Gabriel Di Mauro, Secondary Principal
7 March 2025
This past week, I had the pleasure of joining Grade 6 Individuals & Societies classes as a guest speaker on the topic of leadership. Their questions were brilliant, pertinent, and challenging. They had clearly internalised major concepts on the theme of leadership in their unit of study. At one point in my interview with them, however, I realised that some questions held a presupposition that leadership and education are distinct, separate entities. It was as if they were saying that what they and their teachers do in the classroom every day is not, in fact, leadership. In response to this, my teacher brain kicked into gear and I decided to offer them a provocation. I immediately asked, ‘does anyone know the Latin root of the word education?'
Pregnant provocation pauses in the classroom are a powerful thing. One can almost hear brows furrowing, mental mechanisms churning. A few brave students ventured guesses, but before the discomfort of not knowing became too great, Mr Parker came to the rescue with the answer: educare. Derived from the Latin verbs educare and educere, education essentially means to lead out or to lead towards. We get the notion of from, out, or towards with the letter e (E pluribus unum, evade, evoke) and we get the lead concept from duc- (viaduct, conduct, duke). The etymologies of the words education and leadership are therefore inextricably intertwined. But what does this really mean in practice?
Every once in a while, and always from a place of genuine curiosity, I will get a question from someone untrained in the art and science of teaching such as this: ‘What could be so interesting about teaching [x subject] every single year? Doesn’t that get boring?’ To begin with, what we know about each discipline is ever-evolving. That’s what makes scholarship so exciting. Far more exciting, and vastly more fascinating, is the privilege of embarking upon the journey of transformation and self-discovery students experience when they embrace their own powers of reasoning, understanding, and application in a given area. Each child’s journey will be unique because each child is unique. What does this have to do with leadership, then? Everything.
True learning only happens when an individual is able to make sense of a new phenomenon for themselves, in their own way. No one can learn something for you. To be successful, learners must be led towards something new by skilled teachers, but they must also learn how to lead themselves. This means learning how to effectively deal with the discomfort of not knowing, suspending judgement, asking good questions, seeking help, reflecting on learning and sharing insights with others. This is how innovation happens. Not by memorisation of received information (though this does have an important place in the learning process). Rather, innovation happens when empowered individuals grapple with concepts together in a completely unprecedented way.
If this is true, teachers have a tall order. They must attend to the social, emotional, cognitive, and logistical needs of their students. They must lead themselves as they lead their students on how to effectively lead themselves. In my role, I must ensure teachers and students in Secondary School have the conditions and resources they need in order to be successful. That’s a lot of leadership. Thankfully, we do not do this work alone or in isolation. As a community, we have all the necessary ingredients to leverage learning of the highest quality. Our mission, values, resources, community members, and community partners make this learning/leadership journey possible. It is a profound privilege to learn and lead with one another towards exciting new horizons each and every day.
In partnership,
Gabriel Di Mauro
Secondary Principal