WINTER 2020
Courtesy of Adrienne Hedger, www.HedgerHumor.com
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On March 2, 2020, all schools in Lebanon were ordered to close. It was a government decision bowing to the legitimate fears of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 1.2 million children2 were suddenly homebound. They were supposed to go back to school in a week. They didn’t. The same scenario was repeated around the world. It was the largest disruption of education in history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries across the continents. Effectively, 94 percent of the world’s student population had become schoolless3. In the international school arena, and amid a pandemic terrorizing all nations, the challenge thrust upon them was massive: how to keep education going? The pressure on international schools
was tremendous. They are the leaders. The innovators. The ones that rose above the global divide and the ones who are paid the ‘big bucks’ to produce the finest, well rounded, highly educated future leaders. The network of international schools went into full action. Webinars – dozens of them - were held, attended by heads of schools, and other administrators. How to maintain the high standards? What works and what doesn’t? What did you do, and what did the others do? “Everybody was sharing their experiences, sharing what their government guidelines were, and we all held comparisons,” said IC president Joel Peinado. “We at IC participated in all webinars to see what were the international standards, what and how they were doing so that we didn’t have to reinvent the wheel.”
1- Term adopted by Paula Mufarrij to describe the current situation. In other words, “crazy days” 2- “Lebanon - Education Sector Short-Term Response to COVID-19, Guiding Framework - Lebanon.” OCHA, reliefweb, 2020 3- Policy Brief: Education during COVID-19 and beyond, United Nations, AUGUST 2020.
