State of love and trust as I busted down the pretext (Pearl Jam)

We’re back!

Holiday breaks are great but it always takes a little while for my brain to re-engage with school routines.

Things that happened three weeks ago, before the holiday break, have been consigned to the back lots of my brain and it always takes me a while to dredge up names and details.

I’m sure I’m not alone.

I was amazed this morning at the first taboor of Trimester Two how happy all the staff looked to be back at school. Genuinely happy.

The rituals of Arabic greetings are especially present after an extended period of being away from each other. Each culture has some slight variations on the greeting ritual too. Jordanians do something slightly different to Egyptians and so on. But, as in Maori culture, everyone greets everyone else.

I often think back to something Dr. Neil Hawkes said at a Principals’ conference I attended in 2008: It was a while ago and I need to paraphrse but in essence he said, In a good school there may be a hierarchy of roles but there is no hierarchy of relationships.

This is very true of Ali bin Abi Taleb School and I was mindful of this as I watched the advisory staff and the school staff (leaders, teachers and support people) exchanging greetings this morning. It was wonderful to see and be a part of again.