Same Message, Diverse Voices

As I sat in the airport lounge on Saturday waiting for my flight to Miami, Florida where I would be attending a National Coalition of Girls’ Schools Trustees’ meeting, hosted at the Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart, I reviewed some notes I had on the Sacred Heart Network. This Network of schools was created to ‘educate all members of the school community to a personal and active faith in God, a strong intellectual life, a social awareness that impels to action, the building of a community as a Christian value and foundation for their lives that is based on a personal freedom that enables all to have such self-esteem and confidence that they can builders of community wherever they are.’ The messages that really resonated with me were the Network’s foundational belief that “unity brings vitality and strength,” and that “a collected presence creates energy and a dynamism that is unable to be achieved separately.”

I could not agree more. A few things over this week have highlighted this important message.

On Friday, members of our students’ Diversity Committee and staff, prepared an exceptional assembly celebrating Black History Month. What made this particular presentation so poignant was their use of stories of individual, outstanding black women who have contributed to shaping not only black history, but all of our histories. In a closing prayer, Ms Haggart, SCS teacher, said the following, “We pause now to remember those stories that are all around us, but so often passed over. Help us to realize that Black history is all of our histories, and that our humanity is bound up as one.” It prompted me to reflect on the strength that unity generates. In acknowledging and celebrating ALL of the outstanding contributors to our history, we become a better- and more enlightened- place.

Three times this week, I have had the good fortune to present to prospective parents about St. Clement’s, our curriculum and co-curriculum, and our unique, small and vibrant community. In doing so, I was able to articulate to families just how much our close-knit community of connected girls and young women in Grades 1-12 contribute to our vitality and strength. Each Clementine is unique and contributes to our community. In doing so, they create a tangible energy and dynamism that is unable to be achieved separately.

Finally, in preparing my message for the beginning of our NCGS Trustees’ meeting, I found a quotation from the book Letters from Leaders compiled by Henry O. Dormann. James S. Turley, past Chairman and CEO of Ernst and Young, says, “A commitment to teaming is fundamental. No one succeeds for very long on his or her own. Virtually every successful person I have met…has recognized that success is the product of our entire team working together for a common goal.”

In all the groups, teams or communities in which we are members, it is important to remember just how much we can enable their dynamism- simply by leveraging our unity.