Last month Saklan’s Board and Head attended the annual Trustee/Head Conference sponsored by the California Association of Independent Schools (“CAIS”). With us in San Francisco all day were over 900 other trustees and heads from scores of California independent schools, all hopeful to hone our skills and knowledge pertaining to school board leadership.

Kicking off the morning was a profound speech by Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot, a professor of education at Harvard University and author of The Essential Conversation: What Parents and Teachers Can Learn From Each Other. Thirteen of your fellow Saklan parents sat in rapt attention as our speaker dazzled the room with her insights and perspective on the topic of respect. At the end of her spoken gift to the assembly, your trustees spontaneously vowed to attempt to share with you our humble grasp of this beautiful treatise on the power and nature of respect in the environment of the school community (obviously it applies in large measure to our lives at large as well.) So here goes.

Lawrence-Lightfoot remembered her father, how he gained respect by giving it. How he talked the same way, on the same plane, to all. How he emoted a serious interest in who you were, and what you had to say, never bullying or threatening to overpower, powerful as he was.

“Respect is the tender transfer of power.” Education, teaching, is relational. Success is defined by those relationships. Respect is the single most powerful ingredient in those encounters, the key to nurturing and sustaining the central relationships between teachers and students.

Asked who their favorite teachers are, students across the nation select those teachers who “respect” them. Respect as defined by these students is that received from teachers because they are demanding, set high standards, insist that they learn, get to know their students and take them seriously, and have expectations of their students by which they challenge them with rigor. And rest assured, students watch and follow the relations of adults, and the degree and authenticity of the respect they demonstrate to one another.

Respect is commonly and traditionally defined by status and hierarchy, which tends to be static and impersonal, attained or inherited rather than earned and shared. In contrast, the respect Lawrence-Lightfoot commends is a two-way affair, where respect begets respect, and the respectful become respected. The hierarchical connotes dutiful compliance, whereas the sought after quality fosters excited cooperation.

Lawrence-Lightfoot offers six dimensions of respect that together, not discretely, constitute its framework.

• Empowerment. Respecting others offers them the power to control their own lives.

• Healing. Showing respect through one’s work and actions nourishes others.

• Dialogue. Respect encourages authentic communication and moves one through the bad towards reasoning and reconciliation.

• Curiosity. Genuine interest in other, in what they are thinking, feeling and fearing.

• Self-respect. One must respect oneself in order to respect others. This is not narcissism or entitlement, and doesn’t need public affirmation, but is private and vigilant.

• Attention. When we respect another, we are completely there, engaged in listening and in vigorous dialog.

This last dimension, attention, is, she argues, the rarest. It is embued in attitude and presence, not simply “shutting up and listening.” It is subtle and emoted rather than acted. As Lawrence-Lightfoot quoted another, “Attention is like judo—you use the strength of the other person to join the dance.” (This may suggest that successful practice of attention requires a partner in exertion.)
Lawrence-Lightfoot moved on to lessons about the imperatives of successful educational leadership. Not surprisingly, there were six as well of these.

• Symmetry. This is contrasted with hierarchy, static and asymmetric, where one is stuck either in power or impotence, responsibility or irresponsibility. Symmetric, dynamic relationships support growth and change. Think of a circle, not a pyramid.

• Relationship. Respect grows with relationship. Relationship is grounded in individual engagement and reciprocity.

• Civility. This is related to, but not the same as respect. Nonetheless, the rituals and routines of decorum that define civil engagement are necessary precepts to respect and its bounty.

• Storytelling. Through stories we discover our universals, telling stories invites another, and the tapestry of human connection is woven.

• Family origins. This seemed in the hearing to be more admonition that guidepost. Basically, don’t encourage the ghosts of the parent to be unleashed.

• Silence. Respect is conveyable through dialog, but as well through silence. Silence that is fully engaged, not empty and defensive, that gives permission to, empowers, the other.

With respect,
Paul Felton, Board Chair
on behalf of your Board of Trustees

Paul Felton, Board Chair
Ed Rice, Vice Chair
Marcela Salem
Jennifer Griessel
Dan Dahlen
Kate Dey
Diane Wilcox
Jonathan Martin, Head of School
Joan Jump
Bett Tokar
Annie Barendregt
Maureen Gibeson
John Macauley
Ruth Bailey
Betsy Hill
Pam Yares