principalâs office mission. Often I have the same conversation with parents and teachers if thereâs an issue.
HKAâs secondary principal Leanne Dunlap reveals all. What triggered your desire to teach? I was a math major and thought I would be an engineering student so I did a failed internship at Boeing. Failed on my part; I got there and I said, âThese are not my peopleâ. So I went to the University of Washington and sought out an advisor who said, âYou have enough credits, if you switched your practicum from working at Boeing to a teaching practicum you could graduate with a teaching degree and a math major. So, thatâs what I did. The moment I stepped into a classroom I thought, âI canât believe they pay people to do this!â. I havenât looked back since. Teaching is my nirvana. I worked a couple of years in the States and I found out about international education and Iâve made my way around the globe since then. My first job was in Brazil, my next job was in Tokyo and then from there I worked in Warsaw and Copenhagen and now Iâm back in Asia.
What makes a good teacher? At the core, they have to love kids. They need to be curious and empathetic. I can teach anyone the content and how to structure a lesson, but the ethos around teaching and who you need to be as a human being, I canât do that, so youâve got to come with that.
What was your favourite subject in school? English. I have an English minor. Iâve been an avid reader from a very young age. I canât go to sleep at night without reading and I think thatâs where my love of travel came from⌠the love of books. There were worlds that were opened up to me through books.
Whatâs the toughest part of a principalâs day? The toughest part of my day involves any hard conversations I have to have with people. That could be with a student because Iâm disappointed in their behaviour, that could be with a parent because they are not aligning with our mission and I have to be that person to hold them accountable, and that could be with a teacher in this building because theyâre not aligned with the
What is the most memorable thing a teacher has ever said to you? You can be the change. 48 expat-parent.com
I like the yin and the yang of Hong Kong. I like that I feel comfortable as a Westerner and I like that itâs so multi-cultured.
What are your schoolâs greatest strengths? Our schoolâs greatest strength is the âgrowthâ mindset that everybody has here. A fixed mindset was fully embedded in the 60âs with IQ tests: this is who you are etc. thatâs why in the US kids were tracked in college. You went into this track if you were college bound, you went into this track if you were going to go into a vocational education and that was determined at a fairly young age based on standardized testing. What we know now, especially from the work from Stanford University Psychologist, Carol Dweck, is that our brains keep changing and evolving, that everybody can learn and that capacity is unlimited. So, as an educator, if you donât believe that, itâs pretty easy to give up on kids, or get frustrated. What do you see as the benefits for students being raised in Hong Kong? I think itâs a microcosm of the world theyâre going to inherit. We are becoming smaller and smaller and more and more global and Hong Kong will allow kids to see that on a daily basis. They donât even know it, but especially the kids who have been here since primary school, they adapt all the time. I see kids switch languages and they donât even see that theyâve done it. Personally, Iâve always loved Hong Kong. The first time I came here was in the early nineties and itâs changed so dramatically since then. I like the yin and yang of it. I like that I feel comfortable as a western person here and I also like that itâs so multi-cultured. What are your views on technology? Itâs amazing how technology has allowed teachers to be more personal in the classroom and give feedback much more rapidly. Nothing moves students on the learning continuum faster than feedback, and technology allows that to happen quicker and more directly. But Iâm not a fan of technology for technologyâs sake. As a teaching tool and as an engagement tool, for example, Google drive has transformed what education looks like as far as the paper and pencil path because weâre pretty paperless here. The collaboration thatâs able to happen in a Google environment among students is amazing. Tell us a secret about yourself⌠Iâm a closet tech geek and sci-fi freak.