Leadership

DIVERSITY IN LEADERSHIP Leading to Inspire - UNIS Hanoi’s Women Bosses

Left to Right: Amie Pollack (Board Chair), Glenda Baker (formerly UNIS Hanoi HS Deputy Principal), Megan Brazil (ES Principal), Emma Silva (Director of Advancement), Jane McGee (Head of School), Misty Shipley (Director of Finance and Operations), TK Ostrom (Director of Enrolment Management and Marketing), Nitasha Crishna (Lower Elementary Deputy Principal)

By Akofa Wallace, Communications Manager awallace@unishanoi.org

The Leadership Team at the United Nations International School of Hanoi (UNIS Hanoi) is calling for schools and industries to follow in their footsteps and ensure equal gender representation on their Leadership Teams.

At UNIS Hanoi, both the Head of School, Jane Mc Gee and the Board Chair, Dr Amie Pollack are women. Jane is part of a leadership team that is over 50 percent women. She serves alongside a Board that sees women occupying seven of the nine available positions.

What may be considered groundbreaking to others in the education sector is seen as a natural evolution for a United Nations school long committed to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal number 5 - Gender Equality. The School believes this is a dynamic that better represents the world. Megan Brazil, UNIS Hanoi’s Elementary School Principal said, “Women make up 50 percent of the world’s population, it only stands to reason that we should be well represented in leadership positions.”

Megan’s colleague, Emma Silva, Director of Advancement agrees and goes further to state that strong representation of women in leadership roles at the School is ‘essential to every child’s learning’. A former journalist and broadcast executive, Emma explained, “Diversity doesn’t just make for strong decision making with multiple perspectives, it also ensures that our young people grow up with what we model at our School as the ‘norm’. This is essential while they construct their view of the world, of what is possible and imagine their place in it.”

However, the School’s clear commitment to gender equality remains an outlier in the field of education. “Having so many women leaders makes our school fairly unique” admits Nitasha Crishna, Deputy Principal of the Lower Elementary School. “In the four elementary schools I have worked in before, there would be the odd one or two women in leadership roles. At UNIS Hanoi, we’re in an enviable position.”

Nitasha’s previous experiences mirror the experiences of her fellow female colleagues. TK Ostrom, UNIS Hanoi’s Director of Enrolment Management and Marketing and a former executive at the Bank of America, says, “There are more women working in schools mainly because it’s an environment that attracts nurturers, and women tend to be nurturers. However, and this is particularly true for international schools, men tend to take the seats at the table.”

A look at the hard data from the Council of International Schools (CIS) supports this view. According to their figures, only 27 percent of CIS member schools are headed by women. The numbers are pitifully lower among schools considered to be ‘top tier’.

UNIS Hanoi’s Head of School Jane McGee has worked in the international schools field for more than 25 years. She reveals that in that stretch of time, although she’s been ‘incredibly privileged to work with a number of women leaders’, she’s only worked for one female Head of School. The multicultural global society we are a part of, she says, is reason enough to amplify the mix and ensure UNIS Hanoi has the best people--men and women. Jane concedes that there are personal biases and work-life balance complexities to overcome for women more so than men.

Add to the challenge for many, is the recruitment process itself, which Glenda Baker, UNIS Hanoi’s High School Deputy Principal believes in some ways could favor men. She explained “I have often wondered if we see more men in key leadership positions in international schools because the hiring and application process that schools typically follow plays more to some people’s strengths than others--gender aside. For example, I think a person has to have a pretty robust ego to go through the hiring process which includes ‘tests’ of leadership and several rounds of public vetting that schools follow when looking for a new head. There are lots of women (and men) who have the skills, capacity, and desire to take on leadership roles but may need a little support to overcome a lack of confidence.”

Emma says perception and language heighten the barriers faced by women in the workplace. She shared, “Our choice of words speak volumes and often illustrate deep seated prejudice. Strong men are described as ‘change agents’ that ‘revolutionize’ programs and institutions, whereas women taking on similar roles can be seen as ‘strident’ or ‘single-minded’ with a touch of ‘bulldozer’ added to the mix of labels! Collaboration, perspective-seeking and compromise are often seen as weak, indecisive and lacking the very masculine ‘steel’ that is needed for tough decisions. It could certainly be noted that a little less steel and a bit more flexibility is exactly what the world needs right now.”

Misty Shipley, UNIS Hanoi’s Director of Finance and Operations, heads up a large team made up primarily of men who are not used to a woman occupying what, to some, is considered a ‘man’s role’. She says she’s faced both age discrimination and gender discrimination during her career but she’s thankful she now works in an environment that values her skills and experience foremost. “At UNIS Hanoi, we’ve always hired the best people for the job; it so happens that many of those people are women” she stated. Dr Amie Pollack stepped into the Board Chair role in 2018, after serving on the for three consecutive years. She says traditionally there are more women on educational boards compared to corporate boards because women tend to be more involved in education. However, men still hold the majority of board seats. She added, “The percentage of women on our Board is unusually high, and this is good for the School, as there is evidence that a diverse Board, offering different perspectives and approaches to leadership makes better decisions.”

In the academic year 2016-2017, Amie chaired the Head of School Search Taskforce, which facilitated efforts that led to the appointment of Jane as UNIS Hanoi’s Head of School. Amie shared, “When we launched our search for a new Head of School, we made it clear to our recruitment consultants that we wanted to see qualified women candidates. This was important to us not only because it aligns with our values as a United Nations school, it’s also important because otherwise you’re only looking at 50 percent of the applicant pool, which means you’re missing out on qualified leaders.”

Turning desire into reality, Amie confessed, proved challenging at times as the number of women applying for key leadership roles is still incredibly low. However, she revealed, “In our experience, the women candidates we did have were excellent.”

To challenge the status quo, TK believes that women in positions of seniority have a responsibility to mentor women with potential and ‘groom them to take over’. And as someone with responsibility for recruitment, Megan is dedicated to doing her part in building a diverse team. She revealed, ”Gender representation is an important element of my team’s recruitment strategy, and something we frequently keep in mind.”

Still much work to be done

Glenda believes the existence of groups such as the Diversity Collaborative which aim to ensure more qualified educators from under-represented groups are considered for leadership roles is encouraging. Joining such a community, she says, helps build a wider understanding of some of the challenges people face in education leadership. Nitasha, who finds she’s often the only woman of color at the top, says there’s still much work to be done. She explained, “If you’re a woman striving for a leadership role, especially in a well-regarded and sought-after school, you start out pitted against a demographic of white men. For many women applying, that is still a pretty hard barrier to overcome.”

Forging a future that’s equal Megan added, “If we truly wish to see the UN’s fifth Sustainable Development Goal realised, men and women must ensure we champion and encourage girls to find and use their voices from an early age, so that they become strong women who are willing and able to lead.”

Jane McGee is confident that with passion, everything is possible and schools are the perfect environment to make a real impact. She said, “International schools can take a strong stand in ensuring diversity and gender balance are not just embraced and celebrated but are no longer considered unusual or something to even mention. There is the dream... and schools are our best shot at future fixing!”

EDTHOUGHT Resiliency Schmasiliency… When Is this Over?*

By Dr. Jadis Blurton, The Harbour School, Hong Kong In 1969, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler identified five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. As a psychologist, when I dealt with clients who were grieving, they often thought that there was a steady progression from stage to stage. You could see them contemplating, “Okay, I’m in the anger stage now and in two weeks I will move to bargaining, then a month or so in the depression stage and onward to acceptance!” I always had to explain that although it would seem as though these stages formed a nice predictable progression, just the opposite was the truth. Not only is the order variable but nobody is in only one stage at once or for any long period. People’s emotions ricochet from bargaining to denial to acceptance to anger to depression. The best that can be said is that people seem to progress from being “often” or “mostly” in one stage to being mostly in another. Although, as anyone who has grieved can tell you, often years later when one feels in the acceptance stage most of the time, it is possible to be suddenly triggered into another stage by a sudden occurrence either good or bad. So although I loved the chart above, my first thought was also that it gives the false impression that we all progress from the Fear Zone to the Learning Zone to the Growth Zone. We might think, “Well, here’s me recognizing that we are all doing our best which is in the Learning Zone, so pretty soon I’m going to be keeping a happy emotional state and spreading hope, which is in the Growth Zone.” Of course, whether or not we do most of the things in the Growth Zone may also reflect what we were like before we entered the COVID crisis. (I am reminded

This chart was sent to me by a friend who is a psychologist, and he did not know its original authorship. I loved it and include it here with apologies to the author for failing to appropriately

credit him or her. of Joan Collins’s famous quip that “after a certain age you get the face you deserve,” and my delight upon hearing it because I actually deserve to look like Jane Fonda.) Alas, not everyone is going to emerge from the experience of COVID19 and quarantine with all of those positive personality traits, especially if they didn’t have them in the first place. And, more importantly, most of us will find ourselves bouncing around from being empathetic one minute to snapping at our spouse the next, all in the same day if not the same minute.

The chart is a way of thinking about the direction we want to go, not a map for getting there. And, unfortunately, we also have to look back at the stages of grieving, because we are all grieving. We have had small losses like the in-person Renaissance Faire or the school play, but we also have some huge losses such as dangers to family or friends and changes in our jobs or society at large that may never revert to what we thought of as normal. I am embarrassed to say that for me one of the biggest losses is the freedom to travel. And this grieving process is exacerbated by anxiety for others we know, for others we don’t know but have empathy for, and for ourselves. This virus is invisible, which makes it so much more scary — part of the reason the movie Arachnophobia was so terrifying is that the spiders were too small to easily see!

So we need to acknowledge that these are not easy times, and we need to look back at the stages of grief and recognize them when we see them in ourselves or our family. Sometimes that will make us laugh.

When my mother died and I was devastated, I was on a flight back to the US and a four year old child was going up the aisle slapping seats. Now, I love kids and normally would have found a way to play with that little girl. Instead, I felt a moment of rage at her and her parents. Luckily, that made so little sense that I laughed out loud because it was such a clear example of the Kubler-Ross stage of anger. When you find yourself being unjustifiably angry or easily frustrated or weepy, give yourself a break and understand that what you are feeling is grief.

I thought I might provide a few tips again, to help get through this next phase of what has turned out to be a worldwide time of challenge.

1. First of all, I can’t think of a single time in history or even in human evolution that large numbers of nuclear families were required to stay separately together inside the cave for long periods of time. It’s just not something we expected to do, evolved for or trained for. We are social beings. As much as we may love our family, spending all day every day with our kids or our spouse has the potential to be really challenging. From tantruming two-year olds to stubborn teens, too much closeness can be exhausting. Distance is built into our society for a reason and extended families exist to help provide respite to parents and to kids. (As an empathy exercise, by the way, when you are frustrated with your teenager, imagine being stuck within shouting distance of your own parents for months at a time when you were a teen.) So be patient with yourself and the others in the family. Take those extra breaths before reacting and remember that you are being asked to do something that has seriously never been part of the human experience.

2. Schools are trying to alleviate that stress as much as possible by providing classes all day just like a regular school day, but that still leaves much unstructured time after school. For Term 3, we are working on figuring out some fun virtual after school courses that will be free and that will allow kids to explore more of their “outside” interests. Hopefully those courses will involve being away from the screen as part of the activities. This will also provide more of a smorgasbord of interests so kids can explore their creativity and skills in different areas, which is something they would be doing either at school or through other entities if everything weren’t closed. But if you don’t find something that interests your child through our courses, look elsewhere online and create an after-school class of your own. (You can even take it with them. My granddaughter and I are taking a Coursera course in Anatomy.)

3. The most important thing you can give to your children is a healthy, sane, happy self. But the second most important thing you can give them is a healthy, sane, happy relationship with your spouse, especially if you are both in the same house. That means you actually have to spend time and effort nurturing your own mental health and that of your relationship. I usually tell couples that they should plan to spend at least three or four hours a week together — half an hour a night or two 2-hour date nights — and in Hong Kong I get the inevitable argument that that amount of time is simply not possible because people are too busy. So you’ve never had a better opportunity, and the stakes and challenges have never been higher. Spend a few scheduled hours a week playing cards, walking together, cooking, or whatever you like to do (no, sex doesn’t count) and while you are doing it — talk! Don’t talk about plans for the kids or the living room, don’t argue about important decisions. Just talk, like you did when you were dating. (If you were in The Matrix, would you take the red pill or the blue pill?) It is probably also good to talk to each other about the feelings you have because of the virus, but stay away from complaining about family issues. (Complain about those at a different time, but that doesn’t count towards your four hours.) And remember also to schedule time for yourself alone — read, meditate, take a bath, listen to music. Finding a place to isolate is difficult but not 4. For kids, taking a couple of weeks away from creating meaning is not the end of the world. But taking months off can be very debilitating and can lead to heightened anxiety and depression as well as lower selfesteem. Create opportunities for your kids to do good things — making a cake for someone less fortunate, sewing masks for people who need them, even creating holiday presents for other family members or helping another family member with a task. The feeling that comes from helping or being kind is very powerful and creates changes in the brain that actually rival and last longer than ice cream. When we think of what is missing from kids’ lives by not being in social situations at school, one of the most important is the sense of community and opportunities for kindness that exist there. So now you need to find opportunities for kindness at home: Have your three-year old read a story to the baby or the dog, have your seven-year old create a picture for the neighbor or make brownies for your family, introduce your teenagers to politics or activism, or encourage them to join online volunteer groups. An hour spent helping others is an hour feeling good about yourself.

5. Obviously, one of the big threats to kids’ development right now is in the area of social skills. Learning to read body language, understanding social norms, even getting a good joke are all things that we learn by being around others who are not necessarily part of our family unit. This is a good time to play online games with extended family or friends overseas (try jackbox.tv), but it’s also a good time to play board games with family members. Remember those? They have pieces that move around and things like dice to direct the moves. Or, if none of those are handy, try things like Pictionary or Charades. In other words, after you schedule time for yourself and time for parents together, also make sure to schedule some dedicated family time that doesn’t require a television screen.

The world is changing as a result of this pandemic, and it is easy to see only catastrophe. It will affect us socially and economically and it may involve losses that we mourn. But it also creates new opportunities for change, and prepares us for the future. This is our first worldwide pandemic, but it probably won’t be our children’s last, so lessons learned this time around will help them in the future. We may change the way we work and play. We may re-envision healthcare or other societal challenges. We may appreciate each other more, remember our blessings better, and learn to operate with patience and ingenuity when confronted with unexpected trials. Like any major change, when we are at the other side of it we may find ourselves surprised at how much we have grown as a result and celebrate the new ways we have found to interact and support each other.

This article also appeared on The Harbour School Medium website at https://medium.com/@THS_HK/resiliency-schmasiliency-when-is-this-overc866923cf5b1

STUDENT WRITINGS Virtual Learning Reflections

– Adrian, Grade 5, International School of Busan

This is a virtual learning experience piece that I’ve written. It has all my experiences about virtual learning.

In my opinion virtual learning is very boring. The reason it’s boring is because all day long you’re at a screen or doing your work on your own. Another boring thing about virtual learning is that you can’t meet your friends. The best you can do is to meet them on google meet or zoom. But there is one benefit from virtual learning: you can wake up late as you don’t have to go on a bus and get your backpack ready and leave the house. One of the bigger problems with virtual learning is that you sit still a lot.

Here are some tips for break times in virtual learning. One of the best places to go at break is to my garage so I can play around there. A good thing to do at lunch break is to take a long time making your lunch and then play for a long time. Those are all my tips for breaks. Mornings in virtual learning are different. A good thing about mornings at virtual learning is that you can wake up really late, plus you can create yourself a big breakfast. A bad thing about the morning in virtual learning is that it’s very hard to focus in class because sometimes when you wake up late it makes you feel really tired. A great thing about the mornings is that it’s really easy to prepare for school.

So there are some good things, but I look forward to going back to school to play with my friends outside.

– Charlotte, Grade 5, International School of Busan

Due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, our school decided to close. However, we are still going to learn with a virtual learning environment, or VLE. I am going to share with you some of my experiences and opinions about virtual learning.

One of the first observations that I had during my virtual lessons was that we got less time to spend moving around and going outside. We started virtual learning on Monday 24th February 2020. We were on the same schedule that we use at school. Most of our lessons were stuck on the screen and we had to always be back there. There wasn’t much of a way to get together without electronic devices because some of our classmates were out of town and in other countries. We hoped that we could get back to school soon, but then the Korean government extended virtual learning. We aren’t going to be back in school for a long time. Even if we wanted to go outside and play, we couldn’t really do it because of social distancing. So most of us were always indoors during break times. We should spend less time at our screens.

Another observation that I would like to share is that we behave differently with virtual learning than we do if we were actually at school. If we were at school, we would have concentrated more on our work, spend less time talking about other things other than learning, and write down what we normally won’t say in person. For example, if we were at school, we wouldn’t talk about things at our homes or video games as much. At home, we have things like markers and toys that keep on distracting us from our work. We could also do other things on our devices such as playing games. We should try to avoid doing other things when we are learning.

My final observation is that it’s harder to connect with friends and classmates. Most of us don’t really live close to our friends. Even if we do, we can’t go and visit. It’s different to actually see your friends than it is to talk to them virtually. If your friends were writing something down, you have to guess their tone. We also can’t connect and play like we usually do. Basically, the only way that we can connect with them is on the screen. Like I shared before, we already spend all day on the internet. I think it’s sad that we can’t play and connect with our friends. If we were at school, we could socialize more than we do at home with virtual learning. Even though virtual learning might be more comfortable because we’re at home, we can’t play like we do during break times. I wish there is a way that we can actually meet our friends.

In conclusion, I have many observations that I have made during virtual learning. I think it is a long-enough experience, and I am looking forward to the time when we can come back to school.

– Jaiden, Grade 5, International School of Busan

For the past 2 weeks, we’ve been using our computers to do virtual learning. Virtual learning is when you use an electronic device to learn at home.

One thing I enjoyed the most about virtual learning is how you get to connect with your classmates through a screen. For me, it’s one thing when you can FaceTime your friends but a whole other level when you can see everyone’s faces at once. The one thing I miss the most during days off school is seeing my friends, so it’s a real breather when I can see them again, almost like we normally did. It also feels a bit weird to see my teachers in a cozy home environment instead of a classroom. It’s fun to interact with my classmates and teachers.

By doing virtual learning, I think everybody learned to be a lot quieter and more patient. At first, a lot of people got carried away speaking about unrelated topics which distracted me a lot, but as the days went by it became a lot more tame. People began to focus more during class time and it was so much easier with a quiet chat. I realized how much quicker I get my own work done when everyone is quiet. It gets a bit too chaotic when 20 people begin talking all at once.

It’s really fun experimenting with many different types of online applications for our school work. For example, we tried using Epic! and Sora for library time since we finished our reading books. Though we have websites and apps we use for homeroom activities, we mostly use Seesaw, Gmail, and Google Classroom. We also connect with Zoom, a video meeting application similar to Google Meets or Skype. A short list of what we would normally use in a virtual school day would be: Seesaw, Gmail, Zoom, Mathletics, Headsprout, and WordFlyers. It’s overwhelming at first, but once you get used to it, it’s a breeze handling your assignments.

I personally think that virtual learning was a huge success. It helps us to explore more into how our computers can operate, and it distracts us from playing video games all day.