Enabling Flourishing: for Ourselves, at School and in the Community

‘Life in all its fullness’ leads us towards a notion of ‘flourishing’ which is a helpfully inclusive concept for a deeper view of what education is all about. However, it is a word that that can be mis-leading, not least because it can skew our thinking to desire a continuous sense of perfection, happiness or ongoing trajectory of improvement (which, of course, is anyway statistically impossible for all schools to be always improving all of the time, given our selection of relative measures of success and the distribution of grading across a normal distribution curve!). A Christian understanding of flourishing is firmly grounded in the teaching of Jesus and expansively illustrated through a wide range of parables and examples – we may consider for example The Parable of the Sower, Living in the Vine, the Mustard Seed etc. Indeed the metaphor of trees planted by living waters, and the bearing of fruit extends right back into the Old Testament prophets (Jeremiah 17) and the Psalms (Psalm 1 + others). While our goal may well be flourishing children, for this to be achieved, we must also focus on leadership development and flourishing adults. One could argue, there will be no flourishing children where there are no flourishing adults. I’d like to open this Called, Connected, Committed with 4 simple thoughts on flourishing:
 
We flourish because of our diversity and relationships, not in spite of them. A great garden or a wonderful rainforest ecosystem is full of variety and difference, interaction and mutual benefit. However attractive order, uniformity or compliance may appear, our networks and partnerships are richer in variety; our leadership teams work more effectively in diversity. Our networking need not then seek repetition of practice, or even transfer of practice from one context into another, but rather, through diversity and variation, seek a broader and more varied notion of flourishing together.
 
We flourishing occurs at different times and speeds – in a beautiful garden, the gardener designs the layout such that through the whole seasons different plants emerge at different times. Few will consistently flower, and the most spectacular may only last a very short time. This is much like the actual reality of educational institutions, and may give some comfort to school leaders trapped in a paradigm of the expectation of continual perfection and constant upward trajectories.
 
We flourish when we stop doing things. It is easy in developing networks and collaborations to focus on the new and innovative. However, wise leaders understand that to start some effectively, there is often a need to stop something else to make space or time. To further extend the gardening analogy, this is the pruning or cutting back to allow new life to spring forth (John 15).
 
We flourish so we can look outwards and give. In every part of a plant-based ecosystem, there is a future momentum which gives away – this might be in the emergence of a new seed from the beautiful old flower, or the pollination of one species to another. The flourishing is not an end in itself, but the beginning of the next growth. This focus our leadership thinking not simply on how we can self-improve and become the most successful institutions in isolation, but that we conceive our relationships as outward-looking and demonstrably generous.

Do continue to connect with us through the website at www.cefel.org.uk or by email at cefel@churchofengland.org – or of course through Twitter at @CofE_EduLead – please do share this issue widely and as ever, we welcome your feedback and interaction!

Andy Wolfe
Deputy Chief Education Officer (Leadership Development)