Category: Miscellaneous

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The Human Touch

I’m in a hotel in Montreal, Quebec at the moment, just about to leave to spend the day with Sharon Peters at her school.  But before I leave I wanted to share this little note that was left in the hotel room.

“To our guests,
Because this hotel is a human institution to serve people, and not solely a money making organisation, we hope that god will grant you peace and rest while you are under our roof.
May this room and hotel be your second home. May those you love be near you in thoughts and dreams.  Even though we may not get to know you, we hope that you will be comfortable and happy as if you were in your own home.
May the business that brought you our way prosper. May every call you make and every message you receive add to your joy, and when you leave, may your journey be safe.
We are all travelers. From birth to death, we travel between the eternities.  May these days be pleasant for you, profitable to society, helpful for those you meet, and a joy to those who know and love you best.”

There was also a large white plate in the room when I arrived, with three chocolates and the words “Welcome Chris Betcher” written in chocolate.  Next to the bed was a booklet with short “Chicken Soup for the Soul” style stories in it, with a note saying that these were for reading before bedtime and an invitation to take a copy.

This hotel is not grand and upmarket.  It’s just a Quality Inn near the Montreal Airport, much like thousands of other midrange hotels dotted across North America… as a hotel there’s nothing particularly remarkable about it, but these few small human touches have made it seem very remarkable to me.  The extra little human touch makes a huge difference to the overall experience. I’m really impressed.  I’ve staying in many hotels over the years, but I have never had these sorts of personal touches left in the room.

As we launch into a new year, I think there are lessons in all of this for how we interact with each other, how we treat our families, our colleagues, our students, our fellow humans.  I’m going to try and make sure that I always remember the importance of the human touch and how important it is to making those around us feel special and more human.

Happy New Year to you all.

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The joining of two diamonds…

What a world we live in. I’m sitting here in Sydney Australia, watching Clay and Eunjeong getting married in Seoul, South Korea…

They are quite literally getting married as I write this, with a live video stream being sent to viewers from all over the world using ustream.tv.

To be sitting here in Sydney Australia, watching the wedding of someone I’ve never met, but yet feel I know, joined by a group of people who I also feel I know but have never met, is quite amazing.

And yet, as amazing as I think it is, there is another part of me that says this is quite normal. After all, the technology that has enabled this event to be shared, and the technology that has enabled there to even be an audience with which to share it, have become an integral part of the world in which we live.

This event is a wonderful day for Clay and Eunjeong, and it was an honour to be able to share it. Far from feeling impersonal, being able to share in their special day thanks to these networked technologies is an amazing testament to the power of a networked world and the relationships one is able to build within it.

Congratulations to both of you!

PS: I created a Voicethread for anyone wishing to convey their well wishes to Clay and Eunjeong… if you attended (or even if you didn’t but would like to join in) please leave your thoughts and congratulations below…

[kml_flashembed movie="http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=77403" width="600" height="450" wmode="transparent" /]

PPS: If you have any photos from the wedding, please join the Flickr group called burell_wedding and add your photos to the group pool. I think this is the most global wedding I’ve been to… (and the most fun, and the one where it’s been a learning experience at the same time!)

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The Marist Way

Fellow blogger Judy O’Connell (from the HeyJude blog) recently started working at a large Marist school in Sydney, and she was kind enough to share some insights about her new school on her blog recently. St Josephs Hunters Hill is not just “a Marist school”, but is really THE Marist school. It is the flagship school for the brothers here in Sydney and has quite the reputation for providing a quality educational experience. For anyone who may not know, Marist schools were founded by Marcellin Champagnat in the early 1800s, a Frenchman who saw a specific need for boys’ education and proceeded to set up schools to meet that need.

I read Judy’s post with interest as I attended a Marist school as a kid. I also spent 8 years teaching in a Marist school. So as an ex-Marist boy I can personally vouch for both the strength and the gentleness of the Marist way of doing things. Because the Marists have a particular devotion to Jesus’s mother, Mary, there is a perceptible gentleness to the way they view education, with a certain respect for, and influence from, the feminine point of view.  It’s not a “girly” thing at all, but it seems to manifest in a respectful gentility that is usually considered softer than some other religious orders.  I do think “the Marist way” of education has a very special quality to it…

I once asked Brother Tony Butler, a Marist brother and good friend, what exactly was “the Marist way”, and how he felt it differed from the educational approach taken by other orders of brothers, such as the Christian Brothers or the De La salle Brothers… Tony explained it like this…

“Most teaching orders tend to think of the relationship between a teacher and the student as one of Master and Apprentice, in that the teacher is the “master”, full of special knowledge that is passed along to the “apprentice” learner, a sort of empty vessel waiting to be filled.

The Marist approach is subtly different, and instead treats that relationship as not one of Master/Apprentice, but of Big Brother/Little Brother.”

Big Brother/Little Brother. I like that way of thinking about the student/teacher relationship. Thinking about the relationship between the teacher and student in those terms implies that there is far more than just knowledge transfer taking place in the classroom… there is also trust, respect, wisdom, care and love.

Not a bad recipe for a learning environment.