From the Director of Strategic Initiatives

The Pursuit of Wisdom 

This fortnight has been an especially busy one as I am wrapping up my role as Director of Innovative Pedagogies in preparation to lead the Junior School from 2026. As I work in this limbo space between roles and in making some decisions for 2026, I have been reflecting on the need for wisdom, and specifically, the properties that define this. 

We can name wise people like Churchill and Mandela, who we see through their actions made wise choices, but if we were to define wisdom specifically, how would we do it? What are the ingredients of wisdom? I ask this because I see society becoming more complex and the trait I think leaders, including school leaders need more and more is wisdom: There is a glut of information that is at times contradictory, as well as time pressures, competing priorities, and the reality that students’ learning will be impacted one way or another by our actions. 

In schools the problems we are looking to solve are multi-faceted, deeply human, and often based on personal preference, judgement or values; what one sees as excellent and worthy of pursuit is dismissed by others as inconsequential or irrelevant. As leaders in schools we need a clearly articulated framework of what we are trying to achieve, along with school-wide commitment to wisely implementing it. Evaluating and prioritizing what we will focus on requires good judgement and wisdom. 

I see developing personal and collective wisdom as one of the most powerful levers we could pull to make meaningful improvement. However, to do so we need an articulation and clarification of what we view as ‘wisdom’. My readings and research have led me to three broad components: Guided Thought, Infused Emotion and Engendered Will. These are somewhat dense, but I trust they reflect the complexity and nuance of wisdom.

Guided Thought 

Guided thought refers to a structured cognitive process in which an individual’s thinking is intentionally shaped, scaffolded or influenced by external inputs to facilitate higher-order thinking, conceptual understanding or reflective awareness. These inputs could be interactions, schemas of thoughts, dialogue or academic research. In this sense, Guided Thought involves the deliberate orchestration of prompts or structures that help the thinker navigate complex ideas, monitor their reasoning and iteratively refine their interpretations. They are proactively sought out in pursuit of wisdom.

In educational practice, Guided Thought is used to make implicit reasoning explicit. Teachers cue learners to slow their thinking, question assumptions, recognise cognitive biases, and build coherent mental representations of abstract concepts. It is not prescriptive thinking, rather, it aims to progressively release responsibility, enabling learners to internalise the cognitive strategies initially modelled by others.

Infused Emotion

Infused emotion refers to the way affective states are not separate from cognition but permeate, shape, and refine higher-order reasoning processes. In the context of wisdom development, Infused Emotion captures the idea that emotional experience is not an obstacle to sound judgement, but a necessary ingredient that enriches moral insight, empathy, and context-sensitive decision-making. 

By nature, schools and teaching are full of context-sensitive decisions and cultural moments. From subject offerings and classroom pedagogy, to managing interpersonal conflict, there is emotion from teachers, leaders, students and parents in the majority of decisions we make; Teaching is a very personal profession with teachers lacing their practice with their own values, personality and experiences. Thus, as we talk about shifting teaching practice we are talking about something that is very connected to self-image, self-worth and personal experience. It would be very easy to allow emotion to dominate and take over, but instead we need to helpfully capture it to shape decisions healthily. 

Engendered Will

Engendered Will refers to the formation of an individual’s motivational orientation through relational, cultural, and contextual forces that give rise to purposeful action. Rather than viewing “will” as a purely internal or autonomous faculty, the concept of engendered will emphasises that human volition is generated, shaped, and activated by external influences that become internalised over time. It is when we do hard things that we build the capacity to do even harder things again. 

Educationally, the idea suggests that learners’ commitment, perseverance, and ethical orientation emerge from environments that model purpose, scaffold agency, and connect learning to authentic meaning. Engendered will, therefore, becomes essential for cultivating wisdom, because wisdom requires not only insight but the volitional disposition to act courageously and ethically in complex circumstances. 

These three components on the surface appear quite simple and easy to understand. We can follow the logical, simple path that argues we need to:

a) keep learning and recognise that we cannot and will not ever have all the answers, 

b) develop our EQ and be guided rather than controlled by our emotions, and

c) recognise that will is not a fixed state and through the right conditions can be grown and developed. 

As we look to end the year well and prepare for 2026, I hope that as a community we can take on a spirit of wisdom development and actively shape what we do through embracing these components of wisdom. 

Christopher Sanders

Director of Strategic Initiatives