Some comments about John Vornle, composed after receiving a request from Line Stump.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydB_tA8xrco
It’s been said that funerals and ceremonies to remember a person are for the living. It’s a way for us to cope with loss and to “move on.”
I’m not going to move on. I am not putting John to rest.
I’m asking him to stand with me daily and I intend to keep the conversation going.
John is with me when I write posters for my students.
John is next to me when I look at the plant venus in the morning just before dawn.
John is with me when I look at the sunrise and see a pelican floating on the water.
John is with me when I read the words next to my mirror.
Listen carefully. John is with you, too. I thought he was a ghost but he is a gift. He is with me and I hope that you will discover that John Vornle is with you, too. All it takes is taking time to listen. If you don’t hear his voice, if you don’t sense his presence, just read more of his words. Eventually you, too, will be blessed as I am with John in your head.
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Do not go gentle into that good night
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by Dylan Thomas
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Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. |
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John is with me while these tears of thanks flow down my cheeks. John is with me while my jaw clenches, then relaxes.
“What would John say? What questions would John ask? What would John notice?” These questions pepper my day…. and I like it.
Socrates once explained that he had a voice in his head that would speak only when Socrates was saying something false. The voice remained silent as long as Socrates spoke the truth.
I’m lucky because I hear John when I speak. He’ll say, “Steve, think about what you just said.” When I read something about the transformation of education, his voice is there in my head, “John Corlette talked about that in a meditation in Belvedere in 1968."
John asked me to make sure that I add a guest room in my retirement house in Havana. Why? Because he wanted to come to visit me in my garden about a mile from the beach in Miramar in west Havana. Well, since John is staying with me all the time anyway, there will be an empty bed in the guest room, sometime after 2038, so anyone reading or hearing this message is welcome to visit me in Havana where John and I will be spending our last years together. We can talk about the work that remains to be done.
I want to close this remembrance of John with a request. Please join me in putting a search for John Vornle in the google search.
Please click on some of the links that show up.
"John Vornle space path ahead" That’s a nice group of search terms…
Please respect your synapses and give them a refresher. John is with me and I invite you to join me in keeping his words in our heads.
"john vornle john corlette education"
http://tinyurl.com/johnvornle I created this URL for John
I want to end this statement with what John wrote in his memory of John Corlette:
Pulling out the essence of JC's thoughts and communicating them so that they are understood in today's world is an important and valuable task.
-- John P. Vornle
I ask each of you who reads or hears this message to think, “What would John want me to talk about?” "What would I want to talk about with John?" Then go and raise that subject with someone who has never heard of John Corlette and take time to talk about the importance of whatever you remember that John felt was important…
I daily recall that John told me that I was "enabling Will Sutherland" in Will's quest to create a school of life skills on sailing boats. "Get the plan together before raising the money. Get the money before executing the plan." Well, I'm living with that advice and I hear John daily. I hope you will take a moment to visit www.ELSLeaders.com and see what John Vornle's advice has turned up in the coastal fort of St. Malo.
(End of the statement that Line asked for...)
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I wrote these five points…
From the core guidelines of "delayed gratification" and "planned hardships," we can derive values and procedures:
1. What do we value? Learning to appreciate nature. Procedure: Reward the students with points for spending time in nature.
2. What do we value? Teenagers who know how to make conversation and see the good in each other. Procedure: Ask teachers to eat with the students, preferably lunch and dinner.
3. What do we value? Time spent by teenagers thinking about big issues and important ideas. Procedure: A Thought for the Day. The entire school sits to listen to a short talk, usually given by a teacher, and then the group ponders the words for at least three minutes in silence.
4. What do we value? Time spent by teachers and other adults with students outside the classroom. Students can see their teachers following passions away from academics. Procedure: The teacher leads an activity, usually an extracurricular club (chess, fencing, cultural expedition, field trips, weekend trip to another city, hike in nature).
5. What do we value? What a gift it would be to see ourselves as others see us. Procedure: A system to tell students what we see in them and underscore their moral evolution with awards. Labels like “standard bearer” and “standard bearer candidate” communicate the level of responsibility that the student has achieved in the school community.
THEN JOHN SENT HIS LIST….
THE LONG STATEMENT:
Other points:
Water with every meal. Brown bread. Hot porridge for breakfast.
Table service. Table cleaning.
Room inspection in the morning and the evening.
Mark reading in a public forum. Grades that included marks for effort and results.
Wednesday house exchanges.
Regular team sports, not only with the best athletes, but you had to work with whoever was assigned to create a team an each team played the other house team competitively.
Packing all your belongings into a trunk and a suitcase at least twice a year.
Decorating a room and setting it up at least twice a year.
Rotating assignments and responsibilities for the daily duties of running a house/home.
Total responsibility for your personal well-being while climbing the mountains and camping.
Non-denominational, non-sectarian, religious Christian practice that also accepted non-reciprocal practicing Catholics, Muslims, and Jews.
Limited study time for homework.
Morning snacks. Afternoon tea.
Constant roll calls by last name.
Pocket money and fines.
Breaking the rules without actually getting into trouble with the law.
Saturday dances.
Teacher/student counsel sessions reviewing attitude and citizenship of peers.
All effort that develops the mind and the body, the body requiring physical exercise, the mind requiring educational and spiritual nourishment.---practiced in an environment that required community cooperation.
Does this help?
John
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Annual acceptance of a bunch of new students from different countries, cultures, and circumstance.
Acceptance of Girls into a male oriented school.
Did you see that JC did not consider "Catholics" as "Christians." I always found his twist amusing.
Regards, John
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Hi Noel:
I had it easy, as I was first with a short sentence list.
I now remember the music listening restriction. Yes. Good one.
FYI, I had mentioned the second one with the public mark reading. You get no credit. I challenge you now for another one!
I'm adding:
Leadership in the field (i.e on expeditions... thus there was leadership in academics, in the house (house duties), in the school (school monitors), in sports (house teams, sports teams), and in expeditions (always had a team leader). All "leadership" rolls required different skills and attitudes.
Early wake up.
Lights out (at hours that allowed 8 hours sleep for the younger students...)
Physical punishment (laps)
Academic punishment (pensums)
Permission to drink (senior students, no?)
Annual testing on the school's mission statement.
Weekly letter writing.
Daily dress codes
Out-of-bound areas
Regards, John
Keep a window open at night
Always wondered if this rule was intended to be an "all season" rule or only during the warm weather
Noel
Noel,
Absolutely correct! I had completely forgotten about that rule, despite having been a lights out prefect for at least two terms. I now remember how the window latches worked especially well for this objective.
It remains a great habit.
Regards, John
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