Torch - Spring/Summer 2020

engagement. In this capacity, student leaders are responsible for both creating and executing visions, including setting agendas and running meetings, building consensus among their peers and working with faculty. Equally important, Informal Leaders use other channels to make an impact, championing change among their peers, building bridges and supporting formal leaders in other ways. Developing Leadership of the Self is about building young women’s self-concept and self-confidence, developing social emotional skills, resiliency and an ability to accept and integrate feedback, while Leaders in the Community learn to seek out and listen to different perspectives and create productive connections and partnerships with others. Intellectual Leadership is less about acquiring specific knowledge than it is developing the tools for lifelong learning: it’s about growing a sense of curiosity and a practical understanding of how to gain reliable and actionable knowledge with problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. These domains map to growing bodies of research that suggest that the skills of

the future are human, multidisciplinary and collaborative. “Data indicates a continued massive deficit of social and emotional capabilities in today’s workforce,” says a new report from Deloitte entitled Closing the employability skills gap . 1 Meanwhile, OECD’s Future of Education and Skills framework emphasizes the importance of cultivating student agency, deep thinking and reflection, and flexible skills and knowledge that can be learned in one context, but applied in myriad others. unknown future, I automatically go to empathy,” says Nichols. “I go to creative confidence, I go to embracing ambiguity, I go to an iterative mindset. … I also go to what (journalist) David Epstein calls range, which is this idea of having an agile, flexible set of skills where we are not getting entrenched in our disciplines but instead we are open-minded in the truest sense. 7 We seek answers from outside our specialties and seek people who disagree with us and know how to engage with them effectively and with kindness and generosity.” “When I think about the qualities that best prepare students for an

More than 125 years ago, Havergal was established with the mission of preparing young women to make a difference. But while best positioning students for fulfilling, successful lives has always been an ultimate goal of education, according to Nichols, as the world shifts so, too, must educators’ approach. “Education has been on a trajectory of change for the last 20 years,” says Nichols. “Content is still important. But while legacy tactics placed a high priority on transmitting existing knowledge—whether that’s mathematical or scientific theory, history or language— the new imperative on educators is to help students cultivate tools that will allow them to deftly navigate the unfamiliar and ambiguous situations the future will bring.” “I firmly believe the fundamentals of education need to persist in this world of novel and exciting possibilities. But at the same time, we need to build mindsets and allow students to practise these mindsets,” Nichols says. Two years ago, he introduced Havergal’s Five Domains of Leadership as a framework for developing these vital mindsets. These encompass Formal and Informal Leadership, Leadership of the Self, Leadership in the Community and Intellectual Leadership. Formal Leadership can be described as working within known channels such as School Council to drive positive 1 Bordeaux, C., Hatfield, S., Radin, J., & Schwartz, J. “Closing the employability skills gap.” Deloitte Insights. January 28, 2020. Accessed on March 3, 2020, via https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/ insights/focus/technology-and-the-future- of-work/closing-the-employability-skills- gap.html. 7 Epstein, D. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. New York: Riverhead Books, 2019.

Miriam Davidson, Head of Art, works with students on a quilt project.

SPRING/SUMMER 2020 • TORCH 21