put yourself out there and be prepared for your ‘set to flop.’  When your set does flop, it’s the ability to have the strength to continue on.

Deliberative Courage - the courage to make a tough decision when it is necessary.

Courage in the Face of Pain - the courage that is required to overcome moments where you or others are suffering or in pain.

Each of the five domains are easily explored in the context of an excellent K-12 education.  Our teachers, students and families encounter and overcome multiple situations during these years that require us to leverage each domain.  However, for obvious reasons, I think it is appropriate to focus on the second principle, “Courage of the ‘Rundle’ Mountaineer.”  

The Rundle community prides itself on supporting students in their pursuit of becoming a renaissance learner and an ethical citizen of the world.  These lofty goals are never attained without first, a long journey that is fraught with peril and punctuated with celebration.  We could easily surmise that this journey is much like ascending a mountain.  At Rundle we hope that our students experience the occasional non-catastrophic failure, understand that there is a team of educational and emotional sherpas that will steward them through the challenge and ultimately through these experiences and this tutelage they will develop the ‘Courage of a Mountaineer.’  

As a community we will all be stronger together if we remind ourselves that life is a long and gratifying climb not a downhill sprint.  Collectively we need stamina, we need to remain patient, in the difficult moments we need to remember to be kind and more than anything we we need to develop courage if we are going to summit each mountain we face.

What Innovative Leaders Do June 19, 2014 | Volume 9 | Issue 19 Table of Contents

More Sharing ServicesShare|Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on email

Trust Your Staff's Ability to Create and Innovate 

Through Spark Meetings

Jason Rogers and Jamie Burla

Rundle Academy is a small school for students with learning disabilities that has a large track record of success. The school graduates 100 percent of its students, 80 percent of whom go on to university. A number of factors account for the success of their students. Rundle Academy boasts small class sizes, empathetic teaching staff, and supportive parents; however, we could argue that the number one factor in the school's success is its approach to professional development.

In its 15 years of existence, educators at Rundle have successfully and sustainably adopted differentiated instruction and assessment, universal design for learning, and the Understanding by Design^®framework. Since Rundle's inception, educators have scheduled one-and-a-half hours a week for teacher professional development. Initially, this time was used for "stand and deliver" teacher inservice training led by the school leadership, but this evolved to include direct workshops, differentiated professional learning communities, and outside conferences on topics of interest.

Despite overall school success, at the end of the 2011–14 school year, leadership sensed that staff had reached their saturation point for traditional professional development. As school administrators, we were left with the question, What next?

We spent the summer before the 2012–13 school year reading books such as Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink and Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer. These books, along with our strong beliefs in the power of teacher autonomy, distributive leadership, and collaboration, motivated us to try something different.

Knowing that most good ideas come from the teachers themselves, we decided to open our professional development time for teachers to develop even more good ideas. Thus, Spark Meetings were born. These are brief, teacher-led presentations on a topic of interest or relevance. Spark Meetings leverage teachers innate abilities to come up with solutions that work for them and that make learning better for students.

The true beauty of Spark Meetings, therefore, is in their simplicity. Our guidelines are that Spark Meetings must

• involve more than one person,
• be collaborative,
• focus on a topic that will improve instruction and learning, and
• result in a working group comprised of attendees.

Teachers share potential session titles via a Google Doc, and throughout the week, other teachers sign up for the meeting topic that interests them. Meetings need at least one attendee to take place, and if no topics interest the teachers, we encourage them to create their own. Because collaboration and innovation are central to the success of these meetings, leadership also attends.

Session topics have included the following:

• Understanding school law
• Teaching introverted students
• Using fuel cells in our science classes
• Identifying student learner outcomes for test self-assessment
• Helping students with difficult social situations
• Creating a drama production
• Designing and implementing e-portfolios in the classroom
• Demonstrating math skills with 3D printing

The final piece in the Spark professional development puzzle is a twice-yearly staff meeting called "Sparks to Flames." At this meeting, staff members disperse into small working groups of six to eight and share useful discussions they've enjoyed during their Spark Meetings.

These biannual meetings have proven to be a breeding ground for further creativity and innovation, while providing insight and reflection that often enhance each project. For example, a "Sparks to Flames" group influenced our approach to formative assessment. Like other differentiators, the teachers at Rundle Academy use strategies such as class polling or exit cards to guide the progress of their classes; however, we desired a better whole-class assessment with immediate results. A Spark group used and evaluated high- and low-tech ideas—everything from online polling to such immediate options as students chalking their responses to verbal surveys—to address this challenge. Eventually, a small group of teachers settled on asking students to write answers on personal whiteboards. Less messy than chalk, this strategy still allows students to participate in the feedback process as a group activity, while teachers can scan their responses quickly before making a decision in real time. Through collegial "Spark to Flames" discussions, only months after it was first tried by the small group of teachers, all teachers at Rundle Academy had adopted this formative assessment strategy.

Another collaborative success from Spark recently evolved in our math department. Teachers had held Spark Meetings about developing better kinesthetic and critical thinking strategies for engaging students in real-world math. The idea of 3-D printers came up, almost in jest, but the more they discussed the possibilities, the more it sounded like the right answer. Teachers began to problem solve, research pricing, and write grant proposals. After six months of hard work, the teachers had secured enough funding to purchase two 3-D printers. As a result, students can now design and print any number of creative objects, while applying various math skills toward an authentic purpose.

Through the "Sparks to Flames" process, our staff embodies design thinking. As different perspectives converge, new ideas form, and before long, new Sparks ignite.

Jason Rogers is a principal at Rundle College Academy, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Jamie Burla is head of instruction and learning at Rundle College Academy.

ASCD Express, Vol. 9, No. 19. Copyright 2014 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.