Tuesday, February 26, 2008.  Joan Countryman. "Beautiful in the Light."
 
MR. GALBRAITH:  Just a couple of quick announcements before Joan Countryman begins her remarks.
 
I posted lists in your registrations to accommodate you today because some people leave on Tuesday and we didn't want half a house for any of our speakers.  The way it will work is, there's a speaker, then a break, and then a speaker, immediately followed by Bob Hallett speaking in this room, just for his remarks, about 20 or 30 minutes.
 
Following that, there will be box lunches for those who asked for them, and there will be a buffet next door for everyone else.  After the buffet, Bob will do questions and answers in that room.  But for people who are going on the dolphin trip, it would help if you had reserved a box lunch. But if you haven't, if you can be first in line, get to the buffet and then sally forth.  That bus leaves at 1:00, because the commercial boat that takes you out leaves at 2:00, and we need to get there.
 
I'm going to pass a list back of the people who are box-lunch folks, and I hope you'll honor that, because that's how many we ordered, and not too many more.
 
Also, there are evaluation forms, the yellow ones, and also the forms for the seminar.  If you went to the seminar, you may enjoy looking through it, because it's a list of everyone that went by year.  And where we had pictures, we've enlarged them, and there's a picture of your group starting with 1985 on.  That's over 600 women.  And Blair and Burch have kindly sent me things, and I have sorted them and had a lot of fun doing this.
 
But I have to share you one letter that was in the files.  It's from 1986, and I won't name the person, but I want to encourage you to send people to the seminar, despite this letter.  "Dear Blair:  Today I woke up feeling excited and courageous, two feelings which have long been missing from my professional life.  It took me the time yesterday afternoon and evening at home to recuperate from the overload of the conference, enough to realize how much I had actually learned. Besides gaining the perspective of my place in my career and the alternative routes which I might take, I also got some valuable hints about how to proceed down the chosen road.  In fact, this morning I quit my teaching job, signed up for some management courses, and started planning my small workshop business."  Going to go into business and compete with us.  "It all feels right, and I can't thank you and your colleagues and all the other professionals enough for the insight I now have. Sincerely."
 
We'll proceed with the program, and again, our program chair, Susan Haberlandt.
 
MS. HABERLANDT:  Good morning.  It is my pleasure to introduce our speaker this morning, a woman who has meant a lot to me personally in my ten years as head at Providence Country Day.  We have a very close group of heads in Providence.  We have fun times together, and Joan Countryman, our speaker, has been especially important in my time there.  So it's really an honor to be there.  In fact, we went to dinner shortly after I arrived, and periodically during the time we were both there, and I remember one of her first pieces of advice, which I found chilling at the time, but sadly very relevant not long after, was, "Make sure your lawyer is number 1 on your speed dial."  And when I found out that I was talking more to my lawyer than my husband, I thought, Oh, man, this is really it.
 
But in any event, let me tell you a little bit about Joan, and then she's going to entertain us with her very interesting story.  Joan is a graduate of Germantown Friends, where this year she will have her 50th reunion, even though she looks like she's less than 50 herself, I think.  She's a graduate of Sarah Lawrence with a master's degree from Yale that was followed by a Fulbright to the London School of Economics.
 
She returned, after studying in England, to work in the public schools in Philadelphia in an administrative capacity, but realized that what she really wanted to do was teach, and she missed the world of schools.  So from 1970 until 1993, Joan held various roles at Germantown Friends, her alma mater, achieved national recognition, as well, for her work in the teaching of mathematics, and wrote a really wonderful book called, "Writing to Learn Mathematics," which takes us through the narrative thinking of girls as they talk about how they solve math problems.  If you haven't seen that book, I recommend it to you.
 
Joan then took the role as the head of school at Lincoln School in Providence, Rhode Island, which is the only Quaker girls school in the country, and brought to that position her very firm roots in Quakerism, which has really affected, I think, that school during Joan's tenure and beyond. She retired -- as she said last night, she's becoming an expert at retiring.  She retired in 2005 from Lincoln School, only to be recruited the following year to be the interim founding head of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy in South Africa, and that is the point of today's talk, so I will let her tell you more about that.
 
After she retired from the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy, she was recruited to be an interim head -- completing that role this year -- at the Atlanta Girls School.  She says she's really done with retiring, but I'm not at all convinced of that.
 
Joan and her husband, Ed, who is an architect, who lives in Philadelphia, have two children whose lives are also very much involved in the world of education.  Her son, Matthew, is a professor at the University of Michigan, and her daughter, Rachel, works with Burch Ford at Miss Porter's as the director of studies.  But I think any of us who know Joan know that the real light of her life are her four grandchildren, and she has, as Joanne Hoffman can say, at our lunches at Providence, regaled us often with great stories of Emma and Mason and Miguel and Elisia.  So I think if Joan said sincerely what matters most, it's the work of being a grandparent, and she has brought the wisdom of that experience and the fabulous career that she's had in education to her work in education.  It is my great pleasure to introduce Joan Countryman to you.
 
MS. COUNTRYMAN:  Well, Susan reminds me that I didn't become a head of school until after I became a grandma.  And, in fact, I was asked why I waited so long and I said, "You know, I think schools would do well to be led by smart grandmothers."
 
Actually, I'm going to begin by telling you my favorite story about being a celebrity.  Now, I live in Rhode Island, which is a very small place. There are less than a million people in Rhode Island and many of them apparently know me.  I was actually used to the idea that if I went to the supermarket -- many of you have had this experience -- there was a good chance that six or eight people would know who I am.  And so that was fine, and I knew which supermarkets to go to when, in order to avoid the large crowds, or else we didn't have any food in our house.
 
But when I came back from South Africa, I went back and forth -- and I'll tell you a little bit about the whole story later -- but in any case, I returned to Rhode Island, having finished my work at the Leadership Academy in April.  I came back, and then was there April, May, and June, trying to get settled back in Rhode Island, before the whole Atlanta Girls thing came up.  And I realized that there was a new level of recognition in the supermarket.  I could go to Whole Foods and have every single person in the store know who I was and want to talk to me about Oprah.
 
I was learning to manage that, and at the end of May, early June, three of my four grandchildren were graduating from something -- kindergarten, fifth grade, eighth grade -- there were various events that I was trying to get to.  So I was rushing about, trying to get myself organized and trying to reach some of these events.  One week I went to a meeting, came home, and found some odd things in the mailbox.  I was actually getting ready to go to drive over to Hartford for the eighth-grade celebration at Watkinson School, and the doorbell rang, and I opened the door and there was a woman standing there who said, "It's you."
 
I said, "Yes."
 
And it turns out she had left these things in my mailbox, and the things were something to give to Oprah.  That's what people tended to leave for me.  So we negotiated through that.
 
And then I got in the car and drove to Hartford, and said to my daughter, "This is a little weird, to have people come to the house."
 
And she agreed.  But I got through that. I drove home the next day, and got ready to fly out to Michigan for the fifth-grade event, but I had some time in the morning on Friday before the plane, and I had seen my doctor in December and had some blood work done.  Looked fine, she said, but it wouldn't hurt to have it checked again.  So I hadn't gotten around to that, so, "Oh, I have some time this morning, so I'll go over to the lab and see if there's a crowd or if I can get it done."
 
Well, it was fine.  There wasn't a crowd, but when I went inside, the receptionist just kind of looked at me and smiled in a friendlier way than I was used to, which was a sign that she, too, knew who I was.  And then the phlebotomist came out and she says, "Oh, it's you."
 
And I said, "Yes."
 
And she took me into the lab, sat down, and she said, "I have to tell you a story."
 
So I said, "Oh, good."
 
So she's getting me ready to take blood out of my arm, and she said, "First of all, do you remember when you were here last time?"
 
And I said, "Sure.  I was here in December.  In fact, you and I talked about Africa because you had lived in Ghana."
 
And she said, "Yes, that's right.  Well, I have to tell you this."
 
First of all, you have to understand that most of the people who use this lab are patients at Butler Hospital.  Butler Hospital is the main psychiatric hospital in Rhode Island.  And she said, "After you left last time, I said to the receptionist, that one is so cute.  She thinks she's going to Africa to work with Oprah.'  And the next day, you were on the front page of the Providence Journal."
 
You know, this is a great audience for me, because I'm talking about schools, but also because I knew you would love that.  I told her that I was mostly grateful that she had told me that story, because it put everything in perspective.
 
Before I went to South Africa with Oprah, I'd been there twice before, once with NAIS in 2002. That experience was so extraordinary that I said to my husband, Ed, "We need to go back there as soon as possible."
 
So we went in 2004, and most times I have been to the schools and actually, with the support of the NAIS trip, had, I thought, a much better idea of what the range of schools in South Africa was, and an appreciation for that.  I also had friendships then with many people in South African schools.
 
So when Reveta Bowers called me in July 2000, she found me in Michigan.  The first thing I said to her is, "How did you find me?"  Because I was at my son's house, and there was no reason for anybody to be able to figure out where I was, I thought.  But Reveta and Oprah are pretty good at finding people, I think.
 
In any case, when she asked me if I would consider going to the Oprah Winfrey School as a consultant, just to have a look, of course I jumped at the chance.  Who wouldn't?  But also I did feel slightly more confident than I might have, because I did know a little bit particularly about independent schools in South Africa.
 
What I'd like to do is share with you some of the e-mails, the journal I kept, which is really in the form of e-mails mostly written to friends and family, but with my grandchildren in mind, so that I was looking at things, trying to look at South Africa and my experience in a way that I thought they would appreciate.  And also, as soon as I knew that I was going to stay longer, I was hoping that I could bring them to the school so that they could see it for themselves.
 
In any case, I have much more here to share than I could possibly do today without taking up everybody else's time and I promise not to do that.  But I'd like to read and comment on some of the entries, and I'm going to leave time for a seven-minute slide tape that I put together that just will give you some visual images of some of the things I have described.  Then I hope there will be time for questions, because I expect you have some. But keep in mind that most of what I read to you is simply stuff I typed usually late at night in far-away South Africa.
 
I would comment about technology that one of the things that made me feel okay about living so far away from home for a long time with my family way off -- who knows what they were doing -- and of course, you know, my children, I have grandchildren, so my children take care of little people.  But in any case, it's hard to be that far away from home, except the technology is amazing and you can be in touch all the time.
 
Okay.  First e-mail.  "It's far.  The flights were fine, but long.  We were delayed in Dakar for an engineering check, and those of us going on to Johannesburg couldn't get off the plane. The flatbed and business class were very comfortable, though it's a little weird to be lying within inches of a stranger who was snoring."
 
One of the things I did say, when I agreed to go, "I'm an old lady, I have got to have business class, if I'm going to go that far and that often."
 
"Remember the challenge of being in a country where they drive on the other side of the road?  I'd forgotten about driving on the left in South Africa until I arrived at the van that picked me up at the airport and headed for the driver's seat.  He got there first, though, and opened the back door for me, so I don't know if he realized my mistake.  Now I just have to think about where to sit every time I approach a car.  Everything else is on the other side, too, like escalators going up on the left.  In England, the problem is stepping off a curb and not getting hit by a bus.  But here in South Africa, no one walks on the sidewalk very much, and only poor people ride the bus.
 
"First thing this morning we worked on the interview questions.  I'll be part of a team that conducts the first set of interviews on Saturday morning.  Then we have a meeting with the project manager of construction to review progress and hear about timetables for completion.  We'll go out to the site of the school tomorrow morning for a first visit.  Mason, you'll be interested to hear that my visit to your classroom on Grandparents' Day helped me advise them to change the plan to have only one SMART board in the school.  Now they will install at least one in every classroom.
 
"I volunteered to attend a lunch meeting about insurance, because not enough people wanted to go.  The lunch was tasty.  After that, we went to a meeting with representatives from Wits, Witwatersrand University, to talk about curriculum planning.  A short break, then dinner with the party planners who were hired to manage the weekend selection process.  They have done everything from delivering the notification letters today, by hand, sometimes to very remote rural communities that were hard to find, to selecting gifts, track suits, quilts, suits -- it's cold -- towels, gift bags with toiletries and treats, ice-breaker games, menus, sleeping arrangements, arranging transportation, pick up at school Friday afternoon, return home Sunday, chaperones, security, fun, free time activities."
 
See, I wanted to say that to heads, you know what that's like.  Somebody has to organize all that stuff.
 
"Snow.  According to our hosts, it hasn't snowed in Johannesburg since 1981.  But it snowed this morning.  I was visiting St. John's College, a boarding school where we plan to hold interviews next weekend for the semifinalists for admittance in January.  When the snow started, the students and many adults were duly excited by the small white flakes.  Luckily for coatless me, it didn't last very long.  After the tour of the school and the snow, we drove to the offices of the consultants who are helping with the selection process, which is in its final stages.  The plan is to identify roughly 250 girls entering grades 7 and 8 in January, then bring them together in groups for further activities, testing, and interviews.
 
"It's winter, so nothing is green.  Along the side of the highways are tall brown grasses and on occasion, groups of homeless men who have fashioned garbage bag tent communities of sorts and offer miscellaneous goods like old furniture and art objects for sale.
 
"Today turned out to be the day that proved why having the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy is so important.  I spent all day, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with a short break for lunch, interviewing 20 students who had been selected for the final assessment.  With a partner, I interviewed 20 girls for roughly 20 minutes each in a science lab at St. John's College.  Now, supposedly, average temperatures in Johannesburg are not unlike those of San Diego.  Hence you won't be surprised to learn that classrooms have no heaters of any sort, and the halls in many buildings are open to the outside.  The public toilets aren't heated either.  When I left the hotel this morning, the temperature was 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and I doubt that it rose above 40 all day in the room we were in.  Wrapped in blankets, ponchos, scarves, hats, newspapers, and anything else we could find, and surrounded by the film production crew that is filming the whole process, we managed to humor ourselves and the girls through it.  Imagine sitting outside all day in Rhode Island in the shade in late March.  But -- and this made the whole day bearable -- we met feisty girls being raised by great-grandparents, the only ones left.  11-year-olds who said, 'Well, I have spent all of my life with my family.  I don't mind leaving to go to a boarding school that might give me a chance to change the world for girls and women.'  Girls with bright smiles who not only had never been away from home, but had never seen a shower.
 
"The party planners are making the 48-hour -- still going on -- event as festive as a 135-person slumber party could possibly be. Color-coded groups with flower symbols -- roses, daffodils -- fleece hats, scarves and gloves (yellow, pink), blankets, balloons, bean bag chairs, lots of food, games, songs, and an army of young counselors for daytime, and older matrons for the nighttime shift.  I don't know how to convey the warmth of the smiles of the girls or the way they manage to make me feel welcome.  I can't wait to see them at the school after it opens in January.
 
"This afternoon Oprah and Gayle King conducted their second set of interviews with the girls, the girls that we had selected.  I must say I was impressed with the way she handled the girls in the interviews.  Of course, that is what she does. Somehow the organizers managed to keep secret until the last minute the fact that she would be the interviewer, and in spite of the hoards of photographers, audio, manager and production types on the site, remember that these are girls who had been through it all last weekend with no sign of Oprah.  The expression on their faces and the screams, gulps and sighs when they walked into the room and saw her were very convincing.
 
"The production people set up a monitor so we could watch the girls' reactions.  Here are some quotes.  'To Oprah.  You are skinnier than in real life.'  'Coming to this school means the world to me.'  'My strength, I'm crazy about mathematics.' 'The worst time in my life, losing my parents.  The best, being nominated for the Oprah school.'  'I want to be a psychologist and a marketing manager.'  'A leader listens, but in the end, draws the line.' 'I was nominated because I'm disciplined, clever, talented, and smart, and I work in an AIDS hospital.'  'I love my sister, also nominated, and she also has a great smile.'
 
"Oprah said to one girl, "It was a pleasure meeting you," and the girl replied, "No, my pleasure.  Then Oprah said, "My pleasure," and the two went back and forth for some time.
 
"Friday evening we went to Durban and drove to the northern beaches for a two-night stay. 53 girls from KZN -- that's what South Africans say when they're talking about the KwaZulu Natal, the province south and east of Gauteng, where Jo'burg is, arrived that evening and were put up in a camping center that had been hired for the assessment activities.  The Crawford Schools were started by businessmen who believed that private schools should be and run like businesses.  He probably thought he could make money on the white South Africans who would leave the public schools in droves after the end of apartheid.  The campus, consequently, is strikingly beautiful, high on a hill above the Indian Ocean, a bit sterile, and rather a strange setting for 53 12- and 13-year-old girls from very poor rural areas to spend two days talking about leadership.
 
"Mr. Crawford had a fight with his board, by the way, and was driven out of the school and went off to Australia.
 
"With the production team, TV, magazine, films, the school and foundation people and Ms. Richgreen's staff, I imagine it's a sort of a 21st century version of traveling with Queen Elizabeth I.  We were scattered among many guesthouses in the area.  As I mentioned, security is an issue and travel arrangements are made carefully. People meet you carrying clipboards with your name on a list.  You arrange for drivers to take you here and there.  The novelty wore off after a day or so, and I got used to the fact that no one goes off on an errand alone.
 
"Also there were snafus.  The man who met our plane in Durban had a list with our names, but we weren't all going to the same guesthouses.  The next morning, we were expecting a ride to the school at 7:00 a.m.  A bus arrived with a bunch of people from one of the assessment teams and we started the 30-minute ride.  There's a lot of cell phone communicating, by the way.  Even I, usually oblivious to the ringing of my own cell phone when it's in my hand, was given a phone with all the contact numbers.  When my phone rang, it was usually for somebody else.  But most of the time I didn't hear it.  Well, that morning everybody's phone was ringing because we were on the wrong bus and the driver who was supposed to pick us up couldn't find us.
 
"The interviewing and assessment were similar to what we did in Johannesburg except that the girls were much quieter, shyer, and more reticent.  Some spoke very little English.  We tried to have one Zulu speaker on every team, but couldn't succeed in every instance.  My partner and I interviewed 11 girls.  Only one interview was entirely in Zulu.  In spite of what I said about reticence, the first three girls were wonderful, bright, articulate, funny, and confident about being clever.  Picture the setting.  A language classroom, Afrikaans posters on all four walls.  Set up in the center with a table, two chairs on one side, one on the other, a video camera facing the interviewee chair, and a boom mike over it so that the girls' responses could be captured.  Production people coming and going, and sitting behind the interviewers to watch the proceedings, Oprah, Gayle, and others on her team.  At the end of each interview, we asked, 'Do you have any questions for us?'
 
"The first girl said, 'Yes, I have a question.  Why is Oprah Winfrey doing this?'
 
"Now, I knew that Oprah was sitting right behind me, and I wasn't about to speak for her.  So I said" -- those of you who know me well know exactly what I said -- "I said, 'Well, that's a good question.  Why do you think she's doing this?
 
"And the answer came from the child immediately, 'Because she wants to help us be leaders so we can make life better for women in South Africa.'
 
"The weather in Durban was warm and very humid initially, but by mid-afternoon a chilly wind had come up and the girls and many adults were wrapped in blankets.  I managed to acquire an orange sleep blanket and wrapped it like a giant scarf around my shoulders."
 
I'm going to skip some and move on so we can make sure that there's time for the slides.  By the way, I skipped a conversation I had with Oprah. I had breakfast with her just before I was scheduled to leave.  I gave her some thoughts I'd had about the leadership of the school, and at some point she said she wanted a head like me, and I was flattered and honored.  I didn't say that.  I just said, "I'm so honored, but I am 66 years old," and she said, "66?  You go, girl."
 
And as I was wrapping my mind around that, we began to work on the possibility that I would come as interim head.  So that was the agreement, and I said, "I think it would be good to have a South African who's had some American independent school experience."  So that was the goal that we worked on from there on.  But I had agreed to come and help.  So essentially, from then on, from August through the opening of the school, which was in January, until the end of the first term, I was there helping get things going.  But I had other obligations, so I had to fly back and forth a bit. So this is a return in, I think, maybe late September.  I don't know when this was, sometime in the fall.
 
"Here I am in the hotel on Friday evening after two very full days, mostly organized as follows.  Mike, the driver, picked me up in the morning around 10:00.  I have been to the fitness center and the Regency Center free breakfast by then.  We drive to the Nelson Mandela Children's Center, which is about 15 minutes away, where the Oprah Winfrey Foundation has offices, and I meet all day with various individuals and groups.  Both afternoons are taken with the orientation for heads of department and one teacher who have been identified and hired.  Language, math and natural science, life orientation, library, and library teacher.
 
"We had great meetings, especially today, when I asked them to dream about an ideal curriculum for seventh- and eighth-graders.  One group worked on the orientation after the opening celebration, which is roughly January 3 to January 10th.  We all see this as a chance to set the tone for the school after a rather heady opening day with Oprah and the stars."  Little did we know how heady it would be. "The other group talked about what we'd love to see in a seventh- and eighth-grade program. Acknowledgment by teachers and students that no one knows everything.  It's okay to make mistakes, et cetera.  Once again, I'm struck by how much my Lincoln experience informs this work.  For example, Ernie, the business manager, said he imagined having everyone stop and read for a short period every day. I said, 'Oh, we did that at Lincoln and called it DEAR, "Drop everything and read."'  Everybody loved the idea, including everyone on campus, even the maintenance staff.  They do have DEAR at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy."
 
I don't know if the maintenance staff is involved, but every day before lunch, everybody goes off and sits together in small groups and they read whatever they like.
 
"Today we drove out of the school site to meet with the chair of the steering committee, a somewhat mysterious entity that was established early on when the plan was to establish a public government school.  The Ministry of Education seems to have set up the committee and then forgotten about it, and by now, it consists of a group of grumpy community people with a long list of complaints and demands.  Our plan was to try to persuade them that now that the school was independent, the committee should be laid down or restructured.  Fat chance.  The chair is a large self-described talkative woman, a member of the local council and ready to do battle in support of poor people.  As I listened to her mostly charming rant, I couldn't help thinking of the early days of the Welfare Rights Organization in Philadelphia.  In this case, we managed -- this case being in Henley -- we managed mostly to listen carefully, search for common ground, and wait until everyone got tired of sitting.  What did they want?  Jobs, housing, schools, access to the library, training. In the end, we agreed to send a letter summarizing the meeting and they agreed to respond, listing their concerns and requests.  And by the end, the chair was calling me Madam Head in a less hostile, almost friendly way.
 
"So every morning I get up at 5:00, go to the fitness center at 5:30, when it opens and there aren't many people there so the treadmills and the bikes are available.  Get back to my room by 6:15 or so, take a shower, get dressed, check e-mail, have a quick breakfast, and get picked up by Mike at 7:30 in order to get to the office before the interviews for teachers start at 8:00.  This may sound arduous, but the interviews themselves are something to look forward to.  I should have anticipated that a nationally distributed ad for teachers for the Oprah Winfrey School would generate a fair number of good candidates.
 
"We are using the South African national curriculum framework which lists eight learning areas:  Languages, mathematics, natural sciences, technology, social sciences, arts and culture, life orientation, and economic and management sciences. These are fairly broad and not too well defined, as I have discovered, as I talk to teachers applying to teach in those areas.  Yesterday we interviewed candidates for Sotho, one of the 11 official languages, and for natural science.  The issue with language, of course, is how to support and preserve the native African languages in a world dominated by English.  Many schools teach English, Afrikaans, and one or more black languages, doing battle in the same struggle we have in the US about non-English-speaking families, generational conflicts, et cetera.  Here, though, in part of provinces like KwaZulu Natal, there are children of all races whose English is a third or fourth language after Zulu, Afrikaans, et cetera.  There's a strong commitment to preserving all those languages, but no one knows how to make that happen. And the debate is often intense.  There are also significant minority language communities like Greek and Hebrew."
 
I'm going to skip.  There's a wonderful story of a teacher whose own language was Sotho, who discovered when she went to an independent school that the Sotho-speaking children in her school never speak to each other in their native language, which made me think about the girls at Lincoln who were native Spanish-speaking -- how much time they actually spent speaking to each other in their own language.
 
"Here are some thoughts about living in a country with 11 official languages.  One, you stop assuming that you understand what people are saying. Two, even if everyone is speaking English, you can't assume that you understand what people are saying. Words mean different things.  Here, some schools are called colleges, and colleges are called schools. In colleges, schools, the students are called learners.  In schools, colleges, or universities, they are called students.  Many black South Africans speak more than one language at a time.  That is, a sentence might start in English, move to Zulu, and finish in Sotho or Xhosa.  And finally, it takes getting used to, but soon you enjoy trying to figure out if you understand what someone just said.  For example, this is a reference to something I told the children earlier.  Remember when I was confused when I was invited to a wine-tasting and the host said it's 7:00 for 7:30?  Can you guess what she was saying?  I had to ask.  But tonight when someone else said dinner was 6:30 for 7:00, I knew exactly what she meant.  Show up at 6:30 for the reception, and dinner would be served promptly at 7:00.
 
"So many staff people at the hotel greeted me when I returned to the hotel last Wednesday with a warm, "Good evening, Mrs. Countryman," that I felt I was returning home and not the other way around. Within an hour, I was deep in a meeting with the Academy senior team, planning for the next few days. Visits to the site, interviews with the last sets of learner applicants, the first meetings with the teachers, dinners with the executive team, all culminating in Sunday's first visit of the first 15 girls to the school and an afternoon tea for the local community.
 
"There was a lot of rain on Thursday so we clomped around in the mud, lots of big-deal landscaping going on.  Ed, my husband, would be pleased with the size and number of trees being planted and the instantly sod-as-lawn.  It was hot and dry on Friday so there was lots of dust everywhere.  There are dramatic changes to the site every day:  Furniture, lawns, working toilets, shelves, gates, footpaths, are beginning to silence the naysayers.  'This will never be ready,' people kept saying.  And I, for one, hope to move into my office at least before I return to the US in early December.
 
"I spent Friday afternoon watching Oprah and Gayle interview the girls.  The girls all do double-takes when they walk into the room.  More than one gasped, "I can't believe it's you," and Oprah shot right back, "I can't believe it's you," and then big hugs, all around.
 
"At the tea she had the Academy students introduce themselves, one after another.  "My name is, and I'm in grade seven at such-and-such a school, and my dream is to be a doctor and find a cure for HIV AIDS," and so on.  Not many dry eyes after 15 of those.
 
"On Saturday we had the first meeting of the teaching staff, principals, head of departments, teachers, about 16 in all, for a brief orientation to the history, mission, vision of the school, and some discussion about what's planned for the opening weeks in January.  Then dinner with Ms. Winfrey.  I asked them to take a few minutes to think about themselves as learners, to find a moment when something happened that made them think that learning was special.  Suddenly, we were in a Quakerly silence, and after a few moments immersed in an outpouring of hopes and dreams for education. By the end of the afternoon, I was reassuring them that dinner would be relaxing and fine with Ms. Winfrey.  That would be their first meeting with her.  'You were right,' they said later.  But I'm sure no one believed me when I said that she would put them at ease.
 
"Dinner was delicious salads and pastas in a private dining room at a hideaway hotel.  On Sunday morning, I was out at the school before 9:00, hoping to practice using the one SMART Board that up and running so I could demonstrate it later."
 
I'm going to stop and just say a little bit about the slides, and then show them, so we'll have time to talk.  Actually, I do want to say a little bit about the opening day party, because I know you know that they happen.  Ed and I were invited to join the New Year's party that I think started on the 28th of December, and it ended January 3rd.  We were met at the airport in Johannesburg.  Actually we got there a day early, and then were taken to Sun City, where we stayed until January 1st, and there were various receptions.  I'll just read you a little bit of my description of that from my family.
 
"We're just starting day 3 of the big New Year's bash.  Reception on the first evening of the five-day party.  Lots of stars.  Spike Lee, Tina Turner, Anna Deavere Smith, Sidney Poitier, Chris Gardner, 'Pursuit of Happyness.'"
 
Part of this story is that if the star is somebody old, I knew who it was.  If it was somebody young, I had not a clue.  Al Roker.  Robin Smith, Dr. Robin.  Now, I happen to know Dr. Robin because she was in first grade with my son.  Safari in the game park and dinner in the bush with more stars, Cecily Tyson, Skip Gates, Chris Ross, producers of 'The Color Purple,' Patty LaBelle, Andrew Young, plus all of the aforementioned and probably many others that I did not recognize.  I put aside my shyness and worked the room both evenings, introducing myself as head of the school.  Anna Deavere Smith remembered both Ed and me very well from Lincoln, and Ed had run into her at a US Air club in Philadelphia one time.
 
"Oprah brought Tina Turner over to meet me.  I gushed a bit.  Gayle's hairdresser cornered me in the ladies' room and offered to volunteer at the school.  Cecily Tyson and Patty LaBelle are so excited about the school, they can hardly contain their enthusiasm.  My favorite conversation was with Sidney Poitier, who knew all about me from Oprah. She has a save-the-school version of the story, which she repeats at administrative meetings."
 
And before I show you the slides, I just have to explain a little bit about the music and that will help me remember to tell you why I called this "Beautiful in the Light."  I have put together an old-lady version of a little slide tape using Keynote, some of my favorite slides.  So the first two songs are performed by girls from the Holy Rosary School, a Catholic independent school for girls just outside of Johannesburg.  Lorraine Roberts, the head there, is a dear friend, whom I met through NAIS.  Lorraine's wonderful claim to fame is that she, somewhat by accident, said to somebody higher up in the church, who was complimenting her on the music program at her school and how well the girls sang, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if they got to sing for the Holy Father?"
 
And he said, "Why not?"  And the next thing she knew, she was taking 60 girls, age four to seven, to Rome from Johannesburg to perform in St. Peter's.
 
And then the second song is a song by India Arie.  It's called "Beautiful Flower," and that's another one of my celebrity stories.  The day after the big party, I was notified at 6:45 that India Arie was coming to perform a song for the girls at 8:00, and would I please have them all in the theater ready to meet her, which I won't bore you with, but you can all make up what happened.  In any case, she did come.  I had no idea who India Arie was, but she did a wonderful job of singing this song for the girls, and explaining to them that she needed a title, and she needed them to help her make the title.  So you'll hear that song, as well.
 
You'll get some images in this brief tape of what South Africa looks like, what the girls look like, and of my sense that I'm very happy that the group last night sang "This Little Light of Mine," although they did not sing my favorite verse, which is, "I got the light of freedom, I'm going to let it shine."  And for me, that's the light that I'm referring to here, that these girls are extraordinarily beautiful in the light of freedom.
 
So let's just have a look, and then if we have a minute or two, we can chat about whatever you like.  (Slide show.)
 
I'd love to hear your questions and comments, and I'll be around.
 
MR. GALBRAITH:  We have time.
 
MS. COUNTRYMAN:  Let me just say that you saw pictures of me with the girls, with some of the teachers.  You saw, if you know, all four of my grandchildren, who went to visit with me in July.  A little girl in one of the early interviews, when I asked why she wanted to do this, said, "It's my tomorrow."
 
And when she said that, I thought, hmmm, I hope she says that to Oprah.  She did, and the school motto is, "Education is my tomorrow," which was the message there.
 
MR. GALBRAITH:  If you have a question would you please state your name and your school for the record?  That will help our reporter.
 
MS. SULLIVAN:  Joan, I'm Ann Sullivan, from Holy Child, in Rye, and this was fabulous.  I had a question going out into the future.  I wonder if Oprah has any thoughts about founding a school like this in West Africa.  So many Americans of African descent were sent originally from there, so I wonder if she has any thoughts on that.
 
MS. COUNTRYMAN:  My standard answer to questions about what else she's doing in Africa, or anywhere, is that she is doing considerably more than any of us know in this country and many other countries.  It's clear that she has developed a special passion for this South African project. This is not the only school she's done in South Africa, let alone some others.  So I don't know specifically, but she's put a lot of money into education in many, many places, including the United States.  I often have to say that to people in the airports, who stop me and say, "How come she's not doing anything here?"  And that's just not true.
 
MS. FORD:  Just one comment about what she is doing in this country, and some of you all probably know this, and I'm sure it's just a drop in the bucket.  But there are three schools where she has given scholarships over a four-year period for five girls.  Then she did a second group of those, and is now considering a third, as those girls have been graduating.  One was meant to be in Mississippi, where she was born.  In fact, it's in a neighboring state.  I'm sorry, I don't remember where.  The second one was where she grew up, which is in Chicago.  And the third one is where her niece went, which at Miss Porter's, we are thrilled that we are enjoying the benefits of that accident.
 
And so these are just three schools where she has given what amounts to $3 million gifts, if you consider what those tuitions amount to over time, and that's been extraordinary.
 
Now, those are independent schools, and we're already so much more fortunate than most people in the world, let alone just in this country. So that's one thing that she's doing, and I'm sure there's still more.
 
MS. HABERLANDT:  Will you join me in thanking Joan?
 
MR. GALBRAITH:  You all are great.  You know the list I sent back to you so you could see who's on the box lunch?  If you added your name to that, you need to see me.  That wasn't exactly the plan.  So we'll make that work.
 
Janet Dwyer and Pat Park, if you could give me the list back of who went on your trip yesterday, that would be helpful.  It will work, to go on the dolphin cruise and then go for oysters.  We will make it work.  They're very close.  Those two can happen, so never fear.
 
And lastly, would you please join me in listening to one or two additional remarks by Joan Lonergan?
 
MS. LONERGAN:  I want, first of all, to say that John and I were fortunate enough to go to Oprah's school at Thanksgiving time, and it really is an extraordinary facility.  It's an extraordinary opportunity for these girls, and it's going to be an extraordinary school.  What you saw is really just the tip of this amazing opportunity in Africa.  I think Oprah's heart is definitely in the right place.  They were so lucky to have Joan at the beginning of it, and now Joy Moore is there, another NAIS leader, and I hope that the African leadership will come soon for Oprah's school.
 
It may come as a surprise to you that people have not rushed to me for another introduction, and I'm a little disappointed, because you know, I had done a lot of research on that one yesterday.  But I'd like to apologize to all of you who were so distressed for John yesterday, and for me.  When Bruce asked me to introduce John, he told me to have fun with it, so I followed orders.
 
In fairness, John deserves much better. You should know that John's 40 years of reporting on education issues have resulted in several Peabody Awards, Emmy nominations, and the George Polk Award, which is the Oscar for documentary filmmaking and journalism.  He serves on several boards of directors and trustees across the country, notably Teachers College and Columbia and the Education Writers of America.
 
When John's not onsite leading his production company in New York City, which is called Learning Matters, he's writing books and articles or he's on the road researching and filming stories. But most noticeably, and particular good for me, is at Stanford, where he's a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
 
So for having a little fun with his distinguished career, Jim -- I mean John -- I apologize, and want to thank him for his sense of humor, as well as his really impressive efforts to improve the educational opportunities of America's children.  Thank you.
 

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