Harvard Graduate School of Education - Leadership: an Evolving Vision 2007

Fiona MacPhail shows is how it’s done on the high wire.

In the interests of global citizenship we are meeting a wide number of people from throughout the world.

Jim - who I assailed - is one of our cohort and quietly let slip - by pointing out a photograph on a wall - that his great- grandfather was US President Garfield who was assassinated in 1881.

Jim signed a one dollar bill which I will proudly keep as a momento.

It’s often said that the UK and the USA are separated by common language.

And so it was today when someone said to me I see your wearing a “fanny pack”!!!!!

I relaxed a bit when I realised that she was referring to by “bum bag” – which for the Americans, would be a bag for tramps!

It has also become more obvious to all of us that our accents are sometimes impenetrable for our American cousins - not least in respect of Jennifer with her strong Shetland dialect - which the Americans obviously love - even if they can’t understand what she’s saying.

Our course starts in earnest tomorrow so we spent today getting know Boston and trying to explore some of the issues we want to reflect upon over the duration of the programme.

Boston is a wonderful city and the combination of old and new is breathtaking. At the same time it feels very familiar  - whether that’s to do with it’s European roots or through watching too much television I don’t know.

One statistic which did stick with me was that the population of Boston is only 500,00 people but when the college year begins that population swells by 270,000 students - it really is a place where learning appears to permeate society, e.g it was the first city in the world to introduce the idea of a free lending library for its citizens