From Here to There: A Conversation with Peter & Kama

On Thursday night, about twenty-five people, perhaps twenty parents and six staff, gathered to hear me and Kama Bruce share our thoughts about the present and future of Mead. John Hickok, Darleen Hickok’s husband, moderated, and he encouraged the audience to ask questions, which they did, with enthusiasm, deep care for the school, and a lovely kind of empathy for the challenges of leaders in transition.

My first thought, which I mentioned at an alumni event the night before, was that no other school I have known would dedicate a week during which an outgoing leader and incoming one overlap, engage with the school, and support each other without any reputational anxiety or a Board concerned about appearances of inconsistency. That Mead would do this in its uniquely planned yet unscripted way says so much about the culture of the school.

My primary musing is about transition, naturally. First and foremost, Kama’s visit reaffirmed to the myriad members of the community how much he gets our school and is the right choice for us at this moment in Mead’s history. It is a relief for me to leave the school in good hands. Some of you have asked me if I am relaxed and mellow in the wind down, as if my golf shoes and a rocking chair are waiting in the barn for June 30th.

Far from the truth. In fact, the challenge is to avoid getting too hung up and worrying too much about all the things left undone and untidy, the urge to leave the school like a perfectly refurbished boat ready to set sail on smooth seas, when in fact running a school rarely leaves you the luxury of reveling in a problem solved, since the next big wave is just on the horizon.

The questions Thursday night ranged widely (beginning with questions about my legacy and Kama’s beliefs about community and ending with some thoughts about the role of AI in education), but the abiding theme was faith in Mead’s capacity to provide an education that is flexible, authentic, and nurturing in an era when a human-centered, personally meaningful life will become not only desired but urgent. The dialogue was as much about reaffirming who we are as a distinctive school as it was about discovery. That is what I, at least, found rewarding about this transitional phase.

The same can be said of the previous evening, when alumni, parents, staff, and leaders from earlier generations of the school gathered at the house to share stories of their time at Mead, thanks to the tremendous efforts of former parent and current grandparent Patti DeFelice and Board Chair Jenny Lake. This was a valuable evening for Kama, a colorful portrait of his new school with a former (Norman Baron), current, and future Head in the same kitchen. So the two evenings, both windows and mirrors, complemented each other beautifully.

It was a good week. There is a bit of melancholy hangover for me, but I am betting a jazzed-up energy for Kama, both the natural emotions of any people on two sides of a transition. But at the center is the school—its future, its evolution in a radically changed world, and the continued challenge of letting the world know what we offer, a once and future vision of schooling that stays true to its distinctive course.

Peter Herzberg