International School Magazine - Autumn 2019

International School Aut | 2019 | Volume 22 | Issue 1

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The magazine for international educators

Round Square comes to Northern Ireland Overcoming misunderstandings | Prioritising mental health in schools | Science fairs – still relevant?

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We have challenged ourselves to make it ‘as easy for children in our school to ask for help for mental health, as it is to ask for a plaster for a cut knee’.

Karren van Zoest, page 11

in this issue... comment Welcoming ‘Alice’ to ‘Education Land’, Mary Hayden and Jeff Thompson

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mental health and wellbeing in schools Breathing space: simple initiatives to boost health and wellbeing in schools, Suzie Longstaff 7 Prioritising mental health and wellbeing in primary schools, Rhiannon Phillips-Bianco and Karren van Zoest 11 Mental health and student wellbeing in the middle years, Danielle Mashon and Tenley Elliott 13 Ten ways to improve mental health in your primary classroom, Becky Cranham 15

features The architecture of learning, Richard Caston 17 Resusci-Anne: Lifesaver extraordinaire, Linda Duevel 19 Educational reform: Henry VIII contributes to critical debate, Simon Taylor 22 Leading with ‘impact’: A possible counterpoint to tribalism, Tim Logan 24 On overcoming misunderstandings about an academic institution, Dzenana Ceman 26

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curriculum, learning and teaching Linguistic autobiographies of international students as a starting point for research, Clare Brumpton, with ISL students and staff 28 Science fairs – still relevant? Anthony Artist 30 Is the IB Diploma for everyone? SEE Learning certainly is, Carol Inugai-Dixon 32 ReVERBeration: a collaborative, international, sound sculpture project, Greg Morgan 34

sponsored content CAS Trips – redefining educational travel, Simon Armstrong 36 How to ensure a successful placement for your employees, Bal Basra 38

regulars

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Science matters: Celebrating a scientific life, Richard Harwood 40 Fifth column: ‘Sez who?’, E T Ranger 41 Alice in Education Land: Alice gets a job, Chris Binge 42 Forthcoming conferences 59

people and places An unlikely partnership, Q&A with Amar Latif and Leila 46 First international Round Square Conference hosted in Northern Ireland, George Vance 48 The GHAMUN Experience: Mutual learnings by exploring uncharted territory, Rijul Gupta and Tomas Imparato 50 Why being the ‘difference makers’ still matters, Peter Howe 52 International schools are the perfect place to incubate the next generation of entrepreneurs, Hazel Kay 57

book reviews

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The Fourth Education Revolution, by Anthony Seldon with Oladimeji Abidoye, reviewed by Lt General Arjun Ray 61 Linguistic and Cultural Innovation in Schools, by Jane Spiro and Eowyn Crisfield, reviewed by Susan Stewart 63 The International Baccalaureate: 50 years of education for a better world, by Judith Fabian, Ian Hill and George Walker (eds), reviewed by Andrew Watson 67

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Comment

Welcoming ‘Alice’ to ‘Education Land’ Editors Mary Hayden and Jeff Thompson invite you to join our new contributors We have been delighted and encouraged by the correspondence received in response to our invitations for readers to express their views, through this magazine, on a number of suggested topics.

These have included the continuing relevance of the soubriquet ‘Third Culture Kid’, and the definition of the designation ‘international school’ – terms which were coined in very different educational contexts than those in which we currently live. Our last issue included excellent articles by Angie Wigford and Andrea Higgins, Margot Sutherland and Mitesh Patel, inter alia, which raised crucial issues relating to Mental Health and Wellbeing, and their importance within international schools. From the interest generated by those articles, it is clear that the topics raised, and the views expressed, struck chords with a range of stakeholders in both international and national school sectors, and we thank those of you who have sent us either your comments on the articles themselves or ideas arising from your own experience. We have pleasure in including four such contributions in this issue of the magazine, covering differing age ranges and dimensions of the area. We welcome further contributions both on the articles so far published, and also via new articles drawing upon your own experience, which we look forward to receiving. By

sharing your views you will be making a valuable contribution to the development of practice in such a crucial aspect of the work of international schools.

We are also pleased to announce that, in the coming set of issues of the magazine, we shall be including a new feature. This is entitled ‘Alice in Education Land’, and comprises a series of occasional contributions in which important educational issues, relevant to international and national schools alike, are raised through a parody of Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’. Chris Binge, the author, is a well-respected writer and speaker, with extensive experience in the international school sphere as a mathematics teacher, Head and Director of schools in five countries over the past 30 years, and we are delighted to accept his offer to share these imaginative and creative contributions with International School readers. Chris notes that the idea behind these stories is “to use humour to provoke thought about some sacred cows of education”, and we trust that our readers will not only enjoy reading the contributions within each issue of the magazine, but will also feel moved to share their own views and experiences on the topics raised. The first of these is entitled “Alice gets a job” – we look forward to hearing from you!

We’d like to hear your thoughts on this and any other articles in this magazine Email: editor@is-mag.com

Mary Hayden and Jeff Thompson Editors Jonathan Barnes Editorial Director James Rudge Production Director Alex Sharratt Managing Director For Editorial enquiries contact Mary Hayden and Jeff Thompson Email: editor@is-mag.com Website: www.is-mag.com International School© is published by John Catt Educational Ltd, 15 Riduna Park, Melton, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 1QT, UK Company registration 5762466

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John Catt Educational Ltd is a member of the Independent Publishers Guild.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form or by any means.

International School is an independent magazine.

The views expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent those of the magazine. The magazine cannot accept any responsibility for products and services advertised within it.

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Mental health and wellbeing in schools

Breathing space: simple initiatives to boost health and wellbeing in schools Suzie Longstaff advocates a holistic approach Most of us benefit enormously from re-connecting with the natural world – in fact, our mental and physical wellbeing can depend on it. At Putney High School GDST, London we have developed a holistic approach to the health and wellbeing of our community, ensuring that during their time at school, students (and staff) are able to flourish in the best possible environment both in the classroom and beyond. Though developed in the context of our own school, we are pleased to share our experiences in the hope that they may be of interest and relevance to other schools, wherever they may be located worldwide.

Good mental and physical health are the cornerstones to happiness and development, and also fundamental keys to learning. At Putney we embrace opportunities to get out in the wider world; engaging with nature in the fresh air is a great way to get staff and students thinking, quite literally, out of the box. Outdoor learning is not only good for us, but Spring

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also an excellent teaching and learning opportunity, now made easier thanks to constant connectivity and iPads for every student, making lessons flexible and allowing staff and students to take their resources outside as never before.

There is no doubt that fresh air and exercise are hard to beat; they boost endorphins, calm the mind and actually stimulate us into better creative thinking. Physically, the benefits are many. Our ‘sport for all’ approach means that every student, regardless of their skill level, can reap the rewards to be gained from competitive sport which are so fundamental to growing up. Whether it is greater fitness, improved selfconfidence, or simply the sense of achievement that comes from being part of a team – good physical and mental health are inextricably linked.

But what about inside the classroom? Could there be a way to bring the benefits of fresh air and the natural world into the learning environment, particularly in a busy London

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Mental health and wellbeing in schools

school? Last year, with the onset of the central heating season, we undertook a four-month Biophilic design project as part of our whole school ‘BREATHE’ programme. The aim was to demonstrate how even a few, relatively simple, initiatives such as bringing plants into the classroom could have a significant impact on both wellbeing and the ability to learn.

Three Sixth Form classrooms were monitored for air quality and atmosphere, and observed for concentration levels and feelings of wellbeing of the staff and students who spent time in them. The results were impressive. The re-design of the classrooms created some really bright and energising spaces and, after four months, 78% of our students told us they actually ‘felt healthier’. The monitors showed a measurable improvement in brain-boosting oxygen and, perhaps more interestingly, there was a noticeable change in the behaviour and perceptions of those involved. Students commented on how the classrooms were so much more “relaxing”. “The plants really have a calming effect. They change the atmosphere for sure,” said Sophia, a Year 13 student who was involved in caring for the plants. In short,

Learning to understand the rise and fall in our emotions is an important skill that we can teach in schools.

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small changes could make a big impact on health and feelings of wellbeing generally.

External factors can affect how we feel every day, and learning to understand the rise and fall in our emotions is an important skill that we can teach in schools. We pioneered the Positive Schools Programme – a practical, app-based toolkit underpinned by neuroscience, which helps users to decode the pressures of 21st century teenage life, building resilience, improving emotional literacy and creating positive habits of mind. It was well-received by teachers, students and parents alike, who are now very much on board in a three-pronged approach to helping everyone navigate the teenage years with confidence and, most importantly, together.

With teenage mental health reported to be at an all-time low, every year we raise awareness of the UK’s National Mental Health Awareness Month, with our annual “Wellbeing Within” event. A dedicated week of activities for the whole school reminds us all of the importance of self-care, meaningful relationships, and positive engagements. Students post “reallife likes” on a Gratitude Tree, discuss positive digital habits, and take part in mindful activities including line-dancing, bamboo lantern-making and even multi-lingual yoga.

At Putney, pastoral care is deeply rooted in everything we do. We understand the powerful role that kindness, happiness, security and genuine friendships play in our wellbeing. These are the foundations for a lifetime of learning, of which school – wherever that may be located – is only the beginning.

Suzie Longstaff is Headmistress of Putney High School, London, UK. Email: s.hazlehurst@put.gdst.net

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Mental health and wellbeing in schools

Prioritising mental health and wellbeing in primary schools Rhiannon Phillips-Bianco and Karren van Zoest recount their experiences This article consists of two parts, the first contributed by Karren van Zoest, Headteacher of Junior School Leidschenveen (a campus of The British School in the Netherlands), and the second

by Rhiannon Phillips-Bianco, class teacher and Mental Health & Wellbeing Curriculum Leader.

Karren van Zoest writes: As a new Headteacher in September 2016, I was keen to ensure our school continued to be ‘excellent in all areas’, as awarded during our school inspection earlier in the year. I was proud of how much we had achieved and it would have been easy to be complacent, seeing the school’s success through the narrowly focused lens of achieved ‘inspection criteria’. However, one key area concerned me: How ‘excellent’ are we if we look at our school environment from a mental health perspective? Mental health and wellbeing of students has become a subject of growing concern in education, reflecting some shocking world statistics including that at any moment 1 in every 10 children is suffering with a diagnosable mental health illness (www.mentalhealth.org. uk). That means two or three in every class. The answer to my question was that we could be doing much better.

At a recent COBIS conference, I had the fortune to listen to Professor Tanya Byron who, having laid out the stark statistics on mental health, challenged school leaders in an uncomfortable moment of silent reflection, asking “so why aren’t you doing anything about it?” Good question.

As Headteachers, we are lucky to be in the position to make changes that can have real impact. But it is also a responsibility to actually DO something.

In the last two years at Junior School Leidschenveen (JSL), we have done just that and started a deliberate drive to shift attitudes, break old habits and create an enabling environment rather than paying lip service with a one-off INSET session. We have challenged ourselves to make it ‘as easy for children in our school to ask for help for mental health, as it is to ask for a plaster for a cut knee’. We recognise that as educators we have a responsibility to break the stigma associated with mental health so that children can be prepared for their future armed with mental health life skills. I have become convinced during our school’s journey that this is not just about ‘fluffy stuff’ associated with wellbeing, but is actually a key component of ensuring children are prepared for the academic rigour they will be facing during their school lifetime so that they can reach their full potential. Our aim is to enable mental health and wellbeing awareness and strategies to become integral within the fibre of the school day, rather than bolt-on activities. From a whole-school perspective, we began to achieve this by: • Changing the timetable to break the conveyor belt experience, ensuring a calm start, middle and end to each day. This has given teachers more flexibility to manage the pace of the day and prioritise talking to students about their daily lives, alongside teaching lessons.

• Prioritising positive self-esteem by developing a stronger sense of community through student leadership, and opportunities to feel pride in being a role model for others. This includes a Responsible Citizen award created to encourage feelings of selfworth in doing things for others in the community.

• Introducing the ‘Daily K’ (kilometre) taken from the Scottish ‘Daily Mile’ initiative (www.thedailymile.co.uk/).

This has so many benefits and has had high impact in children being able to refocus between lessons.

• Changing teaching and learning lesson expectations to take account of good mental health practices, eg pace of lessons, brain breaks, quality time for reflection and finishing work, and enabling use of taught mental health strategies within lessons if needed.

• Educating parents about breaking the stigma and how they can help at home.

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Mental health and wellbeing in schools • Creative curriculum planning which encourages creative expression with no expectations of being right or reaching a specific standard.

• Appointing a curriculum leader for mental health and wellbeing – to raise the status as an important area amongst core subjects.

• Students who can identify and name their emotions are more able to cope with them • Students who have been taught breathing strategies have a tool they can use in any moment of fear, anger or frustration • Students who recognise that they need a ‘brain break’, and feel empowered to take it, are more able to help themselves re-focus • Parent, student and teacher feedback has shown us that these tools are being used spontaneously by students both in the classroom and beyond it Having learnt a great deal, and seen their positive impact, we began to share these strategies across the school. The creation of a ‘Wellbeing Team’ was vital to support this process. Twelve members of staff volunteered their time to meet every half-term, to discuss ideas and give feedback, as well as to promote tools and resources in their teams on

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a regular basis. We also held two staff meetings and three meetings with parents to share our work. ‘Calm Corners’, that remind students of strategies they have been taught and provide a calm and safe space for them, have begun to pop up all over the school, and it’s a delight to hear teachers, parents and students share the strategies they are using.

This is just the beginning of a long journey. Next year our approach will become more structured. Every class will have a Calm Corner, each phase will explicitly teach wellbeing tools, and Years 5 and 6 will follow a twelve-unit Wellbeing Programme that we are currently devising. Units will be based on key themes – such as managing emotions or coping with change (focused on transition and being Third Culture children) – and students will be taught to coach one another in setting, and reflecting on, wellbeing goals. The key to remember is this: prioritising wellbeing is not a waste of valuable curriculum time. Students who develop these skills are more able to learn and to deal with the challenges they face. Even more importantly, they are learning life skills that will help them cope throughout life. As adults, one in three of them will face mental illness (Devon, 2018). Yet every single one of them has mental health. We, as educators, have a responsibility to teach them how to take care of it.

Reference Devon N (2018) A Beginner’s Guide to Mental Health: an A-Z, London: Bluebird

Karren van Zoest is Headteacher at the JSL campus of the British School in the Netherlands, and has a keen interest in mental health.

Email: karren.vanzoest@britishschool.nl Rhiannon Phillips-Bianco is a Year 4 class teacher and Curriculum Leader for Wellbeing and Mental Health.

Email: rhiannon.phillips-bianco@britishschool.nl

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Rhiannon Phillips-Bianco writes: These changes on a whole-school level made it possible to focus on wellbeing and mental health within the classroom.

Our work began in September 2018 with a pilot yeargroup, Year 4. To begin with, we reminded students of the importance of a Growth Mindset, a concept very familiar to them, and the value of resilience that we teach them using James Nottingham’s Learning Pit tool. This linked to two elements of our BSN Character Profile: Perseverance and Courage.

Another element of our Character Profile is Compassion, and we also started to teach students the importance of empathy and compassion towards themselves, as well as towards others. The key of our message was this: yes, it is important to be resilient and courageous and determined, yet it’s also important to know that there are times when those qualities will not be enough to overcome a challenge.

It is therefore vital to learn a range of strategies both to prevent moments of difficulty and to deal with them. To make this possible we created a slot in the timetable for every student in the year-group to have an hour, every six weeks, of explicitly taught wellbeing tools. Fundamentally, these were then shared with colleagues in the year-group so that the same tools were used and practised daily in the classroom. They were broken down into three categories: Managing Emotions, Breathing, and Brain Breaks. Sessions have included learning to identify and name emotions, understanding the impact of positive self-talk, using a variety of breathing techniques, and choosing what works well for each individual, recognising how your body feels physically if you are struggling, and identifying which ‘brain break’ works best for individuals and/or specific situations. Each of those areas needs to be explored in far more detail than can be provided here, but what we have observed is this:

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Mental health and wellbeing in schools

Mental health and student wellbeing in the middle years Danielle Mashon and Tenley Elliott on how strategic curriculum review supports improved wellbeing As educators of middle years students, we have the privilege to witness one of the most transformational periods in one’s life. From an increased desire to seek and take risks, to an increased valuing of peers and social relations, we observe young people as they explore and ignite a new personal sense of self and identity. With an expanding body of neuroscientific research on adolescent brain development, we are able to better understand adolescent behaviour and decision-making during this unique growth period (Blakemore, 2018). Furthermore, important evidence from neuroscientific research reveals that up to three-quarters of mental illness appears before the age of 24 (Blakemore, 2018). Put simply, a growing body of research is placing adolescent mental health and wellbeing at the center of a more integrated approach to adolescent health. Therefore, prioritizing adolescent mental health and wellbeing in schools has become increasingly common. However, a critical question arose in the context of our school, the Nord Anglia International School of Rotterdam: how do we ensure mental health and wellbeing is not one more ‘add-on’ to an existing course, but rather is part of a comprehensive approach to adolescent health and wellness? What follows explains how our school enacted regular cycles of curriculum review to prioritize adolescent mental health and learner wellbeing to enhance the program offering in our middle school.

For contextual purposes, the Nord Anglia International School of Rotterdam (NAISR), formerly the American International School of Rotterdam, is proud to have delivered an international education to both expatriate and Dutch

national families for 60 years. In 2012, we were amongst the first few schools in the world to pilot Fieldwork Education’s International Middle Years Curriculum (IMYC) for students ages 11-14, and we haven’t looked back since. And in 2018 we joined the global family of Nord Anglia Education schools and embarked on a new strategic direction aligned with our new family of schools. Given these changes, and the secure establishment of our middle years program, we felt the middle school was an appropriate setting to approach a critical reflection of health and wellbeing education.

Creating space for adolescent mental health and wellness was built upon an existing process of curriculum review; between 2014 and 2017 we identified a need to improve our delivery of pastoral care, service learning and health learning in our secondary school. However, many of the curricula we explored appeared too prescriptive and/or culturally specific for our needs, given our small and diverse student body.

Moreover, we wished to maintain the integrity of the IMYC in our middle school, in terms of philosophy, approach and goals for learning. Since we felt it inappropriate to simply add a PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) or similar course to our current curriculum, we instead decided to amplify the offerings of our IMYC program to include a Health, Advisory and Physical Education component (HAPE) for 20 minutes per day in our timetable for homeroom, and a discrete Core Values Program (CVP) class to develop students’ personal and international learning through service initiatives. In this approach, health learning topics such as healthy eating and active living, disease and illness

Put simply, a growing body of research is placing adolescent mental health and wellbeing at the center of a more integrated approach to adolescent health. Therefore, prioritizing adolescent mental health and wellbeing in schools has become increasingly common.

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Mental health and wellbeing in schools

We found that our initial curriculum review represented a positive step forward in our delivery of a rounded middle school program which, importantly, reflected our own aims, context and capacity.

• Ensure learning around mental health and wellbeing forms part of our comprehensive safeguarding practices.

• Clarify how learning around mental health and wellbeing will build upon our broader school-wide Core Values and be approached in specialist and generalist learning settings, eg Health and Physical Education and homeroom / pastoral care.

• Foster further collaborative practice and integration of health specialists in all learning settings (ie nurse, socialemotional coach, social worker, psychologist).

• Provide additional resources and training to our learning community about adolescent mental health and emotional wellbeing.

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• Increase dialogue and information sharing between school and families regarding adolescent mental health and wellbeing.

• Deliver school assemblies and whole-school initiatives to increase awareness and reduce stigma around mental illness and wellbeing.

• Strengthen our link to the IMYC ‘5 Needs of the Adolescent Brain’, the foundation from which the IMYC was created.

By identifying these next steps, we believe we are in a positive position to strategically improve support of adolescent mental health and wellbeing in our school. Whilst we are still in the beginning phases of our curriculum revision, and have not yet implemented nor evaluated the impact of our program, we trust that by mirroring a process which supported significant success outcomes previously, we will also find a similar degree of improvement with our current review. Finally, we hope that by sharing the impact of regular and strategic curriculum review in our school context, we may support other schools in their process of reflection.

Reference Blakemore S (2018) Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain. New York: Doubleday

Danielle Mashon is IMYC Coordinator at Nord Anglia International School of Rotterdam.

Email: danielle.mashon@aisr.nl Tenley Elliott is a Health, Advisory and Physical Education teacher and Secondary Student Council Advisor at Nord Anglia International School of Rotterdam.

Email: tenley.elliott@aisr.nl

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prevention, digital literacy and safety, puberty and growth, friendship and healthy relationships, became part of HAPE, whereas personal and international learning topics, such as citizenship, responsibility, respect, and engaging with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, became part of the Core Values Program. Homeroom time became an opportunity for students and their pastoral care teacher to build relationships and trust. In all three timetabled spaces (HAPE, CVP and homeroom) we used the IMYC Big Idea and IMYC Personal and International Learning Goals to guide learning. We utilized student reflection and the IMYC Personal Learning Goal Thoughtfulness as a key modality of learning to fulfil our aim of learning for understanding and to encourage competency development over time. We found that our initial curriculum review represented a positive step forward in our delivery of a rounded middle school program which, importantly, reflected our own aims, context and capacity.

Reflection upon the initial curriculum review led to a desire to improve our middle years program further; to strengthen its alignment with our new place as a Nord Anglia Education school, we wanted to ensure our school Core Values formed the basis of all learning, and we wanted to identify our next steps in order to approach learning about adolescent mental health and wellbeing in an integrated and holistic way. Our review identified the following needs:

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Mental health and wellbeing in schools

Ten ways to improve mental health in your primary classroom Former primary school teacher Becky Cranham has some ideas for improving mental health in primary children It’s widely known that children who feel nurtured and safe will not only learn better but feel better too, but the connection is sometimes easy to overlook as teachers grapple with the every-day demands of the primary school classroom. Here are some great ideas to guide teachers...

1. Get to know every child in your class Why not take some time each week to learn a new fact about each child? Give them a ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ card to fill in with something interesting about themselves, or as a space to share anything they are struggling with or worried about. Having one-to-one feedback on these (you could write a quick response on the back of the card and leave it in their tray, or take a child aside if necessary), or sharing a quick “Hey, I didn’t know you love ostriches – they’re my favourite animal too!” moment with a child, can make them feel really valued and supported.

2. Encourage every child to have a voice Do you find it’s always the same children putting their hands up to answer a question? Use Flip Sticks to keep track of who you’ve asked a question, and to encourage the whole class to take part in discussions. Another good method is to use ‘Talk for Me Buddies’ – a child discusses a question or problem with a partner who then feeds back what the first child has said to the rest of the class, and vice versa. This is great for children who want to share their ideas with the class but who

don’t yet have the confidence to voice their own thoughts in a large group.

3. Be playful and have fun Play fosters creativity, collaboration and problem solving, all of which are important for good mental health. Make sure there is time in the timetable for children to play, whether it’s a Maths game, a role-play activity or a team-building game to foster class relationships.

4. Feelings and emotions: name it to tame it This gives children and adults the language to describe how they are feeling. In the words of US child psychiatrist Dr Dan Siegel: ‘Name it to tame it’. Children need to be able to identify the emotions they are feeling in order to understand how to deal with what they are feeling. Display an Emotions Poster in the classroom and encourage children to refer to it throughout the day, or give them each an individual feelings monitor to encourage them to identify when they feel different emotions, and thereby know how to deal with them.

5. Take a mood register to check in with the feelings in the room We recently asked some of our Facebook followers what they do to take the register. One response that we absolutely loved was to do a mood register. This involved children giving a number from 1 to 10 when answering their name in the register to show how they were feeling that day. The teacher can then follow-up with any low-scoring children later in the day for a private chat, and other children can be aware of how their peers are feeling, giving them the chance to offer encouragement and support. This is what this teacher said about how it was working in her classroom: “It’s amazing how, when you make talking about feelings and emotions the ‘norm’, children feel totally safe and natural expressing how they feel.”

6. Create an atmosphere where all feelings are allowed Give feelings an appropriate outlet. Put boundaries in place around behaviours to keep everyone safe and develop strategies to help reinforce those boundaries. For example, let children know that they are allowed to feel happy, angry,

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Mental health and wellbeing in schools

7. Move on from a negative experience Sometimes it’s important to help children (and colleagues) to see past the latest disastrous playtime or bad lesson, and focus instead on the bigger picture. Is a child frustrated because they didn’t understand column subtraction straight away? Remind them of an experience they struggled with, and overcame. Is this really any different? Do they really want to end the friendship with their best friend over the argument they had at playtime?

8. Take learning outside and make it active It rains a lot in some countries. But that doesn’t mean that we should automatically discount the idea of making outside learning a regular occurrence. It doesn’t have to mean traipsing around a forest looking for earthworms (although this kind of outdoor learning is extremely valuable, too).

Exploring places of worship, streetscapes, architecture, local businesses, museums, galleries, parks and shopping centres all provide rich experiences that provide an immediately engaging environment and provide many opportunities for learning.

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9. Learn from fiction: discuss the feelings of book characters Take the opportunity to discuss the feelings and actions of the characters as you read books to your class. Is there a better way they could have reacted? What led up to the crisis point? Analysing the actions and reactions of characters in a number of stressful situations can support children in identifying how they themselves react in certain situations and how they might react more positively next time. It’s also important to share stories that directly encourage empathy, sympathy and kindness in order to foster these traits in children. The Kindness Movement, for example, is giving away a free kindness book which can help kick-start your class in thinking about, and discussing, feelings.

10. Keep it calm Being able to calm down is a skill that needs to be practised (in some children more than others!). Embedding periods of calm into your classroom through simple activities will help your pupils to feel safer and more peaceful, leading in turn to better learning.

Becky Cranham is a former primary school teacher, and Lead Resource Creator of PlanBee (www.planbee.com).

Email: info@planbee.com

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sad or whatever other emotion they may be feeling, but that they are not allowed to bully or hit. When addressing undesirable behaviour, help both the child concerned and the other children in the class to understand that there are appropriate and inappropriate ways of dealing with difficult emotions. Learning to identify these will come in time as the children are supported in identifying and accepting their feelings.

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Features

The architecture of learning Richard Caston looks at the Bauhaus heritage The Bauhaus Heritage “The Bauhaus was an idea” (Mies van der Rohe)

became learners in their new assigned workshops, they were encouraged to engage in creative work alongside their students. Their own creative work became shaped by their pedagogical engagement, and their teaching became informed by their own creative work, evident in Paul Klee’s ‘Pedagogical Sketchbook’. This approach may have had its roots in medieval workshops, but Gropius set a number of guidelines for best practice that set the Bauhaus apart: • Experiment with materials • Develop form from function • Find clear design solutions • No decoration In 1924, state funding for the Bauhaus was first reduced and then, in 1933, the Bauhaus was forced to close by the National Socialists. In just 14 years, only 1250 students graduated.

The Visual Arts Studio “Here there is no repetition, rather an endless episode of trials, experiments, constructions and productions” (Joachim Schlandt)

Bauhaus montage 2019 saw the centenary of the German school of art and design, the Bauhaus, an event celebrated across Germany with exhibitions, new publications and videos. Founded by the architect and first director Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus was financed by the government to give impetus to the rebirth of manufacturing in the new Weimar Republic after the First World War. Gropius brought the arts and crafts together into a new dynamic model more closely linked to industrial production.

This required a radical rethink in the way artists and designers were educated, and what followed was a revolution, which helped to shape our world today. Gropius invited international teachers from the world of fine arts (such as painting and sculpture) as well as from the applied arts and crafts (such as weaving and cabinet making) to embrace a broad base of study in different workshops. The traditional hierarchy between the disciplines disappeared, and all the workshops were considered equal in importance. Crossdiscipline innovation was encouraged.

Teaching staff were often assigned to workshops outside their expertise. For example, the painter Paul Klee was first assigned to the bookbinding workshop and later to the stained glass window workshop. As teachers also Spring

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The Visual Arts Studio at the International School of Düsseldorf (painting).

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Features In the mid-1990s the architect Joachim Schlandt designed the then high school building at the International School of Düsseldorf (ISD). After weeks of consultation with staff members, Schlandt came up with a spectacular curved construction based on the circumferences of two giant circles. Resembling the shape of an eye, the arts subjects (Music, Theatre and Visual Arts) were housed at the centre, like an iris. The light, spacious studio opened up new possibilities. The idea of a large flexible space emerged, without dividing walls or fixtures apart from the sinks. All the furniture, tables, easels and screens would be folded away and stored when not required. With a large space, the studio could change according to the work in progress, where form could indeed follow function.

The studio welcomed everyone and, whether or not they were enrolled in a course, students could work or just visit anytime when free to do so, including after hours. There were, of course, clear basic workshop rules, based on respect for others, materials and tools. As the studio atmosphere became more and more exciting, enrolment soared and larger classes increased the potential for peer learning. With high production, one could follow developments of works in progress on a daily basis – and many students and teachers did just that. Following in the footsteps of the Bauhaus, some teachers were also inspired to work in the studio alongside students, as a living example of the creative process, with all stages of experimentation, risk-taking, graphic ideation and documentation. They were also an integral part of several large class projects, mostly with 9th and 10th grade students.

Flexible Spaces “Today we need spaces that are able to respond flexibly to the different needs of learners whilst inspiring them to be creative and collaborative” (Heather Collins)

The studio welcomed everyone and, whether or not they were enrolled in a course, students could work or just visit anytime when free to do so, including after hours. for discussion and collaboration. Other prominent activity areas, complete with tools for construction, are just waiting for hands-on experiments and the kind of approach we may have seen at the Bauhaus a century ago.

Here, evidence of student work creates the most powerful visual stimulus in the environment. As in the Visual Arts Studio, work in progress is where one can see learning in action. It is a reminder that whatever shape or style the building takes, the true architecture of learning lies in the innovative use of space and in the imagination of the students.

Selected Bibliography Bolbrinker N and Tielson T (2018) Vom Bauen Der Zukunft: 100 Jahre Bauhaus. Video: Arte Collins H (2018) Elementary School Brochure. International School of Düsseldorf Klee P (1973) Pedagogical Sketchbook. Faber and Faber: London Kruse C (2018) Das Bauhaus in Weimar,Dessau und Berlin. Edition Braus: Berlin Robinson K et al (2010) The Third Teacher. Abrams: New York Schlandt J (1996) Rick Castons Schulatelier, The Studio. ISD: Düsseldorf Whitford F (1993) The Bauhaus, Masters and Students by Themselves. The Overlook Press: New York

The design of the 5th grade facilities at ISD has been adapted from existing, conventional classrooms, occupying a wing of the school building. Combined together and incorporating a hallway, the open spaces offer an intriguing variety of connected working areas. Each area is adapted for a particular kind or style of learning, to suit different learning preferences and the nature of the task. Quiet enclosed spaces for individual work contrast with different communal spaces

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Email: richard@castonart.com

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The Visual Arts Studio at ISD, 1998 (class project)

Richard Caston first became interested in the Bauhaus in his early teens, after discovering paintings by Paul Klee, who became his role model for a future career as an artist teacher. He first exhibited his paintings in Düsseldorf in 1973, the city where Paul Klee had taught at the Art Academy, and worked in the Visual Arts Department at the International School of Düsseldorf from 1974 until 2011. He now works in his own art studio in the city.

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Resusci-Anne: Lifesaver extraordinaire Linda Duevel describes a fascinating backstory For educators with a love of history and learning, the backstory of ‘Resusci-Anne’ creates layers of fascination. It is a rare individual who does not recognise the CPR mannequin known as Resusci-Anne. We have encountered her face and pliable body in a physical education or health classroom, or perhaps as part of a scouting or other first-aid training course.

But behind Anne’s inscrutable and enduringly calm face, there is a good story worth telling. Anne and her attached body came to life in the late 1950s in the beautiful seaside town of Stavanger, Norway.

The man behind Resusci-Anne’s creation, Norwegian entrepreneur Åsmund Lærdal, owned a factory in Stavanger producing toys and children’s books. He was particularly interested in using modern techniques in molding soft plastic materials creating more realistic figures, and successfully marketed his toy cars and dolls in the European market.

He also converted his growing knowledge into creating realistic-looking soft plastic “simulated wounds” which were of assistance in training local medical staff to treat injuries (Tjomsland, 2015).

And then one day in 1954, a near tragedy created the ‘Aha Moment’ which would not only transform his life but would also create a tool to save lives far beyond Norway. Åsmund discovered his two-year old son, Tore, face down in water and drowning. The frantic father pulled his son out and worked to clear his airways of water. Luckily, Tore regained consciousness due to his father’s desperate attempts to revive him (Lærdal, 2013; Tjomsland, 2015). Following this terrifying episode, Åsmund Lærdal recognised the need for more bystanders who witnessed emergencies to know how to react in the critical first minutes, long before medical professionals could arrive. His understanding correlated with evolving work on CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, the combination of mouth-to-mouth breathing and external cardiac compression) being pioneered by Drs Bjørn Lind, Peter Safar, James Elam and Archer S Gordon. Because of Lærdal’s earlier work with creating simulated wounds, fellow Stavanger resident Lind reached out to discuss the concept of developing a mannequin for training in this new technique (Lærdal, 2013; Tjomsland, 2015). Tore Lærdal is now head of the Laerdal family company and foundations (note that while the correct spelling of the family name is Lærdal, the official global name of the company has been anglicized to Laerdal).

As Tore describes his father’s next steps: ‘Innovation is about impact. Luck often strikes the prepared mind’ (Lærdal, 2013).

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woman. The mannequin’s face is modeled on the death mask of an unknown Paris drowning victim from the late 19th century known as the ‘Unknown of the Seine’. Tore Lærdal (2013) referred to Anne’s face in a TedX talk as ‘The face of death to become the face of life – the face of modern resuscitation’. Developing a prototype in 1960 was not enough to know whether Resusci-Anne could successfully be used to train non-medical bystanders in the actual use of CPR techniques. To test the theory, a study amongst 6,500 children in Stavanger area schools assessed whether they would learn better from using the mannequin than from more traditional lecture techniques on first aid. Following the success of the study with the school children, Åsmund Lærdal then convinced the local savings bank association to donate 700 mannequins to all schools in the country. Norway thus became the first country in the world to have compulsory training in CPR for all students (Lærdal, 2013). That early implementation and follow-up using education effectively has contributed to Norway’s global top ranking in bystander CPR use in emergency situations. Also, a higher percentage of people suffering cardiac arrest outside hospitals will survive in Norway than anywhere else in the world (Perkins et al, 2016).

The success of Resusci-Anne as a teaching tool spread quickly, and today Laerdal is a global entity providing learning programs and equipment for life saving, long ago leaving

‘Unknown of the Seine’

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Åsmund Lærdal, Peter Safar, and Bjørn Lind

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share. A common misconception related to the use of an AED and its powerful electrical charge is that a potential Good Samaritan could ‘do harm’ to a victim of cardiac arrest by using it incorrectly. The opposite is true. The machine assesses cardiac activity and will only deliver a charge if there is no heartbeat. Because the window between the loss of a heartbeat and either death or permanent catastrophic loss of brain function is a short ten minutes, empathetically holding the hand of a victim rather than using either CPR or an available AED will only hasten a fatal ending. Why not take that box off the wall and get to work!

Fortunately, international school communities are amongst the most enlightened activists educating a society of current and future Good Samaritans. Through first aid training programmes and well-resourced campus environments, students and faculty members today are commonly taught how to correctly administer CPR using Resusci-Anne and have access to AEDs. Many international school mission statements refer to the goal of educating responsible future global citizens, and the correlation to learning life-saving techniques is easily understood and implemented. The same proactive thinking is practised in many government school systems around the world, sometimes through national or local mandates. Whilst life-saving training is not yet a universal requirement in all schools and countries, extensive educational research offers strong evidence about the effectiveness of instituting such programmes (Hansen et al, 2017; Fuchs, 2018; Mitamura et al, 2015; Phillips, Martin and Ellis, 2017; Salciccioli et al, 2017; VanAken et al, 2017).

Bystander CPR continues to evolve. The recent introduction of ‘Hands-Only CPR’ is seen as a method to encourage bystanders who may be hesitant to deliver mouth-to-mouth breathing. Delivering chest compressions at the speed of one hundred beats per minute has shown positive results.

Too busy saving a life to worry about counting? Then just do chest compressions humming along to the beat of the Bee Gees’ song ‘Staying Alive’, which coincidentally correlates perfectly (Keep the beat).

Another evolution of the original training idea includes the introduction of ‘MiniAnne’ which is a low-cost, inflatable version of the head and torso of Resusci-Anne. Students are taught CPR on the MiniAnne in school and then they take her home to train other family members – especially grandparents – in its use. Why grandparents? Because they are at the highest risk, most cardiac arrests happen in the home, and today’s elder generation are often the least likely to have attended a training course themselves.

Good progress has also been made in training emergency dispatchers sitting in the ambulance office how to walk a bystander through the CPR steps over a telephone to keep the compressions going until the medical personnel arrive to take over (Tjomsland, 2015).

As for Tore Lærdal (2013), he is following in the lifesaving footsteps of his father and has described his own ‘Aha Moment’. His ‘Aha’ came when visiting developing countries and realising steps needed to be taken to lower high childbirth mortality rates. Problems with infants breathing and with mothers hemorrhaging have cost too many lives.

Every day, 7,300 newborns die and 830 mothers die globally giving birth. Of these deaths, 99% happen in low-resource settings and are potentially preventable (Helping save mothers Autumn |

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behind the manufacture of toys. Whilst the ‘Unknown of the Seine’ face is the most well-known, the company also manufactures Resusci-Anne with a range of different ethnic faces to best match the continent where she will be used to help save lives. According to the American Heart Association, ‘Immediate CPR can double or triple chances of survival after cardiac arrest’. In addition, ‘Globally, cardiac arrest claims more lives than colorectal cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, influenza, pneumonia, auto accidents, HIV, firearms, and house fires combined’ (CPR Facts and Stats). Remarkably, in her role in training at least five hundred million people in CPR since 1960, Resusci-Anne can be credited with helping to save globally at least two and a half million victims of cardiac arrest (Resusci-Anne QCPR).

When Åsmund Lærdal died in 1981, it was 29-year-old Tore Lærdal who stepped into his father’s role heading the company. Today, still solely family-owned, Laerdal Medical, the Laerdal Foundation and Laerdal Global Health have continued to explore and develop a range of life-saving medical devices. The company motto, ‘Helping Save Lives’, accompanies their corporate logo image of the Good Samaritan – the passer-by who stops to help someone in need (Tjomsland, 2015). The Laerdal Vision continues to guide their decision-making: ‘No one should die or be disabled unnecessarily during birth or from sudden illness, trauma or medical errors’, while their goal is ‘Helping save 500,000 more lives every year by 2020’ (About Laerdal). Whilst many of its medical devices are designed today to be used in the most modern hospital settings, the core of the company values still reflects the purpose of teaching individuals how to provide the right assistance in the crucial first moments of emergency need before trained medical professionals can arrive on the scene.

Another prime example of this concept of enabling bystanders to step into action is the AED (Automated External Defibrillator). Now commonly seen in schools, airports, train stations and shopping centres, this innovative piece of equipment is another step forward in helping Good Samaritans to do the right thing at the right time. Laerdal is one of a number of companies which produce and distribute AEDs. Wisely, the various AED manufacturers cooperated in creating a product which works the same way, regardless of brand, to eliminate any confusion for the user. Also, through its colour-coded lights, it is not even necessary to understand the language of the instructions the AED’s verbal commands

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Tore Lærdal and babies). Through the development of high impact, innovative and inexpensive devices to help clear the baby’s airways and stop the mother’s bleeding, the Laerdal Global Health (LGH) Foundation is involved in another important project. LGH is a not-for-profit company created to help save the lives of mothers and newborns working in collaboration with the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics), and by early 2015 was implemented in 75 countries. The current goal is to help save the lives of 400,000 more babies and mothers per year by 2020 through training and supporting local birth attendants, often far from a hospital setting. The company plans to achieve this goal by working with partnerships to train and equip more than one million birth attendants who use ‘innovative solutions that are durable, simple, culturally adaptable and affordable’ (Helping save mothers and babies, and Tjomsland, 2015).

In 2015, the United Nations cited the Helping Babies Breathe project as one of ten transformative innovations in global health. In 2013, Laerdal Global Health was awarded the INDEX: Design to Improve Health Award. The largest award of its kind, the 100,000 Euro prize was donated by Laerdal to the ICM (International Confederation of Midwives), to continue to train and equip birth attendants in developing countries (Helping save mothers and babies). The Helping Babies Breathe and Helping Mothers Survive initiative (now also including the third generation of the Laerdal family) is the newest chapter of the fascinating story from the southwest coast of Norway demonstrating ‘Innovation is about impact’.

No one knows the real identity of the young girl whose body was pulled out of a river in Paris over a century ago.

Considering how many positive repercussions can be directly connected to the ‘Unknown of the Seine’, she truly has been globally impactful.

References [All online sources accessed April 2019] About Laerdal – Resources, product demos & more. Available at: https:// www.healthysimulation.com/laerdal/ Åsmund S Lærdal: Modeling & simulation hall of fame. Available at: www.simulationinformation.com/hall-of-fame/inductees/asmund-slaerdal

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CPR facts and stats. Available at: https://cpr.heart.org/AHAECC/ CPRAndECC/AboutCPRECC/CPRFactsAndStats/UCM_475748_CPRFacts-and-Stats.jsp Fuchs S (2018) Advocating for life support training of children, parents, caregivers, school personnel, and the public. Available at: https:// pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/141/6/e20180705.abstract Hansen, Zinckernagel, Ersbøll, Tjørnhøj-Thomsen, Wissenberg, Lippert, Weeke, Gislason, Køber, Torp-Pedersen and Folke (2017) Cardiopulmonary resuscitation training in schools following 8 years of mandating legislation in Denmark: A nationwide survey. Available at: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/JAHA.116.004128 Helping save mothers and babies. Available at: https:// laerdalglobalhealth.com/ Keep the beat, learn hands only CPR. Available at: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=O-xBqakqJ-M Lærdal T (2013) Collaboration breeds innovation. Available at: www. healthysimulation.com/6170/tore-laerdal-tedx-talk-collaborationbreeds-innovation/ Mitamura, Iwami, Mitani, Takeda and Takatsuki (2015) Aiming for zero deaths: Prevention of sudden cardiac death in schools–Statement from the AED committee of the Japanese Circulation Society. Available at: www. jstage.jst.go.jp/article/circj/79/7/79_CJ-15-0453/_article/-char/ja/ Perkins, Lockey, de Belder, Moore, Weissberg and Gray (2016) National initiatives to improve outcomes from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in England. Available at: https://emj.bmj.com/content/33/7/448 Phillips, Martin and Ellis (2017) A national survey of automated external defibrillator provision and training at secondary schools in Wales.

Available at: www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS01406736(17)33004-0/fulltext Resusci-Anne QCPR. Available at: www.laerdal.com/sg/products/ simulation-training/resuscitation-training/resusci-anne-qcpr/ Salciccioli, Marshall, Sykes, Wood, Joppa, Sinha and Lim (2017) Basic life support education in secondary schools: a cross-sectional survey in London, UK. Available at: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/1/ e011436.abstract Tjomsland, N. (2015) Saving more lives – together: The vision for 2020.

Stavanger, Norway.

Van Aken, Hessler, Brinkrolf, Bohn, Gottschalk (2017) Resuscitation training for schoolchildren worldwide: Kids save lives. Available at: https://journals.lww.com/anesthesia-analgesia/Fulltext/2017/04000/ Resuscitation_Training_for_Schoolchildren.47.aspx

Dr Linda Duevel graduated (or retired) in 2015 as Director after forty years at the International School of Stavanger.

Email: lindaduevel@gmail.com

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Educational reform: Henry VIII contributes to critical debate Simon Taylor examines lessons to be learned from history The English Reformation is associated with the dissolution of the monasteries, the separation of Tudor England from Rome’s Catholic influence and Henry VIII’s divorce(s). However, a more subtle reformation – in 21st century educational experiences – has been taking place in Portsmouth, UK, home port of Britain’s Royal Navy and resting place of Henry VIII’s flagship, The Mary Rose. The Mary Rose, a carrack-type warship, sank during a battle with the French in 1545. She lay on the seabed for over 400 years until she was raised from the Solent floor in 1982. Since then, an award-winning museum has been built around her and, from the equipment and supplies on board, she contributes one of the greatest collections of Tudor artefacts to be found.

So how has this historical event and nautical relic from the past been influential in reforming educational experiences in the present day? The answer lies on the seabed, or more specifically on how she got to the seabed. By taking students out of their usual classroom and asking the question What sank the Mary Rose?, the museum’s Education Department, working initially with International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma students and staff from Portsmouth Grammar School UK, has set up a day-long, cross-curricular enquiry for Sixth Form students – which is also now open to students from all

schools, exploring critical thinking in its broadest sense.

Theories abound, and imagination stirs. Was the recent refit to blame, with too many heavy guns placed on the higher decks? Was it a sudden gust of wind, with lower gun ports left open? Was it a French cannonball, or friendly fire?

Was it too sudden a turn? Was it disorder or incompetence within the (foreign) crew? Or a combination of these?

These questions pit the historical and archaeological evidence against the scientific. Not all correspond though, and in the battle of corroborating and conflicting evidence, students are challenged to step back out of the cross-fire, and to think critically about both the detail and the big picture. They are encouraged to evaluate their observations and to draw conclusions about the nature of knowledge in general, as well as within specific disciplines such as history and science. The broadside of documentary evidence comprises written accounts and drawings, some English, some French, one in code, some contemporaneous, some retrospective, some modern. These self-contradict and are not all consistent with an examination of the ship itself or hands-on experiments with scientific concepts such as ‘centre of gravity’ and ‘centre of buoyancy’. At the end of theand Mary Rose? the session, each studentWhat group sank presents defends their

Critical Thinking Experience Day

At the end of the session, each student group presents and defends their hypothesis of what sank the Mary Rose.

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Portsmouth Grammar School students hypothesis of what sank the Mary Rose and, as the smoke of conflicting theories clears, how they have ordered and/or reconciled the clashes of evidence. In so doing, they reflect more broadly too on what they have learnt of the nature of knowledge in its different aspects.

Students think critically and abstractly, across traditional subject boundaries, as well as within a subject’s established methods and conventions. The IB Diploma’s Theory of Knowledge course encourages this ‘meta-thinking’ specifically, as do critical-thinking programmes and of course traditional subject disciplines as well, to the extent that they explore awareness of their own limitations, scope and purpose.

However, not always is the dilemma so neatly encapsulated as in this fascinating excursion into the past, with 21st century perspectives, cutting-edge technology and fierce teenage scrutiny.

On reflection then, yes, perhaps a reformation of educational experience is too strong a claim – but keeping history alive and learning present-day lessons from the past are not. Thank you, Henry, for this opportunity, even if it was an unintended consequence of a particularly bad day for your navy.

Simon Taylor is Director of IB at Portsmouth Grammar School, UK. Email: s.taylor@pgs.org.uk Further information about the Mary Rose can be found via https://maryrose.org/, and interesting international parallels and differences can be found by comparing it to Stockholm’s Vasa (https://www.vasamuseet.se/en).

Students think critically and abstractly, across traditional subject boundaries, as well as within a subject’s established methods and conventions.

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Leading with ‘impact’: A possible counterpoint to tribalism Tim Logan tries to move beyond ‘us vs them’

‘At present, opinion is divided about the subjects of education. All do not take the same view about what should be learned’ (Aristotle, The Politics, 384–322 BC) Optimistically, Christakis suggests a way to temper this tribalism. By levelling our analysis ‘up’ or ‘down’, we can connect with other identities and perspectives that may unite rather than divide us. We could shift a level ‘up’ to the ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson, 1983) of unifying national or supranational identity – such as French, European or ‘Afropean’ (Pitts, 2019). Alternatively, we could shift a step ‘down’ to the level of the individual, in order to connect with the common humanity that resides in all of us. To provide further illustration, Christakis draws the metaphor of

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differentiating two adjacent hills. As we stand and compare one, at 300 feet high, with another much taller at 900 feet, we interpret significant differences between the two hills. However, if we were able to transcend our particular perspective, we would realize that these were, in fact, two mountains of very similar height (10,300 feet and 10,900 feet) shaped by powerful tectonic forces, our distorted magnitudes caused by the fact that we had been viewing them from a plateau at 10,000 feet high.

In my view, this understanding of our natural propensity towards tribalism (for good or ill), and ways to transcend it, is a productive avenue for considering how we might similarly accept, but rise above, our educational tribalism. Shifting our focus ‘up’ to the level of the ‘impacts’ we want to have on our students might provide a way to gain the unifying perspective we very much need – an acknowledgement of the shared plateau on which we are all standing.

In a significant recent development in accreditation of international schools, this shift is an important feature of NEASC/CIE’s ACE Learning accreditation protocol. Based on Curtis and McTighe’s (2016) work on the Input-OutputImpactTM framework, ACE Learning transfers our strategic focus from outputs to impacts. This helps us to move beyond debates about programme design, qualifications, curriculum and instruction (though we will return to them, of course), in order to concentrate primarily on our intended outcomes for our students – where we might find consensus.

According to Curtis (2015), impacts represent a school’s ‘highest goal for student learning, often [though not necessarily] spanning academic areas.’ Impacts are longterm, performance-based learning outcomes that deepen over time and involve autonomous transfer of the acquired attribute/aptitude to new situations by the student. To take this analysis further, beyond their duration and depth, impacts may be clearly visible in the ‘processes and products of student learning’ (Curtis, 2015). However, others – such as value change or character development – are more intangible, posing interesting ongoing challenges for ‘capturing’ these impacts. Similarly, while we set out to produce particular impacts, the diversity of our students and the complexity of our communities may also produce a range of unintended impacts beyond our intentionality and control. However, despite such complexities, the desired Autumn |

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As human beings, we have always told ourselves stories in order to help us make sense of our situation. One of these abiding stories is an ‘us vs them’ narrative, which runs deep in our collective culture and psyche, with fascinating and unexpected consequences. In his enlightening new book, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, Nicholas Christakis excavates the biological reality of this tribal narrative that is, he maintains, an evolved feature of our ‘social suite’ – the set of characteristics that has helped us to flourish and build the (generally) functioning society that we now enjoy. Despite contributing to the inevitable notions of difference and otherness, tribalism has been essential in enabling us to identify as part of a manageable group and build cooperative relationships.

It almost goes without saying that, in our current turbulent times, this tribalism is evident everywhere – in our fractured politics, in our mainstream and social media, even in our divergent approaches to knowledge and truth. In our educational debate too, anyone who has spent any time on #eduTwitter in recent years will recognise similar trends: vocal proponents of ‘knowledge-rich’, ‘research-informed’ approaches failing to find much common ground with ‘21st century’, inquiry-centred advocates. But stepping back from our myopia to take a longer view, it is clear that this tribal debate in education has been raging for thousands of years [see Robinson’s (2013) illuminating book charting the history of the trivium (and Stephen Taylor’s great review in IS Spring/ Autumn 2015)]. So, this is nothing new!

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Examples of mission/vision statements impacts that we specify in our various guiding statements should be the level of analysis that unites us as educators – as instances of our common ‘moral purpose’ (Fullan, 2001).

By way of an example, a young person’s ability to think and engage critically with the world is generally agreed by most to be a desirable impact of schooling. This is clearly evident in many schools’ mission/vision statements (see image).

Examining this impact further, some might claim that our students would find it difficult to think critically unless they have a lot of knowledge and understanding about the object of their thinking (Hendrick, 2016). Others may claim that students’ critical faculties will remain under-developed unless they have been given the opportunity and freedom to practise, struggle, fail and succeed to think through the issues independently (van Gelder, 2005). Nevertheless, wherever we stand on these perspectives, agreement remains on the aspiration – a shared desire to leave a strong and lasting impact on our students’ critical cognitive abilities. From there, we can design backwards to the inputs and outputs required to achieve such an impact. However, this is where the real work begins. Within our communities, we then need rich, research-engaged and ongoing dialogues in order to agree on the structures and processes that best bring about and evaluate these impacts. This is far from straightforward, and requires strong leadership – but at least we can be confident that we are starting from a place of consensus about our desired impacts, to which we can always return when things begin to descend back into tribal factions.

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References Anderson B (1983) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso Aristotle (1905) Aristotle’s Politics. Oxford: Clarendon Press Christakis N (2019) Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society.

New York: Little, Brown Company Curtis G and McTighe J (2016) Leading Modern Learning. A Blueprint for Vision-Driven Schools. Bloomington: Solution Tree Press Curtis G (2015) What is a Vision without Impacts? [Online]. Greg Curtis Consulting. Available from: http://gregcurtis-consulting.ca/dir/ blog/2015/06/04/what-is-learning-without-impacts/ [Accessed 7 June 2019] Fullan M (2001) Leading in a Culture of Change. San Francisco: JosseyBass Hendrick C (2016) Why Schools Should Not Teach General Critical Thinking Skills [Online]. Aeon. Available from: https://aeon.co/ideas/ why-schools-should-not-teach-general-critical-thinking-skills [Accessed 8 June 2019] Pitts J (2019) Afropean: Notes from Black Europe. London: Penguin Robinson M (2013) Trivium 21c: Preparing young people for the future with lessons from the past. Carmarthen: Crown House Publishing van Gelder T (2005) Teaching Critical Thinking: Some Lessons from Cognitive Science. College Teaching, 53(1), 41-46

Tim Logan is an endorsed consultant with NEASC to support schools with accreditation.

Email: tlogan@futurelearningdesign.com

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On overcoming misunderstandings about an academic institution Dzenana Ceman turns the spotlight on crisis communication in international education

Even if it’s a minority who are voicing controversial and opposing views, it’s essential not to dismiss those voices.

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In The Power of Communication, Dr Garcia (2012) says that ‘the rule that I’ve always used in coaching clients in a crisis is that you can’t meet emotion with logic. You have to meet it with emotion; once that emotional connection is made you can move the audience to a conclusion with logic’. In his book, the lesson for leaders and communicators is to ‘resist saying what merely sounds good in the moment’. This is essential, as many leaders when approached with a crisis, may be tempted to do just that – say whatever is going to please the audience.

An IB community blog titled ‘International education in a world of fake news and filter bubbles’, written by educator Louise Badham, explains that ‘prejudices and beliefs are reinforced to such an extent that it has even been questioned whether our capacity to distinguish fact from fiction has been jeopardized’. She further states that ‘In this post-truth world, incendiary rhetoric is perpetuated via social media, creating divisions and enhancing existing tensions across states, cultures and peoples, all of which undermine basic principles of tolerance and unity which are the heart of international education.’ We live in a society where misinformation has the potential to create a frame for one’s institution that might not necessarily be the frame the institution desires in order to tell its story. It is the duty of an academic institution to provide a context and frame that speaks to its intended audience before introducing any facts.

Over a decade ago, when the International Baccalaureate’s programs were being part-funded in individual public schools and districts in the United States, rather provocative news headlines gained much attention. An article published in The Guardian, titled ‘All American Trouble’ (Walters, 2006) referred to a US school district that had banned the International Baccalaureate and labeled it as ‘‘un-American’ and Marxist, sparking outrage among pupils who are studying the increasingly popular diploma’ and noted that during further election debates, some of the board of governors ‘hurled accusations at the IB’s content, claiming that its teaching is anti-Christian, un-American and Marxist’.

While this might not be an ‘acute crisis’ situation, we need to ask ourselves:

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At times, academic institutions face challenges that can dangerously impact the reputation of an institution or program. I am not talking about a parent who is upset with the way things are at an individual school and who is fixated on writing a negative Google review. Rather, I am talking about an aspect of Public Relations, known as crisis communication.

How can something as small as a misunderstanding about a school’s program be considered a crisis?

Recently, I interviewed a New York University professor and an expert in crisis communication management, Dr Helio Fred Garcia. My goal was to inquire whether certain misunderstandings about a school’s program, goals or mission fall into the category of crisis communication.

According to Dr Garcia, there is a difference between ‘acute crisis’ and ‘chronic crisis’. Acute crisis calls for something that has occurred ‘suddenly’ and is rather ‘urgent’. Chronic crisis, on the other hand, ‘builds slowly, exists over time, it can be worse over time and has a potential to alienate people along the way’. How does one measure severity of a crisis? Trust. For schools that find themselves in the situation where the lack of trust among its constituents is at stake, it becomes crucial to ‘name the problem clearly in order to prevent reality of risks’. Of course, it can happen that some misunderstandings are inadvertent and therefore produce critics. And Dr Garcia emphasizes that focusing on the solution is as important as focusing on the problem itself.

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• Are any aspects of these headlines going to be addressed, whether they relate to elitism or to the IB being considered ‘un-American’?

• Is the implementation of the IB alienating anyone in the process?

• Is there a potential for loss of trust?

Even if it’s a minority who are voicing controversial and opposing views, it’s essential not to dismiss those voices. In Global Education under Attack, Bunnell (2012) concluded that, with growing numbers of IB schools in the United States, has grown also a strong opposition. Dismissing the ‘attack’ as outlandish or a product of anti-internationalism or American conservatism would also mean not considering the ‘broader implications of the attack’. Bunnell argued that the attack on the IB ought to be taken seriously as such criticism can affect the credibility of international education.

At a recent international education seminar, I asked a simple question which, now when I think of it, is a great way to start a professional development day at one’s school.

I asked, Who is the most credible messenger for your school?

While the representatives in the room came from various parts of the world, it became apparent that everyone had a different answer to this question. The responses I received varied from ‘administrator’ to ‘IB Coordinator’ to ‘student’. I felt a sense of pressure from my audience to provide them with the ‘correct’ answer. According to Dr Garcia, the real answer depends on who you, as an institution, are trying to influence. Questions one should ask as a school include:

• Who is the most credible messenger for your school?

• What is the best way to deliver the message?

• How emotionally invested are your stakeholders?

Knowing one’s audience and meeting them where they are is a must. When confronted by a situation that might result in distrust, it’s a leader’s duty to provide an emotional connection triggered by language. That language as articulated by a school’s leader serves to create a frame for that particular academic institution. And only then, when a frame has been eloquently articulated, can that frame be peppered with facts that your stakeholders need to hear.

References Badham L (2018) International education in a world of fake news and filter bubbles. Available from: https://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2018/12/12/ international-education-in-a-world-of-fake-news-and-filter-bubbles/ Bunnell T (2012) Global Education Under Attack. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang GmbH. Garcia F H (2012) The Power of Communication. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc. Walters J (2006) All American Trouble. The Guardian. Available from: www.theguardian.com/education/2006/mar/14/schools. schoolsworldwide

Dzenana Ceman is an IB educator at Vienna International School, Austria, and is currently also a part-time PhD student.

E-mail: dkc28@bath.ac.uk

• What is the best way to understand the IB or your school?

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Linguistic autobiographies of international students as a starting point for research Clare Brumpton, with ISL students and staff

Finding our focus Each Research Institute runs for a school year and begins with several weeks of exploratory activities. These are designed to get students thinking more deeply about something they otherwise take for granted, making connections and easing them into a more critical mindset. We always choose language as our starting point, because most students arrive at ISL with two or more languages and so it is something of which they already have direct experience. It also means that their expertise is not restricted by their proficiency in the majority language: many of the students in the group have started learning English in the past 2-3 years. This is key to our work. We believe that every student has expertise in their own experiences, and that these can be the basis of powerful work. We do not ‘teach’ research methodology – or teach in the traditional sense at all.

Instead, the students generate a range of possible questions and then narrow them down collaboratively. They go on to design the methodology, analyse the data and formulate their conclusions in the same way. This is a student-led project and process, with the staff involved in a facilitator’s role rather than a traditional teaching role.

ISL students write: From language stories to research question The exploratory activities begin with our ‘language stories’.

These creative biographical accounts have immense power to communicate each person’s experiences with languages and their cultural backgrounds. They are full of researchable

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themes which can be developed into possible research questions. For this reason we were introduced to language stories at the very beginning of our research journey. The first stage is to read and thematically analyse language stories produced by international students in other international schools (see Carder, 2007) and from previous years (at ISL Surrey, UK). We used these as inspiration to write our own. We started by creating a timeline that showed which languages we spoke, when they were introduced to us, and which countries we’ve lived in. We then put this into a story and described how these languages have impacted our lives, how they’ve changed our identities over time, and how they made us the international students we are today.

This year, the themes that emerged from these stories were accents, language acquisition and language loss, languages in dreams, and parental linguistic influence. Through the process of ‘funnelling’ (narrowing down topics of interest) and a group discussion on whether each potential question was do-able, innovative and interesting, we came up with a research question: “Does the summer holiday affect fluency in L2 English, and to what extent?”. As the work on the project has kept us all interested and engaged until the very end, it seems we chose the right question!

To our knowledge, language stories are more commonly used as a method of data collection rather than to find

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ISL staff write: The Research Institute at the International School of London (ISL) is an innovative extra-curricular activity that allows Middle Years students to plan, conduct and present an original research study. It challenges them to go beyond the requirements of the curriculum and to engage with rigorous empirical work: the sort of activity that most would only encounter in the later stages of university education. It is not selective by academic ability. In this article, we describe one part of our process, the lessons we have learned and how other schools can get involved.

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ISL student researchers themes of interest which could lead to a research question.

The thematic analysis of language stories at the very beginning was a good way of being introduced to the research process, so it made it easier for us to develop further steps in our research. Students in international schools have rich multicultural experiences we can reflect on and, as shown, our language stories can serve as a springboard for innovative research in international schools.

ECIS MLIE Conference In April 2019, we presented our project (and the language stories that inspired it) at the London-based ECIS Multilingualism in International Education (MLIE) conference. This conference gives educators and researchers an opportunity to learn about, discuss and reflect on best practice in the field of language pedagogy and home language development. It was a chance for us to present for the first time in front of an adult audience outside of school, and to communicate our work and findings with a group of people who understood the field from their own research and work. We ran a workshop based on the process of using language stories to reach a research question. The audience were given the chance to write their own language stories, to work with others to analyse themes, and to suggest possible areas of research based on these. We presented our poster to teachers and researchers, giving us the chance to meet lots of people who were interested in finding out more about our work. We also got to interview some of the main academics and researchers at the conference, and asked what advice they would give to young researchers – as well as finding out about their favourite parts of the research process.

Being a researcher: What we’ve learnt and enjoyed “My favourite bit in the research process was transcribing. It was nice to organize everything and colour code it so it was no longer a big mess, and I thought it was pretty fun to do!”

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“I really liked the fieldwork because it gave us a chance to actually go out and experience what researchers do when they interview people for something really important.” (Shirin) “The most important thing that I’ve learnt was analysing the data and narrowing down my findings, because I always had a hard time in doing that, and through the process that we did it was much easier.” (Fatima) “I’ve learned how to interpret the findings and find the best way to collect data, and my favourite stage was gathering the data.” (Ludovica) “My favourite part was writing the report because it is the final step when you finalise your thoughts and draw conclusions, which leads to feedback within the group, which has improved my own work.” (Kate) “I really liked it when we had the opportunity to present our research to other people, and they kind of understand it, they are amazed by what you do, and it’s a really nice feeling!” (Cecilia) “One of my favourite moments was when we were trying to find a film for the film retelling task (data collection tool), because we had several films and they were all very different.

We had different opinions about which one to choose. It was fun to see how we all moved from different ideas and came up with one film we all liked.” (Carlo) Reference Carder M (2007) Bilingualism in International Schools: A Model for Enriching Language Education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters

Student contributors to this article are Fatima, Carlo, Justin, Ludovica, Lina, Shirin, Graydon, Katherine, Cecilia.

Research facilitators are Clare Brumpton (Head of Research Centre, ISL) and Mirela Dumić, and Dr Robert Sharples, University of Bristol, is Academic Advisor.

If you would like to get your school involved, email cbrumpton@isllondon.org

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Science fairs – still relevant?

Anthony Artist believes so, and here’s why...

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everyone (and I mean everyone) knows it is happening. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Science fairs also impact parents. The student presentation might be an independent project, but parents inevitably become involved by assisting, purchasing, advising and motivating their children. Parents will also feel obliged to attend the fair itself, and might have to take time off work to do so. But, do we ever question the validity of the science fair? Does it add anything to student growth, or are we just celebrating science for the sake of it?

A different model?

Science fairs in the lower school at ACS Cobham International School, UK are slightly different. During the school year, students work through a series of topic-related science activities, after which parents come to school and work through the same science activities with their children.

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Science fairs are rooted in American culture. You may have seen them in movies, and you might even have organised or attended one yourself. There is also frequently a competitive element to such fairs, with cash prizes or scholarships on offer. But do they have an impact on student growth, and do they have a place in international education? Typically, at science fairs students present projects in the form of a report, display or model. It might be an electrical circuit, an erupting volcano, or a paper bridge. The presentation typically endeavours to engage and entice the passer-by to find out more about the all-singing and all-dancing piece of work, and the presenters, eager or otherwise, endeavour to share findings with friends, adults, administrators ‌ anybody really who is walking past and pauses to listen.

Student presentations at science fairs require a lot of preparation and hard work, and this is not just from the student. Teachers dash around to ensure a physical space is booked, ensure the resources are in place, and ensure

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Science is objective, data-driven, and factbased. Science does not discriminate. Science does not have a hidden agenda, and it transcends political and cultural boundaries.

learning and understanding of the work studied over the previous few weeks. Recently, I held a science fair for our Grade 2 (7 to 8-year-old) students and their parents. The theme was ‘Materials’, and during the fair both students and parents described a variety of materials, created marshmallow and spaghetti towers, and tested the absorbency of kitchen towels. Earlier in the year, Grade 1’s science fair focussed on ‘Light and Sound’, while Grade 3’s focussed on ‘Forces and Simple Machines’.

After organising and running science fairs for a number of years, it is clear to me that students grow from the experiences. Working with their relatives, students have the opportunity to communicate, engage, and show their interest and expertise in science. Concrete curriculum links are established in the students’ minds, which then facilitate further growth in different topic areas. Many students also re-create experiments at home, thus further demonstrating interest, commitment, and a passion for science. Science

fairs celebrate science. Science is objective, data-driven, and fact-based. Science does not discriminate. Science does not have a hidden agenda, and it transcends political and cultural boundaries. Do science fairs have a place in international education? You bet they do!

My final science fair this year was for our Grade 4 students and parents, and was based on the ‘Geology’ unit. Students and parents travelled back in time 175 million years, and created the Pangaea by moving a cut-out map of the world on a sticky and resistant layer of syrup. They also created working volcanoes and streams of lava with food colouring, bicarbonate of soda, and vinegar. To top things off, they created and tested earthquake-resistant buildings!

Incidentally, this science fair also coincided with our ‘Crazy Hair Day’, a day when students (and staff) decorate their hair and donate to registered charities. The expression ‘mad scientist’ certainly crossed my mind on more than one occasion throughout the day!

So, are science fairs still relevant, with a place in international education? A categorical ‘yes’. Do they impact student growth? Absolutely!

Anthony Artist teaches science in the lower school at ACS Cobham International School, UK. Email: aartist@acs-schools.com

Do science fairs have a place in international education? You bet they do!

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Is the IB Diploma for everyone? SEE Learning certainly is Carol Inugai-Dixon evaluates a new socialemotional and ethical learning curriculum

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Approaches to Learning (ATLs) further emphasize social and emotional wellbeing as well as thinking and research skills, all of which are necessary to inform responsible action. The Theory of Knowledge (TOK) course is crucial for refining critical thinking and expanding awareness of the nature of knowledge and how it impacts our decisions and actions.

The Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) component of the IBDP core links learning to agency and action. But none of these essential qualities of international mindedness are assessed and awarded a numerical score as the six group subjects are.

And of course this highlights the point that it is the high and overriding significance given to those subject assessment scores that ultimately leads to the idea that the IBDP is not for everyone, resulting in a large part of the written curriculum remaining just that rather than being manifested in practice.

Over the years, I have been in discussions where it has been suggested that the way to increase the practising of the written principles describing the development of international mindedness would be to identify its qualities and then assess them using criteria in a similar manner to the way in which this is done with the other IB Diploma subjects.

The suggestion was invariably rejected with the argument that, whereas students might quickly learn to display the

A student sharing a resource for SEE Learning for young children.

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In a recent casual conversation with fellow educators, someone brought up the notion that International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma students have so much work to contend with that their physical health is sometimes at risk. Another responded with the idea that the Diploma Programme (DP) is not for everyone, suggesting a kind of ‘survival of the fittest’ approach to education. There was general agreement, and the conversation moved on to another topic. I missed the opportunity to voice my lack of agreement then but, having just finished planning some classes on the concept of agency, I think I should do so now.

Education serves many purposes. Providing qualifications for further education and future employment is one of them, and it is important. The IB Diploma is a seminal example of a qualification that is well respected for its rigorous assessment, and hence validity for entrance to universities around the world. On the other hand, the Diploma Programme is fundamentally an expression of the IB mission which has an overriding goal to make a better and more peaceful world through education for international mindedness. So what is implied then, if the IBDP is not for everyone, is that the mission is to be left in the hands of an elite who have the stamina and wherewithal to take and pass the DP examinations. Surely a lesson from the early twentieth century is that such top-down systems do not yield peace and a world of wellbeing that is better for all. Rather, among the original drivers of the DP was the aim of promoting the development of critical thinking as a guard against blind allegiance to authoritarianism, and of aiding the flourishing of individual agency for participation in a democracy working to maximize the wellbeing of others as well as oneself. This means that an international education, as conceived in the IB mission, must be for everybody. And it must develop the personal attributes, conscious awareness and embodied values that will underpin the agency and actions of an internationally minded person. These are essential qualities and are additional to academic prowess.

There are, in fact, many references to the essential qualities of an internationally minded person to be found in IB documentation beyond the mission statement. The Learner Profile, said to be the IB mission statement in action, describes the ideal student as knowledgeable but also caring, compassionate, emotionally well-balanced, and responsible in his or her actions to respect all people everywhere. The

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A poster linking IB Approaches to Learning (ATLs) and SEE Learning. prescribed criteria, there would be no way to know that these were necessarily authentic indicators of the transformative nature of the aspirational education being referred to in the concept of international mindedness. But no other suggestions were ever given instead. And so schools deal with the issue as best they can.

In my experience, how much the aspirational dimension of the IBDP has been core practice or perfunctorily side-lined has rather depended on the vagaries of individual leadership.

And as I have worked in a range of situations, I have come to suspect that those who have side-lined it sometimes just did not know what to do. Maybe this is partly because beyond the descriptors there has been no explicated curriculum framework or scope and sequence of practices available, either from the IB or from other providers. Or rather there hasn’t been, until the launch in April 2019 of SEE Learning.

SEE Learning is a social-emotional and ethical learning curriculum developed by Emory University in the USA. It is an evidence-based framework with a scope and sequence for elementary students upwards. Informed by contemplative science, neuroscience, psychology and education, the teaching resources for elementary and middle school are already available, along with an orientation course. Materials for older students will become available soon. The strengths of SEE Learning are numerous. On a very practical level, it provides a clear curriculum that can be planned for and timetabled, along with a rationale that will make sense to parents and teachers, as well as (of course) to students. It builds on and extends the current range of social-emotional Spring

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learning available, to include practices for the development of higher order emotions such as compassion. Through this, the natural link between social and emotional wellbeing and ethical action becomes clear. Most importantly, this link is developed through nurturing personal critical insight leading to transformational learning and not through didactic sermonizing. Furthermore, with an understanding of systems thinking students learn how ethical action at the very local level of their individual agency will have global outcomes.

SEE Learning most certainly is the missing piece that many of us, drawn to the DP because of the IB mission, have been hoping and searching for as a means of completing a holistic curriculum for developing international mindedness.

Its significance for shifting the central focus away from examination scores towards the original mission is enormous.

To inform authentic agency, SEE Learning can connect and invigorate the potential powerful leverage of the Learner Profile attributes, ATLs and TOK that currently lack strong cohesion. And because it is developmental, all students can participate. It is absolutely for everybody. And actually that also includes those who are not in IB contexts, since the orientation and resources are online and free – and can be found here: https://seelearning.emory.edu/user/register Carol Inugai-Dixon is Visiting Professor at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, and President of the Japan Association of Research into IB Education Email: inugai-d.carol.fp@un.tsukuba.ac.jp

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ReVERBeration: a collaborative, international, sound sculpture project Greg Morgan on a creative initiative that has brought 12 schools together

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Some participating centres developed cross-curricular projects involving several subject areas and year groups. In other cases, just a single student within a school participated.

Whilst the project is centred on sound sculptures as vehicles for communication, conventional visual arts experience and expertise were not required. To enable the various centres within our network to share their ideas and ongoing work, Anton Hazewinkel at The High School Affiliated to Nanjing Normal University in China set up this blog-based hub: https:// reverberation.ib-art.space/ In May 2019 we transported ReVERBeration to St Paul’s church in Rome. The installation included a rhizomatic web of dozens of biomorphic sculptures, created by our Year 9 (8th Grade) students. Concealed within its tendrils were small speakers which played loops of reverberating audio that they had created in their Music lessons. This element of the main project was awarded the 2019 COBIS International Art Prize for group entries.

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My involvement with the International Baccalaureate as a Senior Examiner, and with Visual Arts curriculum design, has brought me into contact with an array of teachers, examiners and academics from around the world. As a consequence, I began to consider ways in which staff and students from my school, St George’s British International School (SGBIS) in Rome, might collaborate creatively with some of these remarkable people. Following initial discussions with my Head of School and with the Heads of Art and English at Wellington College UK, I began to formulate an idea for a new international initiative entitled ReVERBeration.

ReVERBeration is a collaborative, sound sculpture based, creative project. Twelve international schools have participated in the initiative. They are spread across China, Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Malta, Greece, Norway, Switzerland and the UK. Key fields and elements explored by participating schools have included Visual Art, Dance, Music, Performance, Science, Sport, Creative Writing, Virtual Reality and Poetry.

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Curriculum, learning and teaching Adjacent to this floor-based formation, Year 12 (11th Grade) students assembled a room-sized, metal structure.

Sculptures created by our IB Visual Artists were hung from and within this framework. The enclosing walls were made from huge, multi-layered, collaborative drawings created by other IB students as part of their IB Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS) programme. The drawings incorporated slots and windows that were strung with handmade ceramic bells.

The audience were encouraged to interact with these as they moved through the environment. A further concealed speaker relayed echoing recordings made by Italian language students of a range of vernacular interjections.

The project has been documented in Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper. It has also received fantastic feedback and endorsements from a number of international educationalists and academics including Professor Stephen Heppell.

Valentina Vinciaelli is an IB DP1 Visual Artist at St George’s.

Here she explains her experiences of the project:

“Reverberation is the persistence of a wave after it has been released. It is the echo after the sound has been produced. Having my sculpture being part of such grandness was a challenging yet enlightening experience.

For the first time, not only did I think about the individuality of the message it carried but also about how this could be valued internationally. I was inspired by the organic shapes of a human uterus: mother of all life.

Withies (thin willow sticks), chicken wire, tissue paper, and grey cardboard appeared to me as appropriate calls to earthly characteristics, and with those I, therefore, built a cylindrical tree-like structure representing the fallopian tube, which in turn holds a spherical component serving as the ovary.

The ‘Tree of Life’, as one of my peers described it, was generated gradually and kept flourishing day by day, ricocheting off my hands and into the world where it still blossoms as if it were always spring.

Reverberation is the truth magnified through space and time. It is our stories buoyed by the tide of art …”

Valentina’s classmate at SGBIS, Sophie Besselaar, described the project thus:

“Everything about this project reverberated.

For the design of our sculptures, we took images and contorted and distorted them until they created something new. We bounced ideas back and forth across the classroom to help each other out and give each other inspiration, and even on the final day of the exhibition, you could see how well the artworks reflected the surrounding architecture.

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from the outside world to your brain, as it represents this constant process of action and reaction, stimulus and response. This idea wasn’t there immediately; in fact, it was a fellow student who told me my initial plans looked like some kind of cell who gave me the idea. That was one of the things that made this project so creatively wild; we were in a room with twelve other students who were all making sculptures as big and crazy as they could, ranging from gigantic trumpets to modroc seahorses. To not have felt the reverberation in that room would’ve been an impressive feat.”

IB Visual Artists from The Moraitis School in Athens travelled as far as CERN in Switzerland as part of their research for the project. They also worked extensively with younger students for their school community. Eleni Gkotzaridi, an IB DP1 student, explained:

“Working with the children from our nursery was exciting, because never before had I used someone else’s voice in my art. It was very interesting to derive my own ideas through the conversations held by them.”

IB Visual Arts students at The High School Affiliated to Nanjing Normal University focused on experimentation and divergence. As Youyou Luo explains:

“You will never know the result from the beginning; you have to try it step by step and satisfied at the end. Art works are more attractive with both visual and auditory. It’s not enough with only visual presentation. The expression of projects should be stronger, stronger, and stronger!”

The project will continue to evolve in the future. In the autumn term my new IB Visual Arts cohort are creating wearable sculptures that develop the motifs of local and global interaction and communication further. We would be delighted to welcome new schools into the ReVERBeration network!

Greg Morgan is Head of Art and Design & Technology, and Lead Teacher for Creative Projects at St George’s British International School in Rome.

Email: greg.morgan@stgeorge.school.it

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Sponsored content

CAS Trips – redefining educational travel Simon Armstrong explains a fresh approach

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That better way revolved around fusing the pedagogy of the IB programme with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The 17 UN SDGs are a framework to achieve a better, more sustainable future for all by the year 2030. They entail 169 quantifiable targets which, when used as a lens to analyse and investigate students’ own cultures and communities, allow for the experiences from a CAS Trip in a foreign culture to be translated and applied to tackling situations in students’ hometowns and cities through their CAS output back home.

Incorporating the IB’s 7 Learning Outcomes and the programme’s core component of Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS), I collaborated with experts from the international school sphere and set about creating a skeleton program of CAS experiences in cooperation with NGOs, charities and community organizations in Prague, Czech Republic. We wanted to combine the adventure of travel and the essence of CAS to prove to our students that extracurricular activities, such as CAS or Service Learning, need not be a burden but can be incredibly rewarding and, most importantly, fun. Activities were designed in line with IB methodology: to push students out of their comfort zones to gain firsthand understanding of global issues on a local level before Autumn |

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As a global community of international teachers, we know from first-hand experience just how eye-opening and lifechanging travel can be. With the growing focus on experiential learning in international schooling and increased access to affordable travel, educational travel can offer a powerful and exciting avenue for personal development – but only if it is done right. By harnessing the power of travel to introduce, explore and engage with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) in some of the most fascinating places in the world, International Baccalaureate (IB)-inspired educational travel company CAS Trips are Redefining Educational Travel – all while staying carbon neutral.

The story of CAS Trips is one of innovation and ambition right from the start. Having taught at several international schools around the world in Europe, Asia and South America, I returned from leading one particular school trip to Vienna disappointed and underwhelmed. It was the last straw. I did not want to continue taking our students on superficial pre-packaged trips that were not meeting any learning outcomes. A colleague and I sat down to review what had gone wrong and decided there and then that there had to be a better way.

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Sponsored content immersing them in genuinely meaningful Service Challenges to give back to the community.

A prime example of a CAS Trips Service Challenge is the Homeless Cooking Challenge in Prague. Homelessness is stigmatized in every society, but CAS Trips’ partner NGO Pragulic offers the chance to form empathy and heighten understanding through a walking tour led by a recovering homeless guide. After the local context has been explored and possibly some stereotypes deconstructed, students are given a budget of €200 and a two-hour time limit in an industrial kitchen with the goal of cooking a meal for 50+ homeless people that night. It is entirely the students’ responsibility to budget, plan, prepare, organize and cook the dish. Needless to say, the two hours in the kitchen are lively as students set about creating their meal, which is often influenced by their own culture. This is a collaborative effort as everyone plays their part, eventually transporting the meal to CAS Trips’ partner homeless shelter, Nadeje.

The atmosphere in groups often changes markedly at this point. From the buzzing atmosphere of the kitchen and pride at what they have produced, students are often shocked as they witness the realities of what a homeless shelter actually is. After a tour around the facilities led by a volunteer, students are invited to help with the serving process. This is when the impact of the activity really hits home. It is designed to be fun and inclusive, but the bottom line is that all of the great work and enjoyment the students have had results in fulfilling a genuine community need. The homeless of Prague have received a delicious hot meal, the homeless shelter has been able to save valuable resources, and the students have gone through a process of genuine Service Learning.

Following the success of Prague, we expanded CAS Trips operations to Berlin, Edinburgh and Krakow in 2016 before opening programs further afield in Bhutan, China, Colombia, Peru, New York and Geneva.

CAS Trips place sustainability, in all its forms, firmly at our core. In each destination, CAS Trips work with the UN SDGs to identify the key issues affecting that specific society and also the organizations working to tackle them. By working directly with local communities and NGOs and employing local guides, CAS Trips strive to contribute toward national development locally and internationally, and students can help on both levels.

As educators, we want to inspire the next generation of leaders with experiential learning outside of the classroom to bring about a brighter future.

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But it is not just the economic and social aspects of sustainability to which CAS Trips look to give back more than they take away. As an international travel operator, the company recognizes its responsibility to nature and recently launched our own 17 CAS Trips Changemakers Goals, including a commitment to go 100% carbon neutral, planting a tree for every traveler and fighting one-use plastic.

Long-term impact and continuity are elements upon which CAS Trips place great emphasis. The Changemakers Challenge – a cornerstone of any CAS Trip – has been designed specifically with this in mind. In collaboration with educational consultants and IB experts, The Changemakers Challenge was created as an on-trip workshop to introduce students to the UN SDGs, giving them the necessary tools and framework to form small teams based on their ‘Changemaker Types’, and investigate, plan, organize and, ultimately, implement their own innovative CAS Project back home. Additionally, all CAS Trips include innovative Reflection Symposiums, which inspire students to craft meaningful reflections of their experience. These reflections come in all shapes and forms – from songs and creative videos to presentations, pieces of art, and written diary entries.

Innovation is right at the heart of everything we are aspiring to achieve at CAS Trips. The main reason we started this was to disrupt the complacent status quo of the industry to make a genuinely positive impact with student travel.

Sustainability and innovation are vital. As educators, we want to inspire the next generation of leaders with experiential learning outside of the classroom to bring about a brighter future.

With customizable curriculum-tailored trips, Global Student Exchange programs and Global Student Conferences, there are a range of programs for groups and individual participants. And with exciting new destinations in The Galapagos Islands, The Netherlands, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, along with internship and Global Ambassador opportunities available for students and teachers alike – all set to be announced in 2019, there is no better time to get involved.

Simon Armstrong is founder and Managing Director of CAS Trips (www.castrips.org).

Email: simon@castrips.org or info@ castrips.org for more information

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Sponsored content

How to ensure a successful placement for your employees Bal Basra considers why international assignments fail, and what employers can do to prevent it

Safeguard their health With international healthcare there can be lots of barriers to accessing local medical facilities and hospitals, let alone

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understanding the costs and procedures of treatment. Your employees need assurance that if anything were to go wrong their needs will be met, and that they can continue (if needed) treatment they are receiving in their home country. Therefore, an international health insurance plan is essential, as is the right policy. It’s also worth noting that in some countries certain prescribed drugs are illegal, such as painkillers or anti-depressants. Ensuring the assignee is aware of this initially could save a significant amount of time and effort.

The systems that support mental health, wellness screenings and general health awareness are ever growing.

Unfortunately not all areas of the world are at the same stage so it’s important to ensure that health insurance plans can Autumn |

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It has been estimated that international assignments in developed countries have a failure rate between 25% and 40%, and in under-developed countries this increases to 70%. Expat assignments are expensive, on average costing $300,000 per year, so when one fails employers may face significant financial loss. There are many contributing factors as to why placements fail, but fortunately there are a lot of preventative measures that can be taken in order to ensure a successful, productive and enjoyable placement for your employees, their families and ultimately your organisation.

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Sponsored content

In order to attract the right candidate early on and to maximise the chance of a successful experience, consider what benefits would add value and attract the right person. Benefits may include language training, comprehensive international health insurance and housing support. help nip any medical issues in the bud and can help with swift next steps if any issues are detected. Moving across the world away from an established support or healthcare system can be difficult, so ensuring adequate help for your employee’s health is essential.

Choose an International Private Medical Insurer that offers good local knowledge and has 24 hour emergency support so your employee has easy access to medical advice should anything happen. In order to prevent early termination of an assignment due to ill health, you should also consider a policy that includes preventative and routine care. Some aspects of health are inevitable – eyesight will change and will require regular check-ups, as will dental health. If you can offer your assignee an equal or better level of healthcare, it’s far less likely that this will be a reason for them to return home to access healthcare they are familiar with.

Attract the right candidate In order to attract the right candidate early on and to maximise the chance of a successful experience, consider what benefits would add value and attract the right person.

Benefits may include language training, comprehensive international health insurance and housing support. In turn, you’ll need a candidate who can adapt to new and unfamiliar social situations, someone who can respect and be open to experiencing unfamiliar cultures.

Cultural awareness and settling in According to a study by KPMG (2016) only 38% of organisations offer cultural training, yet this may prove crucial for a successful placement. Other cultures will differ from what

your employee is used to, and they need to be prepared for a new way of life to help them settle, ensure there are no surprises and help them prepare for what’s to come. Focus on topics such as customs, traditions, languages, business etiquette and social standards.

It’s worth considering that tasks such as paying phone bills, rent, registering your address etc may not be as simple or familiar as they are in your assignee’s home country. We recommend you put a pack together that covers how such tasks can be completed, as some countries will not be as developed in terms of technology and online services.

Transferring abroad to complete a work assignment can be incredibly rewarding, exciting and a fantastic experience for your employee. However, it’s important to make sure it’s as easy as possible for them to make the transition.

The smoother this transition is, the more likely it is to be successful and that they will stay in your organisation. Whilst the health insurance market place has evolved over recent times, expatriates’ core needs remain the same – ‘protect me and protect my family.’

Reference KPMG (2016) https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/xx/pdf/2016/10/ global-assignment-policies-and-practices-survey-2016.pdf

Morgan Price International Healthcare Ltd is a global private health insurance firm with offices around the world. They have over 20 years’ experience in helping expatriates and corporate companies ensure they get high quality, easy to access healthcare wherever they are. Their plans are easy to understand, flexible and ensure peace of mind for companies and their employees.

Bal Basra (Cert CII) is Head of Sales at Morgan Price International Healthcare Ltd – providing competitive health insurance plans to clients around the globe. [www.morgan-price.com] Email: info@morgan-price.com

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Science matters

Celebrating a scientific life Richard Harwood hails a living legend On 26 July 2019 James Lovelock passed the milestone of his 100th birthday. The author of the ground-breaking ‘Gaia Hypothesis’ (Lovelock, 2000) is one of the leading thinkers in presenting the environmental challenges facing us in terms of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, climate change and over-population.

In this book, and its sequels, Lovelock puts forward his idea that the Earth functions as a single organism. He explores the hypothesis that the Earth’s living matter influences air, ocean and rock to form a complex, self-regulating system that has the capacity to keep the Earth a fit place for life. A highly significant and original book, it can be viewed as being on a par with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as an influence on the development of the environmentalist movement.

Since Gaia was first published, Lovelock’s hypothesis has become a hotly debated topic in scientific circles. In subsequent books he has sought to address the questions and misgivings raised (see the preface to the third edition, and also The Revenge of Gaia, and The Vanishing Face of Gaia). Over the years he has also modified and adapted his thinking in line with further research and developments. A radical and fiercely independent thinker, he has been prepared to take unpopular lines of thought, not least when proposing that nuclear energy needs to be part of our energy provision as we move from dependence on a fossil fuel-based energy economy – a controversial proposition, but one that finds support in Goldstein and Qvist’s recently published (2019) A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow, based on policies pursued in Sweden, France and Ontario. Renewables have their place, but they are not continuous and cannot replace baseload electricity supply; it is also difficult and very expensive to store electricity. These are the arguments used by some, including Lovelock, in arguing that any future energy mix must include nuclear energy.

James Lovelock (Photograph taken in 2005

by Bruno Comby) All this is relevant in a context of increasing concern over national moves towards a carbon-free energy future, with Britain having recently set itself a target date of 2050. Increasing evidence of the progressive melting of both the Arctic and Antarctic icecaps, shifts in prevailing seasonal temperatures, and concern over deforestation of the Amazon and other rain forest regions (with reports of an area equivalent to 2000 football fields being lost daily in Brazil) all contribute to the urgency of the discussion – an urgency compounded by the reluctance of some key players to even acknowledge the evidence and nature of the problem.

The issues raised by Lovelock and others back in the 1970’s remain of great significance and make the contribution outlined in his books worth re-visiting. Even critics of the stronger aspects of the Gaia hypothesis recognise that ‘its study has … generated many new and thought-provoking questions’, and that ‘While rejecting Gaia, we can at the same time appreciate Lovelock’s originality and breadth of vision, and recognise that his audacious concept has helped to stimulate many new ideas about the Earth, and to champion a holistic approach to studying it’ (Tyrrell, 2013).

Intriguingly, Lovelock’s latest book, published in 2019, moves to new ground; namely the likely impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on our futures. Even at the age of 100, James Lovelock remains a source of valuable insights – a person worthy of the accolade of being ‘one of the world’s top 100 global public intellectuals’ (Prospect magazine, 2005) and ‘possibly the greatest environmental thinker of our time’.

References Goldstein J S and Qvist S A (2019) A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow, New York: Public Affairs Lovelock J (2000) Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, 3rd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press Lovelock J (2019) Novacene: the Coming Age of Hyperintelligence, London: Allen Lane Tyrrell T (2013) On Gaia: A Critical Investigation of the Relationship between Life and Earth, Princeton: Princeton University Press

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Email: rickharwood@btinternet.com Autumn |

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Aerial photo of the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station near Kincardine, Ontario, Canada

Dr Richard Harwood is an education consultant (scientific and international education).

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Fifth column

‘Sez who?’

E T Ranger questions the value of quotations How often do we quote those words of Felicity Upshott: ‘The longer the piece of string, the tighter it binds’? Not often, I suspect, because I have only just made them up. But we do frequently call upon other people’s words when we seek legitimacy or weight for our personal views. Why, and how well does it work? For a start, there are some quotations that don’t do it for me. There is that desk diary sent at Christmas by the school bus company or the catering contractors, which expresses an array of sentiments wildly irrelevant to your mission in life. Or worse than irrelevance, the themed daily pearls of wisdom seem to be hinting that your philosophy is in serious need of redesign. Just because Roger J Rogers wrote the exhortation, am I necessarily bound to obey?

In a way public quoting can be valuable. An international school contains colleagues – and families – who sincerely hold diverse values and outlooks. A slogan on the wall or a statement on the letterhead could be a good way to clarify the institutional priorities to those newcomers who live by a different formula. If individualism is your thing, tell the world; if community matters more, share it with everyone. I wonder how many mission statements were composed to enlighten outsiders, and how many to echo the assumptions of the majority?

Academic publications have their own particular needs. Instead of arguing every case from basic principles, researchers can declare whose work they are building on.

This saves writing, and openly commits the writer to a known school of thought; take it or leave it. In fact one of the first things an academic will do in surveying a publication is to look at the references. What kind of ‘-ism’ underpins this concept, what authority is this person building upon? Can we trust the source?

Is the fact that ancient words are still remembered a sign of their validity? There is a well-known prose-poem titled ‘Desiderata’, a catalogue of New Age sentiments, which frequently circulates with the attribution ‘found in Old St Paul’s Church, Baltimore, 1692’. Over the last 50 years this has been widely revered as a relic of the moral purity of the Founding Fathers, on the assumption that they originated

it. Actually, it was written in 1927 by an unsuccessful Indiana lawyer-poet named Max Ehrmann, and the date became linked to it when it was distributed by a rector of that church, which itself was founded in 1692. But did we need to know that? Does it make a difference?

Print itself has power. When my grandfather’s ship was caught blockade-running to Japan by the Russian Baltic Fleet in 1905, he had about ten minutes to gather his belongings before the ship was seized and sunk. This tough seaman took only one thing: a flowery print of a maudlin poem about separated lovers that his fiancée, my grandmother, had given him. Is it that we genuinely cannot find such good words, or is it the authority of print, that gives it more value than word of mouth?

The choice of people we quote is very important in our lives. Do you have a sense of someone who knows best, some ‘influencer’, some person whose moral compass you are happy to follow? There is a generation now for whom ‘celebrity’ is a virtue, and the respect once accorded to parents, teachers, or elders of the clan is now up for digital grabs. This matters deeply and professionally, because teaching requires that we are listened to. Is Kim Kardashian your students’ reference point for fashion, or in reality their general all-knowing source for existential wisdom? If your teenage students assert their independent views at home, is it you that they quote?

I’m a great admirer of Michel de Montaigne. In 1580 he wrote an essay ‘Of Pedantry’, exhorting thoughtful people to speak with their own voices and to renounce quotations that borrow authority from greater figures. This essay contains 29 quotations, but ends ‘[D]o I not the same thing almost throughout almost this whole composition? I go here and there, culling out of several books the sentences that best please me, not to keep them (for I have no memory to retain them in), but to transplant them into this; where, to say the truth, they are no more mine than in their first places.’ And if Montaigne thought so, it must be true!

There is a generation now for whom ‘celebrity’ is a virtue, and the respect once accorded to parents, teachers, or elders of the clan is now up for digital grabs.

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Alice in Education Land

This article is the first of a series of stories to be included as occasional contributions to International School magazine, created by Chris Binge in response to some of his experiences in international education. Intended to be provocative and amusing, they are also used to provoke discussion when he leads workshops.

Alice gets a job In which Alice begins a new journey and finds herself with a surprising opportunity

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on it, but the only writing that it bore were the two words “Open me”.

Alice had learnt before that interesting things can happen when you follow enigmatic instructions, so she opened the letter. It was from the office of the Red Queen.

O�fice of the Red Queen Headteacher Today Dear Alice, I am pleased to say that your application for a post as a teacher in Wonderland has been successful. You are now appointed as teacher of the pawns with immediate e�fect. Please report for school this very a�ternoon for your training and professional development.

I am sure you are looking forward to working in our fine establishment. pp Red Queen Alice wasn’t sure she ever remembered applying for such a job, which she found a little strange. It turned out to be one of the least strange things she discovered in the Wonderland of Education.

Into a classroom In which Alice encounters some strange values and meets some of the school community.

Alice drifted through the looking glass in a daze and landed softly on the cushions of the sofa on the other side.

As she came to her senses she could see that the room was as before, similar but eerily different from the one she had left. Everything was back to front again. The first thing she saw was a door on her right, or was it her left? She was already confused. The door had a number on it. The entire door was rather dirty, and the bottom particularly looked as though it had been kicked several times, with shoe marks on it and even a few dents. Further up were some rather grubby handprints, and the handle was loose. There was a small window in the door at head height for an adult. Alice Autumn |

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Alice was feeling drowsy as she sat on the sofa in the living room. While the weather was inhospitable and cold outside, the warmth of the fire had a soporific effect as she looked at the mirror above the fire and remembered her past adventures as a 6-year-old girl. Of course, she was much older now, and was a confident and knowledgeable adult because she had been through Education.

She always wondered whether to write the word education with a capital E or a small one. Capital E Education made her think of the systems and institutions that she had been through from kindergarten and school to university and college. It meant the names of the courses, the way they were organised and, of course, the qualifications that she had gained, which were now framed on the wall just next to the looking glass. education with a small e meant something different to her. It summed up what she had actually learned, what she knew and what she could do, how she understood the world and the skills she brought to bear on the bits she did not yet understand. The mystery was why these two seemed so different to each other, and why there seemed to be so little connection between the two. Two other words sprang to her mind as she reflected on her learning, and she knew that all good learners should reflect. She had been told that many times.

The two other words were “because” and “despite”. They seemed almost interchangeable in so many sentences, which left her even more confused than before. Did she learn because of school or despite it, because of exams or despite them, because of teachers or despite them? It was at that point she resolved to get to the bottom of the problem, using all the talents her education had given her. In short, she would find out whether she had gained an education because of her Education or despite it. The opportunity came sooner than she might have dreamed.

It grew colder in the living room for reasons that Alice could not quite explain, for the windows were closed and the fire still blazed. Yet, there seemed to be a breeze springing up, and coming from the fire. No, not from the fire, from the looking glass above the fire. There was something borne on the wind, fluttering in the air. A piece of paper? A letter? Yes, it was a letter and it floated through the glass into the sitting room to land on Alice’s lap. It looked formal as it had a crest

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Alice in Education Land

tried to peek in but could see nothing, as a piece of paper was attached to the other side covering the glass. Alice knew instinctively that this was a classroom door.

As she contemplated whether or not to open the door, the decision was taken away from her. It flew open accompanied by a noisy charge out of the room by a number of small pawns. Some were red and some were white, they were all running, most had smiles on their faces and they were chattering away to each other, to nobody in particular, to the air around them and to themselves. They bounced off each other, off the suffering and bruised door, off the corridor walls and even off Alice until she stood back to let them pass.

“There was a time”, said the door to Alice’s surprise, “when doors were respected. I was opened carefully, held back by the teacher and she shook hands with each child as they calmly walked out in single file. Now look at them. Look at the state of me! No respect!” Alice had never met a talking door

before, and certainly not a grumpy talking door. She looked to see where the voice was coming from, and found that one of the cracks, about half way down, was in fact a mouth. Alice was not sure about the correct way to address a door, so she felt she should err on the side of over-politeness.

“I am very sorry Mr Door, but would you mind if I pass through?” she asked with a little bow.

“If you must,” responded the door.

Alice walked into the classroom. The walls, the back of the door and even some of the windows were covered with pieces of work, posters and complicated evacuation instructions. The largest item, most centrally placed, looked like this: The School Values The school community … pursues mediocrity … avoids responsibility … celebrates conformity …

“There was a time”, said the door to Alice’s surprise, “when doors were respected. I was opened carefully, held back by the teacher and she shook hands with each child as they calmly walked out in single file. Now look at them. Look at the state of me! No respect!”

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Alice in Education Land

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There was more writing between each of the statements but it was too little to read, and Alice was already so struck by the tone of the main statements that she did not feel it necessary to engage with the small print.

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There was more writing between each of the statements but it was too little to read, and Alice was already so struck by the tone of the main statements that she did not feel it necessary to engage with the small print.

“My”, she said, “What a fascinating set of values! I wonder why they chose them.”

“Did you say something, dear?” said a voice in the corner of the room, tucked behind a desk and a pile of books. Alice had not noticed anyone there before and, with a start, realised that this must be the teacher. He had a kindly face with a slightly distracted smile. He was dressed in a white outfit with a slightly clerical appearance. His glasses were perched on the top of a rather pointed hat. Alice guessed that he might be the White Bishop.

“I am sorry”, said Alice, giving a little bow, “I should have introduced myself. My name is Alice and I am here to take up a teaching position.”

“I know who you are, dear, I wrote you the letter of appointment.” Alice was about to interrupt, but the Bishop continued, “Yes, I know it said Red Queen on it, but that was after a pp. That stands for per procurationem, which is Latin for ‘through the agency of’. It means I can write letters from the school with the authority of the Principal and she doesn’t have to sign them herself. School Principals don’t have time for all that kind of stuff you know. They are far too important.”

“I am sure they are.” said Alice, somewhat taken aback.

“What exactly do they do?”

“Well, nobody is entirely sure exactly what they do, but there is a lot of research that shows their role is very important. Having a good Principal is one of the most influential factors in having a good school. That is very clear from all the studies.”

“But, if you are not sure what a Principal does, then how do you know if they are any good?” Alice was finding this conversation confusing.

“Well that is obvious,” retorted the Bishop with increasing agitation and volume, “because they run a good school! If they weren’t a good Principal it couldn’t be a good school. I have told you about the research.”

There was something in the logic of this that concerned Alice, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on the problem. She understood that the evidence was clear that a good school has a good Principal, and that a good Principal runs a good school.

That much is obvious, as the White Bishop had said. But if the only way we can find out if the Principal is any good is to see if the school is any good, then aren’t the results of the research bound to be true, by definition? There seemed to be a certain amount of circularity in the argument. As she pondered, the White Bishop calmed down and was able to elaborate a bit more on the key role of the important Principal.

“They do uphold our values, of course,” he continued in a quieter and rather unenthusiastic tone. “They enact them and they repeat them at every available opportunity, and they put up notices in classrooms and around the school so everyone can see them.” By this stage, any excitement or interest that could be detected in the Bishop’s voice had dwindled to imperceptible levels. Alice decided to try and inject some enthusiasm because she had, indeed, been intrigued by the values on the poster.

“Please tell me about the values. Why do you ‘Pursue Mediocrity?’ Surely your students should be striving for excellence.”

The Bishop took a deep breath. “Well,” he began, “I have to admit that Excellence was what we started with. It is not the most original of school values. Most schools have that one somewhere in there. Indeed, it would be hard to find a school that didn’t espouse Excellence as an aim. But then when we looked at what we actually do, we saw that in reality we put more effort into promoting the mediocre.”

“How?” stuttered a rather confused Alice.

“We do exams!” answered the Bishop.

“But surely exams are an incentive for students to excel,” blurted Alice, “A way of measuring how excellent they are, a celebration of their excellent achievements?”

“Oh dear. You really don’t understand very much do you?

When you were at school, I imagine there was a range of

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ability among your fellow students, from those who struggled with an academic curriculum to those who were quite brilliant and sailed through with ease. You, I suspect, were somewhere between the two extremes?” Alice just nodded cautiously, so he went on. “Well, that was a fairly safe bet, because of course almost everybody is somewhere between those extremes.

Now, when did you take your exams?”

“I took some at 15, and some more at 17,” Alice replied.

“Exactly, and when did those who really struggled take their exams?” he asked.

“Er ... At the same age as me,” said Alice, beginning to see where this might be going.

“And what about the really brilliant ones?” the teacher continued.

“Well, also at the same age,” Alice answered.

“And I suspect they even took them on the same day, mostly in the same subjects and with the same exam questions. Some will have found it very hard to achieve even reasonable scores on most exams, but others will have scored the top grades in every subject without really having to try too hard. It is the same here. We looked for excellence in all of this and found it certainly was not at the bottom end. You cannot really call a series of failing grades excellence by any measure. We found it wasn’t at the top end either. These students were achieving well below their capabilities even by getting it all right. They certainly weren’t excelling in any meaningful sense of the term.”

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“So when we looked at who these exams were really good for, we found it was the group right in the middle, those who were genuinely and triumphantly mediocre. We felt it was only honest to celebrate their achievements and proudly say that was what we did. So, we are possibly the only school you will ever find that trumpets our value of pursuing mediocrity.

I would not want to boast here, because there are many other schools that pursue mediocrity just as successfully as we do. We just say that we do so.”

“If you want any more information you had better go and see the Red Queen in the office across the corridor. I am going for a cup of tea”. And with that the Bishop glided diagonally out of the door and across the chequered floor of the corridor.

To be continued …

Chris Binge is Headmaster of Markham College, Lima, Peru.

Email: chris.binge@markham.edu.pe All the Alice in Education Land stories can be found on Educhanges.com, where there is also a link to an Alice Art Gallery of illustrations by such artists as Tenniel, Dali and Steadman, as well as an Alice playlist.

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People and places

An unlikely partnership

Leila (left) and Amar

Q&A with Amar Latif and Leila

Q: How did you both land up presenting at an international schools conference?

Amar: It all started in my dad’s kebab shop 10 years ago … well actually it started in 1966 when my father heard about this country called England and decided to drive all the way from Pakistan to France. At first, he failed to get into the UK – but he was advised to look more British by putting a newspaper under his arm and donning a bowler hat. He did that and it worked! So fast forward to his kebab shop some 30 years later when my dad proudly told a visiting teacher from a school in Hong Kong all about his blind son’s company, Traveleyes.

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Leila: I was born in a refugee camp called Tindouf, after my family fled from Western Sahara. This camp was the world to me. Life was hard but people were simple, supportive and full of energy. The harsh conditions taught us how to appreciate everything we had. The strong community gave us a sense of security, never to think as an individual but to think as a community. However, the quality of education was poor. I appreciated the efforts of the volunteer teachers, but at 11 years old I decided to leave the camp to attend an Algerian boarding school in the hope of a better education.

That’s where I experienced how it truly feels to be a refugee.

Some teachers didn’t like me, but not because I was a bad student. They believed that we were draining the resources and opportunities from their country. But that didn’t stop me.

On the contrary, I made a promise to myself to work hard to change that. All that paid off when I was selected to study at United World College (UWC) Maastricht, in the Netherlands.

It was a dream that became reality!

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At the March 2019 ECIS MLIE (Multilingual Learning in International Education) conference in London, Amar Latif, founder of ‘Traveleyes’, and Leila, UWC Maastricht IB Diploma student, delivered jointly the conference opening keynote. This article takes the form of an interview with Amar and Leila, led by Susan Stewart, ECIS MLIE Chair.

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People and places Amar: My parents were told at age four I would lose my sight by the time I was an adult. I went on to study Maths at university and spent a year abroad in Canada. After I graduated, I got my first job as an accountant. I had money to spend and the world was my oyster ... and then I hit a barrier.

Travel companies would not take me on their holidays as they thought I needed someone to care for me. I did not need a carer, I just needed someone to guide me and describe the sights. And so that is how I came up with the idea to set up my own travel company, Traveleyes. Traveleyes takes groups of sighted and blind travellers on holidays all over the world, where the sighted travellers guide and describe, in exchange for an opportunity to see the world in a new way.

Q: You are speaking at a conference on multilingualism – tell us more about that?

Amar: Actually, it was only recently that I realised I was bilingual ... For me, Urdu was just something I use to speak with my family.

Leila: I speak Arabic – it is the language we were taught in school, it is the language of the Quran. I speak English as a second language; I had to learn it after I came to UWC. I speak Spanish … because back home in the summer, children are often sent to Spain to avoid the killer heat in Tindouf.

However, the language which is the most important for me is Hasania. It is the language that I can fully express myself with, it is the language that I got from my parents. It a language of peace and freedom for me.

Q: How did the two of you meet?

Amar: We went on a trip to Italy together, didn’t we Leila?

– and you managed to turn my Traveleyes customers into English teachers!

Leila: I’m still learning English and so I was worried about guiding a blind person in English. How am I going to describe all the things that I see if I don’t know the name?

In the beginning I was not confident, but after the first conversations I started realising that there is nothing to worry about. I got to know more about my visually impaired partners, and they got to know me. We shared our personal stories. When I did not know the word for something, I would describe it, and then they would tell me the word. They also helped me to spell the new words, which I noted down (on a piece of toilet paper, as I had forgotten to bring a notebook!).

Leila (right) and traveller Amar: For our Traveleyes customers, partnering with international schools has enriched the experience of travel, by breaking down barriers between languages, nationalities, ages and abilities. The world is a beautiful place …. And if a blind guy tells you that, you had better believe it!

Amar Latif is founder of ‘Traveleyes’, a company providing independent group travel for people who are blind or partially sighted (www.traveleyes-international.com).

Leila is an IB Diploma student at the United World College Maastricht, the Netherlands.

Email: amar@amarlatif.com

‘We went on a trip to Italy together, didn’t we Leila? – and you managed to turn my Traveleyes customers into English teachers!’

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People and places

Pictured at the global Round Square conference, taking place at Rockport School, Holywood, Northern Ireland are (left to right): Campbell Kuruk from St. John’s Ravenscourt School, Canada; Tomisin Bewaji from St. Mary’s, Colchester, England; Sophie Shiel, Head Girl, Rockport School; Rohaan Vasa from Bayview Glen School, Canada, Karen Zhang from Keystone Academy, China and Rajveer Batra from DAIS Dhirubhai Ambani International School, India.

First international Round Square Conference hosted in Northern Ireland George Vance reports on a landmark event

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Rockport School became the first school in Ireland – North or South – to be accepted within the Round Square community, which now boasts an internationally diverse network of 200 like-minded schools in 50 countries on six continents.

Marking five years since that point, in March 2019 over 160 students and 40 teachers from 30 schools across the globe descended on Northern Ireland to visit famous sites, including the Giant’s Causeway and Crumlin Road Gaol, and meet with students from fellow Round Square schools.

A programme of events for the conference was developed

by Rockport that are reflective of Round Square’s ideals: Autumn |

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Situated in Craigavad, Holywood, Rockport School earlier this year hosted the first-ever Round Square International Conference to take place in Northern Ireland or Ireland.

Founded in 1906, Rockport is Northern Ireland’s only fully independent day and boarding school, catering for students between the ages of 2½ and 18. Round Square was created in 1966 by educator and philosopher Kurt Hahn, who also established Gordonstoun School in Scotland. Schools hoping to join Round Square must demonstrate their commitment not only to academic excellence, but also to the personal development and responsibility of their students. In 2014,

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People and places

We hope that the visit will have created lasting memories, educated students on our history, inspired them to return with their families, and helped to reinforce the ideals of Round Square. internationalism, democracy, environmentalism, adventure, leadership and service. Visiting schools included Bayview Glen in Canada; Keystone Academy, China; Chadwick International School in South Korea; Millennium School Dubai; British Overseas School, Karachi, Pakistan; San Silvestre School, Peru; Herlufsholme, Denmark; and Vivek in India. With a conference theme of ‘Our Changed Environment’, the students also took part in a discussion in the chambers at Stormont Parliament Buildings and the visit concluded with a conference event at Titanic Belfast.

To have such a diverse representation of Round Square schools from across the globe visit Rockport School and many of Northern Ireland’s historic sites was amazing. Our guests were in awe of our landmarks and incredible scenery, and we were truly honoured to be hosting this first-ever Round Square conference in Ireland. For the majority of our guests, this was the first time they had visited Northern Ireland. We hope that the visit will have created lasting memories, educated students on our history, inspired them to return with their families, and helped to reinforce the ideals of Round Square.

Rachael Westgarth, CEO of Round Square, commented that “This Global Conference for 13-15 year olds in Northern Ireland has been a highlight in Round Square’s 2019 calendar, and

the source of much excitement throughout our international community of schools over many months. The breadth of countries involved, and the scale of the event, reflects the enthusiasm felt within the schools across our worldwide network at the prospect of travelling here, and we have had the honour of the presence of Round Square President, His Majesty King Constantine, who presided over our Board of Trustees’ meeting at Rockport School. The willingness of schools such as Rockport to step up and host this sort of gathering is hugely important to Round Square in promoting international understanding. It enables students to learn about the vibrancy and variety of culture and community that exists in different parts of the world by experiencing it first-hand as they have done here in Northern Ireland. These students are potentially the next generation of business, political and community leaders, and I am confident that their visit to Northern Ireland will have made a very positive and lasting impression.”

George Vance is Headmaster of Rockport School (www.RockportSchool.com) Email: info@rockportschool.com

George Vance, Headmaster of Rockport School with students (l-r) Rajveer Batra from DAIS Dhirubhai Ambani International School in India, Tomisin Bewaji from St. Mary’s, Colchester, England and Sophie Shiel, Head Girl, Rockport School.

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People and places

The GHAMUN Experience: Mutual learnings by exploring uncharted territory Rijul Gupta and Tomas Imparato look back on an innovative and exciting conference

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to invite them to GHAMUN 2019, but the Executive Team was in uncharted territory. There were constant back-and-forths before we finally came to the decision to take a chance and invite them. Nobody knew what to expect, and nobody could guess what would happen next.

There being significant problems that the LCS Executive Team had to address regarding the funding of DUNK delegates’ participation in GHAMUN, there was undoubtedly a lot of anxiety regarding their invitation to the conference.

After contacting them to ask if they would be willing to participate in our conference, to which they happily agreed, at least one of the aforementioned questions was answered: they WERE interested!

On the day of the conference we were all nervous, and had a million questions in our heads. Would their computers work? Would they be embarrassed and regret coming?

Should we have invited them earlier to give them more time to prepare? Most importantly, was this a bad idea?

DUNK delegates went on to give us all a pleasant surprise.

Committee chairs reported that their communication was clear, their points were well-researched, and they made positive contributions to debate, always intervening to provide a newer, and fresher, viewpoint on how to approach conflict. They were polite, highly attentive, spoke with the highest degree of formality, and certainly knew their facts!

Now, we also know the answer to the other aforementioned question: they ARE good enough!

We were truly amazed at how much we were missing out on by not inviting DUNK delegates to our conference.

We decided that it would be a wise idea to contact the delegates from DUNK to discuss what they liked and what they thought could be improved about GHAMUN 2019. We were additionally interested to hear about some of their takeaways from the conference, the biggest one being that MUN debate isn’t two-sided like most debates are. Debate in MUN is usually of a highly multifaceted nature, with various sources of input for information, and for different viewpoints on a certain scenario which are all informed by research Autumn |

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Lincoln Community School (LCS) located in Accra, Ghana, hosts an annual conference as part of its Model United Nations (MUN) club called the Ghana Model United Nations Conference (GHAMUN). This conference offers high-schoolers the opportunity to learn more about global affairs, diplomacy and negotiation, and to better empathise with the various social, economic, and infrastructural problems that are faced by communities all around the world. After the executive team of GHAMUN 2018 sat down to reflect on the 2018 conference, and discuss what went well and what didn’t, we realised that there were a few elements that we missed.

It is stated clearly in the GHAMUN bylaws that we have been chartered to foster international-mindedness and global awareness; we encourage understanding and tolerance for different cultures, peoples, ideas and attitudes around the world through discussion and debate; we challenge each other about how to solve major global issues pertaining to nations and communities from different corners of the world; we embrace and promote the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and its commitment to peace, human rights and collective security. This was a gross situation of irony! We encourage understanding and tolerance for different cultures, peoples, ideas and attitudes around the world, and yet we only invited to GHAMUN students from international schools in Ghana and West Africa, and didn’t even think of reaching out to local institutions. Did we think they were not good enough? Or were they not interested?

We didn’t even ask.

We proceeded by reaching out to DUNK – which stands for Developing Unity, Nurturing Knowledge, a local initiative in Accra that works with underprivileged kids and young women. DUNK’s mission is to create a safe space for children and young women, and they do so by providing libraries and sport facilities. Through sports and education, they explore the programme’s five pillars: Teamwork, Leadership, Respect, Commitment, and Self-Esteem. It was clear that DUNK was doing locally what LCS MUN was trying to do globally, or at least on a larger scale. In principle, it seemed like a good idea

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People and places

Rijul Gupta (LCS), with DUNK delegates Alfred Twumasi, Nana Opoku-Agyemang, Deborah Fafali Mensah & Abdul Wahab-Hussein

that supports a certain country’s policies. A bigger benefit that the DUNK delegates shared with us was a boost in their self-esteem, and that they felt more confident about public speaking after the GHAMUN experience. “Some kids are afraid to say what they think is right”, said Nana OpokuAgyemang, one of the delegates.

After having collaborated with DUNK, we learnt that there is a plethora of opportunities not only for international schools but for local schools too, to grow together through collaborative learning and shared experiences that improve knowledge and skills, and cultivate passion in both parties.

Lincoln also partners with DUNK through basketball. Seeing as DUNK aids young children and women in need by pushing them to pursue an interest in basketball, they have become an excellent competitor, and are regularly invited to participate in Lincoln’s local basketball tournaments.

Through this, they also get to interact and connect with other international schools in Accra.

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For GHAMUN 2020, we will be focusing on our connection with DUNK by ensuring that they bring as many delegates as possible. From bringing only 5 delegates this year, they hope to bring 50 next year! We also will begin contacting other local schools in Accra that may or may not have an existing MUN programme and will invite them too, to further the LCS GHAMUN outreach, and to make our conference truly globally-minded and locally inclusive.

Rijul Gupta and Tomas Imparato are students at Lincoln Community School, Accra, Ghana, and members of the GHAMUN Secretariat, the leadership team of GHAMUN. Email: rgupta@lincoln.edu.gh Further information about DUNK can be found via http://dunkgrassroots.org

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People and places

Why being the ‘difference makers’ still matters Peter Howe celebrates a vintage year at UWC Atlantic

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late high school education was seen as the starting point.

This approach was based on the prescient ideas of German educationalist Kurt Hahn who believed that the promise of youth – regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or citizenship – was underestimated and that two basic insights must be imparted to students: (1) you are needed, and (2) you are able to achieve more than others think and than you believe yourself. He felt that if young people could be convinced of this, and live it through their experience of education, then the future was bright. As Kurt Hahn said in a speech a few years before his death at the age of 88, “I regard it as the foremost task of education to ensure the survival of these qualities: an enterprising curiosity, an indefatigable spirit, tenacity in pursuit, readiness for sensible self-denial and, above all, compassion”. From the radical beginnings of The Autumn |

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2019 marks a number of milestones in the storied history of UWC Atlantic. The College saw the 55th leavers’ group, and the 50th to be graduating as members of the United World College (UWC) movement, founded in 1967 under the Presidency of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of women graduating from the College. So if ever there was a vintage year, this would be the one.

It is easy to forget the incredibly bold venture that marked the foundation of the College. Established at the height of the Cold War, The Atlantic College, as it was originally known, was imagined as a place where education could serve as the bridge to connect east and west, the ‘difference makers’ who could transcend the nationalism and militarism that was dividing the world. The world needed a rethink, and

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People and places

Opportunity we know is critical, and we must increase our scholarship provision to guarantee the socio-economic diversity of our student population that lies at the core of the UWC project.

We must ensure that ability to pay is not a barrier to students of high promise and potential.

Atlantic College, described in The Times as ‘the most exciting experiment in education since the Second World War’, emerged the United World College movement in 1967 and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP), co-created by the College, in 1968.

When I arrived at UWC Atlantic just over two years ago, it was with the express intent of reclaiming our position as the flagship college of the UWC movement and as world leaders in experiential education; to re-imagine education for the 21st century and to become innovators once again.

Along with our 17 sister UWC Colleges and the International Baccalaureate organisation, at the heart of this innovation is our reconceptualisation of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP). The 50th anniversary of the IBDP has come and gone, and that milestone has provoked a shift in thinking. Whilst the programme aimed “to develop young people … to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect”, the dynamics of that world have changed. Our world is more fractured and fragile than ever, with environmental, political, financial and social change deepening the chasm between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. The challenges of the 21st Century – climate change, global migration, polarisation, extremism, inequality, natural resource depletion and the Fourth Industrial Revolution – demand young people with the courage, resilience and creativity to be able to negotiate this shifting landscape and ‘own’ the way forward, and to do so with an interdisciplinary, systems-thinking approach. That mindset has always defined our students and our transformational education, alongside a passion to serve society in a way that is bold, forward-looking and unrestrained.

Our reconceptualised diploma will enable students to pursue individualised programmes while giving them the opportunity to exercise autonomy, to develop mastery, and to feel purpose; three factors that are at the heart of intrinsic motivation (Pink, 2009). Through the holistic and ‘transdisciplinary’ education we deliver at UWC Atlantic, with service at the core, we are nurturing and developing young people with the ability to think critically, to communicate clearly, to work in teams, to take ethical decisions, and to contribute innovatively and with deep understanding across social, cultural and economic divides. While academic credentials may remain the currency of today, the habits of mind which sit alongside and complement these credentials Spring

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are not add-ons or ‘nice-to-haves’. They are a fundamental element of the ‘T’ shaped skills that the world and workplace of the future demand, and are also key to our approach; an approach that is less about ‘learning’ and more about ‘becoming’ (Prensky, 2014).

We provide an environment in which our students can become the best versions of themselves, with the knowledge that friendship, empathy and humility will carry them far and in a unique place where they embrace, and are committed to, UWC’s core values: international and intercultural understanding, celebration of difference, personal responsibility and integrity, mutual responsibility and respect, compassion and service, respect for the environment, a sense of idealism, personal challenge and action and personal example. Within the UWC movement, and certainly within UWC Atlantic itself, we know we must educate through these values, as well as build on what an

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People and places

UWC Atlantic

IB Diploma can deliver, if we are to fulfil the UWC mission ‘to make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future’. We also know that change is hard, rarely linear, and will always include ‘could be betters’ and ‘try agains’ on the roadway to success.

Three pathways converge on this journey. Innovation focuses on the development of the IBDP, and UWC Atlantic students will be instrumental in helping to shape this curriculum, led by our newly appointed Director of Learning Innovation. Opportunity we know is critical, and we must increase our scholarship provision to guarantee the socioeconomic diversity of our student population that lies at the core of the UWC project. We must ensure that ability to pay is not a barrier to students of high promise and potential, and their access to a UWC Atlantic education. We have an exceptional group of individuals and foundations who already support a third of our students to receive full financial support. Our aspiration is to increase this to 50% within the next three years, and to 85% in the next 10. And finally, place, which signifies the magic that saturates the UWC Atlantic campus; our unique ‘Laboratory for Learning’. It means we need to revive and protect our campus assets, both the built and the natural environment. Our master plan will include the renovation of the seafront area, the reimagination and rebuilding of the academic blocks, a new STEM centre, revitalising the College’s ‘Green Heart’ and the commitment with our new curriculum to make full use of our natural capital: the valley, the farm and the woodlands.

I am very fortunate to lead a unique College community that aspires to imagine and reshape the IBDP, and indeed the world, as it ‘should be’. The experiment needs not only to continue but also to evolve. Aspiration and ambition are in our DNA, and we want to reclaim our leadership in progressive experiential education. And we have the ideal Spring

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environment to do so – physically, culturally, and socially.

For me, the most important element is the mindset: that we can and should be better, and that unless we try with a willingness to fail, then we won’t move forward.

I am grateful for the hopes, fears, sense of adventure and idealism, the critical minds and the enthusiasm brought to us by students from across the globe. The unique experience that is lived at a UWC hangs on their shared humanity, their trust in each other, their willingness to celebrate each other’s unique talents, and the support they provide to each other every day as they extend the limits of their comfort zones.

Such a community is something truly special and is what makes attending a UWC so life-affirming and life-changing.

As the College looks ahead to its next big milestone – its 60th anniversary in 2022 – it does so with confidence.

We remain one of the world’s most pioneering, engaged and impactful places of learning for 16 to 19 year olds, and in reimagining the IBDP, our relevance and resonance will continue. For as we all know, there remains an urgent need for capable, compassionate leaders to bring together local, national and international communities through a commitment to service and the common good. And our graduates will be there, ready to play their part, equipped and motivated to live meaningful, impactful lives and to be the ‘difference makers’ the world needs.

References Pink D (2009) Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, New York: Riverhead Books Prensky M (2014) The World Needs a New Curriculum, New York: The Global Future Education Foundation and Institute

Peter T Howe is Principal of UWC Atlantic, south Wales Email: principal@atlanticcollege.org

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Your Preparation, Their Success Fall IB Workshops: Oct. 13-15, 2019 Spring IB Workshops: Feb. 13-15, 2020

To learn more, visit collegeready.rice.edu.

Redefining Educational Travel with the UN SDGs. www.castrips.org | info@castrips.org

People and places

International schools are the perfect place to incubate the next generation of entrepreneurs Hazel Kay analyses the results of a new report In April 2019, ACS International Schools launched a research report called ‘Inspiring Entrepreneurship in Education’ at the House of Lords in London. Surveying a third of universities in the UK, we conducted the research via an email questionnaire sent to Heads of Enterprise. The aim of the research, undertaken in partnership with the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education (NCEE), was to provide an overview of the state of entrepreneurship in our schools and universities and to explore if, as we hoped, international schools are a good environment in which to nurture the next generation of entrepreneurs.

At ACS, our aim is not just to help children secure places at leading universities, but also to help them find their place in the world, with confidence and success, to be ready for whatever the future holds. Given the pace of change and disruption across the planet now, it is easy to see why the word ‘entrepreneurial’ sums up the qualities needed to thrive. The qualities of International Baccalaureate (IB) learners – inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced and reflective – are a close fit to the qualities of an entrepreneur.

The Financial Times defines a person with an entrepreneurial mindset as someone who is often drawn to opportunities, innovation and new value creation. A social entrepreneur is often described as someone who is a leader or pragmatic visionary; they want to establish an enterprise with the aim of solving social problems or effecting social change.

A McKinsey report focussing on banking and insurance, energy and mining, healthcare, manufacturing, and retail in the US and in five European countries found that automation will accelerate a transformation in the workforce skills that companies have relied on so far this century. Demand for social and emotional skills, as are required in leadership and managing others, will rise by 24 percent, to 22 percent of hours worked, says the report, which adds that “Among all the skill shifts our analysis indicated, the rise in demand for entrepreneurship and initiative-taking will be the fastest growing, with a 33 percent increase in the United States and a 32 percent rise in Europe” (OECD, 2019).

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Commentators from all walks of life are highlighting the importance of developing entrepreneurial skills. The word ‘entrepreneur’ could perhaps be exchanged, for instance, for ‘versatilist’, described by Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills at the OECD, in proposing that:

“The knowledge world is no longer divided between specialists and generalists. A new group – let’s call them “versatilists” – has emerged. They apply depth of skill to a progressively widening scope of situations and experiences, gaining new competencies, building relationships and assuming new roles. They are capable not only of constantly adapting, but also constantly learning and growing in a fast-changing world. In a flat world, our knowledge becomes a commodity available to everyone else. As columnist and author Thomas Friedman puts it, because technology has enabled us to act on our imaginations in ways that we could never before, the most important competition is no longer between countries or companies but between ourselves and our imagination”.

Just being part of an international community confers an advantage, our research has suggested, as shown in Table 1. % Highly beneficial

64

Slightly beneficial

26

Makes no difference

8

Slightly detrimental

0

Highly detrimental

0

Not stated

2

Table 1: What benefit, if any, would you say having exposure to different nationalities and cultures at school has on students’ entrepreneurial outlook when they arrive at university?

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People and places

% The provision of specific entrepreneurial activities or events in school

86

The general ethos of the school

69

Teachers trained in entrepreneurship

65

The school student’s peer group

44

The school teaching specific characterbuilding skills

34

Table 2: Which if any of the following factors at school would you say have a positive impact on the development of a student’s interest in enterprise /entrepreneurial activities by the time they arrive at university?

This ethos is something international schools can really champion for their children, and gives added importance and relevance to the discussion aired in recent issues of this magazine about the relevance of an international mindset.

Clearly such a mindset is vital as a building block to an entrepreneurial mindset.

The exciting news is that entrepreneurship is a powerful motivator for young people too, not just a theory which

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motivates educators, as the universities in our survey report a large increase in entrepreneurial activity and interest among their new students (Table 3). % Increased

64

Decreased

5

Stayed the same

31

Table 3: Do you think interest in enterprise / entrepreneurship activity among school students, on arriving at university, has increased or decreased over the last three years?

Harnessing this interest is a great way to inspire youngsters to learn and succeed at school. It can motivate all sorts of positive behaviours. We had a great example of this in practice at our Hillingdon schools recently where a group of children created their own 3D printer. The students wanted the printer for their classroom but were told no money was available to buy one.

Rather than just accepting this setback, they were energised to research how to make one themselves. By combining their skills and ingenuity – not least in persuading people to hand over random pieces of kit, such as cables or piping that they didn’t need – they built the 3D printer themselves, at no cost, from parts they could find around school. This is a perfect example of the sort of applied learning we talk about with the IB approach, using knowledge to solve problems, and Autumn |

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There are lots of practical steps that schools can take to support entrepreneurship, with the provision of specific entrepreneurial activities being the most important, but the general ethos of the school is rated very highly too, as suggested by Table 2.

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People and places of how it is an ideal framework for building the skills that an entrepreneur or ‘versatilist’ needs.

Other aspects of the international mindset inspire and underpin an entrepreneurial mindset. Our research showed that one of the key motivations to becoming an entrepreneur is to make a difference to the world. The typical impression of an entrepreneur might be someone who is motivated by money, but our research shows that young people are very powerfully motivated to become entrepreneurs for environmental or ethical reasons. They want to set up businesses for themselves so that they can help to save the planet, or make life better for other people (Table 4). % To make money

61

To be independent

60

To save the planet/ reduce pollution/waste

53

To help others

37

To be a pioneer

26

To become famous

13

and so on to understand issues and look for solutions, with the IB learner qualities of caring and risk-taking being a perfect combination.

I have written about entrepreneurship here as though it always means setting up a business, but of course it doesn’t mean having to set up new ventures every day. It could also be evident in someone who is able to take the initiative and deal with change in their own lives, able to make the most of every opportunity or challenge that comes their way; qualities which will be valuable in all walks of life or career paths. However entrepreneurship is expressed, it is a quality with real value and relevance in our modern, global world, and is something every international school should feel proud to inspire.

Reference OECD (2019) The Case for 21st Century Learning, Available via https:// www.oecd.org/general/thecasefor21st-centurylearning.htm A copy of the report on which this article is based may be downloaded from: https://www.acs-schools.com/sites/default/files/201904/4205_3010_ACS_InspiringEntrepreneurship-Report_16pp_Print_ LR-compressed.pdf

Table 4: What do you believe are the key drivers behind a student’s ambition to be entrepreneurial nowadays?

Hazel Kay is Head of Global Admissions and Marketing, ACS International Schools

Schools can harness this passion in many different ways, with co-curricular learning between people and places, science

Email: hkay@acs-schools.com

Forthcoming Conferences September 24–27, EAIE Annual Conference & Exhibition, Helsinki, Finland.

September 27–28, ECIS Student Support Conference, Luxembourg.

October 10–12, ECIS/AISAP Admissions Conference, Nice, France.

October 15–18, Australian International Education Conference, Perth, Australia.

October 18–20, Alliance for International Education World Conference, Geneva, Switzerland.

October 24–26, IB Global Conference, Abu Dhabi, UAE. October 31–November 2, EARCOS Leadership Conference, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.

November 21–23, AISA Conference, Cape Town, South Africa.

• If you would like your events listed here, please email jonathanbarnes@johncatt.com

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Book reviews

The Fourth Education Revolution Will Artificial Intelligence liberate or infantilise humanity?

By Anthony Seldon, with Oladimeji Abidoye Buckingham: University of Buckingham Press (2018) Reviewed by Lt General Arjun Ray, PVSM, VSM (Retired) Of the 300 pages in this book, the author has devoted 173 pages to the history and background of present day education, the intractable problems of conventional learning in schools, what is meant by Artificial Intelligence (AI), and its current status in the UK and United States. In the course of this historical scan, Anthony Seldon makes an interesting and relevant observation: elites have a head start as they are able to spend so much more on their child’s education than are those with low income. Although towards the end of the book he recommends that educationists should consider what Chinese start-ups are doing in Shenzhen and Shanghai, there is scarce mention of how the Chinese are closing the gap with Silicon Valley.

The author is a strong advocate of AI in schools, and laments the slow progress made in this area thus far.

Undoubtedly, schools can kill creativity; and many teachers are not innovative. Moreover, since most teachers are not futurists or technology-minded, they have yet to realise

the enormity of the disruption AI is going to bring about in education. This also explains why, unlike universities and colleges, relatively little worthwhile research happens in schools. Teachers may assume that nothing spectacular is going to change in their teaching lifetime, so why worry? Undeniably, the author’s prophecy that schools will fundamentally change in the next 15-25 years is a probability.

However, he does not make a convincing ‘wake up’ call to ignite the minds of teachers. For those schools that are open to the idea of introducing emerging AI technologies in order to support personalised learning, the book is, though, a timely resource. It gives the reader, though very briefly, examples of four American schools that are attempting to offer different school experiences to students.

The author is rightly emphatic when he says unequivocally that AI will not eliminate teachers from schools; that it is neither desirable, nor possible to do so. However, given Sir Anthony’s high academic credentials, one might have expected him to offer frameworks of alternative models of AI-based learning concepts. To that extent his key chapter ‘The Future of AI in Schools’ is a disappointment. This is perhaps not surprising, as the author is one of the prominent educationists who have set up the UK’s Institute for Ethical AI in Education (IEAIED) to deal with the threat students will face from AI. Again, there is a lot of talk of “Let’s get ethical”, but no recommendations are forthcoming on how AI should be deployed to revolutionise

For those schools that are open to the idea of introducing emerging AI technologies in order to support personalised learning, the book is a timely resource

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Book reviews • Talent no longer resides in the individual (teacher); it resides in the man-machine team comprising the teacher, the student and AI. In this collaborative learning model, AI takes over what the traditional teacher has been doing for centuries: preparation and delivery of content, assessments, and managing systems and processes for improving academic rigour. This will provide the teacher with the time to re-role him/herself to teach the child, and not the subject alone.

Teachers may assume that nothing spectacular is going to change in their teaching lifetime, so why worry?

• In order to teach the child and not just the subject, the teacher will focus more on education of the heart (entrepreneurial competences) and the mind (spiritual capabilities such as purpose and meaning to life). In order to do so, teachers have to be innovative.

school education – which has been moribund for over 500 years! We might have expected Sir Anthony to recommend how character and social competences such as empathy, perseverance and sociability would be addressed by AI. Having myself led the initiative to make the world’s first teacher-robot at Indus International School in Bangalore, Asia’s Silicon Valley, I take the liberty of being provocative here in arguing that:

• Should teachers fail in this endeavour, or ignore the power of AI, there is a probability we cannot discount: in the not-so-distant future, algorithms may replace teachers. In such an unfortunate eventuality, the manmachine team will be reduced to student and AI. There is only one alternative: innovate or perish!

Change is imminent, and machine learning is already here or knocking hard at the door. Education must admit both into our children’s present, ensuring a safe route for mind and heart towards the future.

Email: arjun.ray@indusschool.com

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Book reviews

Linguistic and Cultural Innovation in Schools The Languages Challenge

By Jane Spiro and Eowyn Crisfield London: Palgrave Macmillan (2018) Reviewed by Susan Stewart There is no shortage of books providing strategies and tips for working with multilingual students. Linguistic and Cultural Innovation in Schools offers us instead an opportunity to reflect on our practice as (international school) educators by taking a larger view of our schools, and by considering the particular geographical and linguistic context, as well as our unique cohort of students who all bring with them a plethora of languages and experiences. The book is principally constructed around five case studies, undertaken in schools based in Hawaii, Kenya, Singapore, the UK and the Netherlands.

The first chapter provides the reader with the background to the research process, commenting on Spiro and Crisfield’s roles as both ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ in the schools. Five questions guide the qualitative data collection; the school context, the person/event that brought about change, the process of change, the impact of the change, and what still needs to be done. The latter part of the first chapter also outlines various categorisations of bilingual education, and the theories that underpin much of the work in bilingual education.

Spiro’s account of schools in Maui, Hawaii, touches on the effect of colonisation on the linguistic and cultural diversity of the island. With a predominantly white student population and a western pedagogical model (Steiner/ Waldorf), the school set about actively teaching both the local language and traditional hula dance. Spiro talks of the challenges of finding local teachers who could connect and engage with the ‘school culture’, and could help the students connect to their host/home country and give them ‘a sense of place’. This chapter ends with some suggestions of how to create a bond between students and their host country, including growing food, observing wildlife and the urban landscape.

The Aga Khan Academy (AKA) in Mombasa (Kenya) set out to create a bilingual programme in English and Kiswahili, Spring

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supporting both local/national official languages. The AKA has undergone numerous changes in language provision models, from Kiswahili being taught as a discrete subject, to a 50%-50% dual language programme, to one which includes the practice of translanguaging. Other challenges included the lack of teaching resources fit for the purpose of teaching the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme, language status issues, and a lack of representation of Kiswahili in the linguistic landscape of the school. Crisfield also notes the importance of working with the parent body when developing bilingual models.

In setting the scene for the case study of the German European School, Singapore (GESS), Crisfield notes the lack of easily available statistics on the languages within international schools and the Eurocentric offerings of languages. GESS recognised the need to support the home languages of all of their students, and a variety of initiatives were developed to support as many languages as possible. Crisfield (2018) talks of the challenges which include ‘time constraints, structural constraints, and pedagogy’. The chapter ends with brief profiles of NIST International School (Bangkok) and The International School of The Hague, to highlight other ways of supporting home languages.

The Europa School UK (ESUK), originally a European funded school, has been a non-selective British state school since 2017. ESUK teaches through the medium of English and a choice of French, German or Spanish, and is still accredited as a Type II European School. This means that ESUK is unique within the UK schooling system, where schools that offer dual language tuition are typically feepaying. Challenges include the recruitment of qualified staff, as well as enabling cooperation and co-planning between the different language streams. The impact on the local community has been positive, despite initial reservations.

ESUK hopes to continue to impact the local community by becoming a language hub for others to engage with as well.

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Book reviews Crisfield highlights the tendency for English to be given an elevated status within the international schooling sector, by showcasing how the Early Years campus at The British School of Amsterdam made a conscious decision to move from a monolingual mindset to one which embraces the linguistic diversity in their school. Crisfield gives context to the loose label of ‘British International School’, the paucity of guidance in UK documentation on working with students acquiring English, and a mindset that prioritises English. The school’s EAL (English as an Additional Language) teacher attended the ECIS ESL (English as a Second Language) and Mother Tongue (now MLIE: Multilingual Learning in International Education) conference in 2015, and then sought out further professional development. Support from leadership was a key element in change in this school, as well as bringing in outside expertise. The final chapter of the book, entitled ‘The Path Less Travelled’, presents insights aimed at leaders, teachers and researchers, as well as concluding remarks from both authors.

Linguistic and Cultural Innovation in Schools is an academically sound piece of work which is reader-friendly, and of interest to a wide audience. It can be read from cover to cover, but each chapter is also readable on a stand-alone basis. This would be an excellent resource for anyone looking to bring about change in their own particular school setting,

as well as for those formulating a written school language policy. The book challenges the reader to recognise issues such as the relative statuses of languages, including the host country language, and the realisation that a school language model cannot be transposed from one setting to another. We are reminded to consider our host country ‘local’ students, and how schools, both international and ‘local’, might learn from one another. Spiro and Crisfield do not intend for the reader to draw generalisations or to find common threads across the very diverse case studies, but rather hope that readers will be encouraged to reflect upon their own unique school settings, inspired by the innovations undertaken in the highlighted schools.

Susan Stewart is Multilingualism Lead at the International School of London, and Chair of the ECIS MLIE (Multilingual Learning in International Education) Special Interest Group.

Email: sstewart@isllondon.org

The leading global guide to international schools – are you featured?

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Book reviews

The International Baccalaureate 50 years of education for a better world

By Judith Fabian, Ian Hill and George Walker (eds) Woodbridge: John Catt Educational Ltd (2018) Reviewed by Andrew Watson It’s always lovely, if a little self-indulgent, to give yourself a gift for your birthday. But why not, especially when you feel you’ve earned it? Especially when it’s a special birthday, like your 50th. To celebrate reaching its own half century in rude health in 2018, the International Baccalaureate (IB) commissioned a compilation of what might affectionately be termed “academic birthday greetings”, which in four sections reflects with pride and nostalgia on its roots, reaffirms its vision, passionately endorses its pioneering role in the present, and looks forward with hope to increasing its ideological influence on an uncertain global future.

Venerable contributors tell, and indeed re-tell, the compelling story of a remarkable journey that started with an improbably small group of educators. This IB narrative makes appropriately reverential reference to a veritable pantheon of international education “greats”; pioneering visionaries who have given their lives to actively pursuing a better, more peaceful world. Peterson, Cole, Sutcliffe, Leach, Blackburn, Maclehose, Goodban, Renaud, Hill, Hayden & Thompson, Valentine, Walker, Bartlett, Flodman, et al. These extraordinary individuals collectively embraced the moral purpose and potential of international education and, through the IB, “brought some kind of order” to it, as George Walker (p19) puts it in his typically modest, understated way.

As with many a birthday card, there isn’t space for everyone to be mentioned, but there is a pervasive sense of genuine gratitude to the everyday, unsung heroes, in schools around the globe and those working for the IB organisation, who continue to make the IB a prophetic voice for positive change in the world. There are many moments in “50 years of education for a better world” when, quite movingly, one realises how much our own experience in the “IB world” has been built upon the dedication of others, and how as members of this community, we should (to paraphrase Einstein) continue to exert ourselves in order to give in return as much as we have received and are receiving. Or, to borrow from the May 2019 Theory of Knowledge (ToK) prescribed titles, we come to understand that “The production of knowledge is always a collaborative task and never solely a product of the individual”.

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As this is essentially a book of celebration, it is neither the time nor the place for deep, introspective, self-critical evaluation – nobody wants to spoil a birthday party, after all.

So, even in the spirit that “other people with their differences can also be right”, it would doubtless have been wrong to sift through the catalogue of well-documented struggles and cyclical dissonance between mission, vision and practice within the organisation, which have punctuated its existence.

That would have to be a separate volume, for another time.

There are, however, reassuring glimmers of the radical spirit and critical thinking that have inspired so many to move into international education, in chapters by Jenny Gillett, who writes with typical passion and eloquence about ToK “exposing students to ambiguity and complexity” (p83), and in Judith Fabian’s honest reflection that “principles can get lost” (p69). And there’s the rub.

The tension between pragmatism and idealism, which has characterised much of the IB’s growth and development as an organisation, is a welcome thread weaving through this compendium. Jennifer Giddings, Robert Harrison, Angela Rivière and Dominic Robeau write with verve and passion about the creative, innovative thinking that continues to shape the evolution of the four IB programmes, a truly inspirational tale of international collaboration of the highest order and a real measure of success. Then there are appropriate allusions, from Director Generals present and former, Siva Kumari and George Walker respectively, to the significant strides the IB has made to modernise, and to equip itself with the systems and structures which can support optimal implementation of its programmes.

Looking ahead to its “new challenges”, it is interesting to contemplate the extent to which the IB sees a future populated by “challenges” rather than “opportunities”.

Embracing the future, much like the cherished concept of international-mindedness, implies, as Judith Fabian argues (p69), “a change of mindset – a new way of thinking, behaving and acting in relation to the world”. The IB has always been rather good at that, but if the IB is going to continue to be “as radical as possible” (ibid) it will need to nurture the spirit of

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Book reviews adventure that gave rise to some its greatest success stories, such as the United World College in Mostar, the articulation of “IB pedagogy” through “Approaches to Teaching and Learning”, the ubiquitous IB Learner Profile, and the evolving dimensions of assessment and professional development.

These are inspirational stories, reflecting a profound belief in education as a change agent of society, which have helped to position the IB where it belongs – at the forefront of education systems thinking.

So what next? A central focus on sustainability in its broadest sense? IB tertiary institutions? In looking to the future, Howard Gardner (p193) reflects the vision of the original pioneers in proposing that the IB should “cherish the traditional values of truth, beauty and goodness”. Judith Fabian’s unapologetic vision is that an IB experience should “fill young people with joy” (p69). George Walker identifies four challenges for the IB in the next 50 years; diversity, complexity, sustainability, inequality (p170). It was he who, with prescient clarity, first referred to the IB as “an education for peace”, and here he alludes to the worrying rise of “nationalism and isolationism” to which, we can but hope, an IB education might be an antidote. In her closing remarks, Siva Kumari invokes the pioneering spirit of IB and recommits to working ever closer in partnership with schools, not least because “good IB teaching does not come easily” (p203).

Recently I had the great privilege of meeting the former editor of “Die Zeit”, who is 88 years old and full of energy and insight. I asked him what advice he might have for a slightly younger man of fifty, as he faces the future. His sage advice was “Never stop starting and never start stopping”. Sounds like good advice for the IB, too.

The book? It would make a great gift.

Andrew Watson is Co-Director of Sustainability Education, and incoming Principal at the International School of Florence. He served on the Governing Board of the United World College in Mostar between 2010 and 2016.

Email: andycdwatson@gmail.com

If you are interested in writing an article for International School magazine, we would like to hear from you!

Articles have as their focus the sharing of ideas and good practice which may be of relevance to others with an interest in international education in schools – whether international schools, or national schools and other organisations encouraging an international dimension to education.

We will be pleased to receive articles relating to international education including: • good news stories • articles about good practice • articles about interesting initiatives • provocative articles that will stimulate discussion and debate Please get in touch with us at editor@is-mag.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

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Please also include a postal address so that, if the article is published, a copy of the relevant issue of International School can be posted to you.

When including photographs for publication, please note that: • photographs need to be of high quality (at least 300dpi, file size at least 6MB), and supplied in JPEG or TIF format. Images taken from the internet are not suitable.

• photographs must be submitted as separate files from the Word file article to which they relate, and cannot be reproduced if they are embedded in Word or any other programme.

• the article author(s) need(s) to have obtained permission to publish the photograph from anyone who can be seen in it.

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The editors of International School, Prof Mary Hayden and Prof Jeff Thompson, would like to encourage teachers and leaders/ managers/administrators to consider how they could contribute to this magazine. We would love to hear from you with your article ideas.

Articles should be submitted as Word files, ideally accompanied by a good quality photograph, to editor@is-mag.com [Please note that a photograph relevant to the theme of the article is preferable to a photograph of the author(s)] A one-sentence biographical note about the author(s) should also be provided, as well as email address(es), which will be included if the article is accepted for publication.

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