It was previously said by Timothy Ingold, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Aberdeen: "The landscape tells a story, or rather is a story." It encompasses the lives and eras of antecedents who have gone through its generations and contributed to its development. Therefore, to view a landscape is to do an act of memory, and remembering is more about constantly interacting with an environment that is itself full of the past than it is about retrieving an image that is stored inside the mind.

As a result, I see a scene as rich and full rather than as an empty vista. Not just something beautiful, but also something useful and significant. It has a lot to teach us if we take the time to listen to it.

As educators, we lead in difficult times—the world is clearly chaotic—and we are putting our children on a path toward complexity that never existed before.  As leaders, our primary responsibility is to envision and bring the future to life in a way that motivates our students to be self-assured, constructive members of society. 'Glass half-empty' leadership is not appropriate during difficult times.

I looked up definitions in the Concise Oxford dictionary. It turns out that their interpretation of success is not as useful as one might think it would be when elucidating a concept important to helping children develop into their best selves. What the dictionary defines as "the accomplishment of an aim" is, of course, technically accurate, but it ignores the fact that, in our context, achieving a non-aspirational goal results in mediocrity. There has to be more involved.