A recent column defending LEARNS by Jacob Oliva, the state's secretary of education, coupled with a critical response by Perspective columnist Gwen Faulkenberry, triggered a visceral response in my stomach. That I had read former Commander of all U.S. Special Operations Forces Admiral William H. McRaven's "The Wisdom of the Bullfrog" underscored my attention to sound process, commitment to ideals, and concern for the well-being of others.

During my time heading schools, I took my administrative teams on a retreat each summer. Being away from normal activities and thus free of distractions allowed us to focus on ensuring we were devoting our best thinking to our colleagues and our students.

One summer, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea gleaned from a conference I had attended years before. My plan was to show a film that involved critical elements of leadership to the team, then encourage them to draw conclusions without much prompting. I was thrilled with myself and confident that we would emerge from the retreat well-prepared for the year ahead, and, in fact, better prepared than ever before.

I had failed to make note of a quotation by Taylor Swift, a saying that Admiral McRaven printed front and center in his book: "Just because you made a good plan doesn't mean that's what's gonna happen." The admiral could have put it another way: "No plan survives first contact with the enemy." My thought: Stuff almost always happens. Be ready to try and try again.

The movie I chose to stimulate my administrative group to think clearly about leadership and serving others was "The Bridge on the River Kwai," about English prisoners of war........

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