The Ritz Carlton, Doha, Qatar
Tara Reynolds & David Henderson
TARA REYNOLDS is a Courage & Renewal Facilitator and Co-Founder of WholeHeart, Inc. www.wholeheartinc.org
Full Bio
TARA REYNOLDS is a facilitator with the Center for Courage & Renewal and a graduate of the Vermont Leadership Institute. She is the Executive Director of The Wisdom Connection, a small private foundation located in Northeastern Vermont. She holds a BA in English from Haverford College.
In 2013 Ms Reynolds co-founded an organization called WholeHeart, Inc., which works to support and strengthen individual resilience and help cultivate positive organizational culture. Ms Reynolds served on the Lakeview Union Elementary School Board in Greensboro, Vermont, for six years and was Chair for half of her tenure, during which time she also served on the Executive Committee of the Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union.
She now works as a consultant to schools interested in developing visionary leadership and relational trust. In her spare time, Ms Reynolds volunteers at a correctional facility in Northern Vermont as a program coordinator for incarcerated fathers where she encourages them to keep in touch with their children through literacy. She is a lifelong learner who admires the wisdom of children, elders, and the natural world.
DAVID HENDERSON is a Courage & Renewal Facilitator and Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, Montana State University. www.couragerenewal.org
Full Bio
DAVID HENDERSON, Ed.D., grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and was a high school chemistry and biology teacher and coach after completing a B.A. in science education at Harding University where he later completed an M.Ed. in English education. He worked in the software industry in Dallas, Texas, from 1981-1993 as a technical writer, software developer, product manager, and co-manager of software research and development.
In 1993 he moved to Yaak, Montana (the very northwest corner of the state), where he taught Grades 5-8 in the last one-room school in Montana that still met in its original log cabin. From 1993-2007 in Montana he was a public school educator, coach, and high school principal, completed his doctorate and taught as an adjunct at The University of Montana in Missoula and co-founded Montana Courage to Teach.
From 2007-2012, Dr Henderson taught Educational Administration at Southwestern Oklahoma State University and also started Oklahoma Courage to Teach/Lead. He currently teaches Educational Leadership at Montana State University in Bozeman, where he continues facilitating Courage to Teach/Lead and Circles of Trust retreats and researches the intersection of the inner life of leaders with their practice of leadership as their hearts strive for integrity and authenticity.
Keynote: Saturday, Oct 22
KEYNOTE SPONSORED BY THE COLLEGE BOARD
From Effectiveness to Faithfulness: The Quest for Institutional Integrity
This keynote invites participants to explore questions often ignored in the student achievement/effective schools research. School leaders know that educating the whole child means “student success” is more than academic achievement and demands deeper engagement, enabling students to embark on a life well-lived. How can we as school leaders model the wholehearted, authentic leadership that can help a school transcend external effectiveness to be faithful to an institutional calling of integrity and wholeness?
Workshop 1: Saturday, Oct 22
Habits of the Heart for Healthy Schools
Habits of the Heart—a phrase coined by Alexis de Tocqueville—are deeply ingrained ways of seeing, being, and responding to life that involve our minds, our emotions, our self-images, our concepts of meaning and purpose. This workshop will explore five specific ‘habits’ designed to support educational leaders who are interested in nourishing the health and well-being of their institutions with vital, relevant, and real-time tools.
Cor, the Latin root from which we get the word, “heart”, is also the root of the word “courage”. It is much more than a place of feeling or sentiment. In its original meaning, it points to the core of the human self, that center-place where all of our ways of knowing converge: intellectual, emotional, sensory, intuitive, imaginative, experiential, relational, and bodily. When all that we understand of self and world comes together in the human core called the heart, we are more likely to find the courage to act humanely on what we know. Someone who acts from his heart is encouraged; one who has lost connection with his heart is discouraged; therefore, a leader should always ask, “Am I encouraging – infusing others with heart – or discouraging – ignoring and/or dismissing the heart -- with my words and actions?”
Based on the work of Parker Palmer and the Center for Courage & Renewal, this workshop is designed to renew clarity, commitment, and courage--to act with integrity on what matters most to you and your school. The presenters will offer a safe space for reflection and meaningful conversations where participants can learn to trust their own wisdom and align their inner lives with their outer work in the world.
Workshop 2: Sunday, Oct 23
Leading from Within: The Courage to Lead Who We Are
Research has shown that many leaders spend a good portion of their leadership lives too afraid to let their truest selves speak; this sort of vulnerability goes against what most traditional models of leadership suggest – hold your cards close to your vest, don’t let them know how you feel, there’s work life and there’s personal life, etc. Many leaders have come to realize that this sort of divided self is ultimately a sham at best and diminishing to the soul at worst and not just the leader’s soul but the souls of stakeholders as well.
Parker Palmer suggests there might be a way to lead in which we can rejoin soul and role and live and lead in a more holistic way, which models for colleagues that they too can “lead from within” with courage that invites them into creative thinking, risk-taking, building uncommon community, and many other attributes that lead to healthy and productive organizations. Thomas Sergiovanni has suggested schooling is fundamentally a web of relationships; James Comer has famously stated there are three rules to great educating, just like the three rules of real estate (location, location, location) – in education, rather, it is relationships, relationships, relationships.
Handouts
Save paper and effort where possible!
For your convenience, and to support our efforts in being "green", all handouts/files posted here have been notated with an A, B, C or D indicating the following:
(A) hardcopies needed at workshop
(B) electronic version on laptop is sufficient (for viewing during the workshop)
(C) required reading PRIOR to the workshop
(D) file not needed for workshop itself, but simply material of additional interest/reference
(A) Circle of Trust - Touchstones, by Parker J. Palmer and the Center of Courage & Renewal
(A) Gate A-4, by Naomi Shihab Nye
(A) Five Habits of the Heart, by Parker J. Palmer
(A) Encouraging and Discouraging Forces
(A) Desire, by Alice Walker
(A) Touchstones
(A) CONTRACT - A Word from the Led, by William Ayot
(A) Circles of Trust Session Leading from Within
(A) A Blessing For One Who Holds Power, by John O'donahue