Hyde-Brooklyn Comes to Bath

Last week we hosted the new faculty from Hyde-Brooklyn for a few days of Hyde 101 Training. There were about 20 teachers in attendance and, to a person, they were All In! From the ropes course to performing arts auditions to role plays to seminars, we had great fun teaching such a truly enthusiastic bunch.

One of my sessions was one called Introduction’s to Hyde 5 Words & Principles. We explored these time-honored 10 concepts both collectively and individually. On the collective side, we discussed:

• The idea that the 5 Words can be perceived as the “I” words (“What I need to do”) and the 5 Principles as the “We” words (What we need to do”).
• The fact that 3 of the 10 concepts have to do with truth-telling — Integrity, Truth, and Conscience — is not a coincidence. I would go so far as to say that if truth is not your primary guide by your graduation, then you might well have missed the main point and purpose of the education we offer, regardless of how much “progress” you might have made during your time here.
• The idea that our purpose as faculty is neither to define these words nor to insist upon a particular meaning of them so much as it is to facilitate our students’ daily engagement with them as individuals and as groups.

On a word-by-word basis, we served up a number of quotes that express the depth of meaning of many of Hyde’s 5 Words & Principles. Here are some of those:

• “We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” – Max Depree on Courage
• “Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.” – John Wayne
• “Courage is an acquired taste, like caviar.” – Erica Jong
• “Honesty is when your words match your deeds… Integrity is when your deeds match your words.” – Unknown
• “Leadership is the ability to transform vision into reality.” – Warren Bennis
• “Leadership is a behavior, not a position.” – Pearl Kane
• “Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.” – Winston Churchill on Leadership
• “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes on Curiosity
• “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” – Chinese Proverb on Curiosity
• “The service you do for others is the rent you pay for the time you spend on earth.” – Muhammad Ali on Concern
• “Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself. It means thinking of yourself less.” – Unknown
• “The truth will set you free but first it will make you miserable.” — Sign on the wall at Hyde School
• “The truth will set you free, but not before it is finished with you.” – David Foster Wallace
• “If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.” – Albert Einstein

Here’s to a great school year at Brooklyn and for Hyde teachers everywhere!

Onward, Malcolm Gauld