School NEWS
Hal Hannaford retires after 11 yrs
H
al Hannaford retired on July 1, after 11 years as the eighth headmaster of Selwyn House School. On the eve of his departure, Hal sat down with Veritas to review some of the highlights of his term as head of the school.
Veritas: Everyone who knows you knows that you’re all about relationships. Hal: I am a very proud teacher by profession, but my strength is not pedagogical development or curriculum development. That stuff is really important, but it’s not as important as the other stuff. And the other stuff is relational. If you ever look at my “Definition of a Great School,” which is in the articles in Veritas, it says that a great school strives to be a relational school. I would say that, unless you are committed to becoming a relational school, there is no possible way you can achieve greatness. It has to be at the forefront, even strategically. For a boys’ school it’s absolutely mandatory. The line is: “Relationships are the medium by which boys learn best.” If you’re interested in pedagogy, but you’re not a relational school, you will not be strong pedagogically. Veritas: Where did you learn that? Hal: I learned it growing up at summer camp, then getting involved at camp and becoming a camp director. Some schools have been criticized for being run like a camp. Then you realize, “Oh yeah, that’s a really good school.” When I was growing up, my father was very much like that. He and John Latimer, the director of the camp, were my two great mentors, and they were just relational people. That was everything to them. So, as I became a teacher, then you see that. You don’t say, “I’m going to be a relational teacher.” You just evolve, evolve, evolve. So, I think it was about 20 years into my headship—probably just before I came to Selwyn House—it just all came together. I was exposed to the concept of “Known and Loved,” for example. It Veritas, page 4
was not my concept, but we brought it into Royal St. George’s. If boys are going to succeed, they need to be known and loved. So, the whole vision of VERITAS, which was “Be true to yourself, etc.,” so much of that became relational, “the glory of education,” which is the concept of taking a D student and occasionally being able to turn him into a B student. Nick Johnson didn’t need Selwyn House. He would have been a great student no matter where he went to school. But part of the reason for his success is that he was exposed to the glory of education. If you want provide a real good program for the high-end students, they need to be exposed to all kinds of diversity, including attitudinal diversity, behavioural diversity, etc. So, you’re right: relationships, that’s the theme. Veritas: What has been your proudest achievement at Selwyn House? Hal: That’s a really easy answer for me. It’s the branding of VERITAS. Before that, VERITAS was just a word under our crest. No one really defined what it meant.
A lot of headmasters get measured by what was built, or the endowment. And that is completely irrelevant to me. But the VERITAS thing is the real work. All of a sudden it became alive, and it meant something. Today, our students go, “That’s not very VERITAS, Sir.” So when you start hearing that, you say, “Wow, this means something.” They can all recite what it means, but some of them really, actually think about it. So, I believe that is an achievement. That’s the one thing I’m most proud of. I do think it would be a shame if that were not built upon. Pick any other independent school in Montreal. Does anyone know their brand? But, what’s the brand at Selwyn House? “VERITAS.” Achieving that takes a collective will of everyone. Veritas: After your years at Selwyn House, do you have any regrets? Hal: No. Gazillions of mistakes, for sure. Real botch-ups. But I’ve made a career out of recovering from my mistakes. I’m pretty good at that. The biggest regrets that I have are always when I deviate from my principles. (Continued on page 6)
