Lessons from a Global Leader

WSG students recently had the opportunity to meet and learn from an innovative and creative entrepreneur through our Leadership Series. The series brings in diverse women leaders from a wide range of industries to share their stories of success with our middle school students.

February’s speaker was Abai Schulze, Founder of ZAAF, a company that produces luxury handbags and products based in Ethiopia. Ms. Schulze was born in Ethiopia and lived in a Catholic orphanage until she was adopted at age 11 by a family in Texas. After studying Economics at George Washington University, she returned to Ethiopia and worked to relearn the culture of her country through service trips and volunteering there. She dreamed of creating a business in Ethiopia that would break common stereotypes about the country, showcasing it instead as one that produces top quality goods, and in the process create jobs and a sustainable life for women in the country.

Abai Schulze Meets with WSG Middle School Students as Leadership Series Speaker

Ms. Schulze's journey to becoming a successful business woman is inspirational, and she shared a message of perseverance, confidence, and openness to learning with our students. She believes anyone can start a business if they have the right support system around them, and while she thinks of herself as a shy person she has realized the necessity of promoting herself and her business. She discussed the strengths she has found through collaboration with others to build her brand and how her international collaborations have extended her product line. She talked about product design and inspiration - illustrating how she makes design and operational decisions for her company.

It is important for our students to see and meet and interact with a variety of successful people, especially women: doing so helps them to form a vision for themselves, exposes them to new career options, and can inspire a dream they may not have previously had. It is particularly rewarding for our students to see young women of color who have achieved success in their lives. It perhaps makes their dreams seem more attainable, envisioning their future selves in these women. As young black and brown girls who are often marginalized with low expectations for their lives, presenting positive and uplifting messages of what they can believe about their future is critical.

Our students immediately related to Ms. Schulze’s message as her reflections offered life lessons, not just entrepreneurial lessons. Her connection with students was evident in the many and varied questions they posed to her. She also also helped the girls to envision Africa and Ethiopia in a different light than perhaps what they are used to seeing. For example, when a student asked about houses in Ethiopia, Ms. Schulze described it as a major city, much like Washington DC, with large beautiful homes in a metropolitan area. She shared a variety of photos of the country, emphasizing the diversity and beauty found throughout.

A few life and business lessons from Ms. Schulze:

• Sometimes done is better than perfect - In business, you have to be prudent in the ways you allocate your time and focus. While that doesn’t mean settling for mediocre, it does mean deciding to keep things moving forward.

• Be transparent and be authentic - Authenticity is a way for others to buy into your business, your brand, and what you offer.

• Prioritize your worries - You need to know what to solve first.

• Expect the unexpected and be ready to be creative in solving problems.

Ms. Schulze’s visit was a good opportunity for students to hear and learn from a young woman who has overcome challenges in her life and realized her dream of running a successful business. Ms. Schulze’s accomplishment in creating beautiful products, working to raise visibility for her home-county and commitment to building a business that uplifts women makes her a wonderful role model for our girls as they begin to imagine and define their purpose and passion.

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If you know someone who would be a good contributor to our Leadership Series, please contact Susan Rockwell.

Striving for Excellence

Each school year we choose to focus on one of our core values as a way to highlight these important attributes throughout our school with students, faculty and staff, and in our daily activities within WSG. This school year we are focusing on the core value of Excellence. Booker T. Washington is noted to have said, “Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.” But what does that really mean to our students? How can we encourage our students to reach for excellence in their own lives and in their school community?

We want our students to understand how to pursue their learning as a way to expand themselves, take ownership of their school studies and ultimately their future lives. We have high expectations for their success at WSG and their ability to grow into their best selves. We also provide important scaffolding along the way as they grow, helping them to bounce back from setbacks and mistakes. Students may be offered opportunities to reflect on their work and identify areas for improvement. They participate in student led conferences, confidently explaining their strengths and areas for growth. They celebrate being on the honor roll, perfect attendance and other achievement measures, but also are also acknowledged for personal growth in a class, excelling as a classroom leader and overcoming a bump in the road. Excellence, they come to understand, is not something that you instantly arrive at. Instead, through hard work, perseverance and an ongoing commitment to growth, students become better at what they undertake. They come to demonstrate their excellence and that excellence is reflected in each student in different ways, as we all have unique gifts and talents. But it is the dedication to not settling for something less than what we deserve and know we are capable of that drives our message to our students.

This week, I attended the NCEA (National Catholic Education Association) Philanthropy Symposium and Seton Awards Gala. Each year NCEA chooses to honor organizations and individuals who have made a significant contribution to Catholic education. This year, our Board Member Emerita Maury Devine was honored as one of the Seton award winners; nominated collectively by WSG, WJA (Washington Jesuit Academy) and Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School for her dedication and commitment to Catholic education as exhibited through her generous philanthropy and tremendous service in each of our schools. At WSG, Maury served as a Board member during an important time of institutional growth, and through her leadership established excellence in governance by serving as an advocate for WSG to others, expanding our circle of benefactors, and helping to create the infrastructure for fundraising at the school. One of Maury’s legacies at WSG is establishing our Auxiliary Board, a group of young professionals who support WSG’s fundraising efforts, which still continues today. Her excellence has inspired others and stimulated the growth of WSG into the school it is today.

As an added benefit of the Seton Awards, Maury selected a WSG student, Za’Niyah Martin, as her Seton Scholars’ Award recipient. Za’Niyah, a current 8th grader at WSG, was recognized for her personal growth in school and her commitment to enhancing the school community through her leadership. Za’Niyah is a member of student council, an honor roll student and an active participant in the WSG community. It was wonderful to see an acknowledgement of a student’s success by someone who has achieved so much success in her life.

As we continue our school year reflecting on excellence, I am reminded that for each us, excellence may be defined uniquely. At the same time, as a school, we want our students to understand that holding themselves accountable to a pursuit of excellence in their learning and academic studies can lead others to success. “Water seeks its own level” and each girl’s own personal achievement may inspire others.

I am deeply appreciative of Maury’s commitment to excellence in her role at WSG and allowing our school to reap those benefits - and for students such as Za’Niyah who demonstrate that same commitment to excellence here at school.

The Power of "Yet"

We’re back! This week is our first week of the 2019-20 school year. As I greeted returning students and met our newly enrolled 3rd graders, I felt the excitement of a new year and new possibilities, and the fresh start that a new school year provides. And also, throughout the past few days, the refrain of “...not yet” has been reverberating in my mind.

Let me explain. Almost everyone who knows me knows that I’m a book person. I always have several in process - everything from contemporary fiction and YA to dense non-fiction in a number of categories: educational leadership, studies of equity and social justice, or a new memoir from a societal or spiritual leader. If you need a recommendation, I’m your gal. (Or if you have a recommendation, send it my way!)

This year, the WSG faculty and staff will join me in a year-long book club of sorts, focusing on the fascinating research of Carol Dweck. We will read her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success and explore her research as it relates both to our students and to our own professional lives.

Dweck’s core premise is that all learning and achievement is possible when one has a “growth mindset.” A growth mindset means that when one experiences a setback or failure, they believe that they can still succeed at the task through hard work. Her research demonstrates that “the power of yet,” the idea that there is no failure, only “not yet,” can have significant implications for our capacity to grow and improve. The concept of “not yet” applies broadly beyond education - each of us has goals that can be impacted by a growth mindset, whether personal, professional, or in our relationships with one another. The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset, characterized by the belief that our abilities “are what they are” and cannot be changed.

The Leadership Team and I selected Mindset as our book of the year because her thesis, that learning is not constrained by innate ability, but rather, is infinite based on our effort and commitment, aligns with what we believe about our students. We say often that our strength as a school is our commitment to each student and our belief in her potential. Among our students might be a future doctor who will discover breakthrough cures, a future senator or president, a CEO, or groundbreaking artist. And those future thought leaders might, right now, be struggling in school.

But we believe that every child can learn and that poor performance in school does not mean that a child is unintelligent or unable to master the material. It simply means, she has not mastered it yet. Our job is not just to deliver instruction and hope that the material sticks. Our job is to help each student persevere, to believe in her own capacity to learn, and to explore all the different reasons why, perhaps, she is not there yet.

So what will this look like for us in practice? Well, we don’t know… yet! I am eager to hear what our teachers think about Dweck’s research over the course of the year, and for our community to collaborate and integrate this philosophy into our daily practices.

For a summary of her research on Mindset, this Stanford Connects talk delivered by Dweck provides an engaging overview.