A Fond Farewell

Edwin Scott has been mulling over the idea of retirement for several years.  Each year we convinced him to stay on with Cornerstone because his contributions to the development of school review and the progress of Cornerstone have been instrumental in our work.  However, he has finally put his foot down, politely refused our requests, and is indeed retiring.

On the subject of school reviews Edwin once wrote …

Leading a review team is a bit like driving a car, in that you hope it will stay on the road, speed up when you accelerate and stop when you brake.  But, whereas cars are machines in which the components generally behave predictably unless they disintegrate or drop off, review teams are human, and each part of the team is more human than the whole.  Add to this the parallel chemistry of the school, and you have the reason why – being of a nervous disposition – I arrive for a review with a full set of dismal possibilities at the back of my mind, mainly that I'll be left holding a steering-wheel with nothing attached to it.  I have to admit that, so far, the back of my mind is where they have stayed.  Indeed, it's probably the almost miraculous way in which the human qualities of the team members meld together without losing any of their unique flavor, and are set effortlessly alongside a deep professional concern to get things as right as possible, that wins the confidence of schools and makes the reviews so successful.  So that's my pleasant surprise, and it keeps happening, despite a few small wobbles.  Working with a review team beats going to a shrink, any day.

Any participant who worked with Edwin will recall that he is deeply attached to Cornerstone’s basic philosophy.  He characterizes that philosophy in this way …

By common consent, children who do well in school are those who have been included, from the earliest age, in a world of ideas.  Their parents have talked to them, read to them, exposed them to experiences outside the home, and treated them in many respects as mini-adults.  Their contributions have been sought and valued as soon as they have been able to put an opinion, or any kind of thought, into words.  They have been put into all kinds of situations, either in real life or through books or through oral language, in which their emotional and imaginative and moral and deductive and social being has been nurtured.  They have acquired a great store of things in their minds that interest and stimulate them, and they have honed the skill of presenting those ideas in words.  Without a store of ideas, what is there to express?

It is beyond dispute that some children bring to school with them a far greater store than others.  The central idea behind Cornerstone is that schools should augment whatever stock, abundant or meager, that children already have.  Hence the emphases on literature, which simulates the ebb and flow of real life; on children’s own recollections; on curiosity about phenomena that show up in all parts of the curriculum; and on the exchanges among teachers and students in all manner of situations in the classroom.  This is the key that unlocks the mysteries of “crafting”, “schema”, “metacognition” and the rest, which are the means to the end, not ends in themselves.

Cornerstone aims to re-create, as far as it is possible to do so, the conditions in which mental and imaginative capacity can grow, and in which language is the channel between children’s minds and the outside world.

Congratulations, Edwin, on this passage, steering wheel in hand.  Who knows where an unencumbered spirit will go next.  God speed.