International School Magazine - Summer 2021

MAGAZINE SUMMER 2021

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THE MAGAZINE FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATORS

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From International School to University

Servant leadership in schools

Finding our space: Students share thoughts

Summer 2021

International School THE MAGAZINE FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATORS

Contents

EDITORS Mary Hayden Jeff Thompson editor@is-mag.com www.is-mag.com

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MANAGING DIRECTOR

Teaching Ceramics in an Online World

Steve Spriggs steve@williamclarence.com

DESIGN & PRINT Fellows Media Ltd The Gallery, Southam Lane, Cheltenham GL52 3PB 01242 259241 bryony.morris@fellowsmedia.com

ADVERTISING Jacob Holmes jacob.holmes@fellowsmedia.com 01242 259249

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Features 4 Towards Sustainable Education Andrew Watson 6

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.

38

Why Wellbeing Matters more than ever

Why wellbeing matters more than ever Anne Keeling and Angie Wigford

10

International Schools: Whose Definition is it anyway? Ziad Azzam

14

From International School to University: Some helpful pointers Ciara Newby

16

Leadership and fostering a sense of community in an IB school: Creating comfort as well as purpose during uncertain times. Francesco Banchini

Leading, teaching and learning 20 Servant leadership in international schools: the need to serve and the motivation to lead. Erika Elkady

MAGAZINE

Finding our space

24

When There Is No Choice Richard Mast

26

Teaching Ceramics in an Online World Maria Sezer

30

What should be at the heart of global learning? Navigating an uncertain landscape with certainty. Rob Ford

34

From pandemic to progress in IT Integration Robert Harrison, Lyndsey Stuttard and Matt Buck

From the schools 38 Finding our space: Students share thoughts and experience. Ayame Bevan, Iou-shiuan Angela Chou, Miia Mäkinen and Seoyeon Yoon 40

Alice in Education Land On the Wall.

Chris Binge

Book Review 45 Third Culture Teacher by Lucy Bailey.

Reviewed by Julianne Brown

SUMMER 2021

E THE MAGAZIN

RS TIONAL EDUCATO FOR INTERNA

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On the Cover

Part of the Independent School Management Plus Group

PART OF SCHOOL NT MANAGEME

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From Internat School to University

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Servant leadership in international schools: the need to serve and the motivation to lead. page 20

Finding our s space: Student ts share though

schools

Summer 2021 | International School | 3

Features

Towards Sustainable Education

By Andrew Watson

‘I

f I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses’ (widely attributed to Henry Ford). Think about this in relation to education.

Consideration of the nature, purpose and pathway of formal education over the past 150 years or so reveals a mainly repetitive pattern of ‘doing things’ the same way as they have always been done, mainly because they have ‘always been done that way’. Fuelled by technology, we have been able to do the same things only faster, and to bask, self-satisfied, in the reflected glory of technological triumph – or alternatively, as recent International Baccalaureate and UK examination systems suggest, stumbled into algorithmic confusion.

Nevertheless, not much has truly changed. We have just turned education into a ‘faster horse’. Perhaps the departed and much loved Sir Ken Robinson would agree.

During Sustainability Education’s inaugural European summit in Berlin in May 2019, Climate Change expert Professor Johann Rockström talked of sustainability being ‘at a renaissance moment’. With the Covid-19 crisis still engulfing the world, it appears we all are. If Covid-19 has served a significant positive purpose, then perhaps it is to illuminate the extent to which we are all connected, interdependent and fragile and, ultimately, to remind us what it means to be human, with all our fallibilities, fears and endless hope. According to Rockström and Will Day of the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership, we have ten years to address the chronic emissions issues that threaten to, nay are about to, put our planet into terminal decline.

Unless we immediately change the way we do things, we will soon

4 | International School | Summer 2021

have tipped over the tipping point. If ever there was one, surely this is an imperative for us all to begin to change.

If sustainability is ‘at a renaissance moment’ then so is education. As a key part of the system, the education sector needs to reflect hard, and fast, on its priorities: on what the experience of teaching and learning provides for young people: on the ‘where, what, how and why’ of education, as well as the standards it sets in terms of its culture, leadership and role-modelling, in pursuit of a better, more peaceful, more sustainable world. Now is the time to re-imagine, re-consider, re-think, and reboot how a vision of the future can be nurtured by an experience of education.

A simple definition of sustainability refers to ‘a set of conditions and trends in a given system that can continue indefinitely’ (Atkisson, 2013). It relates to interdependent systems of cause and effect between socio-economic, environmental, cultural and political activity around the world. Sustainability ‘thinking’ refers to the capacity to make connections and find enduring solutions which will allow the

Features organisation to ‘continue indefinitely’. Sustainability it means evolving, by becoming interdisciplinary, becomes a connecting concept, a common ground which emphasising the importance of making connections, can help us to both understand the interconnectedness exploring the relationships between disciplines, and of problems and point the way to solutions that do learning about the world in ways that reach beyond the the same. scope of individual disciplines. Interdisciplinary, connected The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) thinking becomes a habit of the synthesising mind. provide a framework for action. We will all have to make Sustainability, in its broadest sense, is the moral purpose material sacrifices. We will all have to change the way we that informs process as much as measurements of do things. What does this mean for an education sector? success. It is a means not just to survive but to thrive.

What should our priorities be? In short, to think in How? Teaching and Learning. Covid-19 has accelerated sustainable ways. Here are five priorities for the future. the move towards a reconstituted balance between • Understand your ecosystem – comprised of evolving, online and face-to-face learning. Now is probably not interdependent parts the time to be investing in new buildings. If we are really • Put human relationships at your organisation heart – interested in anticipating the future and preparing as because schools are, above all, human organisations best we can for it, then we might consider grounding • Develop a prophetic vision – to be a change agent of the experience of education offered to students in society, rather than a mirror of it the Sustainable Development Goals, creating a shared • Read the game – the ability to predict the shape of understanding of sustainability and appreciation for the the future based on the shape of interconnectivity of systems thinking the present and practice. Motivation needs • Create a meaningful experience of to become intrinsic rather than Put human education – one which serves ideas extrinsic, student-led, teacher-guided, beyond the self, framed by the relative content organised to relationships at your with Sustainable Development Goals ensure young people emerge with organisation heart both the knowledge and the skills to The ‘where, what, how thrive and to allow others to do – because schools the same. and why?’

Where? Think ‘outside the building’.

Why? Moral purpose. Schools are, above all, human need At this time our experience of a prophetic vision of the moving teaching and learning online future that considers the dark organisations has, if anything, accelerated a dynamic clouds of the climate change crisis that was already underway. Arguably looming large on the horizon. The the time for dependence on ‘bricks Sustainable Development Goals exist and mortar’ is coming to an end. A classroom is no longer for a reason. The result of focussed, organised, inspired confined to and defined by walls and rows of seats. And collaboration over time by experts from vital and in the meantime, it seems like a good time to undertake interconnected sectors around the globe, they can be a ‘Sustainability Audit’ of existing infrastructure. Becoming regarded as a pinnacle of human hope. Let us hope they carbon negative, as school bursars should be able to tell are not the last vestige. Their achievement is something you, potentially means an additional income stream. that is down to us all.

What? Applying sustainability thinking entails The place of visionary speculation is central to ideas ensuring that human beings are at the heart of systems, about education. What does our dream for education structures, policies and procedures. K-12 education has look like? What is the vision of humanity that you seek generally been divided into ‘curriculum’ (sub-divided by to nurture? If, as GK Chesterton suggested, education an assortment of disciplines) and ‘extra-curricular’ with is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one associated value judgments, based on the assumption generation to another, then what kind of soul do we that what happens in a classroom is more important wish to nurture, cherish and inherit? ◆ than learning that happens outside, a preconception bolstered by assessment systems. The link between Andrew Watson has spent 22 years teaching in Jerusalem, formal education and a vision of the future has Thailand, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Italy and Switzerland, working with become increasingly tenuous. Sustainability thinking the International Baccalaureate and the United World College in ecosystems considers, understands and is ready movement. He is currently Director of the Jerusalem American to respond to the entire web of relationships: School, Co-Director of Sustainability Education www.sused.org, and Chair of the Board of Governors of Albanian College it involves a whole community. Sustainability www.acdurres.edu.al. ✉ a.watson@sused.org thinking does not entail the evisceration of learning in disciplines. On the contrary, References

• Atkisson A (2013) Sustainability is for Everyone. Lexington, TN: Isis Academy.

• Ford L (2015) Sustainable Development Goals: All you need to know. The Guardian, 19 January. Retrieved from www.theguardian.com/ on 28 August 2020

Summer 2021 | International School | 5

Features

Wellbeing Matters more than ever Why

By Anne Keeling and Angie Wigford

T

hanks to COVID-19, wellbeing is now commonly discussed and increasingly addressed within international schools. Research leading to the wellbeing report published earlier this year by ISC Research with the support of IEPS (International Education Psychology Services) identified the growing recognition of wellbeing as a success factor for staffing as well as for student learning in international schools.

Understanding wellbeing There are various definitions of wellbeing. This research was based on an equilibrium model whereby wellbeing is considered to be the successful balance of resources and managing challenges. This model suggests that both resources and challenges are a combination of psychological, social and 6 | International School | Summer 2021

physical factors. When the right resources are in place to address even the most difficult challenges, then wellbeing can be maintained. When challenges outweigh the resources, then wellbeing is affected.

It is a wellbeing model that works at whole school level, as well as within departments, and for individuals. It is already recognised that the wellbeing of teachers is vital to the wellbeing and learning success of students; happy, positive, supported educators are the most engaging, inspiring and supportive teachers. Not surprisingly, COVID-19 has been a profound example of challenge outweighing resources in most if not all international schools. As a result, it has dramatically impacted staff and student wellbeing, and continues to do so.

However, our research identified some wellbeing positives in addition to some predictable negatives.

Features

The research suggests that more teachers will evaluate wellbeing provision as part of their future recruitment conversations...

Wellbeing through challenge COVID-19 has demonstrated that the most successful organisations will adapt to accommodate change, none more so than schools; this is a key factor in wellbeing.

The research, which was conducted in December 2020 when most international schools were severely impacted by COVID-19, indicates that there was an increased sense of belonging amongst many international school staff to their school compared to that indicated in responses to a similar question asked in our previous, 2018, wellbeing research.

The 2020 research also found that school staff rely on each other to a greater extent than they have done in the past, suggesting that interpersonal relationships, both professional and personal, have developed as staff have supported one another through the pandemic.

The value of positive relationships has gone beyond staff too, with the research highlighting the importance of collaborative relationships between parents and school, and how critical this was during campus closures for the learning progress of students. The potential for developing further parental and school collaboration in future has thus been raised. The research suggested that authentic communication between stakeholders was important in order for schools to successfully adapt and maintain wellbeing through an extended period of challenge. This required open, honest information sharing, as well as compassion between leadership and staff, and between a school and all its stakeholders.

Developing effective communication channels and maintaining contact between teachers and their students has also been essential for student wellbeing – which directly impacted learning progress during school closures.

The research suggests that more teachers will evaluate wellbeing provision as part of their future recruitment conversations, resulting in it becoming an important factor within a school’s hiring strategy. Wellbeing may form part

of a school’s admissions strategy too.

In separate research conducted this year by ISC Research into the impact of COVID-19 on international school admissions, wellbeing provision is now a priority question for many parents during the school selection process. The 2020 ISC Research wellbeing report not only highlights the results of the research into the impact of COVID-19 on students and staff within international schools; it also includes suggestions for strategies for teachers and leaders to respond proactively to their own wellbeing and that of others while COVID-19 continues and beyond.

Wellbeing strategies at all levels The report suggests that improving wellbeing for the whole school community may require structural and organisational adaptions. Priorities may need to change from a focus primarily

on academics or, in some cases, profit, to a recognition of the importance of wellbeing, communication and relationship-building in order to better support staff and students. Board members and school leaders are likely to encounter tensions from both strategic and operational perspectives, and longterm plans may have to be revised.

Certain levels of control may need to be relaxed as adaptions are made.

Understanding different stakeholder priorities (which may have changed during COVID-19) is also important.

For senior leaders, tolerance and flexibility – while keeping wellbeing in mind – is the mark of successful leadership. Developing and maintaining communication and relationships can be critical to successful school functioning, particularly during times of challenge.

Active, effective listening is a central aspect of relationship development.

Deciding what is and is not under your influence and control is key to appropriate self-management, and finding effective wellbeing strategies for when feeling overwhelmed is necessary.

Increased recognition of wellbeing and mental health means that acknowledging our own stress and emotional challenges should be easier to do than ever before.

It’s important not to deny stress in 

“As best it can, the school has supported my wellbeing through the challenges of COVID-19”

71%

of all respondents agreed or strongly agreed with this statement However, when analysing this statement based on role:

84%

of all administrators agreed or strongly agreed with the statement

74%

44%

of all leaders agreed or strongly agreed with the statement

of all teachers agreed or strongly agreed with the statement

Summer 2021 | International School | 7

Features

Staff perceptions and their ability to cope

89% find their work full of meaning and purpose most of the time

94% are proud of the work they do most of the time

89%

are proud of the wellbeing support they provide their students most of the time

1% down on 2018

4% up on 2018

11% down on 2018

an effort to appear strong. Practising self-care is key to coping; reaching out for help is a strength. However, for many people this is not easy and it is helpful, when working within a school community, to recognise that. Ensuring that everyone has sufficient time, and regularly prioritises some of that time to personal wellbeing, particularly during challenging periods, is essential for the success of the whole community.

There are many resources available to support our own wellbeing in many different ways and, as individuals, we are responsible for helping ourselves in the ways that we can. Ensuring good sleep patterns, appropriate exercise that best suits our preferences, good healthy food, and connecting with friends and family are fundamental. However, in particularly challenging times, people may need reminding of even the most basic of wellbeing strategies. Additional approaches will suit different people;

Anne Keeling is Director of Communications at ISC Research

✉ Anne.Keeling@iscresearch.com

Dr Angie Wigford iis Educational Psychologist at Dover Court International School, Singapore and Lead Psychologist at International Educational Psychology Services (IEPS). Dr Wigford supported ISC Research with the Wellbeing in International Schools 2020 Report which is available at www.iscresearch.com

WELLNESS

8 | International School | Summer 2021

for example, being reflective through journaling, being mindful using mindfulness, or being aware of how our brain works and reacts to certain cues. Information and resources are now readily available on all of these and other wellbeing strategies, and can be very helpful. We also need to be compassionate to ourselves and know that we can only help others – whether that be students, staff, friends or family – if we are coping well. Ignoring our own wellbeing and mental health whilst thinking that we can help others is not sustainable.

Every international school and every individual within an international school has faced different COVID experiences that impacted their own wellbeing and their view of the wellbeing of others. The effect of this within a transient global community is that we can learn a lot from each other. As schools reopen and school life finds a new equilibrium, it is vital we don’t forget the wellbeing lessons learned from COVID-19. ◆

Features

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EXPERIENCE YOUR SCHOOL

“

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| International School | 9

Features

International Schools:

Whose Definition is it Anyway?

by Ziad Azzam

Remember the good old days?...

I

do not mean the shoulder-padded 80s, just-plainweird 70s, or the liberating 60s. I am referring to 2019, when educators could still meet, from time to time, in a conference hall, and a teacher could, without fear of contracting a frightful disease or (at the very least) inviting the wrath of the social-distance watchers, pat her colleague on the shoulder for his uncanny ability to fool the school inspector, yet again, into awarding him an ‘outstanding’ rating. Those were the days!

I caught myself, quite recently, in a moment of reflection (or should I say reminiscence) about an event

10 | International School | Summer 2021

that preceded surgical masks on every face, everywhere you looked. The date was October 2019, and the event was the World Conference organised by the Alliance for International Education (AIE).

Over 155 delegates were in attendance from, by my estimate, at least 20 countries. We were hosted by Ecole Internationale de Genève (Ecolint), a school that can legitimately claim the mantle of being the cradle of international education. Founded in 1924 by civil servants from the newly established International Labour Organization (ILO) and League of Nations, Ecolint has the added distinct honour of being the birthplace of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. The school lists three factors that set it apart from others: • Incomparably International – stemming from Ecolint’s diverse student body, representing 140 nationalities and 80 mother tongues; • Educating for a Better World – relating to the school’s raison d’être of “educating for peace and to inculcate strong humanitarian values of inclusiveness, respect and intercultural understanding”; and • Inclusive, Innovative and Academically Rigorous – combining academic rigour with the ethos of child-centric education and a non-selective admissions policy.

During the said conference, the inevitable plenary session on trends and future challenges in international education took centre stage (literally) one afternoon. In it, the delegate from ISC Research shared ISCR’s 10-year global projections on numbers of ‘international’ schools, students, teachers, and fee income.

And the statistics were staggering:

Features

8,000 additional ‘international’ schools by 2029, catering to five million additional ‘international’ students, and staffed by half a million additional ‘international’ teachers.

Where will all these teachers come from?, we were all left wondering; and how will the great and mighty ‘teacher factories’ from the predominantly AngloSaxon/English-speaking world possibly cope with this explosive demand? For me, and I am sure for some other conference delegates, these questions reeked of the legacies of Western colonialism: the ‘White Man’s Burden’ rearing its ugly head once more (Kipling, 1899).

I have lived in Dubai practically all of my life, and I have spent the past 25 years working in some capacity or another within its education system. Like the city itself, Dubai’s pre-tertiary education system has undergone remarkable growth in 65 years. Up until the mid-1950s, Dubai had but 200-odd students attending a single formal school, Al’Ahmadiah, which is believed to have been established in 1910 (Alhebsi, Pettaway & Waller, 2015). In contrast, in 2017 Dubai had 276 so-called ‘international’ schools and early childhood facilities, the highest in any city in the world (ISCR, 2018). Over a period of 23 years, the number of students enrolled in Dubai’s K-12 sector (both public and private) has almost trebled, from 113,866 students in 1996 to 310,036 students in 2019 (MOE, 2019). However, the narrative around Dubai’s education system is not all about growth and progress. In contrast to the rapid expansion of the private K-12 education sector, public schools have stagnated. In 1996, public education accounted for 34% of Dubai’s pre-tertiary student population; today it accounts for less than 10%. Enrolment in public schools has actually decreased during the past 20 years, from 38,756 students in 1996 to 29,387 students in 2019, while the student population in private schools has

The first private schools in Dubai were established to serve the needs of its nascent expatriate community. risen from 75,110 to 280,979 during the same period, amounting to a 374% growth (MOE, 2019). Perhaps the most noteworthy trend during the past 23 years is the exodus of Emirati students from public to private schooling. In 1996, only 25% of Emiratis attended private schools; by 2019, that percentage had grown to 57%.

The first private schools in Dubai were established to serve the needs of its nascent expatriate community.

One such example is the Dubai English Speaking School (DESS). Founded in 1963, the school offers the National Curriculum for England from Foundation Stage to Year 6, with priority for admissions given to children of British descent. Until Dubai College opened its doors in 1978, offering Years 7 to 13, most British expatriate families (by far the predominant European demographic amongst Dubai’s resident population) whose children had completed Year 6 at DESS had to send their children to boarding school in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.

Alongside DESS and Dubai College stood other expatriate community schools such as the American School of Dubai (est. 1966) and The Indian High School (est. 1961). Although serving different groups within Dubai’s expatriate population, these schools shared the common features of being community-owned and notfor-profit. The schools did, and indeed continue to, charge tuition fees, but at  Summer 2021 | International School | 11

Features the time of their establishment (and to this day) most student fees were paid through sponsorship by the multinational companies that either partly/wholly owned the schools or otherwise employed the parents of the children on roll. With limited reach and ambition, and its reliance on corporate support, the not-for-profit model could not keep pace with the exponential growth of Dubai’s population, driven primarily by immigration.

With access to public schools being largely limited to Emirati nationals only, coupled with the not-for-profit sector’s inadequate supply of seats, members of Dubai’s growing expatriate community had to turn elsewhere for their children’s educational needs. Today, all but a few of the 200+ private schools operating in Dubai do so on a for-profit basis; in other words, they are either owned or operated by private, profit-seeking enterprises. Private schools have flourished over the past 23 years, more than doubling in number, and now account for 90% of the K-12 sector.

The first key question I wish to raise here is: are private schools in Dubai ‘international’? In order to answer this question, we must first debate the meaning of the term ‘international school’. The definition adopted by ISCR, and upon which it builds its statistical edifice, is this: ‘For the purposes of market intelligence, analysis and data collection, ISC Research includes an international school if the school delivers a curriculum to any combination of pre-school, primary or secondary students, wholly or partly in English outside an Englishspeaking country.’ (www.iscresearch.com/about-us/whowe-are) I would like to take a moment now to analyse the above definition or, to be more precise, the implications that arise from it, and specifically ISCR’s assertion

that international schools are those that ‘deliver a curriculum … wholly or partly in English outside an English-speaking country’. Why English, of all languages? I do understand the role that the English language plays in our increasingly globalised world (Carli et. al., 2003) and its historical significance as, arguably, the catalyst for the creation of schools that offered educational solutions to ‘displaced’ Anglo/American families during the first half of the twentieth century (Carder, 1991; 2007), these schools being the progenitors of today’s so-called global international schooling industry. But surely the world has moved on over the past threequarters of a century.

I find ISCR’s definition to be both limiting, in one sense, and extending in another. Take the hypothetical example of a French-speaking school in, say, one of the residential suburbs of Algiers, which models itself along the educational and ethical philosophical standards held by the likes of Ecolint and which, for the sake of argument, offers the International Baccalaureate continuum to Algerian and expatriate students living in the metropolis. Let us call this school ‘Exhibit A’. According to ISCR, such a school does not qualify as being ‘international’, simply because English is not its chosen medium of instruction. At the opposite end of the spectrum is another hypothetical school that embraces none of the philosophical underpinnings of Ecolint (and schools like it), with staff and student bodies that are mono-ethnic, but which happens to deliver its curriculum in English in a non-English speaking country. This is our ‘Exhibit B’ school. Counterintuitively, ISCR would classify such a school as being

I find ISCR’s definition to be both limiting, in one sense, and extending in another.

12 | International School | Summer 2021

Features ‘international’. But what is so international about it?

The fact of the matter is that the majority of soI need not remind you that today’s called ‘international’ schools in Dubai fall under the reality is far removed from this ‘Exhibit B’ category. These schools have come into utopian picture, with nationalism existence not to cater to the “nomadic” elite from global business; nor are they particularly bothered about and xenophobia on the rise in many the “principles for global human development arising parts of the world. from, for example, the League of Nations and, later, the United Nations” (Hayden & Thompson, 1998; p. iv).

These schools are there to fill a vacuum: the demand for affordable education by Dubai’s mushrooming expatriate in the kinds of schools that ISCR calls ‘international’, population, who are denied access to free public we may be lulled into believing that the world is education. They are the educational equivalent of accelerating towards a new enlightenment, where the fast-food industry: cheap, convenient the promise of international mindedness, and filling. tolerance and acceptance of the The second and final key other permeates international and The assiduous reader question is: why does the intra-national human relations. will undoubtedly have been ‘international’ label matter?

Readers will not need experiencing some level of frustration The counterargument reminding that today’s in reading this article, for I have not that I might expect to reality is far removed exactly provided a ‘suitable’ alternative hear could be along the from this utopian picture, definition of an ‘international’ school to that of following lines: provided with nationalism and ISCR. It was never my intention to do so, nor do that we are consistent xenophobia on the rise I claim any special expertise that would qualify me in our categorisation of in many parts of the for the task. For those interested in this question, international schools, world.

I would refer them to the work of Hayden & what difference does it • A false promise of Thompson (1998), de Mejia (2002) and Garcia make what we call them? attractive employment (2009), among many others. But if you really When it comes to the – Aspiring or newly want to know what an ‘international’ school validity of data, analyses qualified teachers who are is, or should aspire to be, spend a day and future trends, I would full of enthusiasm for the or two at Ecolint. You will soon probably side with ISCR. I philosophical underpinnings of get the feel for it. would also venture to add that the “global human development” ISCR’s work is of great value to all agenda that Hayden and Thompson who are involved in one way or another refer to in their typology of what in the endeavour of education and schooling. constitutes an ‘international’ school (1998; p.

The simple point I wish to make is that these data and iv) may find their hopes of finding schools that espouse trends are not of ‘international’ schools; they are of these principles dashed. That is not to say that such English-medium private or, if you prefer, independent schools do not exist, but that they are in the minority, schools, as per ISCR’s own categorisation. Some, but and they are certainly not increasing in number at the certainly not all, of these English-medium private/ rates predicted by ISCR. ◆ independent schools may indeed be ‘international’, and many more that are ‘international’ are absent from the Dr Ziad Azzam started his career as a teacher, was ISCR equation. subsequently head of an international school in Dubai, and now You may be thinking: where is the harm in calling these serves on the board of Taaleem in the UAE. schools international? I can think of two: ✉ ziadjazzam@gmail.com • A false sense of hope – With the exponential growth References

Perspectives on Elite Bilingual Education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

• Alhebsi A, Pettaway L D & Waller L (2015) A History of Education in the United Arab Emirates and Trucial Kingdoms. The Global eLearning Journal, 4 (1)

•G arcia O (2009) Bilingual Education in the 21st Century. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

• Carli A, Guardiano C, Kauic-Bas M, Sussi E, Tessarolo M and Ussai M (2003) Asserting ethnic identity and power through language, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 29(5), 865-883.

•H ayden M and Thompson J (1998) Changing Times: The Evolution of the International School, In D Bingham (ed) The John Catt Guide to International Schools. Woodbridge: John Catt Educational.

• Carder M (1991) The Role and Development of ESL Programmes in International Schools, In P L Jonietz and D Harris (eds) The World Yearbook of Education. London: Kogan Page, pp 108-24.

• I SCR (2018) www.iscresearch.com/

• Carder M (2007) Bilingualism in International Schools. A Model for Enriching Language Education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

• De Mejia A-M (2002) Power, Prestige and Bilingualism. International

•K ipling R (1899/1940) Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition.

London: Hodder and Stoughton, pp 323-24.

•M OE, UAE Ministry of Education (2019) www.moe.gov.ae/En/Pages/ Home.aspx

Summer 2021 | International School | 13

Features

From International School to University:

Some helpful pointers

By Ciara Newby

M

y ten years of teaching the International Baccalaureate in international schools was a dream. I could see how many doors it opened for students on a global level and I loved supporting them as they made the exciting decision of where in the world to study after high school. A permanent return to the UK saw the end of my teaching days as I decided to take my interest in university admissions to ‘the other side’. I took up a role working in international student recruitment at a Russell Group university before moving to the University of Bath in 2018. The opportunity to continue to visit students across the world was inevitably appealing, fused with my own core belief in the benefits of international education.

Fast forward and here we are, in the middle of a pandemic. It isn’t a pleasant way for anyone to live, but I feel constantly proud of the adaptable and resilient approach of our students. A year can seem like a lifetime for an 18-yearold. One crisis has led into another, and concerns about student wellbeing and mental health are increasingly commonplace. It is hardly surprising that some students are questioning their capabilities, as cancelled exams cause

14 | International School | Summer 2021

some to worry they won’t have had the chance to prove themselves this summer.

I have learned a lot from seeing these two sides of a student’s journey and I have grown to value deeply the collaborations I have with international schools. This article allows me the opportunity to share three of the things my move from schools to universities has taught me about the university application process.

be a deciding factor in any competitive UK university and that they are read thoroughly and reviewed by more than one person. Due to the ongoing Covidrelated uncertainty, this year at Bath we have made fewer offers than usual to ensure that students and staff can be kept safe without overcrowding and with due consideration of social distancing. This has made the personal statement more vital than ever in the decision-making process.

Everyone is aware that students engage in extra-curricular activities, but what universities love hearing about is supercurricular activities Personal statements do matter I continue to be surprised when meeting teachers, students or parents who tell me that personal statements are insignificant, that all that matters is those predicted grades, that an algorithm is used, or that admissions teams do nothing more than glance at personal statements briefly. I assure you that a personal statement can

Unlike in the context of applications to universities in the USA, a UCAS personal statement will be focused primarily on a student’s academic interests – though that doesn’t mean focusing only on what they are learning about in school. Everyone is aware that students engage in extracurricular activities, but what universities love hearing about is super-curricular activities: how a student’s passion is complementing their academic learning.

An EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) or IB Diploma Extended Essay can go a long way in showcasing how students are continuing to explore their academic curiosity independently. This isn’t to say that we don’t care about extra-curricular activities, though they shouldn’t take up the whole statement. My own personal mantra on this is so what?! You’re a prefect?

So what?! You’re captain of a sports team?

So what?! Essentially, my point to students (who are often slightly taken aback at my response) is that what they write should be less about listing activities, and more about what they have made of the opportunities the activities offer. Why do we need to know you are captain of

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a team? You developed communication skills and leadership skills? Great – tell us about them! All these skills will help you to contribute and adapt to life at university.

Students are more than just a number Studying online doesn’t mean that students are not part of a community of learners. Universities are aware, more than ever before, of the importance of providing a supportive community, regardless of where students might be in the world. Students who are supported are more likely to feel happy, and inevitably more likely to succeed academically, resulting in a win-win situation for any university.

Preparation for university studies begins long before students are on campus, but once they begin their studies, student services and support are promoted and available as a resource, not a last resort.

This year Bath has not been alone in providing a range of virtual activities before students arrive at the university, which will aid their preparation for life as an undergraduate and, for those travelling to Bath from elsewhere, for life in the UK. From knowing what to pack, advice on getting a visa, or knowing how to open a bank account, universities want to ensure the transition from international school to university is as smooth and successful as it can be.

Durham University’s Discover Durham provides advice on transition to the UK from overseas, featuring current international students, and the

Universities have long been committed to working with schools and developing valued relationships University of Bristol’s Global Lounge is an online resource for students who wish to celebrate different cultures and to ensure a sense of belonging. Their online ‘speedfriending’ sessions provide a welcoming and safe environment for shyer students, and facilitate access wherever students might be located.

These are just a few examples of the benefits of online engagement for students, which has grown considerably throughout the pandemic. Plans are also underway throughout the UK to ensure a safe and welcoming quarantine for those who might need it, with access to interactive virtual social and wellbeing activities throughout a student’s time indoors. Last year, the University of Bath Student Union’s Corona Community was extremely popular and ensured students were supported in quarantine and beyond, regardless of where they were located in the world.

There is still so much more we can do It goes without saying that this is a stressful time to be a university applicant, though the resilience and adaptability seen in young people over the past year is to be commended. Building a sense of purpose begins in the high school, but it is crucial to maintain and develop it at university and beyond. I loved hearing about Shrewsbury International School Bangkok’s Passion Project that allows Sixth Formers to gain an insight into the passions and interests that make their teachers tick – a brilliant initiative that encourages students to reflect on these passions and that sense of purpose, which in turn can be beneficial in a personal statement, and in helping them explore what interests they want to pursue at university.

What more can we do together?

Universities have long been committed to working with schools and developing valued relationships, but the pandemic in many ways has made these relationships even more accessible as we have all adapted to online interaction. From summer schools to taster lectures or longer-term projects, universities welcome opportunities to form closer links with international schools in paving the way for a smoother school-university transition for young people. If you have an idea, or there is something you need help with, making that connection may just pay off! ◆

Ciara Newby is Recruitment Manager for Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach at the University of Bath, UK ✉ cjmn20@bath.ac.uk

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Leadership and fostering a sense of community in an IB school:

Creating comfort as well as purpose during uncertain times

By Francesco Banchini

S

ince early 2020, many of us have learnt new skills and adapted ourselves, as we have never done before and in a very short period of time.

There has been a dramatic shift in the direction and purpose of our lives. We are still in a phase of transition, where the past is known, but our daily lives contain an unprecedented level of uncertainty. As CEO and Director of an International Baccalaureate (IB) school in Azerbaijan, one of the private schools in Baku, I will share here some personal reflections on this recent period of both disruption and opportunity. Our learning community has a strong sense of purpose in changing the standard educational path from a traditional approach to a skill development approach. Our school is a place where students, parents and teachers can learn and improve their abilities and skills as part of a strong community, while also sharing these as part of the larger community here in Azerbaijan.

As time has gone by and uncertainty has continued over this last year and more, opportunities have been created. Our first major change and opportunity, as for many schools, was moving to distance learning.

This has increased our skills enormously and given us the motivation to rethink how we relate to our students. As we moved from a more familiar learning path, albeit one where a vision of moving forward and keeping the community safe was our

As time has gone by and uncertainty has continued over this last year and more, opportunities have been created.

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motivational drive, we approached distance learning as a new horizon, unknown territory. At our school it has been an opportunity to develop our skills and engage our students in an enhanced digital educational era. We have been able to introduce a range of different platforms to engage our learners, although significant investment in training was needed to ensure that teachers felt confident to embrace the new technology.

After a few months of distance learning we made two clear observations. Firstly we realised that this approach to learning developed different and new ways to communicate, focused on an increased level of dependence on devices.

Secondly, not only families living in forced lockdown, but also teachers, developed increased levels of anxiety, and we felt that the well-being of our

Features community was in significant danger. Isolation from others and communication using devices created a challenging side effect to this new learning path, and transformed this new experience into one of fear, affecting our feelings, emotions and well-being.

As a leader, it was useful for me at this point to reflect upon the work of Cozolino (2002), who explores the idea that humans are governed by two neural pathways. The first takes us from a state of high physiological stimulation, often manifested as anger, fear and anxiety, and governed by the chemical cor tisol, down to a place of comfor t, typically produced by the calming hormone serotonin. The second pathway moves us from a state of low physiological stimulation expressed as boredom or apathy. If the brain is experiencing highly physiologically arousing emotions associated with stress, then our first

instinct will be to stay away from excitement and seek comfor t instead. So as leaders of a community, it was imperative firstly to create comfor t for our community. It was important, too, to address the feelings of apathy and boredom that were also being noted.

As the challenge of distance learning continued, we developed suppor t across our two campuses, creating meetings to discuss with students, parents, and teachers the issues and challenges which they were facing. This was vital in order to establish effective communication across all stakeholders. At the same time as we were fostering effective communication pathways, the IB took the decision to delay deadlines for submitting documentation, and later decided to cancel the external examinations, stating that the decision was “based on compassion for students and teachers and fairness for the difficult circumstances” (IBO, 2020). Whilst we welcomed the IB’s desire to show compassion and fairness, on the ground we were left dealing with parents and students demanding more information about how the overall grades would be calculated. Stress levels at this point were high, and again we employed an approach which relied heavily on clear, open and honest communication to foster feelings of comfor t.

Later in the year, our stakeholders found more comfor t when the IB was responsive to altering grades after feedback, and it was felt that the situation became fairer to all involved.

Summer in Azerbaijan went by in strict lockdown, again meeting parents online to reassure and comfor t them that we were investing important planning into all the necessary procedures, in order to establish a safe return when we were given the go ahead to do so. Infection rates were moderately low, so when in the second week of September the government informed us that we could resume school, all our community were very happy with the news. We rehearsed the opening, and through doing so became confident in how to act to ensure the safety of our students and wider community.

With the resumption of on-site learning, it was felt that things were returning to a state closer to normality.

On the evening of 27 September in Baku, gazing at the flame towers in the distance, shining in the dark overlooking the gulf and the calm of the night, little did we know that there were even more 

At our school it has been an opportunity to develop our skills and engage our students in an enhanced digital educational era.

Summer 2021 | International School | 17

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challenges ahead. News of the war in the Nagorno Karabakh region was shared that evening, and the already tenuous feelings of return to some level of normality were shaken as the situation became even more uncertain. We resumed school on site but, at the same time, some of our community members were called to go to the front. The news and the images received about the atrocity triggered a psychological anger that is impossible to describe.

As an IB school we promote and believe in fostering international mindedness, and encouraging diversity.

However, this war created many challenges for us as a school. We were then closed

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as schools became targets, which heightened feelings of uncertainty and anger.

Forty-five days later when the war ended, there was relief throughout Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, for many families there was much sadness, anger and loneliness from the loss of loved ones, livelihoods, homes and the psychological sense of immense loss. It was natural for us to respond to those in need by organising a trip to provide support for the families of two villages in Barda and Agdam who, as others, had been particularly affected by the war.

All our community was involved, and wanted to be involved, in assisting these families and we provided, and still provide, them with ongoing care. Although this felt very much to be a natural response, it is interesting to return to Cozolino and his comments about apathy. We had seen apathy in our learning community, but the need to support others dispelled those feelings and gave us a sense of purpose.

Even before the end of the war, I was reflecting on the fact that our community needed to regain its sense of purpose, by looking outwards, rather than inwards, and to turn away from feelings of apathy and boredom. I developed the idea of providing educational support to students who were living in the war zone. We are in such a privileged position in our learning community, compared with what these students faced during the conflict, and with the hardships they continue to face today. As educators we have the moral duty to make a difference, to share knowledge and develop educational strategies which benefit all. So, with the

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hands-on learning, we provide them with a different learning experience. With the teachers, we provide pedagogical support and professional development, based on the most up-to-date educational practices.

Our sessions are focused on developing studentcentered approaches, inquiry-based, skills acquisition learning, in an authentic context.

We hope to further develop the project in future, to explore how we can support other schools in different regions. Our teachers and coordinators are motivated to help the students and the teachers in developing ‘seeds of light’ to enable them to embrace being lifelong learners. We are an IB school because we firmly believe that we are working to become active and compassionate learners, understanding other people and their differences. The founder of our school had been an IB student. We demonstrate and share our passion to live this mission, and put it into practice, in our daily lives – to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

We know that COVID-19 has negatively affected many people’s mental health around the world, and adversely impacted young adults’ wellidea of this educational project in mind, I arranged being, creating difficulties in sleeping, eating and stress, a meeting with my colleagues and asked for their experiencing isolation and alienation (Panchal et al, thoughts and availability, as 2021). As educators we need teachers would provide their to look after all our community, time and support for the and actively address feelings of We need to manage discomfort, anger and apathy. As project voluntarily. I received amazingly positive feedback and a leader I have responsibility for uncertainty, more than half of the teachers being proactive in these matters. share values, and volunteered without hesitation.

We need to manage uncertainty, I then contacted the Ministry share values, and understand the understand the of Education, and discussed impact that our current situation the plan to create and develop has on the entire community. We impact that our dialogue with local schools and are focused on finding solutions current situation local municipalities to provide to minimise the negative impact, educational help for students develop clear communication has on the entire and professional development with colleagues, parents and for teachers. students, and learn to react and community.

Thankfully the project adapt to improve the agility of was approved, and since 18 our thinking and our actions.

December we have been This is a journey, and one which providing online lessons to Barda and Agdam schools, is certainly not smooth. It is, however, one that I supporting 350 students and providing professional feel proud and motivated to be sharing with those development for 57 teachers. This is all happening at inspirational individuals around me. ◆ the same time as normal lessons are taking place on our two campuses. Throughout the project lessons, Francesco Banchini is CEO and Director of the we provide students with the experience of attending European Azerbaijan School, Baku, Azerbaijan. lessons that are held in an international school.

Francesco.Banchini@eas.az ✉ By developing multidisciplinary approaches, with subject-integrated problem-based-reality lessons and References

• Cozolino L (2002) The neuroscience of psychotherapy: Building and rebuilding the human brain. London: WW Norton & Co. • Panchal N, Kamal R, Cox C and Garfield R (2021) The Implications of COVID-19 for Mental Health and Substance Use. Available from https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/the-implications-of-covid-19-for-mental-health-and-substance-use/

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Servant leadership in international schools:

The need to serve and the motivation to lead

By Erika Elkady

Y

ears ago, a school principal told me that being a school leader was being a social worker for 80% of the time. As schools are relational places where students, parents, and teachers interact with each other, there are celebratory moments in the school day, but also instants of tension and even conflict. Cultural diversity, frequent relocations of students and teachers, an increasing emphasis on student achievement, and expectations by owners, governors, investors, and parents to deliver results, may make it even more challenging for international school leaders to provide a positive school climate.

So how do we steer our schools in such a way that we do not have to spend so much of our time providing help and suppor t for people who need it? Or more positively stated: how do we channel our time and energy to create a more harmonious school where everyone can flourish?

Positive organizational behavior inspired by Greenleaf ’s servant leadership theory may be what schools need; maybe even more so in Covid-19 times. Rober t K Greenleaf first coined the term ‘servant leadership’ in his 1970 essay ‘The Servant as Leader’. Although servant leadership overlaps with other democratic leadership styles such as transformational leadership and Level-5 leadership, servant leaders focus on the needs of others before they consider their own. They listen to other people’s perspectives, facilitate conditions for team members to meet their professional and personal goals, allow for shared decision-making, and build a sense of community. As a result, people feel more engaged, more trusted and more invested in their place of work. Improved innovation is often a positive outcome too.

Although servant leadership theory is mainly based on research in the business world, we can transfer its approach to the field of education, especially since the need to serve is already present in many teachers who see their work as a ‘calling.’

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Leading, teaching and learning full potential. Fur thermore, servant leaders show Teachers often enter the profession eager to serve humility, are authentic, accept people for who they and educate children. Unfor tunately, after some time are, provide direction, and are stewards who work for many find themselves stuck in a ‘job’ in which they feel the good of the whole. Although some people may be controlled by rules to teach to the test, have to merely more naturally inclined than others to display these produce data for league tables, or are told by others vir tues in the workplace, everyone how to do their work. Feelings of who is motivated to lead with a need disengagement, frustration, burnout or a to serve is able to become a servant desire to leave the profession altogether Servant leaders leader by consciously developing and are shared by teachers with school implementing these character traits. leaders who as a result feel their role impact their However, aspiring servant leaders will has become that of a social worker.

This may be where servant leadership followers on three likely struggle to thrive when they work in a hierarchical, autocratic, and comes in. Mar tin Seligman, the father levels. First, on the top-down environment as they are of ‘positive psychology’, explains in his mistakenly seen as weak. It is indeed 2003 book ‘Authentic Happiness’ that individual level as a misunderstanding to think that engagement, meaning and positive emotion enhance people’s happiness people become servant leaders are not holding their team members accountable, do not and wellbeing. The Jubilee Centre for happier and more have high expectations, avoid making Character and Vir tues state in their unpopular decisions or do not give ‘Framework for Character Education in positive at work people negative feedback when needed.

Schools’ that ‘To flourish is not only to be happy, but to fulfil one’s potential’ which improves Servant leaders focus on other people’s needs, and not on people’s feelings as (2017), and explain that human their performance the social worker is more inclined to do. flourishing requires the acquisition Servant leaders impact their followers and development of intellectual, on three levels. First, on the individual moral, civic, and performance vir tues. level as people become happier It is exactly this that servant leaders and more positive at work which improves their do, according to Dirk Van Dierendonck, professor of performance. Second, on the team level as people start Human Resource Management at Rotterdam School to collaborate more effectively with their colleagues. of Management, Erasmus University, the Netherlands; And finally, on the organizational level as people build they use their vir tues or character strengths to positive relationships with each other,  empower and develop others so they can reach their

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positively contribute to the community and focus on everyone’s wellbeing. This also leads to a fur ther reciprocal relationship between leader and followers in an upward spiral as they uplift each other to higher levels of vir tue and motivation.

To summarize, school leaders who want a more harmonious school are first advised to empower and develop their staff by believing in the intrinsic value of each person and encouraging them to develop in their roles, so they become proactive and confident.

Secondly: be humble as a leader, seek the exper tise of others, and celebrate their accomplishments.

Third: be authentic by staying true to yourself, do what is

promised, be honest, show vulnerability and be visible in the school. Your title is secondary to who you are as a person. Four th: be empathetic, allow people to make mistakes and do not hold a grudge. It is impor tant to create an atmosphere of trust, so people feel accepted for who they are and do not feel rejected. Fifth: provide direction so everyone knows what is expected of them, but also make and hold people accountable for the work they do. Finally, take responsibility for everyone and everything in the school; be a role model so others feel encouraged to take your lead. This will then trickle down to the students who will recognize the positive behavior of all the adults in the school and will emulate their character traits – which fur ther contributes to the upward vir tuous spiral allowing for greater engagement, meaning and positive emotions in the school. In such a harmonious school, the role of the school leader, the middle leader and the classroom leader is to be ‘primus inter pares’ (first among equals) who facilitates the conditions for everyone to be the best they can be, and to truly flourish. ◆ Erika Elkady is Head of Secondary at Jumeira

Baccalaureate School, a Taaleem IB Continuum School in Dubai. JBS is the first international Kitemark School for Character. ✉ eelkady@jbschool.ae

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References • Greenleaf R (2015) (revised edition). The Servant as Leader, s.l.: The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.

• Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues (2017) A Framework for Character Education in Schools.

Available at: www. jubileecentre. ac.uk/527/charactereducation/framework • Seligman M (2003) Authentic Happiness.

Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

• Van Dierendonck D (2011) Servant Leadership: A Review and Synthesis. Journal of Management, 37(4): 1228-126

Leading, teaching and learning

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Leading, teaching and learning

When There Is No Choice

By Richard Mast

T

here is always choice in any given situation. However, sometimes what appears to be a choice is actually an illusion. Take the notion of offering an international curriculum in China to students from a non-western culture. There are plenty of choices to make: • Which curriculum will be used?

• How many international administrators will the school need?

• How many international teachers will be needed?

• What are the skills, knowledge and experience that are going to be needed for this group?

• What skills and experience will be needed for the Chinese administrators and teachers?

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• What subjects will the Chinese teachers teach?

•H ow is the school going to deal with the compulsory curriculum for Years 1 to 9?

The list is a long one. What if the answers to these questions were to be challenged?

Imagine a recruiting interview where the foreign administrator is asked: ‘Should the international curriculum and the teaching methods be modified because the students are Chinese?’ and the foreign teacher is asked: ‘How do you think your teaching methods need to be adjusted to account for the learning of Chinese students?’.

These are questions that are not often put to such applicants, yet they should be, since this is the essential issue that has to be faced when seeking to work in a school in China. The international curriculum does not transpose into a Chinese context with ease. The application of ‘best practice’ does not work anything like as well as the foreign teacher assumes it should.

Which curriculum?

For all students from Years 1 to 9 it is the Chinese National Curriculum. The Chinese schools that are seeking to introduce (without stating their intent) pedagogy based upon international education will grab hold of an international curriculum that they think can do the job (marketing-wise and education-wise). The foreign teachers and administrators come in and do what they can to use that approach, and will assume that because they have been hired to implement the international curriculum, that is what they should do. The problem is that the context is completely different from the context they are used to. On the surface that is what it appears to be, but that is not the choice that will work in this situation. There are alternative choices to make.

One choice is in relation to the interpretation of the curriculum. Chinese

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people interpret the notion of an international curriculum in ways that foreigners cannot imagine. The teachers and administrators stepping into this world have to learn to know and understand these interpretations and use their skills and experiences to create versions that will work for the students, teachers, parents and educational authorities.

The end points of the curriculum are not negotiable but the processes are. We have to let go of following the formulas. One of the significant elements of an international curriculum is the high dependence upon constructivist education and higherorder thinking. To leap into these without understanding the starting point of the learners and how they interpret what is being asked of them is not fair. It will also not be an easy journey for anyone.

The second choice regarding curriculum is the pedagogy. The way Chinese students learn is a deep reflection of the culture; any foreign teacher and administrator has to work with that culture. To apply western pedagogy as if Chinese culture does not exist in the soul of the students is to live in a fool’s paradise. On the other hand, to find the pathways of learning that are recognisable to the students, teachers and parents is everything in this context.

You cannot choose to replicate western pedagogy. You can and must choose to adjust/modify/reconstruct western pedagogy in such a way as to match the learner. The Chinese National Curriculum is not a barrier to this process; rather it is an opportunity to bring the two approaches together to create a cultural bridge. Achieving this takes time, effort, creativity and a lot of thinking and support, but it is possible.

Skills and attitudes needed for foreign teachers and administrators So many schools are seeking to launch their brand into China. So many teachers and administrators are seeking to bring their skills and experience to this environment. The schools and communities are open to this, but be careful. Bringing a school brand into China (or any non-western culture) is not the same as replicating the brand. Of course the reputation of the school is important

To apply western pedagogy as if Chinese culture does not exist in the soul of the students is to live in a fool’s paradise from a marketing point of view. The school can bring its name and its ethos, uniforms, mottos and history. However, if the school chooses to replicate the ‘best practice’ that has been the hallmark of its success at home then they are taking a risk. The pedagogy and operational processes of a successful school are a reflection of its cultural context. This is not the culture of the new clientele. To choose to ignore this is not logical, nor is it going to guarantee success for the long term.

Teachers and administrators coming to China to demonstrate their skill set can succeed, but the choice they have to make is in relation to how and to what extent they will adjust their thinking and practices. To have a sustainable model of success, the foreign teachers and administrators have to have an attitude that can be summarised as follows:

Everything I think and do at home has to be assumed to be inappropriate in this new context. What do I have to do to be successful in this new world? Anything and everything may have to change.

Without that attitude, success is unlikely.

China is a culture that is welcoming, but any foreigner must recognise that the host country culture has to be respected and supported. To work in China is to accept the fundamental premise of our profession; that is, everyone is unique, and to have a successful educational experience, the learner’s individuality has to be the basis for the learning process. In China, each student, teacher and parent is shaped by the culture. Their perspectives, their decision-making, their learning, their attitudes, their values and actions are all built upon that culture. To work in China, you have to choose to work within that context. ◆

Richard Mast trains Chinese and foreign teachers and administrators in China and Australia. ✉ rmast617@gmail.com

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Teaching Ceramics in an Online World

By Maria Sezer

W

hen in March 2020 we were told that we would teach online for two weeks, I was flabbergasted. I had difficulties imagining how my students could work with clay at home, thinking of factors like getting the clay to them, finding workspace at home, drying and firing and glazing clay. Another difficulty would be that as an art teacher we tend to hold our students’ projects, to turn them around in our hands to ‘look’ at them, because the tactile factor is also very important in assessing their work. That would be very difficult online too.

I decided that I had to let my students do work with materials that everybody would have at home and that would not antagonize other family members, materials which would continue developing their dexterity and aestethic awareness. After all, it was only for two weeks...

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My students are mostly grade 12, with some grade 11, and take this elective class mostly for the purpose of having some relaxation in their difficult and heavy 12th year, so keeping it enjoyable was of the essence. (My motto is ‘grab their attention while they are enjoying themselves’). Cooking popped into my mind and I set simple tasks like: ‘Make a vegetable dish; take four photos of yourself doing the preparation and cooking, and one photograph of the final result. The result must look attractive, so set the table with a cloth and cutlery as well: arrange the food in a nice way on the plate (make a composition of it) so the photograph will be good to look at’. During class time we used Google classroom, which served us well, because there was no classical teaching going on; rather one-to-one talks with class members listening and chiming in.

I made the assignment broad on purpose, since I had no idea what food would be stocked at students’ homes and I did not want family members to have to buy special food. Students had five 40-minute periods per week, 2 double and 1 single. The single period was reserved for arranging the photographs and uploading them to the Google classroom, and possibly for writing something about the dish.

The double periods were used for cooking the dish, from beginning to end. Students were allowed to cook whenever it was convenient for them. They did not have to do this during class time, but they did need to check in at the beginning of class time, so we could have a chat about what they were making and they could ask questions of me and others. We had interesting conversations about baking powder and rolling pins. Since I am not a fantastic cook myself, I learned quite a lot from my students

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about unusual foods, and I also discovered that I had a student who wanted to become a master chef, which delighted me.

The school close-down dragged on and I managed to make it till the end of the year, but I found it difficult and not satisfying to have to find new tasks, although many of the students declared they really enjoyed this program and it had brought them nearer to family members discussing recipes, baking birthday cakes for relatives etc. So when holidays came I was very happy to think next year would be normal again …

Alas, it was not to be.

water, a cup and a whisk to make their glue in, plus some flour and old newspaper. Funnily enough that was the most difficult material to find, because so many households do not read newspapers anymore.

Old notebooks would do just as well though, as long as glossy paper was not used because the paper must be absorbent. 30 minutes into the lesson we were preparing glue.

The rule for making glue was to add about 1 cup of water to around 1 cup of flour, mix, make sure there are no lumps, and don’t make too much or it will start to smell before the next lesson. Done! Trying it out before the lesson, I covered my mold with soap and oil, but the paper mache stuck anyway and I had to cut it off, so the whole cup was torn. I asked the students to drape one layer of clingfilm over their mold, so their pot would come off easily after drying.

Keeping our molds upside down, sometimes perched on a wide jar or a cardboard pipe – whatever was handy – we started covering them with strips of torn paper, making sure that the strips were not too wide. We talked about the direction of fibres in paper and how it was easier to tear straight strips in one direction than the other. I showed how the whole of the paper strip had to be doused in the glue, and I stripped off the excess glue between my index and middle fingers in order to show how much glue needed to be on both sides of the paper.

Some students wanted to get the work done quickly and liked to use wide strips, but this created many wrinkles which

Since pots are classical in ceramics, and molds are used in ceramics as well, the first project was making a pot using a mold.

Next stage At the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year I had to get serious about doing this, so my students would have the education they deserved, and I decided that teaching ceramics is for a very large part 3-D design, and that working with paper mache, trying to follow those parts of the ceramics program that I could with them, would be a good alternative. This is something the students could do at home, because of the readily-found materials - and no kiln or whatever was needed. My method would be a classical approach where I would show and tell, and we would work together on similar projects via the computer screen. The further we came into the process the more variation and choice-making for the students there would be.

Since pots are classical in ceramics, and molds are used in ceramics as well, the first project was making a pot using a mold. In the first lesson I gave the students 20 minutes to create a workstation somewhere in their house, a table that would be their ‘permanent studio’ during the online lessons. I had already notified them about this, but thought that some might need more time to prepare. I decided to use Zoom from now on, which enabled me to see everyone at the same time. When the camera of their phones or computers was tilted towards the table surface, I could follow what they were doing and call out their names to comment on their work. Likewise, students could call on me and ask me questions.

What students needed to know In that first lesson, students had to look for an appropriate mold, where the mouth of the mold was wider than the bottom, the bottom preferably flat and rounded on the corner. A plastic softer cup of which the sides could be pressed towards each other was best for when we wanted to take our cup off the mold. A myriad of cups, smaller and bigger, were found in their homes, so we had a great variety of shapes.

Now each student had to have a pitcher of

Summer 2021 | International School | 27

Leading, teaching and learning later had to be sorted out in order to achieve a smooth surface. The first layer of strips would be vertical, the second horizontal, and then vertical and horizontal again. This was a guideline and not a strict rule, but it is essential to stress that the different directions of the layers of paper, creating a sort of lattice, make the structure much stronger. I compared it with crossing iron bars in reinforced concrete, and talked about poor construction and earthquakes. Another important point was that each following strip had to partially overlap the previous strip. It was important that we did not have any air between the layers of paper, since that would make the bodies of our pots weaker as well (reinforced concrete again). To take out any excess air, we ‘massaged’ any air bubbles out from between the paper layers. We used at least four layers of paper.

Adding features and design-thinking The students were delighted at how solid and strong the walls of their pots became after drying, so we were all in a good mood the next week. Now we had to make a foot that would fit the pot we made, both physically and aesthetically. The pot had to look good, and to stand solidly as well. Students had to consider proportions and functionality. In the first lesson I had told my students to make sure to start collecting all kind of recyclable stuff: milk bottles, yogurt cups and so on. They should keep this under their desk for instant resource when needed.

Now they could use either these ready-made recyclable objects or another mold to create a foot. Again we had many different choices and lots of discussion about what were the right shapes and proportions. One student used three toilet rolls she connected with masking tape to make a foot reminiscent of a fluted column, while some used flat bars of wood. After covering the feet with two or three layers of paper mache, they had to be connected to the main body. We used paper-based masking tape for that and covered it again with two layers of paper mache. Because of the close proximity of the two pieces it was very important to press the strips of paper strongly to each other and to make sure no air got trapped, and that the original shape of each of the parts was not lost, so the outline of the pot stayed clear and kept its character. This task was more challenging then making both of the separate pieces. The lessons wer getting a bit more difficult, but my students were getting better as well!

Since there were so many different shapes and sizes of vessels, some of the rims were not as strong as we wanted them so we had to reinforce the rims. We did this either with strips of cardboard which gave us a thickened rim, or with strips of cut-out plastic containers.

In the latter case it was important to make sure the strips overlapped so the tension in the rim would be optimized. Again, the strips were fastened with masking tape and overlayed with two or three layers of paper mache. I explained to the students the importance of the rim of the vessel: ‘The rim is the card-visite of your pot!’

Now came the time to make handles. This would be a very important choice. Handles say a lot about the character of the pot. Here we talked about the function 28 | International School | Summer 2021

The whole project took the first six weeks of school. I enjoyed teaching this unit greatly and my students enjoyed it as well.

of ancient pots, about which handles were used for what purpose, and how the material of clay dictated which handles could be made. I also searched Google for handles and found some websites which I uploaded onto the Google classroom for the students to have a look at. Again, students were free to use bottlecaps, pingpong balls or whatever they found would fit their pot, or they could cut out strips from cardboard, sticking them together with white glue and bending them using the direction of the undulated inside paper in the cardboard to make a smooth curve. Some opted to use rope. It was again essential that the handles were in proportion to the pot and looked aesthetically pleasing. Some

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students made two handles and some four, depending on the size of their pots’ main bodies and handles. Some handles became snakes, some handlebar-like. Here fine hand dexterity was practiced even more. Here freedom and choice were becoming more important.

After all was dry I talked about sandpaper types, and sandpapering the surface of our pots in order to make them as smooth as possible. Some students were looking for a contrast in texture and wanted parts of the pot to be rough. I asked them to make this very obvious, so it would be clear that it was part of the plan.

A concept Now the pots were ready to be ‘glazed’. We would do this with acrylic paints. This would seal the paper and flour and make our pots even stronger. Three layers of white paint were applied; the first was watery, the second a bit thicker and the third diluted least of all.

The students had to think of a concept they thought would fit the shape and size of their pot and enhance it.

A paragraph with an artistic statement would have to be written about it, encouraging the students to think deeper about their reasoning. I was pleasantly surprised at some of their choices, and the students enjoyed the

painting part of the project too. While painting we talked together and looked for composition and the elements of design, and about color, and I took turns to speak to students individually about their work. We also talked about properties of acrylic paints and the different possibilities of using it. Some students decided to varnish thier pots to make the color look like glaze.

The whole project took the first six weeks of school.

I enjoyed teaching this unit greatly and my students enjoyed it as well. Even some of the parents enjoyed it. One of them told me their son’s ‘studio’ was in the middle of the living room and they would watch him, listen to me and see what was done as if watching television. I had a good laugh about that. This is not a difficult topic to teach, but it is difficult to explain through a computer screen what needs to be improved on the pot and where. I had to speak a lot, and a lot more descriptively than I ever did previously, and that was the most difficult thing for me. ◆ Maria Sezer is an Art teacher at Robert College, Istanbul ✉ msezer@robcol.k12.tr

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Leading, teaching and learning

What should be at the heart of global learning Navigating an uncertain landscape with certainty

By Rob Ford

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am determined not to mention the ‘C’ word when we are all looking forward to the future with the need for hope in the 2020s. Though we cannot pretend that the impact and legacy of the pandemic in 2020-21, where schools are concerned, hasn’t changed the face of education around the world, we should also not see it as a paradigm shift in education separate from what is already underway. It may well have accelerated seismic shifts already happening in technology, learning and classrooms across the world. Whatever happens as the next stage of the pandemic and uncertainty continues, we will still be looking at innovative ways to support young people in making sense of the

world, to professionally develop educators and school leaders, and to continue to connect classrooms, communities and cultures worldwide.

The narrative in education is always about optimism and hope, but it is even more so in the current times. The role of education and educators has always been to offer alternative narratives and to draw upon history and examples so that the future never looks bleak, or cast in a certain way. We can find our hope in education through looking at the development of more sophisticated global learning to provide a brighter light for our schools and communities in the darkness of a complex educational landscape.

Leading, teaching and learning

The narrative in education is always about optimism and hope, but it is even more so in the current times.

(L) or Numeracy (N) or Citizenship (C) were once at the top of the agenda, with leadership teams and middle leaders adding these letters across schemes of work and sitting back satisfied that that had achieved ‘literacy’ or ‘numeracy’ because they had mapped the curriculum.

It isn’t an abstract or disconnected approach to the wider world or even subscription to an international curriculum such as the International Baccalaureate or International Primary Curriculum or Cambridge IGCSEs. These don’t automatically imply a global learning approach if schools look to collecting badges rather than implementing an actual international curriculum approach.

It is not the preserve of an expert or guru to pronounce what global learning might be, especially as one of the main attractions of pursuing global learning is precisely that it is one of the best examples of an experiential strategy in education.

Global learning, leading to national identity confidence and global citizenship.

The Canadian educational expert, Michael Fullan, once said ‘Some teachers taught the curriculum today. Others taught students. There lies the difference’.

The two questions we should be addressing to navigate a complex educational landscape in international education are 1) What is at the heart of global learning? and 2) What is it?

I want to begin by stating what it isn’t; it isn’t a fluffy and nebulous approach that, in effect, undermines understanding of global issues or how these are taught to students. The examples of ‘Hats for Haiti’ spring to mind from the humanitarian disaster a few years ago when schools, in good faith, collected money for disaster relief but students had no idea where Haiti was, its history, or even what the charity collection would do. International education can be simplistic, and often the most powerful examples of it are, but it cannot be ‘blind activism’ or learning.

Neither is it about pointless curriculum mapping in the same way that Literacy

What is it?

There are 6 concepts that constitute a global learning approach in education: 1. It is the glue for a school community 2. Holistic curriculum – not only joining up subjects and learning but also ensuring nothing is taught in abstract or a silo 3. An outward facing school 4. A positive school culture 5. International mindedness 6. Futures orientated What is really at the heart of global learning is ‘IDENTITY’ In a globalised world the very core of global learning’s importance is that, at the heart of it, it is global learning that allows us to work out and be proud of who we are – whether in Moldova, the Forest of Dean, Appalachia, or wherever – and link that to how we relate this to the wider globalised world: not in an ‘either/or’ split.

Why is it important?

Outside the now former British Council HQ, off Trafalgar Square in London, were two very powerful signs. One said ‘Connecting classrooms and cultures

around the world’ and the other said ‘Changing lives through education’. I would suggest both are very good reasons for why international education is important.

In my classroom I used to have a quote from HG Wells that said ‘Humanity is a race between education and catastrophe’.

As we move into the 2020s, we are faced continuously with this question as we interact with our students: ‘how do we explain these times?’. Here are four reasons to illustrate why it is important: a) Globalist vs Patriot Former US president Trump gave a speech to the UN in September 2019 where he declared ‘the future belongs to the patriot, not the globalist’. The challenge for all of us going forward into the 2020s is that this false binary choice is called out and that we, as educators, ensure through global learning that such zero sum politics have no place in our education. This is a huge challenge for schools where the obvious curriculum approach is to ignore and default to the abstract. b) Climate Change Action – The Greta factor Our students’ generation is often castigated as the ‘snowflake’ generation, a generation full of apathy, and yet when they go on strike and demand change, they can be derided by powerful figures (as when the former US president mocked a 16-year autistic school girl on social media). The agency and mobilisation of young people is something that is only going to grow and be a key factor in global learning; most young people I know can recite the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from the heart and are going to be unforgiving when they achieve the reins of power. More importantly, they also apply the SDGs daily. c) Education for a greater purpose One of the key factors in favour of global education is that anyone who has ever been involved in it knows that it is more than the operational, mundane day-to-day.

It isn’t about compliance education: often the schools that are the greatest  Summer 2021 | International School | 31

Leading, teaching and learning advocates of global learning are also great advocates of literacy, student leadership, oracy, numeracy, digital, creativity, languages, sustainability and critical thinking. They also tend to have thriving modern languages throughout the school linked to global learning. Not an accidental correlation.

They are also schools that are often streets ahead on student and staff wellbeing. As a young history teacher in the mid-1990s, I became involved in global learning because a bored Year 9 class, not taking GCSE History, asked one day if German schools studied the Holocaust and if Russian schools knew America and Britain were in World War II. Within a short space of time, and using the very expensive but hardly used Polycom video-conferencing camera, we were talking live to schools in Cologne and Tomsk from Bristol and connecting classrooms across Europe and Siberia. It represented the most amazing professional development for colleagues in my history department too, and my then school became one of the first International Baccalaureate and international state schools in the South West of England.

has to be about global learning and not happened as we now move through inward-looking. We have to ask ourselves the 2020s, and believing in a casual constantly as educators what we are inevitability about the world and finding passing on to the next generation. The global solutions has been a mistake many d) Future preparations/future leaders momentum we can create with young societies have made in the first part of A crucial reason for people is an unstoppable force and the 21st century. Such global learning is the already the issues that have plagued uncertainty has led to development, within this decade are coming apart at the many educators being the current generation, seams; there will be valuable lessons unsure about what they We are all in of the leaders we going forward for us about not repeating should teach or how education because they should approach want to see for the mistakes or trusting the same players with future with the values some of these issues. power. The mission of global education to we believe in its Preparing our young and beliefs of global connect classrooms is worth signing up learning at their core people as future leaders to; it is evangelical but it is also crucial that transformative for a better, more stable through global learning we teach our children to look outward power as and prosperous world opportunities is key. and not fear diversity and difference. built on collaboration I will finish with the words of one of my the ultimate, and cooperation rather Conclusion heroes, Kurt Hahn, someone who always than on antagonism We are all in education saw the curriculum in a holistic way and irreversible and falsehoods. One because we believe linked to the future: public good of the reasons I have in its transformative ‘We are all better than we know. If only spent much of my power as the ultimate, we can be brought to realise this, we may career working with irreversible public good never be prepared to settle for anything post-Soviet countries that will ensure a hopeful less’. in Eastern Europe and Siberia is that, legacy for our children of decent values Exposure to and education with global after the euphoria died down from that and the skills to navigate an increasingly learning means we may never settle for initial ‘bliss of the new dawn’ in 1989-91, complex and challenging world. Looking anything less. We owe this education to all the old system proved how ingrained to how education should be in the next our young people as we prepare them to it was in approaches towards LGBTQ, decade and beyond, it is clear that it lead in their future. ◆ race, inequalities, nationalism, corruption, gender and just holding onto power, showing that there is still a long way Rob Ford is Director of Heritage International School, Moldova. ✉ robert.ford@heritage.md to go.

The ‘end of history’ hasn’t quite 32 | International School | Summer 2021

Leading, teaching and learning

MA International Education and Globalisation A 1 year, full-time master’s degree at the University of Bath • Consider educational purposes, methods and approaches relevant to a shifting global landscape.

• Prepare for, or build upon your career in an international education setting.

• You will be taught by researchers who are experts in their field.

Explore the course Summer 2021 | International School | 33

Leading, teaching and learning

From Pandemic to Progress in IT Integration

By Robert Harrison, Lyndsey Stuttard and Matt Buck

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round the world, access to educational technology has been one of the most impor tant factors in the quality of learning available to students throughout the extended school closures related to the coronavirus pandemic. It’s no surprise that venture capital is flowing fast into EdTech. An already-crowded collection of hardware, software and cloud-based applications is expanding by the day. Here, two exper t practitioners share their experience and ideas about how to bring what we’ve learned about educational technology during distance learning back into the classroom (and on to the playing field) with integrity. They were interviewed by Dr Rober t Harrison, Education Strategy Director for ACS International Schools (London and Doha).

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What opportunities has teaching remotely opened up for you and your students?

Describe some of the work you’ve been doing with Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence while teachers and students were working from home.

Lyndsey: During distance learning I have explored more ways of ensuring that we are maintaining connections to our students to offer experiences that support their learning at home. A good example is the Augmented Reality Escape Room, which is a way of providing an immersive experience through which students can ‘step into’ a virtual world and explore the curriculum in an engaging manner. I’ve been helping teachers learn how to capitalise on this new approach that empowers them to become creators rather than consumers of educational technologies. They’re taking an active role as advocates and designers of student learning. We started on this path before the distance learning became such a big part of our educational reality,

Leading, teaching and learning

but our increasing dependence on technology really accelerated progress and focused attention on how technology can increase engagement. I think we’ll see that continuing in school learning environments as teachers become more confident and fluent in new technologies.

Matt: It’s really true that having had strong investment in educational technology was a big step up when we were forced into distance learning.

As far back as 2011, we’d been using technology like Silicone Coach that allowed students to record live action and then analyse their recorded performance, so that they could celebrate what they’d achieved and plan how to improve next time.

Tools like CollabraCam and hudltechnique were already par t of our curriculum, so students were primed to accept technology as an integral part of learning in Physical Education (PE). We have had a 1:1 iPad programme for lower and middle school students for several years, good suppor t, and strong expectations for integrating educational technology.

How are your most innovative and technology-eager teachers changing their approach?

Lyndsey: With ongoing support and delving deeper into the purpose of the units they teach, I am seeing that technology-eager teachers are more willing to take on new approaches that

not only engage their learners, but also help them to better meet the objectives of their learning. Providing the training and mentoring to teachers has ensured that they are being moved in the right direction, to help them see the purposeful use of the technology. With the consistent approach to support and encouragement, enthusiastic teachers are engaged with new ideas and conversations for changes in the future.

Matt: I think that our students are key drivers of change. In terms of interest and motivation, we’ve all had to adapt quickly and find new ways of working. We found that things get boring fast when students are learning on their own, so teachers found themselves looking for new platforms and ways to use them. HomeCourt has been the latest find on our Virtual PE journey. An app originally designed exclusively for basketball, it soon became clear that it has multiple applications for Physical Education at home. It’s an online, personalised training assistant with game-specific developmental drills that can track movement, angle of release, efficiency and percentages, to name just a few. The developers

Summer 2021 | International School | 35

Leading, teaching and learning

soon added a similar feature for football training to give the app wider appeal.

The app contains a host of physical conditioning drills and exercises to sharpen mind and body that can be completed in a very compact space making it ideal for Lockdown training in PE classes. Each activity is recorded and scored for you, so your focus remains 100% on the task at hand. We have then used the results to create motivational leader boards and teacher targets that helped inspire everyone to keep moving. Students have loved this approach because it’s simple, fun and has a lot of variety.

minded to new possibilities.

They are no longer stranded on individual islands; someone is there to give them the access they need to thrive.

Sometimes we have the mindset that teachers will ‘just adapt’ like the students do, but that is not always the case. Teachers that are encouraged, suppor ted, and listened to are more likely to engage in innovative practices than those that are left to themselves.

Matt: Right! Time to think Collaboration skills and work together is critical. We are key. We’ve found were able to have two weeks lead-in time to prepare as a full that technology is a depar tment for this transition in great way to bring March 2020, giving us plenty of collaboration meetings to design our approach using the apps we people together, were familiar with. The big leap especially at times for our team was the addition of YouTube and how we were going when forces beyond to utilise live video-streaming and our control seem to recorded uploads to help with lesson content and assignments.

We worked it out together. pull us apart.

What conditions, foundational skills, personal histories and professional dispositions frame teachers’ successful adoption of new instructional technologies?

Matt: Collaboration skills are key. We’ve found that technology is a great way to bring people together, especially at times when forces beyond our control seem to pull us apar t. In the first lockdown, we held a six-hour schoolwide, livestreamed vir tual spor ts day. It’s impor tant to have a mindset that’s open to new ideas and trying new things, and seeing technology as a way to connect people with each other and the physical world. [We’ve organised] ‘Beat the Teacher Challenges’ each week, creating team competitions. Our classes have climbed Everest together, walked from Land’s End to John O’Groats and cycled to Istanbul! We’ve been able to create school groups and clubs for students, teachers and parents—all of which build community.

Lyndsey: More often than not, the main message I hear from teachers is that they just need more time and more suppor t. When those two elements are provided without restraint, teachers are open-

As an integration specialist, how do you help teachers move toward adopting new technologies, especially if they’re reticent?

Lyndsey: I find that the best way to approach teachers that are more reluctant to these ‘big ideas’ of innovation is to find common ground, to appeal to the areas of education and technology they have already found comfor t in, and to offer new methodologies in small amounts, but consistently.

When I can share something new with someone and it includes content they are already connected to, especially on an emotional level, they become more invested in wanting to explore deeper. Making myself available for 1:1 suppor t for guidance, training, mentoring, and planning means that there is someone in the teachers’ corner, an advocate for that purposeful change that they know has true meaning behind it.

That’s all pretty rosy. Are there things you worry about in this latest push for more educational technology?

Matt: In PE, you have to be cautious not to sacrifice valuable movement time within

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lessons by overusing the tech. A balance is essential when selecting what apps to invest in.

They need to be fun to use, engaging, simple, and produce results that enhance performance by giving instant feedback to the students. The practical learning outcome must always be the end goal of each class. It’s impor tant to keep the big picture in mind, and to ask, ‘Will this tech help to inspire a lifelong love of activity that leads to a lifelong healthy lifestyle?’ Technology used for its own sake can be a distraction. Less can be more, and expensive doesn’t necessarily mean better. Technology can go hand in hand with PE—but only if it’s used to complement physical performance and understanding.

We’re also conscious of managing the risk involved in using technology that’s available on public platforms and uses commercial applications.

Before we take advantage of the amazing new platforms that have flooded the market, we make sure that we’re aware of safeguarding and privacy concerns. It’s absolutely crucial that students’ identities, locations and personal medical data are always secure.

Conclusion It’s pretty clear that the recipe for effective technology integration—even in a pandemic— remains a mix of long-term investment, carefully-

selected tools, teachers with a growth mindset and time to collaborate, administrative support, and a hefty dose of educational vision that keeps student-centred learning at its hear t. I’m sure those ingredients will remain vital as schools emerge from closures into a more complex reality. ◆

Dr Robert Harrison is Education Strategy Director for ACS International Schools. ✉ rharrison@acs-schools.com Lyndsey Stuttard is the Technology Integrationist at ACS Cobham International School (UK), where Matt Buck was K-12 Head of Physical Education from 2004-2021; he is now Director of Sport at Rugby School, Thailand.

An example of an immersive/augmented reality lesson may be found at youtube/ b5g7MMvmCVM

Summer 2021 | International School | 37

From the schools

Finding our space Students share thoughts and experience

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By Ayame Bevan, Iou-shiuan Angela Chou, Miia Mäkinen and Seoyeon Yoon

osh, wealthy, and privileged; these stereotypes hardly represent the true nature of the student population studying in international schools. Three current international students – Ayame, Miia and Seoyeon – took the stage at the Alliance for International Education Japan chapter’s inaugural meeting in November 2020 to share their thoughts and experiences on what it means to belong and to be connected to an international school environment. Their thoughts are summarised here.

Student A When people think of a person from Finland and Korea, you would expect the person to look

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like a mix of both countries. However, in my case, my physical appearance largely resembles the Finnish side of the family, which means I have light-coloured eyes, ashen skin, and medium brown hair. I never had a problem with people not initially recognizing me as Korean when they met me for the first time. However, I had classmates telling me that I was ‘too white’ to be considered Asian, based on physical appearance and the things I say. When I was told that, I felt I was not biracial because I did not look ‘Asian enough’. There was an instance where I once said I liked Starbucks, the coffee

shop, which is a normal thing to like, but I was then told it was stereotypical of me to appreciate that because I was ‘that white’.

These situations affected me for a long time, but nowadays such comments do not impact me. My parents placed me in international schools because they wanted to give me a chance to grow up in an environment where other students from similar international backgrounds surrounded me. Now, I feel the actual benefits of being in an international school.

I feel accepted for who I am, and I no longer feel like I need to prove to others where I come from.

From the schools

Student B Being biracial living in Japan, I was fortunate enough to be placed in an international school. Surrounded by many nationalities from a young age, I naturally learned to value others based on their actions and not their backgrounds. Due to Japan’s lack of cultural diversity, having foreign physical features always attracted attention, causing me to feel different.

However, through interactions with others, I realized that they were simply curious, not critical. The primary way I learned to adjust was to be comfortable with myself. International education was crucial for making me feel accepted. Our image of ourselves, especially at a young age, is primarily related to how others perceive us. Surrounded by various nationalities, I never felt rejected due to my cultural background or suppressed by cultural norms in school. Although at first we navigated through our differences consciously, soon it became an unconscious act. One example of this is ‘Japlish’, mixing Japanese and English during a conversation, as most speak multiple languages in my school.

In my experience, international schools are academically progressive, and this was vital to me. Being taught to study towards my passions and not simply to seek the ‘outstanding’ was liberating.

Moreover, treating failure as a stepping stone to success allowed me to break away from the fears and expectations that were holding me back. My current international school is not only an academic environment; it is a place where students find acceptance and are encouraged to break free of traditional mindsets to become open-minded, positive forces in the world today.

Student C From a young age, I was able to come across different cultures by living in other countries.

The biggest lesson was being able to understand and think from different perspectives.

Spending three years of my childhood in the USA, I had to overcome linguistic issues. There I studied in a public school, and on the weekends I went to a Korean language school. After the US I moved to Korea and then to Japan, all within seven years. Such changes were compounded by the challenge of adjusting from a Korean public school to an international school in Japan. All three countries were culturally very different, which posed new challenges to me each time I moved. But I learned how to adapt to new systems quickly and how to help people in new environments because I could relate to their struggles.

The biggest lesson was being able to understand and think from different perspectives. Having experienced American, Korean and international education I can say all are vastly different.

Personally, the international system suits me better, considering my personality and values. From my experience, I feel that the Korean education system is more focused on improving the students

academically. In contrast, the international education system puts a strong emphasis on developing the mindset of the students. Being in an international school helped me become more culturally competent as I met and worked with people from different countries and cultures. Additionally, it supported me in developing the skills and mindsets to work with new things or differences. It also gave me freedom and time to work on self-development such as arts, sports, and services. Lastly, I became more aware of the global issues and local matters and was involved in different cultures and communities. I feel very fortunate and thankful to my parents, who gave me the opportunities to learn multiple languages and cultures and to grow into the person I am right now.

Conclusion International schools are homes to students from different backgrounds. The endless opportunities offered exclusively in world-class education naturally build a space for individuals to experience and grow from academic and personal learning. The thoughts and experiences of Miia, Ayame, and Seoyeon are just some of many international students’ stories. For these students, education that reinforces intercultural competency and acceptance will make ways for life-long personal growth. ◆ The authors of this article are all students or alumni of Seisen International School, Tokyo. ✉ jhatch@seisen.com

Summer 2021 | International School | 39

From the schools

On the Wall In which Alice meets an educational Guru, and learns about research and some surprising things about the nature of change.

This article is the sixth of a series 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.

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RALPH STEADMAN

lice left the tea par ty with her gloom increased rather than reduced. So far, she has discovered that the school where she now works avoids responsibility, pursues mediocrity and celebrates conformity, that all planning has to be backwards, that all arguments are circular and that the only things that really matter are numbers.

She felt the children must be completely bored by an Education where measuring how they reach a target defined for them is the only impor tant thing.

As she wandered through the forest she heard, in the distance, a voice she recognised. It was sure to be another of her old friends, but who was it and what was he saying? It sounded like someone was declaring loudly to an audience but she just couldn’t quite make out the words.

She entered a clearing to see that it had been set as an auditorium with seats all facing a stage at the far end. There was the sound of applause as the teaching staff, led by the Red Queen, stood up and star ted to leave. There were a lot of people there that Alice recognised. Alongside the Queen were the rest of the Senior Leadership Team of the school, the Bishops, Knights and Rooks. In a curious conflation of what she remembered as two distinct experiences in her childhood, the rest of the staff were a pack of cards from a different adventure.

They must be very proud of their dress code in this school, she thought, as they were all resplendent in their suits. There were the Spades, the Hear ts, the Diamonds and the Clubs. They were chattering excitedly as they left the open auditorium of the clearing. She couldn’t see through the crowd who had commanded the stage.

‘Wasn’t he fascinating?’ she heard from the Five of Diamonds.

‘So inspiring’ replied the Eight of Spades.

There was a note of caution from some of the more senior, longstanding members of the pack.

She caught something about ‘It’s very clever, but the parents have different expectations here’ from the Jack of Hear ts, which led a couple of the Tens near him to nod and mutter agreement.

Alice ran up to the Six of Clubs as she was leaving. ‘What was that? What did I miss? Who was speaking?’ she gabbled.

‘Oh, he is just one of the most respected educational leaders there is. He has written so many wonderful books. I managed to get him to sign one for me’. She held up a shiny hardback copy of a book entitled

From the schools

RALPH STEADMAN

damaging the individual constituents. He even included a recipe for making an omelette without breaking an egg.’ Six continued proudly. ‘He has agreed to be my supervisor for my MA disser tation.

I am going to do some Research.’

Alice had a slight feeling of déjà vu. It was one of those capital letter moments again. She was cer tain, from the way Six had uttered the final word, that she said Research with a capital letter R. She wondered what the difference was between Research and research, and she was sure it would soon become obvious.

Alice made her way through the crowd, feeling rather like a salmon swimming upriver as the staff members left through the way she had come in. The numbers thinned and there, sure enough, in front of her was her old friend with the large oval head and broad smile teetering precariously on the edge of the high stage. Alice thought she could see the line of a crack on one side of his face, but apar t from that he did look very healthy to her.

‘Humpty Dumpty’ she called. ‘How good to see you. You look so well after that terrible accident falling off the wall.’

‘Ah,’ he replied with the low booming voice she remembered, ‘the little girl from all those years ago has grown up! What brings you here?’

‘I have become a teacher’ declared Alice proudly.

‘A noble profession’ retor ted Humpty. ‘Although there is no money in it, not much respect, and lots of long nights of marking!

That’s why I stepped sideways into writing books and doing research.’ This last par t was delivered in a much quieter voice as he leaned forward to Alice from the front of the stage. He clearly didn’t want his motives shared among his audience. ‘Once you have sold a few books, you can spend your life travelling around all over the place.’

‘But you are so respected. It must be wonderful to impart your wisdom when you visit schools, and to really inspire people to make genuine changes and improvements in their practice.’

Humpty produced a sound that was halfway between a snor t and a laugh, a sort of snaugh. He continued ‘Don’t kid yourself. Nothing I say makes the slightest bit of difference to the way people behave. I can come and speak here for an hour or two. I can lead one or two-day courses and sell amazing numbers of provocative books. They will leave inspired and invigorated, full of ideas and resolutions.’

The key thing is that the majority of the school community are completely convinced that there is no way of doing things differently.

‘Seven Steps for Schools’ with a subtitle indicating that following these steps, which are proven by research, will make any school better than it currently is. Alice looked inside the cover, and sure enough there was, in a slightly unsteady but legible hand, the signature of the author : Professor Emeritus Humpty Dumpty.

‘It is him!’ Alice almost screamed with delight. ‘I remember Humpty Dumpty from years ago. I hope he has got over his accident’.

‘I don’t know anything about an accident’ said Six. ‘He teaches at the Wonderland Institute of Education, although most of his time is spent travelling the world and speaking at conferences. We are so lucky to have him here. He is an old friend of the King.

Apparently, he did a ground-breaking experiment in experiential learning with all the King’s horses and all the King’s men some time ago. That was the subject of his first book.’

‘Yes, yes, I remember the incident,’ said Alice, ‘although I am not sure it was the ground that was broken. The ground was remarkably unscathed after the mess had been cleaned up. What was the book about?’

‘It was called “The Omelette and The Egg reassessed”. He likened the school to an omelette, being more than the sum of its par ts, and showed that getting a good school can be achieved without

Summer 2021 | International School | 41

From the schools

‘But that’s wonderful isn’t it?’ asked Alice.

‘Well, yes and no. You see the effect of all this excitement wears off according to Newton’s law of cooling. It is exponential decay. The half-life can vary but on average the excitement has halved in about a week, quar tered in another week, and by the end of a month it has halved twice more to leave almost no measurable effect at all. Imagine a hot cup of tea left out on a cold day.’ explained the professor.

‘Why does it always come down to tea?’ asked Alice, more to herself than to anyone else. ‘In any case, if I remember my Physics, there needs to be a background temperature for the cup to return to.

Can’t we change that?’

‘Exactly so’ agreed Humpty, much to Alice’s surprise. She did not remember he was ever very good at agreeing anything! ‘The background is the structure that envelopes the school. This includes everything that defines the way the school runs on a daily basis; the subjects and the curriculum, the assessment and the exams, the day length and the lesson length, the use of technology, the size of the rooms, everything that seems decided and fixed.’

‘Would you include class size, the way the classes are made up, the shape of the classrooms, the light, the sound? Oh and uniforms and dress codes, and food and school bells?’

‘Yes, all of that. Some are defined from the outside by governments, by education ministries, by international organisations, universities, examining boards and curriculum schemes.

He likened the school to an omelette, being more than the sum of its parts, and showed that getting a good school can be achieved without damaging the individual constituents.

Others are defined by the schools themselves.

The key thing is that the majority of the school community are completely convinced that there is no way of doing things differently.’

‘Hang on’ said Alice. ‘Surely schools are always reviewing these things?’

‘Yes, but they rarely make any tangible changes.

Try telling people in a school that has a school uniform that they should consider getting rid of it!

Try telling a school that has no uniform that they should consider imposing one. Either way you will be looked at as if you have come from another planet. The same is true of any aspect of structure from uniform to tests to technology. Anything.’

‘But everyone knows that technology is impor tant’, retor ted Alice.

‘Do they? I was in a school the other day where introduction of personal laptops was considered the first step down a slippery slope of indulgence, distraction and compromise. As for mobile phones, you could hear the muttered ridicule if

RALPH STEADMAN

42 | International School | Summer 2021

anyone suggested they had an educational value. Another school down the road was using phones in the classroom at an early age and couldn’t imagine how education could be done in any other way.’

‘OK’ continued Alice. ‘I get that each school has a well-defined structure, and that they believe their structure to be the best, if not the only, way things should be done. But what has that got to do with the cooling effect of the changes you propose in these lectures?’

‘Ah well, you see the structure is the equivalent of a background temperature.’

Humpty had that smug grin of the one who knows it all that Alice remembered from her childhood. ‘That is what they will settle back into. That is the norm to which they will exponentially decay. Think about it. This is what happens when I stand here and talk about changes in practice. They are good teachers and have been successful at what they do. They want to improve, that is all. But they go back into the same structure, the same limits confining them, the same targets to achieve, measured by the same metrics, by the same people in the same way. I am asking them to work within all the same constraints and goals, but to do it a bit differently. Why on ear th would they? The only way they can change is if you change the They probably haven’t done that structure, so they have to change for years. The change provokes I get that each their practice.’ reflection, which results in better ‘But which bits would you and more thoughtful action.’ school has a wellchange?’ stammered a confused ‘Well, I can see it might Alice. work with uniforms’, said Alice defined structure, ‘That is the beauty of it all. thoughtfully, ‘but what about and that they believe something more impor tant It doesn’t really matter! Take uniforms. There is ample research like exams?’ their structure to that shows that having a uniform ‘It’s exactly the same.’ declared be the best, if not in a school leads to no tangible the professor. ‘There is a whole difference from not having a the only, way things country of schools where they uniform. Schools vary in all examine all children at the age of should be done. aspects of their education, their 16 with national standard tests. results, the students’ happiness, They are completely convinced the feeling of community, but that this is absolutely essential uniform or no uniform has been shown to have no to the progress of the children. How will we effect on these issues. However, change from one to know how good they are if we don’t? How will the other has been shown to have a positive effect in they decide what courses to follow next? How nearly every case. If you have a uniform and get rid will people know whether to give them jobs? Why of it, or if you don’t have one and adopt it, it is usually would they ever do any work if they positive on the school environment. Explain that!’ weren’t examined?’

‘I can’t.’ Alice was confused. ‘If neither is better, ‘But across the sea, in another country’, he why can changing be better?’ continued, ‘they would never dream of such exams.

‘Because the structure has changed. The teachers Why on earth would you waste teaching time on need to reassess their relationships with children in exam preparation, mock exams, exam leave and the a different environment. They need to think about exams themselves? You could teach so much more how to speak to these young people who look if you didn’t.’ different from before. They either need to star t ‘Yes, yes’, said Alice. ‘I see that each is wedded to having conversations about uniform or stop having their habits and practices. But what happens if you them. The point is they must reflect and change. change things?’ 

JOHN VERNON LORD

From the schools

Summer 2021 | International School | 43

From the schools

‘Teachers have to think, of course. If you take exams away, they have to think of what they will do with the extra time, what they will teach. They have to plan and work on new and different methods of assessment and ways to inspire children to learn because of the interest of the subject. On the other hand, if you introduce exams, the teachers have to work towards a common goal that is externally set, and feel their practice is now to be measured.

They need to work out how to cover the course in a given time and how to teach students to work under a different kind of pressure. In each case the teachers will be talking to each other. How did you do this? What did you do there? How should I manage that? They need to change their practice, and because they are professional and committed they will work out how to improve the way they do things. At that point reading my books and listening to me makes sense, because they know they have a need to change rather than a drag back to the old conformity.’ ’I see. But where do you get your ideas from?

Research I suppose.’

‘Good grief, no.’ he scoffed. ‘All my ideas are just common sense. Research can justify them because you can find research that justifies anything at all.

For every repor t giving the value of technology, there is another pointing out its negative effects.

This is Newton’s third law of Education. Each time you read that direct instruction works best, you can also read that open-ended investigation is better.

Research is a great tool, but it tells you nothing you didn’t know already.’

‘Why are they so contradictory? How can one repor t make something positive, and another prove it is negative?’ Alice was getting even more confused.

‘Because both are true. Technology can be both positive and negative. Teaching can work if it is direct instruction and if it is open-ended investigation. Now there are good teachers and less good teachers working with and without technology, 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.

44 | International School | Summer 2021

Chris Binge is Headmaster of Markham College, Lima, Peru. ✉ chris.binge@markham.edu.pe

LISBETH ZWERGER

Technology can be both positive and negative

being direct or investigative. So obviously you can find either way will work if you research on the right people in the right schools. Also there are many other factors that make the teaching effective, so research showing something works in one school or one set of schools has practically no relevance in another. I call this Placebo Education. It will be the title of my next book’.

‘But a placebo is something that makes no actual difference in itself, but has an effect just because people believe it does!’ stammered Alice.

‘Exactly’, concluded a very smug Humpty Dumpty, who then star ted to sign more copies of his books for enthusiastic fans.

Alice wandered off into the garden and towards the school building. As she left the lecture area, she heard a scream behind her and a loud crashing sound. Not again, she thought to herself. Very soon she was almost run over by the troop of all the King’s horses and all the King’s men charging towards the sound of the accident. ◆

Book Review

Third Culture Teacher

by Lucy Bailey

I

John Catt Educational Ltd, Woodbridge (2019) Reviewed by Julianne Brown

f working in an international school appeals to you, then Dr Lucy Bailey’s book is an essential read. This relatively short, easy-to-read guide raises important issues about the challenges and rewards of living and working abroad. Whether you are single, have a partner or are thinking of moving with the family, this book offers useful insight and practical advice.

Bailey writes from personal experience. She has accompanied her husband, an international school principal, to five different countries, raising a family of four children. She has extensive professional experience as a researcher within the field of international education and currently holds the position of Associate Professor at Bahrain Teachers’ College. This combination of personal experience and professional expertise helps the book to avoid being seen as a ‘self-help’ guide, striking as it does the right balance between anecdotal and research evidence to produce a credible starting point and ‘springboard to find out more’ (p75). Being written with the newcomer to international schools in mind, the title ‘Third Culture Teacher’ is a surprising choice. It is not a title that will stand out to an audience unfamiliar with international education, nor facilitate the book being found in a quick search for useful texts to read.

The book is divided into seven stand-alone chapters that together provide the reader with a comprehensive overview of the international school system and what it’s like to become an international teacher. The first chapter lives up to its promise of providing a ‘tantalizing glimpse’ (p26) of ‘the world of international schools’.

The scope is broad, and it draws on relevant research from the start. Following a brief introduction to the different types of international school, a useful working definition for the term sets the scene. Self-reflection and soul searching are encouraged at each of the various signposted stops along the way. School ethos, ownership and governance, quality control and accreditation, and school leadership are highlighted as key areas to explore before considering practical steps on what to do next.

The concluding paragraph offers a final piece of advice: if you are already feeling overwhelmed, perhaps working in an international school is not for you. The reader whose interest has been piqued at this point, however, is encouraged to read on.

Chapter 2, ‘International School Teacher’, discusses the motivation for and reality of teaching in an international classroom and living in another country.

Bailey acknowledges the feelings associated with culture shock and the fundamental shift in self that occurs when one is confronted with different values and ways of seeing the world. The term ‘Third Culture Teacher’ is introduced, mimicking the concept of the ‘third culture kid’, suggesting a shift in professional belonging from the home culture to that of an ‘international teacher’ group, distinctly separate from the host culture. The challenges of teaching and learning in the multicultural classroom are explored, and the author draws on her own research with international educators to offer a set of practical coping strategies. A typology of ‘accidental teachers’, suggested as ‘unqualified/ uncertified’, is contrasted with the ‘third culture teacher’ profile. This chapter ends with some basic advice to teachers

Book Review in adjusting to their new role: be clear of contractual expectations, be aware of political and economic influences that may impact your job, research the school, take advantage of the professional development opportunities available, and be proactive to lessen the impact of cultural shock.

Managing the expectations and cultural differences of parents and students in international schools is the subject of Chapter 3. The first half divides students into the categories of ‘third culture kids’/global nomads, host nationals or returnees, and includes an excellent account of the notion of TCKs as ‘social chameleons’ (p49). Highlighting the impact of different cultures reinforces the importance of knowing the types of students in the school and what experiences of education they will bring to the classroom. This leads on to the role of parents in international schools, their expectations of the education system and differences in parenting styles, all of which will influence the teacher/parent relationship.

Bailey concludes with an encouraging message that, with some compromises on both sides, these challenges can be seen in a positive light.

Chapter 4, ‘An international curriculum?’, is a comprehensive introduction to the different curricula found in international schools, and highlights the choice that this can offer to the potential international teacher.

Bailey reminds the reader that this choice is positioned within the imposed restrictions of the national government and the challenges of cultural difference and language, where the international classroom may resemble ‘an English-speaking island in an ocean of other linguistic influences’ (p82). Next, in: ‘EdKids: The children

of international educators’, parents are encouraged to reflect on the kinds of experience they want for their children and to ‘proactively ensure that they get them’ (p86). Drawing on personal experience and the notion of third culture kids, Bailey discusses the advantages and disadvantages of being a TCK and the possible impact on mental health. This is an important chapter for the author, extended to include consideration of the longer-term consequences of living abroad such as relationships with extended family over time, national ‘belonging’ and university choices.

Chapter 6 is dedicated to the happiness of your partner. ‘Advice for an expat partner or trailing spouse’ is a stark reminder that moving to a new job in a different country will have a significant impact on everyone, and that your partner is equally important in determining the success of this lifechanging event. The use of the term ‘trailing spouse’ (p105) may well raise alarm bells for some. One word of advice, not included in this section, is to think twice about going anywhere that describes your partner as ‘trailing’. The final chapter delves deeper into ‘culture shock’, what it is and how to manage it, and finishes with advice on the practicalities of moving overseas including, for instance, visas, pensions and pets.

Bailey’s experiences have shaped her view of international education, and are reflected in her literary style and use of international school ‘jargon’. Contrary to the author’s assumptions, these are not terms that I (for instance) am familiar with in my everyday working life as an international educator. The terms ‘EdKids’; ‘accidental teachers’; ‘trailing spouses’ and ‘TCKs’ demonstrate a system of labelling and categorisation of people and groups that introduces stereotypes and avoidable discriminative bias. Whatever one’s feelings about such terms, there is an important ethical position to be considered here. As Bailey’s pragmatic approach suggests, finding the right ‘fit’ is crucial and ‘If you can’t hold your tongue when it comes to politics, pick your country very carefully’.

Nonetheless, ‘Third Culture Teacher’ encourages proactive preparation and personal research, and prompts the reader to question and explore the world of international education carefully. The book is brimming with practical advice and thought-provoking insight that makes it an excellent place for the international teacher to start their journey. ◆

The final chapter delves deeper into ‘culture shock’, what it is and how to manage it

Dr Julianne Brown is Pastoral Wellbeing Coordinator and Guidance Counsellor at Brillantmont International School, Switzerland where she teaches PSHE and offers university guidance. ✉ julianne.brown@bath.edu

46 | International School | Summer 2021

Book Review

Edval Timetable

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I like how the student is involved in the development of a skill or concept. It is a wonderful resource!

Dr Fiona Thangata, High School Mathematics teacher, International School of Kenya

Totally, totally recommend it, it makes my life so much easier Valerie Smith, Bermuda Centre for Creative Learning