International School Magazine - Summer 2022

MAGAZINE SUMMER 2022

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Summer 2022

International School THE MAGAZINE FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATORS

Contents

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

32

MANAGING DIRECTOR Steve Spriggs steve@williamclarence.com

The World turned upside down

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36

Unleashing the Power of Collective Efficacy

COBIS Race4Good

Features

From the Schools

4

Inflection point? Exploring the contemporary purpose of an international education James MacDonald

26

Identity Languages: Building a Program for Students to Maintain their Complex Cultural Identities Daniel Cowan & Luiza Marie Razeto

6

Anywheres and Somewheres Nicholas Tate

28

The Values of Peace Malcolm McKenzie

32

The World turned upside down. The view from Moldova Rob Ford

10

‘Illiberal’ International Schools Revisited Richard Eaton

14

War: how to respond as international educators? Conrad Hughes

From the Associations 36

Leading, Teaching and Learning 16

Unleashing the Power of Collective Efficacy Ochan Kusuma Powell & Doug Woodward

18

When feedback supports students in learning for themselves Fanny Passeport

22

Making Assessment Change Janelle Torres

COBIS Race4Good – the students who were frontline humanitarian workers between lessons Alisa Delin

Personal Reflection 38

The Sky’s the Limit George Walker

Book review 42

The Needful by Peter MacKenzie Reviewed by Wilf Stout

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Summer 2022 | International School | 3

Features

Inflection point?

Exploring the contemporary purpose of an international education

By James MacDonald

I

nternational schools may be at an inflection point. When the first modern international schools were founded in 1924, there was an aspirational aim to promote peace between nations by fostering an understanding of people and cultures from other countries. But that was nearly 100 years ago. So what’s the purpose of international schools today? I don’t pretend to have the answer to that question, but I hope to explore the topic in a series of articles in this magazine.

In this first article, I will explore how international schools arrived at where they are now and why their current position may be indicative of an inflection point.

Over the past three decades, the growth of international schools has been remarkable. Various sources estimate at least a tenfold increase in ‘international schools’ since the year 2000. Of course, we have to be slightly careful with the data because much depends on the categorisation of ‘international schools’.

For example, a small, ‘international’ English-language kindergarten in a rural area can count the same on those lists as a large, traditional, city-based K-12 international school. But the point remains the same: international education, and the demand for it, has grown significantly. In fact, if we do the math there is probably more than one new international school on average popping up somewhere around the world every week. The growth has not been uniform, 4 | International School | Summer 2022

however, and when considering the question of the purpose of international education, the type of school matters.

Corporate school groups are consolidating the international education industry by purchasing individual, privatelyowned schools.

Traditional international schools The origin stories of many traditional international schools follow a similar arc: a small group of expatriates in a country desire an educational option, usually in English, for their own children. Starting a school had generally been the only viable educational option for their children (often for reasons of language), thus such schools were founded out of necessity. To illustrate the pattern, I can draw on my experience of having worked for three traditional international schools. Yokohama International School was founded in 1924 by local European parents and was first housed in the local YMCA. From there, I moved to the New International School of Thailand (NIST) in Bangkok, where a group of parents working for the United Nations had decided to found a new notfor-profit school in 1992. They did that

when the International School of Bangkok moved to the outskirts of the city and left behind a vacant campus. Incidentally, NIST’s founders embraced ideals of the UN charter while also setting fees lower than those of IS Bangkok and in line with the educational tuition allowance of the UN at the time: a good example of market realities and idealism blending together.

In my current setting at the International School of Brussels, local American parents banded together in post-war Belgium to found a school in 1952. Today, all three schools continue to run as not-for-profit institutions with parent-led governing bodies. Despite their very different locations, the schools have remarkably similar origin stories – the same story as that of most international schools in the first 70 years of such institutions.

But the chronicle of NIST seems to be one of the last iterations of the story. Few, if any, major not-for-profit international schools have been founded since then. In the 1990s, international education started taking off, fuelled not by expatriate parents but by an emerging upper-middle class of ‘host country nationals’ seeking an international education for their children.

Those schools were not born out of necessity and founded by isolated pockets of parents with no other options, but by entrepreneurs who began to recognise a local market thirsty for the benefits that an international education could provide to local children in an increasingly globalised world.

Features

Owning a school can provide political influence, tax benefits and social prestige.

New models of international schools Corporate model of ownership In my experience, the new types of international schools can be divided into two broad groups. The first is what I call ‘corporate schools’. They are larger education groups that run networks of schools and normally have global operations. Make no mistake: they are enrolment-driven organisations. Often they have different models of schools that cater to different markets. The school model is generally defined by the price point (eg tuition fees), location, type of curriculum, and the quality of facilities.

For example, globally we can find a range of UK curriculum school models, with fees ranging from high to low. The same is true for the US curriculum. However, International Baccalaureate schools tend to have higher fees to support the higher teacher–student ratios necessary for inquiry-based learning.

For the most part, large corporations know what they are doing and will thoroughly research the local market context before deciding upon a school model. For example, a report’s executive summary might contain a line such as ‘Our research shows that there are 2800 potential school-aged children in families that can afford our specific fee point within a 20-minute commute radius’. The governance of those schools radiates outward from a corporate office, normally with a strong reliance upon data targets and metrics appropriate for the school model. If leadership ‘hits the numbers’, then the governance likely has a light touch, whereas missing the numbers is cause for intervention. Within that approach to governance, a vital and often overlooked question is where the investment funds come from. Pension fund managers seek steady returns over a longer-term basis and thus avoid risk.

Private equity, by contrast, enters with a defined investment horizon of 3–5 years and expects to drive up the valuation ahead of their exit. Those funding sources are very different animals, and it is often

the investors, not the corporation, who set the tone of the school’s governance in these school types. And it is the investors who drive the overarching purpose.

Single private owners Another school model involving private ownership is manifested in stand-alone owners. Although there are many different types of such schools, they are generally started as businesses by a local entrepreneur or founded by an already wealthy individual or family. In the latter case, the school may be a legacy project aimed to altruistically give back to the community. In fact, it is not unheard of for owners to patiently absorb years of losses with their school project. But the motives of private owners are often complicated.

Owning a school can provide political influence, tax benefits and social prestige not available through other means.

It may also provide the owner’s relatives with employment opportunities outside the core business. Assigning a single purpose to such organisations is an elusive undertaking.

others may be completely hands-off and thereby lack proper governance structures and oversight. It can be difficult to generalise about schools with a single private owner. But one thing is for sure: where there’s a private owner, how they choose to approach governance can have a significant impact on the school.

With those three types of models (traditional, corporate, and single private owner), the former becoming a very small proportion of the bigger mix, the question might be asked as to what exactly is the purpose of international schools? There is no doubt, despite what the brochures say, that parties expanding international education in order to ‘grow the business’ cannot be expected to prioritise the traditional ideals of international education. It would be irrational to suggest otherwise, for idealism is generally less profitable than pragmatism. But there’s a twist.

Over the past decade, we have seen signs that globalisation is slowing and is perhaps even reversing in some cases.

There is now more talk of the world being divided in regional blocs. Since international schools have always been a stepchild of globalization, surely this will have an impact.

This is a topic that deserves exploration. What do we stand for as international schools? And there is also an ‘elephant in the room’ question: When the preponderance of international

What do we stand for as international schools?

We have also seen that corporate school groups are consolidating the international education industry by purchasing individual, privately-owned schools. In corporate lingo, acquiring an existing facility or school is a strategy of ‘brown field’ development versus starting afresh with a ‘green field’ venture. The arrangement is generally a great exit for local entrepreneur–owners, because industry norms for school valuations run at 9 to 14 times the annual cash flow from operations.

We also know that some private owners are keen to play an active role in running the schools, often to the frustrations of the educators, whereas

schools are now for-profit, to what extent should these entities be expected to contribute in an uncompromised manner to a conversation about purpose? I think we are at an inflection point, and in a subsequent article I plan to suggest some paths forward for international education. ◆

James MacDonald is Director of the

International School of Brussels, having previously held posts including Head of School at NIST, Bangkok and Yokohama International School. ✉ james.w.macdonald@gmail.com

Summer 2022 | International School | 5

Features

Anywheres and Somewheres

By Nicholas Tate

I

t is not often that a single book adds new terms to political discourse and changes how people look at the world. This, however, has been the legacy among some of us of David Goodhart’s The Road to Somewhere (2017), a book which gave us the terms ‘Anywheres’ and ‘Somewheres’.

Goodhart’s argument is that recent social and political tensions in many societies can be explained, at least in part, by the differences between a powerful highly educated and mobile minority group which values autonomy and openness (the Anywheres) and a larger and less influential group of people who are less well educated, more rooted in their local and national communities, and socially conservative (the Somewheres). Anywheres represent 20-25% of the population and Somewheres 50%, the rest being ‘Inbetweeners’. Goodhart also has a 3-5% Anywhere sub-category of ‘Global Villagers’ familiar to those of us in international education: people at the top end of their professions and businesses, part of internationalised networks, often with homes in more than one country.

6 | International School | Summer 2022

Anywhere elites have shown an extraordinary lack of empathy with Somewheres Goodhart’s main focus is the UK, though similar divisions can be found in other countries within the Anglosphere, in continental Europe, and indeed beyond.

Understanding the Anywhere–Somewhere tensions helps to explain many recent political events, not least the last two US presidential elections and conflicts within and between the states of the European Union.

Goodhart is far from alone in drawing attention to this feature within contemporary societies. Furedi, in Why Borders Matter (2021), pointed to a pervasive distaste among Anywhere elites for the nation states to which Somewheres are so staunchly attached. Eatwell and Goodwin, in National Populism (2018), highlighted

Features growing resentment towards ‘elitist liberal democrats’ who are ‘detached from the life experiences and outlooks of the average citizen’. Lind, in The New Class War (2020), and Kotkin, in The Coming of Neo-Feudalism (2020), chronicled the widening divisions within western societies and their damaging consequences for those lower down the new class hierarchies. These books are highly recommended reading for anyone involved in educating young people beginning to manoeuvre their way around a rapidly changing world. As educators we are most effective having informed ourselves and reflected deeply upon the context in which we are operating.

But how do Anywheres and Somewheres relate specifically to international schools? My experience of these schools over the last twenty years has convinced me that most (though by no means all) are fully paidup members of the Anywhere camp, with students largely from Anywhere families, educational programmes supportive of the continuing cultural hegemony of an Anywhere elite, and teachers and administrators committed to the promotion of an Anywhere ideology which is individualist, internationalist, socially liberal, sympathetic to aspects of identity politics, and open to radical change.

International schools are often explicit in their aim to prepare students for admission to (or, in many cases, continued membership of) an Anywhere elite. Students are helped to go on to appropriate higher education and specifically prepared for leadership in the kind of roles associated with these elites. International schools, unlike most of the world’s state schools, are not ones from

which 50% or more of students are likely to go on to lifelong roles as bus drivers, plasterers, waiters, kitchen assistants, cleaners and security personnel. They also do not usually educate children most of whom are unlikely ever to move more than 20 miles from where they lived aged 14 (as with three-quarters of the British population, and the vast majority of people across the world), children whose families often have strong local loyalties and a profound sense of alienation from those who make most of the decisions that determine their lives.

For this reason, given education’s core function of introducing students to our world as it is, it must be a central task of international schools to look outside their immediate contexts and ensure that students are able to experience and understand how others see this world. This is not philanthropy I am talking about, or helping people during ‘humanitarian’ disasters or because of special disabilities and disadvantages. It is learning about people who do not want or require extra help but ask only to be noticed and understood, and have their views respected and legitimate interests taken into account.

This, you may think, goes without saying, but again and again in recent years Anywhere elites have shown an extraordinary lack of empathy with Somewheres: lengthy ‘first world’ Covid lockdowns privileging their society’s ‘laptop classes’ and those with big houses and gardens, and massively disadvantaging economically undeveloped parts of the world; zero carbon policies imposed from above with costs falling disproportionately on the poor; liberty-denying measures of all kinds undertaken without consultation on the grounds that ‘experts’ and the

Summer 2022 | International School | 7

Features ‘exam-passing classes’ (Goodhart’s phrase) always know best.

What more, therefore, could be done to prepare students in international schools for a world in which they are likely to be or become an Anywhere, maybe even a Global Villager, but in which most of the people around them are Somewheres? I have three suggestions.

First, international schools should add to their understandable concerns for global awareness and global citizenship a similar preparation for a world in which most people are deeply attached to their nation state and where it is effective national citizenship which makes the biggest difference to people’s lives. The war in Ukraine has helped to remind us that national sovereignty really matters. An international school’s host country, its language and culture, and the large numbers of ‘Somewheres’ among its employees – coaches, teachers, clerical, kitchen, security and cleaning staff – should be one starting point. In international schools where most students are citizens of the country in which the school is located there is a particular responsibility to prepare them for national citizenship.

Second, international schools, despite best intentions, have sometimes been rightly criticised for contributing to greater economic and social inequality in their host countries, strengthening local elites to the disadvantage of the wider population, enabling students to launch careers away from countries that need their skills, and contributing to the linguistic imperialism of English at the expense of other languages. The leaders of these schools

should ask themselves if any of this applies to their own school, whether there is any discrepancy between their stated aspirations and reality and, if so, what they might do about it.

Third, as teachers we have a particular duty, not just to reflect on the wider context in which we operate, but also to examine our own perspectives and opinions on controversial ethical, political, cultural and social issues and to ensure that our biases impinge as little as possible on students’ autonomy. This is particularly important given the well-attested divergence, at least across the western world, between the Anywhere political affiliations of most education professionals and those of the majority populations from which they come.

At a time when it has been suggested that, perhaps for the first time in human history, the main influence on a young person’s world picture is more likely to come from educational institutions than from their family, there can be few more sacred duties for educators than leaving the next generation well-informed, aware of the variety of opinions which exists in the world, liberated from all kinds of ‘groupthink’, and able to make up its own mind about how this world should develop in the future. ◆ Nicholas Tate has been a chief adviser to England’s education ministers, and from 2003 to 2011 was Director-General of The International School of Geneva. ✉ nick@nicholastate.com

References

• Eatwell R and Goodwin M (2018) National Populism. London: Pelican • Furedi F (2021) Why Borders Matter. London: Routledge • Goodhart D (2017) The Road to Somewhere. London: Penguin

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• Kotkin J (2020) The Coming of Neo-Feudalism. New York: Encounter Books • Lind M (2020) The New Class War. London: Atlantic Books

Features

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Features

‘Illiberal’ Schools Revisited

By Richard Eaton

10 | International School | Summer 2022

Features

I

n 2019, given my then personal and Western political and economic values professional affiliations, I wrote in this that would bring benefit to all in an magazine an anonymous rejoinder, increasingly inter-connected global entitled The rise of ‘illiberal international civil society. While the proliferation schools’?, to an earlier piece on of Western ‘soft power’ has been international education terminology problematic in its own right, at the start

by Hayden & Thompson (2018). It was of 2019 I was, nonetheless, intent on a reaction to their suggestion that we highlighting what seemed a troubling may not ‘need to explain “international contradiction. ‘What happens’, I asked, schools” further’; rather we might show ‘when [self-proclaimed or clearly illiberal ‘more interest in what takes place states] contribute significant funding to educationally, within and sponsoring so-called outwith the institution’ international schools (ibid, p3). My concern, – or ones that seize My conclusion, for at the time, was what any number of better or worse, was on I perceived as the similar appellations that even though apolitical nature of … to advance [their] this commentary. I had national economies?’ the governments entered our profession (Anonymous, 2019: financing these in 1997, on the heels of 5). My conclusion, for the Cold War – blinded, better or worse, was schools would arguably, by the notion that even though the seem the ‘anti-thesis governments financing that international education was primarily these schools would to much of what about the development seem the ‘anti-thesis the international of peaceful approaches to much of what the schooling movement international schooling to internationalism and pan-human has stood for across movement has stood understanding (Bunnell, for across the last two the last two centuries’ centuries’ (p5), the 2021a), essentially an ideologically-driven field’s supply chain field within which I and its teaching cadres could make a meaningful contribution. In would see opportunity and seize it. this sense, I had enlisted in the Western, Consequently, these nation-states and liberal democratic and economic order their illiberal regimes would grow in which, looking back, was a political, even power, and global civil society – which I naïve choice. Nevertheless, like many imagined international schooling in place young people now and then, affected by to strengthen – would be weakened. A the context of my time I hoped, in what bitter irony, yes, but literature emerging seemed a benevolent manner, to make post-2019 has helped me better the world a better place. understand the predicament.

In their typology of international Bunnell & teachers, Bailey & Cooker (2019) have Atkinson  referred to those entering the field on ideological premises as ‘Type B’ teachers (p136). In the late 1990s, for me, such grounds seemed logical.

It was an era I imagined would be defined by the proliferation of what Nye (1990) called ‘soft power’ (p166) – the sway of attractive, predominately Summer 2022 | International School | 11

Features (2020), drawing on the work of Bourdieu, describe what they call the ‘nomos’ (p257) of international schooling.

Essentially, this is the field’s powerful, ‘wider, normative belief structure’ (ibid, p257). In our profession, they theorize, the ‘nomos’ hinges ‘upon a strong ethical and moral code of operation that promotes intercultural understanding, mutual respect, and global responsibility which ultimately aims to deliver a sustainable, just and more peaceful world’ (ibid, p257). This exemplified what was, for me, the allure of the profession; at the same time, a robustly ‘positive ethical platform’ also conceals the field’s lesssightly underbelly, which has included employment discrimination (ibid, p257), elite educational opportunities inaccessible to the general public (Vass, 2019), youth talent being stripped from less-developed locales (Elliot, 2021), international schooling’s comparability to colonial and missionary activity (Eaton, 2019), and the clandestine ‘complex interconnected flows of investment’ propelling the field’s growth (Bunnell, 2021b: 4).

Blinkered by an ethically noble ‘nomos’ (Bunnell & Atkinson, 2020), it becomes hard to imagine that international schooling, something structured fundamentally to do good, could impact detrimentally and/or contradictorily.

The paradox of international schooling’s ‘nomos’ may also explain a passive coexistence with illiberalism in its mottled guises. Drawing on a seminal work by Cambridge & Thompson (2004), Bunnell reminds us that parallel to the idealism that drew many of us to

12 | International School | Summer 2022

teaching internationally, there has always been a degree of functional pragmatism inherent to our field (Bunnell, 2021a).

The ever-expanding constellation of international schools exists to serve a collage of variedly intentioned proprietors. Within this patchwork, polarizing regimes benefit deliberately and implicitly from international schools, while educational professionals may

international teachers working in many contexts (Poole, 2020), particularly how they rationalize their career decisions to themselves and others; yet we are fully aware that some international schools operate in contexts beleaguered by ‘oppressive human rights laws, statemandated fake histories, and ongoing acts of genocide‘ (Elliot, 2021) – and that legitimizing accrediting bodies and

We still know little about the messiness of the lived experiences of international teachers working in many contexts (Poole, 2020), remain willing to work in duplicitous political contexts where the unique opportunities and challenges on offer are able to be parlayed into forms of what Bunnell & Poole (2021) have called ‘resilience’ (p64) and ‘transition’ (p84) capital applicable when moving from job to job, school to school, and country to country. This is not to mention the prospect of mobility and travel sought

by Bailey & Cooker’s (2019) ‘Type A’ international educator (p136). When aligned with an attractive salary, and the prospect of working somewhere new, different, and exciting – or even subversively hoping to make change – it is easy to appreciate the draw.

We still know little about the messiness of the lived experiences of

curriculum providers act as superordinate authorities for schools in these settings, giving credence to their claims to be international (Bunnell, Fertig & James, 2016). It could be argued that many such schools support diplomatic work that maintains an uneasy balance.

Concurrently, the same schools can find themselves providing education for a morally questionable (Elliot, 2021) political elite. As such in 2019, unreservedly drawing on Hayden & Thompson’s (2013) A–C typology of international schools, I labeled illiberal international schools – and others receiving funding

Features from governments whose ‘political discourse, action, and impact is in conflict with the humanitarian values that the international schooling movement has long championed’ (Anonymous, 2019: 7) – Type D international schools: effectively, organizations that when subjected to the lofty criteria I had for the international schooling movement when I joined the field a quarter of a century ago, were deserving of a letter grade close to F, or nearly failing. The Type D appellation was, and remains, an admittedly overly simplistic one, but it consummates the disappointment felt by those, like me, who joined the profession on ideological grounds in what now seems like a bygone era.

And so Foreign Affairs began 2022 with an essay aptly entitled ‘The Real Crisis of Global Order: Illiberalism on the Rise’.

Therein was a stark reminder, against the backdrop of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and much-needed reflection on matters of inequality, racism, and social justice: nation-states the world over have benefited from ‘the liberal economic order without accepting the requirements of political liberalism’ (Cooley & Nexon, 2022). It has become harder not to notice – harder, as stated in the mission and vision of one of the field’s leading voices, the Council of International Schools (2022), to make ‘different views and opinions a source of inspiration’, harder to be politically neutral. However, reflecting on my own rationale for embarking on a career in our profession, one has to wonder if the field ever really was

We still know little about the messiness of the lived experiences of international teachers working in many contexts (Poole, 2020), politically neutral, which makes today’s quandaries all the more befuddling.

International schooling too, notably its stunning growth, has benefited from the liberal political and economic order; and, three years on from my rejoinder to Hayden and Thompson, I am more equipped to sociologically rationalize how and why our field has quietly coexisted

with illiberalism. Yet there comes a time, as Ruth Smeeth (2020: 48), CEO of Index on Censorship, declares, when we are forced ‘to take a step back and consider who we are and what we want to achieve’ as individuals, organizations, and entire professions, particularly when faced with a tide that threatens so much of what our movement holds dear, including peace itself.

It is past time for further commentary; collective action is needed. ◆

Richard Eaton has served as a teacher

and leader for 25 years in schools across four continents, and today is based with his family in Berlin, Germany. ✉ eatonr@ymail.com

References

• Anonymous (2019) The rise of ‘illiberal’ international schools? A rejoinder to Hayden and Thompson.

International School. 21(2): 5-7.

• Bailey L and Cooker L (2019) Exploring teacher identity in international schools: key concepts for research. Journal of Research in International Education, 18(2): 124-141.

• Bunnell T (2021a) The ‘fundamental dilemma’ of international education revisited. In Hayden M (ed) (2021) Interpreting International Education: In Honour of Professor Jeff Thompson. Routledge: Abingdon, 139-149.

• Bunnell T (2021b) The crypto-growth of ‘international schooling’: emergent issues and implications.

Educational Review (online). 8 February 2021.

• Bunnell T and Atkinson C (2020) Exploring enduring employment discrimination in favour of British and American teachers in ‘traditional international schools’. Journal of Research in International Education.

19(3): 251-267.

• Bunnell T, Fertig M and James C (2016) What is international about international schools? An institutional legitimacy perspective. Oxford Review of Education. 42(2): 408-423.

• Cambridge J and Thompson J (2004) Internationalism and globalization as contexts for international education. Compare. 34(2):161-175.

• Cooley A and Nexon D H (2022) The real crisis of global order: illiberalism on the rise. Foreign Affairs (online), January/February 2022. Available at www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2021-12-14/ illiberalism-real-crisis-global-order?check_logged_in=1&utm_medium=promo_email&utm_source=lo_ flows&utm_campaign=registered_user_welcome&utm_term=email_1&utm_content=20220114 • Council of International Schools (2022) Mission and vision. Council of International Schools: Leiden.

Available at www.cois.org/about-cis/mission-and-vision.

• Eaton R (2019) Book Review: Growing up with God and Empire: A Postcolonial Analysis of ‘Missionary Kid’ Memoirs. Journal of Research in International Education, 18(3): 356-358.

• Elliot J (2021) Do international schools strip countries of their greatest asset? School Management Plus (online). Available at www.schoolmanagementplus.com/college-counselling/do-international-schools-stripcountries-of-their-greatest-asset/ • Hayden M and Thompson J (2018) Time for new terminology? International School 21(1): 3.

• Hayden M and Thompson J (2013) International Schools: Antecedents, current issues and metaphors for the future. In Pearce R (ed) (2013) International Education and Echools: Moving Beyond the First 40 Years. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 3–24.

• Poole A (2020) Research Highlights: Constructing International School Teacher Identity from Lived Experience: A Fresh Conceptual Framework. Network for Research into Chinese Education Mobilities (online), 16 September 2020. Available at chineseedmobilities.com/2020/09/16/constructinginternational-school-teacher-identity-from-lived-experience-a-fresh-conceptual-framework/ • Nye J S (1990) Soft Power. Foreign Policy. 80: 153-171.

• Smeeth R (2020) Why Index has never been needed more. Index on Censorship. 49(3): 48-49.

• Vass A (2019) Expensive, Publicly-Funded, Elite School Opens in Debrecen. Hungary Today (online).

Available at hungarytoday.hu/expensive-publicly-funded-elite-school-isd-debrecen/

Summer 2022 | International School | 13

Features

War How to respond

as international educators?

By Conrad Hughes

O

ne of the most challenging problems of practice that teachers and heads face in schools is how to discuss burning political events; in particular, war. This is especially delicate in international schools, where several nationalities are represented in the community: sometimes precisely those nations at war. There is a temptation to avoid any discussion of such events at all, since schools are not political entities and opening up discussions on political events puts us at risk. However, decades of research on preventing prejudice and violence through education remind us that students must be given a space to discuss how they feel. The problem of practice is how to scaffold such discussions.

In 2020, I led the publication of a UNESCO study entitled Preventing violent extremism through education: from policy to practice, with valuable contributions from curriculum experts, psychologists and philosophers (including AC Grayling). Based on what came out of this work, I would like to suggest three principles and three strategies that we might consider as educators.

Three principles and three strategies Principle 1: Everyone is safe here Wars create fear, anxiety and distress, but also scapegoating, bullying and ostracism. It is our first duty as educators to know our students, where they come from and the extent to which they might be affected by the conflict in question. No teasing, accusation or discriminatory behaviour can be accepted and this should be made clear to the whole class as a standard message, but it needs to be reinforced in times of war.

We should approach children from affected areas openly, to check in with them and see if they are alright. There should be a strategy in place so that traumatised children know where to go to if the burden is too much.

Strategy 1: Create a safe space Key in with students, ask them how they are, as a class and on a 1:1 basis. Be attentive to their mood, tone and behaviour, and give them a chance to express how they are feeling. Use the resources you have at your school 14 | International School | Summer 2022

Features such discussion conclusions can be healing. Such higher levels of thought might include universal understandings such as: ‘Human life is of absolute value’; ‘Physical violence should be avoided at all costs’; ‘Countries must abide by international law if there is to be peace’ or ‘Concrete evidence is needed to make judgements’. Sometimes we cannot end with an affirmation, but will end with a lingering universal question: ‘Who should be given power?’, ‘Can peace ever be bad?’, ‘How do we know how to make good decisions?’

To make sure they feel safe is of paramount importance (psychologists and counsellors) to build up a programme that will allow students to benefit from more extended mindful listening If you see severe distress in your students and feel it is beyond what you can manage.

Principle 2: Critical thinking The first casualty in war is the truth: propaganda abounds and the chaotic, unfiltered world of social media (most students will be on TikTok or Instagram) both desensitises viewers and feeds them with ideologically skewed accounts of conflict. Knowing what to trust and how to form an opinion is difficult, and this is why students need to be introduced to an empirical criterion of meaning: what evidence supports views? Where are we getting our information and how trustworthy are the sources? Can we be sure? To be clear, this is a lifelong project and never really sees closure: we can only work towards degrees of criticality since all communication is swayed by intent and some level of subjectivity.

Strategy 2: Check your bias, get students to check theirs Ask yourself what your assumptions are and how you project them, unconsciously or consciously, onto the way you chair discussions and present materials. Remember to stay balanced and open in your appreciation of viewpoints, aim to guide toward criticality rather than to influence. Of particular importance is the language that we use. Our job is to educate students how to think, not to tell them what to think. Students should always ask themselves how they know what they know, what their sources of information are. It’s best to stick to what we know for sure, which is often not much.

Principle 3: Higher order moral imperatives Rather than remaining at the level of quarrelling about factual accuracy or debating the rights and wrongs of specific military incursions, the teacher’s work is ultimately to lead the discussion to a higher level, more general and transferable to other situations: what we call in philosophy a higher order moral imperative. This means that the transcendent, overarching values that we agree on – or perhaps agree to disagree on – should be the conclusion of any discussion.

Strategy 3: Take discussions higher Walk with students to universal understandings. These are conclusions that are conceptual and transferable. This elevates thinking and allows students to leave discussions with powerful syntheses or ‘headlines’ that are philosophical in nature. It also means closing discussions above the confusion and miasma of heated positions and moving to a higher plane, a place of agreement. In fact,

My classroom The day after the war broke out, I checked in with my philosophy class to see how everybody was doing. At present we are studying empiricism. I had planned a lesson on the conflict. I then split the class into groups of five. I carefully made sure that those students from countries involved in the conflict (there are two) and students with strong, sometimes abrasive political views (there is one) were not in the same groups. I then asked the class if there was anyone who felt uncomfortable about discussing the situation in Ukraine. I waited, doublechecked, saw that they were ready to have the discussion, and therefore presented the discussion prompt: Concerning the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, what empirical evidence would you need to form an opinion? Would empirical evidence be enough to understand the situation?

In each group, there was a chair to guide the line of inquiry, an observer to feed back at the end on the quality and respect of exchanges, and three discussants.

My class often uses this discussion structure, so we fell into it easily. It gives students who would rather not be in the actual content of the discussion a chance to chair or observe. At the end of the discussion and observer feedback, each group gave their universal understandings, their ‘headlines’. The lesson allowed students to listen and learn from each other and to make connections between philosophy and a very real, serious world event.

The lesson was safe because I roamed between groups and listened carefully, making sure the student chairs kept the focus on the line of inquiry but also on respectful, caring interaction.

Our challenge as educators The imperative to look after our students and colleagues affected by war, to make sure they feel safe, is of paramount importance. On the other hand, it is not by avoiding discussing global events that we will help our students become caring, critical thinkers. Hence the challenge that faces us all. One thing is for sure; if we do not curate these discussions, social media will do it for us – and that will not provide the scaffolding needed to nurture critically-minded global citizens. ◆ Dr Conrad Hughes is Campus and Secondary Principal at the International School of Geneva, La Grande Boissière campus, Switzerland. ✉ conrad.hughes@ecolint.ch

Summer 2022 | International School | 15

Leading, teaching and learning

Unleashing the Power of Collective Efficacy

C

By Ochan Kusuma Powell and Doug Woodward

THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF KUALA LUMPUR

ollective efficacy has a powerful influence on student learning (Donohoo, Hattie & Eells, 2018), requiring that individuals, groups and teams work together intentionally to unleash the energy that is held in groups.

This energy provides the conditions for risk-taking and creativity to flourish in an environment of flexibility and trust.

Collective efficacy requires collaboration.

16 | International School | Summer 2022

At the International School of Kuala Lumpur, teachers were determined not to allow students to ‘lose out’ during online learning that had been necessitated by pandemic restrictions. Teams asked themselves ‘What’s important here?’, so every member was clear about their shared beliefs and values. It became apparent that student well-being and learning should always serve as the foundation for decision-making. Once these beliefs and values were clarified, trust was enhanced and how teachers would best meet learning objectives became more easily apparent.

Teaching teams recognized several challenges in maintaining high expectations while simultaneously attending to the specific learning needs of students.

Three major learnings evolved: • Systems were needed to stay connected with students and monitor wellness.

Community and connection, in

the form of Social-Emotional Learning, was no longer just part of the work. ‘It is the work’, teachers decided. During periods of prolonged online learning, immediate parent contact became priorities in solving problems before they had a chance to fester. Using data helped identify trends not just on a daily basis, but sometimes on an hourly basis, as needed. As an example, online attendance was monitored by class period rather than by day. In addition, instead of long, annual endeavors, wellness surveys became short, bi-weekly questionnaires to provide more tracking in real-time. The use of data, together with clear priorities, allowed teaching teams and the school to respond creatively and flexibly to provide optimal learning conditions for all.

Teachers also found that the more they focused on what was working, the greater their sense of efficacy. As Fisher and Frey noted (2020), when teachers focus on what isn’t working (such as students not attending class), greater frustration emerges, accompanied by drops in efficacy. Teachers became increasingly intentional about spending their time on the positives.

• Key learnings were prioritized. In reviewing the curriculum, teachers identified the key skills and concepts to

Leading, teaching and learning

ey learnings were prioritized. In reviewing the K curriculum, teachers identified the key skills and concepts to be taught in each unit.

THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF KUALA LUMPUR

be taught in each unit. Any gaps could be addressed in regularly scheduled ‘What I Need’ (WIN) time, when learning was personalized for and by students. WIN times had always been scheduled, and during pandemic lockdowns became longer and more flexible, allowing greater student autonomy in the upper grades. Key subgroups of students used this time for targeted interventions to address any critical skill development that would allow greater access to the rich concepts and principles in the curriculum. As part of unit designs and lesson sequencing, teachers asked ‘to what aim?’ so that priority standards took center stage when determining the most impactful learning objectives.

• Collaboration enhanced pedagogy.

Regular teacher meetings became more efficient to avoid Zoom fatigue, a pattern which continued when returning to in-person settings. Teachers became skilled at distinguishing between dialogue and discussion (Garmston & Wellman, 2016), which allowed them to recognize shared values and beliefs.

This in turn enhanced the development of trust and became foundational in developing new skills and strategies for working with students. With teachers focused on a sense of possibility and a spirit of inquiry, numerous creative ideas were generated on how to increase and

maintain student engagement and voice.

Teachers were deliberate in integrating movement and social emotional checkins and check-outs. From defining what success might look like in a lesson, to the pacing of a lesson and developing clear instructions, the sharing was abundant and impactful.

How teachers got to this place can be seen in terms of the larger organization and its culture, and the school’s powerful identity as a caring, collaborative and inclusive community.

Three specific principles contributed to success in the midst of challenges: Vision and mission lead to a strong identity. When vision and mission are based on strongly held values and beliefs that are understood at the student, teacher and community levels, they serve as a touchstone for decision-making.

These practices maintain and develop a strong sense of ‘knowing who we are’.

Communities take care of each other. A sense of community is most challenged during times of difficulty, when priorities and needs of different stakeholders vary. Collective efficacy within the community can be nurtured through the ongoing development of a culture of caring; through open communication; and by promoting a feeling of emotional safety and belonging.

Professional learning exists within the larger culture. Culture isn’t created by accident. Developed over time and with intentionality, a culture of sharing and professional learning means everyone in the school is growing and improving.

Collective efficacy does not exist in a

vacuum; it is part of school culture.

Reflecting on these principles is critical to maintaining flexibility and agility in meeting new challenges as they arise.

When mission, beliefs and values are clear, it’s no longer a question of whether goals can be achieved. Communities with collective efficacy are not focused on whether they can do something or not; they are already charting the paths.

Being clear about what matters and then framing these as principles provides robust guides that allow for agility and flexibility in the face of volatility. Knowing that we’re capable helps us to focus on our strengths. Efficacy is linked to an asset-based approach.

Many, if not most, schools around the world experience challenges and new situations for which prior experience and training may not be enough to think through new, increasingly complex problems. Every challenge requires new learning and ways of working that were unimaginable just a shor t time before. Even in the face of adversity and unpredictability, schools continue to gain collective efficacy through inquiry and introspection. ◆ Ochan Kusuma Powell is a consultant to schools around the world in the areas of coaching, special education, inclusion and collaboration, and a founding member of the Design Team for the Next Frontier Inclusion (nextfrontierinclusion.org). ✉ powell@

eduxfrontiers.org

Doug Woodward is Assistant Middle

School Principal at the International School of Kuala Lumpur. ✉ dwoodward@iskl.edu.my

References • Donohoo J, Hattie J & Eells R (2018) The Power of Collective Efficacy. Educational Leadership. 75(6): 40–44. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar18/vol75/num06/The-Power-of-Collective-Efficacy. aspx • Fisher D, Frey N & Hattie J (2020) The Distance Learning Playbook: Teaching for engagement and impact in any setting. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

• Garmston R J & Wellman B (2016) The Adaptive School: A Sourcebook for Developing Collaborative Groups.

Lanahan: Rowman & Littlefield.

Summer 2022 | International School | 17

Leading, teaching and learning

When feedback

supports students in learning for themselves

By Fanny Passeport

L

earning is about becoming aware, reaching an we start thinking of feedback as an experience (rather ‘aha’ moment, and realizing we just made a new than a mere tool), we can better anticipate the impact it connection. It is a magical moment when one may have on the learner. Teachers can make a significant experiences flow and an increased level of dopamine. difference by crafting the optimal conditions around Learning is thrilling, and it is so when it is owned by the feedback. For example, they can ask themselves: individual exploring and engaging in a With this feedback, will the students trial-and-error process. It is a cognitive feel supported in their learning or rather and affective process that engages the experience it as a threat or judgment?

With this feedback, whole self. Learning is a complex process Will the students be moved into action will the students feel because this matters to them or because of many interconnected elements, and teaching can be an aid or interference this matters to me, as their teacher? What supported in their to learning, either supporting learning or might be the purpose and impact of the learning or rather preventing it from occurring. One of the feedback for their learning, beyond the most effective instructional interventions experience it as a boundaries of this single task? is known as feedback. Feedback can act threat or judgment? as a powerful device to trigger learning Feedback: a multi-faceted and support learners in transitioning concept into the next stage, shaping their Feedback provides new information understanding of a concept. However, the way feedback to students, helping them become aware of their is provided, and how it is experienced by the receiver, current standing against a goal they are trying to attain, are fundamental variables to consider. Indeed, when and in turn, allows them to take action to improve

18 | International School | Summer 2022

Leading, teaching and learning

performance. But what is impor tant to know is that feedback is effective when it is ‘received, understood and acted upon’ (Hattie & Timperley, 2007), and without all three criteria met, the feedback might not have any impact. Through feedback, students find out whether or not an experiment or strategy was successful, and they can then respond by making a change, with the aim to get better at something.

Feedback’s quality matters A lot of focus is put on how a teacher uses feedback to suppor t students in improving their performance, so they achieve better academic outcomes. However, not enough attention is directed towards the quality of the learning process that feedback may generate.

As Stiggins et al put it: ‘it’s the quality of the feedback rather than its existence or absence that determines its power’ (2004: 40). We don’t simply want students to reach the learning outcome; we want them to develop metacognition, self-regulation, and autonomy. Therefore, understanding the invisible impact of feedback is essential. What might be going on in the head of the learners when they receive feedback? How might we create healthy learning experiences around feedback to develop sustainable learning? Let’s face it, feedback can follow the rules and principles of effective feedback from a cool memo someone took back from a webinar, and yet still rely on indirect forms of manipulation and control, which have detrimental effects on both wellness and learning (Ryan & Deci, 2017). So, how might we provide quality feedback that empowers students to learn about themselves, drive their own learning and thrive?

Supporting our learners’ autonomy Autonomy goes beyond the concept of agency as it embraces the idea that we do something because it is inherently interesting, because we feel a sense of volition and endorsement, because we can align our internal frame of reference (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan and Deci, 2017) to our actions. With autonomysuppor tive feedback, we aim to design the optimal conditions for learners to access their internal sources of empowerment so they can connect their interests, goals, and aspirations to the information they receive, to develop their competence with a true sense of free will. As teachers, we can create conditions in the classroom that may nur ture or frustrate autonomy (Ryan and Deci, 2017; Reeve, 2006). For example, teachers who operate with a more controlling style

Feedback provides new information to students, helping them become aware of their current standing against a goal they are trying to attain may rely on ego-involving feedback (eg focusing on praise or criticisms), or conditional reward (eg using behavioural char ts), or other forms of emotional blackmail (such as giving or withdrawing attention based on students’ attitude or performance). In such an atmosphere, students may be led to compete, take the shor test path to achieve a goal (including cheating), avoid challenges (as the stakes are too high and failing is too risky), and lack perseverance. They may also conform to expectations to please the teachers (rather than to learn the content) or defy authority (and thus end up being labeled as ‘bad’ students). In this context, we may well be teaching young people to unconditionally obey adults, which cer tainly makes it very hard for them to discern times when they should challenge authority figures and intelligently disobey for their self-protection.

In contrast, with a classroom culture that is centered around building autonomy, through unconditional regard, genuine concern for students’ wellbeing (including the development of a positive self-concept) and learning, and positive language, students are more likely to draw from their intrinsic motivation and to learn at a deeper and more conceptual level. An autonomy-suppor tive teacher will provide feedback in a different way than a controlling teacher. So, how might we deliberately make the shift towards autonomysuppor tive practices as we provide feedback?  Summer 2022 | International School | 19

Leading, teaching and learning whether you would consider each of them controlling or autonomysupportive: • You supported your argument with 3 examples.

• I expected better from you.

• You did it! How does it feel?

• You see what went well and what didn’t. What might you do next?

• If you were the assessor, what would you like to see in this portfolio?

• You did it, just like I asked.

• You are so smart!

• (Teacher, in front of the class): Marina, I like the way you are quietly sitting.

Controlling feedback relies on external regulation which is often experienced as a pressure toward performing (outcome-oriented), while autonomy-supportive feedback relies on internal regulation and is experienced as competence-enhancing and process-oriented. When one judges students’ character/ personal attributes, shares a biased evaluation (forcing the feedback giver’s preferences, opinions, or interpretations), uses an authoritarian attitude or language, or simply spoon-feeds the students by telling them where they are and what they should do (without considering the student’s selfassessment), the feedback falls into the controlling category with the locus of control in the hand of the feedback-giver. In contrast, one is autonomysupportive when sharing benevolent and constructive feedback that focuses on the task criteria, reflecting the data in a neutral way, or inquiring to cause the learner to think about how to make sense of the data and what to change or do next.

Autonomy-supportive feedback is a studentcentered and compassionate teaching style.

Making the shift to autonomy-supportive feedback Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET) is a sub-theory of the Self-Determination Theory (Deci and Ryan, 1985) that is concerned with the factors that lead people towards a certain quality of motivation (more extrinsic and controlling, or more intrinsic and autonomous). CET posits that we either frustrate or satisfy people’s autonomy, and these conditions are certainly influenceable by how we optimize the learning environment. Costa & Garmston (2015) further support this idea with their division between feedback that is ‘evaluative’ and feedback that is ‘supportive of thinking’, capturing the essence of autonomy-supportive feedback through cognitive coaching. They insist on mediating thinking by letting the receivers make their own judgment, inferences, and interpretations as a result of receiving data-driven feedback or reflective questions from a coach. If we embrace the role of a cognitive coach in the classroom by putting more emphasis on ‘letting learn’ than on teaching, we combine the right ingredients for generating a learning-centered classroom with curious and active learners.

Consider the following feedback statements, and 20 | International School | Summer 2022

Following this reasoning, the statements above might have categorized as follows Controlling

Autonomy-supportive

• I expected better from you.

• You did it, just like I asked.

• You are so smart!

(Teacher, in front of the class): Marina, I like the way you are quietly sitting.

• You supported your argument with 3 examples.

• You did it! How does it feel?

• You see what went well and what didn’t. What might you do next?

• If you were the assessor, what would you like to see in this portfolio?

Leading, teaching and learning Supporting students’ autonomy comes from the heart When we draw from our learners’ internal resourcefulness, we shift the responsibility for the learning to them and allow them to develop metacognition and self-regulation, which are necessary not only for them to learn here and now but also for them to build the skills they will continue to draw from throughout their lives. In other words, autonomysupportive feedback is a form of self-feedback. It comes in the form of data and questions that prompt the receiver to reflect and decide how to respond, like a magic mirror that lets you see what you couldn’t before.

Some of the ways to provide this type of feedback are to engage in coaching to listen and inquire, leading to increased self-direction in learners.

Autonomy-supportive feedback is a student-centered and compassionate teaching style. It is not only beneficial to learners, who experience greater wellness but also to the teacher, who feels connected to students, developing strong relationships with them through unconditional regard, warmth, and real concern for these young souls.

Therefore, autonomy-supportive feedback will occur when the teacher is concerned with the satisfaction of students’ basic psychological needs. One cannot fake it, as it comes from the heart, from an authentic desire to take the students’ perspective. Despite possible defiance and negative behaviors that one might observe, an autonomy-supportive teacher sees below the surface References • Deci E L & Ryan R M (1985) Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum Press Publishing Co. • Hattie J & Timperley H (2007) The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research. 77(1): 81–112.

• Hattie J A C (2009) Visible Learning. A synthesis of over 800 metaanalyses relating to achievement. Routledge.

• Purkey W & Novak J (1996) Inviting school success (3rd ed). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.

• Reeve, J. (2006). Teachers as Facilitators: What Autonomy-Supportive Teachers Do and Why Their Students Benefit. The Elementary School Journal. 106(3): 225–236.

of the visible events and is able to regulate their own emotions by going inward, accessing core beliefs, and supporting all learners’ development. Autonomysupportive teachers are invitational educators in all aspects of their work within the school community (Purkey & Novak, 1996). They use an interpersonal tone, show patience, put themselves in others’ shoes, acknowledge negative feelings, provide choices that connect to students’ interests, share tasks’ rationale, and communicate positively (Reeve & Cheon, 2021; Ryan and Deci, 2006). They resist the egocentric pressures of being the most popular teacher, having the best students’ grades, or having students follow instructions to the letter, and rather pride themselves on the satisfaction of seeing all students progress in their learning, despite the challenges, letting students fail and learn from their experiments and, in doing so, fostering the emergence of a flourishing ecosystem where it feels good to be and to grow. ◆

Fanny Passeport is Founder of No Borders Learning and an

Education Development Officer at ErasmusX, Erasmus University Rotterdam, having previously worked in PK-12 schools as a Director of Learning, Technology Integrator and French Language Acquisition Teacher (IB Primary Years Programme, Middle Years Programme and Diploma Programme).

✉ passeportfanny@noborderslearning.com

• Reeve J & Cheon S H (2021) Autonomy-supportive teaching: Its malleability, benefits, and potential to improve educational practice, Educational Psychologist. 56(1): 54-77.

• Ryan R M and Deci E L (2006) Self-Regulation and the problem of human autonomy: Does psychology need choice, self-determination, and will? Journal of Personality 74: 1557-1585.

• Ryan R M and Deci E L (2017) Self-Determination Theory, Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness. London: Guilford Press.

• Stiggins R, Arter J A, Chappuis J and Chappuis S (2004) Classroom assessment for student learning: Doing it right, using it well. Assessment Training Institute. Pearson, 2nd ed.

Summer 2022 | International School | 21

Leading, teaching and learning

Making Assessment Change

By Janelle Torres

M

any schools are making changes to assessment. Across the international school sector, the rate of assessment change is broad, and the range of solutions wide. The ISC Research report published this year, Future of Assessment in International Schools, explored how international schools are managing their assessment change and identified some of the common challenges they are facing.

Although some international schools have been working towards change for several years, COVID-19 was the catalyst for many more such schools. The need to submit teacher-assessed grades as an alternative to external examinations highlighted the challenges of summative assessment. This, coupled with a need to know more about the students, and their wellbeing in addition to their learning progress, resulted in a significant shift towards data-gathering in order for teachers to make informed judgements to support personalised learning.

73% of the international schools that we have researched (mostly in the premium fee and mid-market fee sectors) told us they are now using digital platforms as part of their student assessment. 77% said they had used new forms of digital assessment during campus closures in order to gather and analyse data. The advancement of technology skills by school staff, along with the technology solutions increasingly available, are enabling some schools to move towards more authentic personalised learning, informed by rigorous and efficient approaches to formative assessment. Our research tells us that most international school leaders agree on the value of formative assessment, which may be the reason for the increasing number of schools using it to differentiate learning.

22 | International School | Summer 2022

However, it’s not an easy change, as school leaders we have interviewed make clear.

The advancement of technology skills by school staff, along with the technology solutions increasingly available Challenges for a small school Myna Anderson is the Director of Banjul American International School in The Gambia: a remote international school with 64 students, limited resources, poor internet access, and staff who have to take multiple roles. ‘Our teachers understand how to set standards, how to identify what they’re looking for, but still feel more comfortable calculating a percentage grade instead of truly assessing against standards‘, Myna told us. ‘I think it’s a safety net; they feel safe if there’s a calculation, that it’s not subjective when they use numbers to make the current determination.’ Most school management data systems are out of the school’s budget range. ‘All schools should have access to an open-source solution; something out there for anybody, like us,

a school faculty that knows what good teaching and learning look like and who want to use a system, but simply can’t afford it‘, she added.

The catalyst for change At The Columbus School in Colombia, which serves 1,800 children, the pandemic has been a catalyst for change.

‘COVID made it challenging for teachers to rely on traditional assessments, so many teachers started

Leading, teaching and learning

introducing performance tasks, portfolios, or learning conversations’, said Assistant Director of Learning for Curriculum Development, Britta McCarthy. Since everyone has returned to campus, the technology that was seen as valuable by staff continues to be used. ‘We have several platforms that are giving us targeted data points to understand our students in the moment, rather than waiting for data by semester from our MAP testing‘, she said. ‘We definitely see the platforms are a benefit for us; they’re giving us more data about how our students are doing academically.

For now, we are using this academic information to help move a child forward.

They have also helped us communicate information to parents, but it doesn’t yet feel like the technology platforms and assessments are helping us to make our relationships stronger with each student on a socioemotional level.’

Time to develop skills In Malad, India, Meenakshi Kilpady, Principal of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan International School,

said that staff spent a year exploring various apps and developing their skills to move away from pen and paper assessment. Whilst staff dramatically improved their technology skills during campus closures, Meenakshi believes they now need time and space before moving further on their assessment journey. As she said, ‘The greatest shift during COVID had to be made by teachers, and so we’re giving them two years to integrate what we are now doing. Taking time is an important part of the move to a more data-led approach to assessing and supporting student progress. For me, the first year was learning how to make sense of what I had in front of me. Looking beyond the easy numbers, to identifying which subjects a child is getting better at, and where they are lagging behind, that took some time to figure out.’

Moving towards data-led assessment At King’s College, The British School of Madrid, Headteacher Matthew Taylor has been leading a school-wide journey towards data-led assessment. ‘It has only been possible through a greater use of technology‘, he told us. The school has combined the CAT4 assessment platform as a placement tool, with a traffic light system for tracking a range of attitudes to

learning (such as participating in class activities, completing tasks on time and, in the senior years, independent learning skills), which are all integrated into the school’s management information system. ‘We’ve abolished placement of where students are in the class or year group, and progress is contextualised to the child‘, Matthew said. ‘Teachers can see, at a glance, data on attitudes to learning alongside academic progress scoring. That allows us to spot patterns emerging which helps us to provide timely interventions. We want to get to a point where everything we get from data is there to support the personalisation of learning for each individual child.’

Matthew emphasised that sufficient time was essential to move the initiative forward successfully. ‘We’ve moved from a point, four years ago, when staff were looking in concern at the data, to it now being a rewarding exercise they can use to learn about the child, and to target interventions more appropriately. There are now far more data-led conversations between the staff.’

A UWC group change I was able to continue some of our research-led conversations during a webinar that’s now accessible for all on the ISC Research Heads Up podcast series. As part of this Future of Assessment webinar, I spoke with Gabriel Ernesto Abad Fernández, Head of United World College (UWC) Dilijan.

Summer 2022 | International School | 23

Leading, teaching and learning

He is Chair of the UWC Heads Group and, although all 18 United World Colleges are different, Gabriel said they all agree that the way they do assessment needs to change. ‘The commodification of education is turning high-stakes assessment into a weapons race. While some teenagers will procrastinate, others see every single assessment task as a lifedefining moment that has the potential to close doors for them. This is antithetical to the idea of experiential learning, which is integral to the UWC educational model’, he explained. Working with the International Baccalaureate, the United World Colleges are exploring a new approach to assessment centred around student engagement and triangulating with a self-reflection wellbeing app.

‘We’re focusing on how we’re making sure that students engage in their learning in a constructive way that’s healthy and contributes to their wellbeing‘, he said.

‘To triangulate these points

24 | International School | Summer 2022

We want to get to a point where everything we get from data is there to support the personalisation of learning for each individual child.’ [in order to] engage with students in conversations, this is a life-changer in the way we approach education.’

Assessment dashboards for all Ben Marsh, Director at International School of Myanmar, also joined me on the webinar. He too has been leading a school-wide approach to assessment change. ‘Like a lot of schools, we have lots of data on students all over the place and, until recently, only a few people really had access to it. So we partnered with a company to support us in putting all that data into dashboards for us.’ Ben added: ‘This includes a dashboard for the leadership team that allows us to look at whole-school data trends, and track and map them all the way through the school to identify our strengths and areas needing focus.

Then we have dashboards for teachers, giving them access to comparative data on their students which allows them to group the students in different areas and clusters, and use it to inform individual student learning progress. We’re also launching a similar dashboard for students and parents to

give them an individual student view. For us, technology really is paramount. The second part of the strategy was training our teachers so that they can now lead data conversations and facilitate meetings where they are able to look at the data, run through the circle of enquiry, put in interventions, and then see if the intervention is working.’

A plea to tech developers There have been several requests to tech providers during our research conversations. Most of these relate to providing flexibility with platforms so that assessment criteria, data collection and analysis can be adjusted to the requirements of every school. As Meenakshi Kilpady summarised: ‘Right now, tech companies have their product in a box and, as a school, you have to take the whole box and we can’t change the shape or size. That doesn’t work well for schools’. ◆ Janelle Torres is Research Manager for South East Asia at ISC Research. Her Future of Assessment podcast is part of the ISC Research Heads Up podcast series which is available on most podcast platforms.

✉ janelle.torres@iscresearch.com

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From the Schools

Identity Languages

Building a Program for Students to Maintain their Complex Cultural Identities

By Daniel Cowan and Luiza Marie Razeto

T

his article is in two parts, written by two teachers centrally involved in different aspects of the introduction of an Identity Language Program at Frankfurt International School.

Daniel Cowan Imagine if one of the first questions your new international school asked you, as a family, was which languages are important to your child? Moving from Japan to Egypt had us, as a family, trying to reconcile the notion that our two children had spent five years developing some proficiency in Japanese, alongside an affinity for Japanese culture, but would no longer be able to deepen, or even just maintain, this connection.

We repeated the same process four years later, moving from Egypt to Germany. Now it was Arabic that would need to make way for German, Spanish and French.

At each stop, I thought about ways to continue their development in the language they’d left behind, but the demands of the schools’ language programs meant that this would be done in addition to adding a new language.

The two barriers to allowing students to continue to develop their existing language skills in a new country are lack of access to opportunities (resources, teachers) and having to meet the new school’s language requirement. I also did not have a conceptual

26 | International School | Summer 2022

framework for what this language was for a child. I had toyed with terms like ‘foothold language’, but when I came across the term ‘identity language’, this matched my children’s (and many other internationally mobile students’) experience. In essence, an identity language is any language with which a person has developed both proficiency and personal connection.

The International School of the Hague has created an Identity Language Program that asks the provocative question ‘Who are we to decide for a student what their cultural identity should be?’ (McCracken et al, 2018: 32). I visited the International School of London in the winter of 2019, and had the opportunity there to see a vibrant language learning program that offered tremendous flexibility and a wide range of language classes in small classrooms taught by peripatetic language teachers.

These two examples inspired a model for Frankfurt International School (FIS).

At FIS, this issue arose during a whole school language policy review in 2018. We recognized that each student is on a unique language pathway and that while FIS has many language options for students, we could not meet all students’ needs within our language programs. Once we recognized that this concept was worth addressing, we developed a framework for a program that will allow students to

From the Schools learning needs. This allowed me to set up specific learning settings and develop a structure that catered to our learners.

Shadowing the initial pilot group, it became clear that students are well versed in self-organized online work due to their experiences in distance learning.

As a teacher, I approached this class in a mentorship capacity by providing students with encouragement, help in organization and supporting them in asking questions and advocating for their own learning. It was a truly transformational experience and I established very close working relationships with all of the students in the program. As I am a language teacher myself, I will very often engage students in cultural discussions and provide them with complementary projects to their course that I differentiate based on their learning goals and needs. Evaluating students’ semester reflections, it has become evident that they take pride in their learning progress and appreciate the challenges they overcame in this individualized setting. We are planning to expand the program next year, primarily focusing on grades 9 and 10 as we found these students best equipped with a suitable set of core skills and emotional maturity to manage their learning.

Some important questions remain for the future development of our Identity Language Program: 1. Can we form relationships with other international schools so that we can share resources to support our students as they move around the globe?

2. Can we develop links with institutions that grant official language level accreditation for students so that they can gain credentials for their future learning and careers?

3. How do we refine the screening process at admissions to streamline the process?

International schools should allow for the transfer of students between cultures and schools. In this sense, it is incumbent upon schools to make sure that a student is able to maintain as much continuity of learning as possible. Perhaps the lack of a model of what identity languages are and a sense of how a school can meet them has held us back in the past. We can see the potential for networks of international schools increasing openness to new modes of learning, and shifting attitudes about personalizing learning and language acquisition, leading to a wider acceptance of how we might facilitate identity language learning in international schools. ◆

I approached this class in a mentorship capacity by providing students with encouragement continue to pursue their identity language, which includes: 1. Identify the identity language need.

2. Identify learning goals for the student.

3. Identify the curriculum, platform and the instructor/tutor for the student.

4. Identify when and where the learning will take place.

5. Assess and report the student’s progress.

In order to make this happen, in the summer of 2021 we created the position of Identity Language Coordinator. When the community was introduced to this concept in a newsletter, we discovered that there were several Mandarin speakers who were not Chinese who would like to continue their language learning for both personal and future learning pathway purposes.

We also had a student who was moving to France, so she needed to learn French much more quickly than would have been possible in our existing language learning pathways. Both of these cases formed the test case for us in how we could free up time in the day, help coordinate tutors and resources, and help guide their learning through goal setting, reflecting, and acknowledging the value of their learning.

Luiza Marie Razeto, Identity Language Coordinator at FIS, will now share how the first months progressed.

Luiza Marie Razeto We started the year with eleven students learning four different languages, in the area of language acquisition as well as in language literature. Over the summer I had researched local agencies for tutoring, in the hopes of arranging in-person instruction, and met with several providers of online courses.

The program quickly grew around the core Mandarin group in grade 9 and we were able to accommodate parent requests for Swedish, Italian and Dutch as well. We used the first two weeks of the new school year to set individual goals with students and identify their personalized

Daniel Cowan is Head of the Barra site of the British School of Rio de Janeiro. When this program was launched he was an Upper School Principal at Frankfurt International School.

✉ dcowan@britishschool.g12.br

Luiza Marie Razeto is a German teacher and Identity Language Coordinator at Frankfurt International School.

✉ luisamarie_razeto@fis.edu

References

• McCracken M, Rikers L, Tee S and Eerdewijk J (2018) Bringing Identity Language Into Our School. International School. 20(3): 31-33.

Summer 2022 | International School | 27

From the Schools

The Values of Peace

By Malcolm McKenzie

28 | International School | Summer 2022

From the Schools

O

n April 16 and 17, 2021, Keystone Academy in Beijing was honored to be the host of the annual Leadership Conference for ACAMIS: the Association of China and Mongolia International Schools. Despite the pandemic, the conference was faceto-face, with over 300 delegates able to attend in person, though the two keynote speakers were from America, and their speeches were virtual. Stedman Graham spoke on his book Identity Leadership, and Rosalind Wiseman, the founder of Cultures of Dignity, spoke about her work in promoting emotional wellbeing in schools through the cultivation of a culture characterized by dignity and respect.

The theme of this ACAMIS conference was ‘Values Added’. In opening the gathering, and welcoming the participants, I made brief remarks on the connections between education for peace, values, our own school Keystone Academy, and schools everywhere. In this short piece I will share these remarks in a slightly expanded form, as follows: ‘Let me start by saying something about peace, and education for peace: a purpose and a practice needed now more than ever. That will lead me directly to our theme of ‘Values Added’.

Educators national and international often make a link between education and peace. The International Baccalaureate mission speaks of ‘young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world’, while the United World Colleges (UWC) say that ‘UWC makes education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future’. These are just two examples from many. One of the profound and I hope enduring contributions of world education, in philosophy and practice, has been this: an unabashed emphasis on inspiring children in our schools to use their acquired knowledge and skills for promoting and nurturing a more peaceful world. Who would take issue with this?

However, some might take issue with the varying ways of trying to achieve this laudable aim. Many might also question some of the values that become attached, inevitably, to this project. ‘Peace’ is not a value, it is a state of being or existence, but values need to be articulated, grown and upheld in order to promote peace successfully. It is my belief that the link between education and peace is strengthened immeasurably, in philosophy and in practice, when it is underpinned by values that give it cogency.

But all too frequently, perhaps owing to the association of valuesbased schooling with opportunities for indoctrination, the values underpinning the ‘education for peace’ project can be taken to vitiate rather than support it. Let me try to correct that.

It is common in schools to talk about ‘Value Added’. This refers to what the institution, and its teachers, add to what the students bring with them. We expect creative and productive schools to add significant value to their students’ learning. It may be difficult to measure this, but we know and appreciate its

education for peace: a purpose and a practice needed now more than ever

worth as a goal. It is not as common for schools to concern themselves with the ‘values’ that they add to the lives of their students. A focus on values leads naturally to our theme of ‘Values Added’. This should encourage engagement with and discussion of the importance of values in the school curriculum, in and out of the classroom. Is it enough to be merely a ‘Value Adding’ school? Or should holistic learning, within an educational framework that is interested in peace building, require ‘Values Added’ as well? And, if so, which and whose values?

The more that our world becomes desperate, and our planet degraded, the more I feel that the values we as educators add are the most important educational issue of our times. The values that we should be teaching, and living, in the school communities that we build, as teachers and leaders, are both local and global, and contemporary yet enduring. They are pluralistic and inclusive, and most certainly not fundamentalist in any way. Education for Peace is a mantra to which educators, national and international, can easily subscribe. To make the mantra meaningful, however, values appropriate to its realization need to be spelled out.

Now for a slight detour, before returning to our main road.

Summer 2022 | International School | 29

From the Schools

We chose a set of simple, elegant, yet profound Confucian values This school, Keystone Academy, was opened in Beijing in 2014. Keystone is a not-for-profit Chinese private school that now numbers over 1500 students.

Older students board, and there are now about 450 boarders and 120 teacher families resident on campus. The school blends Chinese national with international curricula across the student age range from 5 to 18. In the Middle and High School Divisions, the IB Middle Years Programme and Diploma Programme are used. The nature of Keystone’s bilingual program in Chinese and English means that about half the teachers are Chinese, and the other half drawn from a wide range of countries around the world. Although Keystone is allowed to admit students regardless of nationality or passport, most of the students are Chinese. We are a national school with a world flavor.

We have three foundational keystones.

The third of these keystones is that of ‘promoting Chinese culture and identity in a world context’. This is expressed through our entire curriculum, outside and inside the classroom, by what we call our Chinese Thread, a rich cloth which wraps what we do in a cloak of ‘Chineseness’ that is woven from and for our country and the world. We have written a book on this which is subtitled ‘Local Culture in a World School’.

And this brings me back from my detour to the main road, and to values – and our ‘Values Added’ theme. At Keystone, the values underpinning our school are both specific and specified.

We chose a set of simple, elegant, yet profound Confucian values that are immediately known and warmly appreciated in our Chinese context.

However, they are most definitely not unique, nor exclusive. In addition to their deep roots in Chinese soil, these values were chosen because they transplant readily to, and bloom beautifully in, other earth. I have heard this referred to as Confucian cosmopolitanism. It is not difficult to find values anywhere that are deeply local within their context yet transferable across time and place. And 30 | International School | Summer 2022

having a local frame for a global reach makes a big difference when it comes both to explanation and to engagement.

Our ‘big five’ values, in Chinese and English, are ren/compassion, yi/justice, li/ respect, zhi/wisdom, and xin/honesty. They are on display throughout our classrooms and campus, they are known and loved, and they guide our decision-making, our leadership, and our instruction. Each member of the Keystone Academy community — parents, students, teachers and support staff — is expected to act in ways that make manifest these five values in daily action. Membership in our community offers unique privileges and also implies shared responsibility. In an atmosphere where safety, trust and belonging are our goals, we create a

strong community partnership through a collective embrace of these values.

All community members affirm our values, and these core principles provide the foundation for our behavior and interactions. In the past few weeks, as examples, these values have been at the fore of both our matriculation ceremony for new students, and also our leadership handover from seniors to slightly younger fellow students in the High School.

Values added deliberately to a school’s total curriculum, in the context of education for peace, lead naturally to a vision that seeks changing and challenging directions, and solutions.

Peace is elusive, we know that, but should never become illusory. It is the task of national and international education and the work of world educators globally, with a careful choice of the added values that accompany these, to protect this purpose.’ ◆ Malcolm McKenzie is Head of School at Keystone Academy, China ✉ malcolm. mckenzie@keystoneacademy.cn

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From the Schools

The World turned upside down

The view from Moldova ‘I see Earth! It is so beautiful’ – Yuri Gagarin

By Rob Ford

W

hen in the 1640s the Puritans of England banned Christmas Day, theatre and even dancing, a ballad appeared, half mocking, half fearful, suggesting that the world everyone once knew was now upside down in Cromwell’s England. It’s alleged that this ballad was also played when Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown in 1781 and ended the British Empire in the American colonies for good. ‘We the People’ is as relevant now in 2022 for nations, peoples and countries to determine their national independent sovereignty and their right to exist, as it was when the shots at Lexington and Concord were also heard around the world.

I’ve been thinking of these words over and over again these last few weeks, more or less since the early hours of the 24th February. The 17th century English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, once wrote that life was ‘short, nasty and brutish’. When I first read this, studying for my A Levels, I disagreed with this assessment of humanity and prayed that this cynical analysis was wrong. In these months of 2022, one could choose a number of recent events as supporting evidence for the premise. As a positive international school leader, my optimism as well as my opposition to Hobbes were sorely tested.

Moldova, where Heritage International School is located in the capital, Chişinău, is one of the least well-known countries in Europe, bordered by the much larger Romania and Ukraine. Being at a pivotal and historical crossroads, Moldova has been strongly influenced by Latin, Slavic and Ottoman cultures, and more recently was part of the USSR. This legacy of a complex but fascinating history makes the establishment of the first international school even more astonishing. Moldova has a tendency to lose the crucial talent that could help develop society further, and migration is a huge issue. The impact of the war in Ukraine could see even more young people leave for abroad. There are over 20 nationalities in the Heritage community and English is our common working language, alongside Romanian 32 | International School | Summer 2022

and Russian. One of our key school values is social responsibility and as Moldova opened its borders to the 100,000s of Ukrainian refugees who have crossed since the end of February, this small European country with limited resources and a myriad of deeper socio-

From the Schools

economic legacy problems led the way globally in making sure people fleeing the war had somewhere safe to flee to.

Everyone in Moldova is proud of the country’s response here, as it lives under the constant threat itself of being engulfed into war as a former Soviet republic with a ‘frozen’ post-Cold War conflict and Russian army from 1992 in the Russianspeaking area of Transnistria. (1) There has been a very real impact on our school, not least in preparing for the reality that war could come to Moldova.

(2) We have been actively involved in supporting educational programmes nationally for Ukrainian children, we have raised funds and collected donated items, delivering them also to Ukraine, and staff and students have been personally This legacy of a complex but fascinating involved in either housing refugee families or helping at the large national centres history makes the establishment of the housing those fleeing from the conflict. first international school even more One in every ten children is a refugee.

Many of our Moldovan colleagues and astonishing. students have close family ties with both Russia and Ukraine, so for them the impact of this war is devastating. (3) As a school, where we focus is always on our point to my students recently, in talking about how international values, our international mindedness, we manage our stress, that we function better when connecting classrooms, cultures, celebrating we focus on the things we can control, rather than diversities, differences and getting our young people the things we cannot. That is why it feels like normal into constant dialogue. Gagarin, that great global weeks at Heritage, and it's good to see students citizen, the first human to see from space our across the school benefiting from the certainty of interconnectedness as a planet, was right: our their education in these uncertain times. world is a beautiful place and we should not My colleagues in the Cambridge IGCSE and A lose sight of this fact. This is where our hope Level teams during these difficult months have calmly lies in these times. I was very hopeful at the led the students in preparing their portfolios for start of April, seeing our Grade 9s work external Cambridge grading. Cambridge International with the brilliant students of The Royal Latin support has also helped calm the situation. My School in the UK, as well as the primary colleagues' professionalism and duty of care is one eTwinning clubs working with schools of things I am so proud of about our school. At across Europe. These conversations are our recent online Heritage Open House, we have really important not only to share some of welcomed into the Heritage community the new the situation here from our experience as families from Ukraine we have received in these past an international school in Moldova but also weeks. I have also enjoyed in these weeks seeing to ensure we discourage ‘blind activism’, in the energy and activities from the primary school. I the style of the ‘Hats for Haiti’ well-meaning love the traditions of hanging the martisors on the approach from a few years ago, that doesn’t trees for good wishes and, above all, much-needed raise real awareness or understanding of a hope. I was very proud, too, of the primary school global issue. We have many students and families student council involved in the Global School Alliance in our international community from both Ukraine international council and I never tire of seeing the and Russia, and the latter in particular are not development of decent future leaders from this responsible for the actions of their government. As generation. Our Science Week and Fair involved lots the war turns more ugly and we see war crimes being of exciting experiments for their curiosity as much as investigated, this point is crucial for our community. (4) for their curriculum. We celebrated again Earth Day, The view this spring from Dacia Boulevard, where the UN’s English Language Day and Shakespeare’s Heritage International School is located, is also one birthday, and the canteen served a wonderful ‘Toad of much needed ‘normality’ and not necessarily of a in the Hole’ for British International Food Friday. The world completely turned upside down, no matter menu did scare some of our students until they tried what we are feeling inside. I made the central the dish.  Summer 2022 | International School | 33

From the Schools

We continue to hope and pray for peace in Ukraine and for the war to stop. Normality cannot come soon enough for our neighbours in Ukraine.

(5) I had the humbling privilege of listening to and talking to my COBIS colleague, David Cole, principal of BISU (the British International School Ukraine) in Kyiv, as we meet regularly online as COBIS school leaders in Europe to discuss the war in Ukraine and the impact on students, staff and the community. (6) David and his school sets us a very strong example of the power of our global values and the enduring power of education, par ticularly in these times. My prayers and hopes for the younger generation we are teaching now is for a world where manipulation, misinformation, fear and zero sum outlooks are something that happened only in the early 2020s. I shared with the COBIS group our own experience now at Heritage and in Moldova. We can be proud of Moldova for showing its humanity and compassion in the ways in which our government,

NGOs and civic society are suppor ting refugees who arrive in our country daily as victims of this terrible war. We all want peace and for the war to stop. Our global educational networks have never been more impor tant. (7) At the British Council's schools' conference in London in March this year, our outward-facing international school and students were the keynote speakers, along with our colleagues from NASA. It was so uplifting to see again so many familiar faces of friends and colleagues from the British Council and network schools, and to hear and share so many great school stories in these ‘upside down’ times.

One of my recent Gymnasium assemblies looked at the idea of understanding the precious moments and things of our lives.

In these times, this is what we are talking about to students right now, making sure we don't lose sight of this point when we may feel overwhelmed with the news from our corner of the world. One student asked me a very tough question about

We continue to hope and pray for peace in Ukraine and for the war to stop.

34 | International School | Summer 2022

From the Schools

how to deal with stress. We agreed that coming off social media more often was a good thing, as well as getting outside more, appreciating nature, having more sleep, having a cup of tea, and coming off work/study at regular times. One of the things we have made a big point of this year is allowing hardworking staff a good balance between work and home, and not escalating issues that can be resolved

very easily. In my experience, a cup of tea has solved many problems and brought a much-needed sense of perspective: I wish this would extend to world leaders right now. I wonder what the successors to Gagarin, Shepard, Armstrong, Tereshkova or Aldrin – orbiting the Ear th on the International Space Station – think when they look down right now on our planet, at our humanity, and then off into the void of space.

We want to model for our students, for our children, optimism, hope and the ability to find collaborative solutions in these times so that we can deal with the bigger global picture. When in March Rick and Bob from NASA spoke to the students of Moldova, the UK and around the world, they didn’t present some Hobbesian dystopia. Rather they presented a picture of what the best of humanity can achieve, and showed that our boundaries and future lie in collaboration, exploration and solving our issues. Failure is not an option for NASA any more than it is for our children in Moldova, the UK or globally.

UNESCO has been running a campaign in 2022 with the byline ‘Let education be our strongest weapon’. Right now, we all need to make sure we enjoy the gift of the normal school day, look for the hope, and treasure the peace that we are fortunate to have right now in Moldova. We need to look for the moments to defy the 21st century puritans, and dance as often and whenever we can. This way, the world will feel less upside down, the tyrants won't win in the end, and a bright future will belong to our children. ◆ Rob Ford is Director of Heritage International School

in Chişinău, Moldova, a long-term British Council Schools’ Ambassador, and previously Principal of Wyedean School, Gloucestershire, UK. ✉ robert.ford@heritage.md

Notes

1) Heritage students speak on the War in Ukraine, 4 March 2022: https://youtu.be/ovVVrvKeKqQ 2) Rob Ford, 1 March 2022: ‘Ukraine: ‘War makes handling the Covid crisis look like a walk in the park’: https://www.schoolmanagementplus. com/the-view-from-here/ukraine-war-makes-handling-the-covid-crisis-look-like-a-walk-in-the-park/ 3) Letter from Moldova: 2022 War in Ukraine; Global School Alliance blog post, 3 March 2022. Tatiana Popa, Head of Global Education and English teacher at Heritage International School, Moldova: https://platform.globalschoolalliance.com/education/letter-from-moldova-2022war-in-ukraine/ 4) Moldova national day of mourning for Bucha, Twitter, 4 April 2022: https://twitter.com/HIS_Moldova/status/1510919673621139460?s=20 &t=9SFT-gcKZnhaYzNI3geqIA 5) The Moldovans living in fear of Russian attack. ‘Anxiety is high‘. Huck Magazine, 10 March 2022, Tatiana Popa (Head of Global Education at Heritage International School) featured in this article by Jessica Abrahams: https://www.huckmag.com/perspectives/the-moldovans-livingin-fear-of-russian-attack/ 6) Ukraine: ‘This has been the biggest challenge of my career’. David Cole, Principal of the British International School Ukraine, remains optimistic about the future, despite the horrors of Russia's invasion. 19 April 2022: https://www.schoolmanagementplus.com/headsgovernors-school-leadership-governance/ukraine-this-has-been-the-biggest-challenge-of-my-career/ 7) ‘Pastoral staff deal with children’s fear of World War every day’. Schools across the Black Sea region are working hard to support colleagues in Ukraine and address their own pupils' concerns. Stephen Priest, 8 March 2022: https://www.schoolmanagementplus.com/ latest-news/pastoral-staff-deal-with-childrens-fear-of-world-war-iii-every-day/

Summer 2022 | International School | 35

From the Associations

COBIS Race4Good

The students who were frontline humanitarian workers between lessons

R

By Alisa Delin

36 | International School | Summer 2022

eal people. Real problems. Real impact. This is the pledge of Race4Good, a Global Youth League that turns to students to solve critical real-life challenges faced by communities in need. On this remarkable programme, students compete in teams to find solutions to pressing issues, ranging from health through to education. It is far from a paper exercise – winning solutions are implemented within days.

Upon learning about the Race4Good, we were quick to bring this opportunity to the schools within our network. The Council of British International Schools (COBIS) is the premier global association for international British schools, representing close to 250 schools in almost 80 countries. As a student-centred organisation, we run a broad programme of student activities that aim to challenge and inspire students, whilst cultivating and celebrating their talents. The Race4Good

closely aligns to our ethos, and we were delighted to launch the inaugural COBIS race this academic year.

Over three weeks, 14 teams from 13 COBIS schools were challenged to uplift La Colline, a remote community in Haiti; a community that is worlds apart from the students’ own. Having received detailed information about La Colline and the community, students were set a series of challenges. These included economically uplifting a family with sustainable and longterm impacts, improving the education of children attending the local school, and improving the sports provision and healthcare within the community.

Throughout the race, the students were immersed in a totally unfamiliar world, but it was vital that they truly understood those they were supporting.

The seemingly innocuous details about day-to-day life had the potential to make or break their plans. The Race4Good

From the Associations school. They supplied moulds to create chalk from the chalky soil and tools to recycle paper, and incorporated agriculture into school life to generate income and reduce the need for external funding.

However, unlike other competitions, beating the other teams was not the ultimate objective. Instead, there was a feeling of unity amongst teams, driven by a shared goal to make a real difference to real people’s lives.

The Race4Good had a positive impact on the community in focus, but also offered a multitude of benefits to the students taking part. Throughout the process they developed leadership, business and life skills, and acquired a deeper understanding of their own strengths. The competition was an empowering experience. It highlighted their ability to stimulate change and stirred up feelings of hope for what lies ahead.

Linda Cruse, the driving force behind and founder of the Race4Good, has

Throughout the race, the students were immersed in a totally unfamiliar world team, who were on the ground in Haiti, were able to share these valuable nuggets of information. Students had a direct line of communication with the community – this was crucial when developing suitable solutions.

For each challenge, students were offered a modest budget, ranging from £100 to £200. They were encouraged to consider simple yet innovative ideas, appropriate to the community. Every penny needed to be accounted for, and there wasn’t much to spare. With the help of business mentors, students developed business plans to showcase their solutions. These were presented to a panel of judges who selected the winner for each challenge. Within days, a video was released of the solution being implemented in the community: a powerful reminder that the competition was not merely a game, but an opportunity to make a real difference in transforming lives for the better.

The teams quickly got into the swing of the competition, devising ingenious solutions to the varying challenges.

One team discovered that goat’s milk, a plentiful resource, can be transformed into soap through a few basic steps. This simple idea had the potential to improve the health and hygiene of the community, and generate income through sales at the local market. Unsurprisingly, this was selected as a winning solution, and a video was released a few days later showing the health clinic using this newly learned technique. Another impressive idea was to use local materials to construct vertical gardens to grow crops. This simple concept allows for an increased yield by maximising limited space; enough food was provided for sustenance and for sale.

The vertical structure prevents disease and reduces the risk of pests spoiling the harvest. This, too, was a transformative solution, and one that could easily be rolled out across the community.

After three weeks of intense competition, the team from Dubai English Speaking College won the race with their ideas to improve education at the local

said that the unrestricted brain of young people is a powerful tool to bring about change. It looks at problems from a different viewpoint, with a belief that anything is possible. Watching the race unfold was a humbling experience and Linda’s words certainly rang true.

It highlighted the incredible spirit and ingenuity of young people.

The Race4Good strapline is ‘Changing Lives Forever’ – bold yet honest. Students used their empathy, creativity and determination, and gave the community sustainable tools to solve their problems and prosper. They offered a hand-up, not a hand-out, which will – absolutely – ‘Change Lives Forever’.

To read more about the COBIS Race4Good and see some of the implementation videos, please visit cobis.org.uk/race4good. ◆

Alisa Delin is Student Engagement and Events Officer for the Council of British International Schools (COBIS).

✉ Students@COBIS.org.uk

Summer 2022 | International School | 37

Personal Reflection On 4 March 2022 George Walker died in hospital after a period of illness. George was widely known and respected for his contributions to the theory and practice of international education, including leadership of schools both nationally and internationally; his achievements and influence in the field have been well documented and extensively acknowledged. He was a colleague and friend of ours for many years and, below, we reproduce a paper written by him in 2008, when Director General of the International Baccalaureate (IB), which illustrates both his knowledge and his foresight in looking towards the development of an area of education that was so important to him.

Mary Hayden and Jeff Thompson

The Sky’s the Limit George Walker, March 2008

I

have written this paper to stimulate discussion about the long-term future of the IB. I shall argue that our assumptions about continuing global expansion that have underlain twentieth century education in general, and the development of the IB in particular, may not be deliverable in the 21st century. The metaphor of the shrinking ‘global village’ linked to the oppressive reality of global warming produces a new paradigm of contraction which has implications for the intellectual stimulus, cultural understanding and curriculum balance that have been key elements of the IB’s programmes.

I shall begin with the IB’s significant achievements in the twentieth century: • an internationally respected pre-university diploma • three values-based K-12 programmes of international education • a style of learning short-handed as ‘critical thinking’ • a network of IB World Schools in more than 120 countries • high quality professional development The IB was a child of its times. It provided unity within academic plurality; it responded to a growing mood of international awareness; it offered a practical means

38 | International School | Summer 2022

– school education – of bringing about a tiny thaw in relations between nations frozen by the Cold War; it promulgated a style of learning which was consistent with the steady spread of democracy. The pioneering spirit of the twentieth century IB was accurately captured in the title of its semi-official history – Schools Across Frontiers (1).

Times have changed and, in the 21st century, frontiers no longer seem to matter very much. Globalisation has eroded the independence of nation states and mass migration has brought cultural diversity to our doorsteps.

We no longer need a passport to experience the famous ‘international 5Fs’ because four of them – food, fashion, festivals and famous people – can be found in infinite variety under the fifth – a national flag. A contemporary account of the IB might be more accurately entitled Schools Across Diverse Cultures.

I believe that the IB programmes, taken as a continuum, can respond with confidence to the three most important challenges of 21st century globalisation: difference, complexity and inequality (2).

• The IB’s emphasis on cultural awareness prepares students for a world where diversity has become

Personal Reflection a feature of everyday life. Increasingly, we are living next to, working alongside, sharing our leisure with, choosing our partner from, people with different cultural backgrounds. Understanding and learning to respect and accommodate their priorities must form an essential part of any future education.

• The IB’s critical thinking skills provide intellectual schools well suited to a robust democratic society.

At the same time let us acknowledge that the IB has never been truly ‘international’; it is founded upon the humanist values that have their roots in the Western Enlightenment.

• The IB’s community service encourages students to think and act on behalf of those less fortunate than themselves. Globalisation has polarised the haves from the have-nots and society will need to mobilise the very best brains if we are to redress the resulting dangerous instability.

Understanding the origins of empathy, compassion and sacrifice will be a future priority of any education system in the developed world.

So: is all well for the IB in the 21st century? Superficially yes, perhaps it is, but under the surface I can begin to detect more profound currents of change. This child of the 20th century has been nur tured to its maturity during four decades of steady growth, not just in the world's major economies, but in practically every sphere of human activity. The highest mountain has been climbed and the deepest ocean plumbed; every area of the planet's surface has been Googled into a readily accessible internet experience. We understand the molecular composition of most forms of life and stand on the brink, wondering whether to create some of them ourselves. Our access to all kinds of information seems to have reached the limit of our capacity to make sense of it.

But rather suddenly, perhaps during the past decade, we seem to have reached a tipping point. All the dreams that were encouraged by expansion have begun to turn into the fears we associate with contraction.

Globalization is shrinking the world in terms of travel, communication and independent freedom of action.

Is it also beginning to shrink the scope of our creative thinking? What physical challenges remain to stretch our imagination? What new social movements will fire our sense of justice? Will the 20th century phrase the sky's the limit begin to acquire an exactly opposite and sinister meaning in the 21st century as the effects of global warming, and our responses to them, impose more and more everyday restrictions on our lives?

I am going to highlight three ways in which I believe the focus of our thinking is likely to change in the decades ahead. In doing so I shall introduce three ‘polarities’, contrasting positions, that the IB will have to recognise and address in its programmes.

rather suddenly... we seem to have reached a tipping point

Climate change I have argued elsewhere (3) that the impact of global warming on the earth's climate will dwarf every other future concern. Quite simply, the capacity of the planet to sustain human life at its present level, never mind at its projected level, is at serious and increasing risk. On the one hand we shall look to scientists, technologists and engineers to devise realistic ways of reversing the increasing concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases and – perhaps under the ground, under the seas or in outer space – to compensate for the inevitable reduction in habitable and arable land. Their ingenuity may well determine the future of humankind, but this will take time and they must be allowed to make their inevitable mistakes along the way.

On the other hand, we shall have to grow accustomed to increasing government control with more rules and regulations for this, that and the other in a desperate attempt to slow down the destruction of the planet's atmosphere. 'Thou shalt not drive that car, fly in that aircraft, grow that crop, buy that vegetable, burn that refuse, holiday on that island...' 

Summer 2022 | International School | 39

Personal Reflection

So here we have our first polarity: more central control over our daily lives versus the intellectual freedom needed to stimulate imaginative solutions to a profoundly threatening problem. Clearly science and related subjects like technology and engineering will find themselves in the spotlight but to understand where we are, how we got there and what is acceptable as a way forward, literature, the creative arts and the humanities will be no less important.

Does it matter that our great-grandchildren may never walk on a glacier or see a snow­capped mountain? Is the loss any different from the dodo or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? What will the traditional disciplines have to offer in an apparently diminishing world?

Universal values I have already made reference to the essentially liberal, Western style of thinking that underlies the IB's three programmes: they promote active inquiry, seeking objective evidence and questioning authority, even daring to say 'no' to God. Such thinking has long been regarded as the very foundation of the concept of democracy and more controversially of its closely associated free market economies. It would seem that the IB had backed a clear winner as first the unravelling of 19th century empires and then the dramatic collapse of the Soviet Union spread 'democracy' around the globe.

More recently, however, there are signs of a change in mood. The transplanting of the Athenian concept (or more accurately the Westminster concept) of 'democracy' to Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine has stretched international credibility. The unchallenged superiority of free markets has been tarnished by destructive financial scandals and a breathtakingly irresponsible attitude to servicing debt. Western assumptions about 'human rights' are openly flouted in countries across the globe – China, Iran, Russia and Venezuela for example – without any apparent impact 40 | International School | Summer 2022

My third polarity contrasts the inner with the outer being, bringing us back to a familiar IB theme. on their political influence and economic growth.

As different cultural traditions begin to overlap throughout the world, important values are called into question. Most recently in the United Kingdom, for example, media attention has been focused on arranged marriages and so-called 'honour killings'. The head of the established church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, caused a storm of criticism by suggesting that some aspects of Sharia law might usefully run alongside British law. The President of Uganda has upset the United Nations by refusing to hand over potential war criminals, arguing that they should be tried locally by a court that emphasizes reconciliation and compensation rather than by the International Criminal Court in The Hague which is predominantly concerned with punishment.

Here, then, is my second polarity; perhaps less of a polarity than a slow infiltration. The values of the 18th century Enlightenment are often described as universal values, a term that is explained and justified by reference to the United Nation's Declaration of Human Rights.

But the western origins of the Universal Declaration are clear to see and hardly surprising when one lists those countries that held power and exerted influence in 1948 when it was published.

A 21st century revision of the document might produce some interesting debate. Article 16 (2), for example, states: Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses, and Article 19 states: Everyone has the right to freedom of

Personal Reflection

opinion and expression... Just how does that most famous aphorism of the Enlightenment (attributed to Voltaire) I detest what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it square with the deliberately provocative publication in Denmark of cartoons known to be deeply offensive to Moslems? Shall I defend to the death your right to say anything?

The inner and outer self It is a sign of changing times when one of the UK's most prestigious independent schools (Wellington College, an IB World School), backed by one of the UK's most prestigious universities (Cambridge), introduces a compulsory course for 14 and 15 year olds on wellbeing – referred to informally as a course on 'happiness'.

It includes a study of the relationship between mind and body, the conscious and subconscious and the past, present, future and fantasy lives.

My third polarity contrasts the inner with the outer being, bringing us back to a familiar IB theme. Alec Peterson described the aims of the diploma programme as to develop to their fullest potential the powers of each individual to understand, to modify and to enjoy his or her environment, both inner and outer, in its physical, social, moral, aesthetic and spiritual aspects. Peterson was describing what, today, we might call a holistic education.

There is nothing new here; my favourite book on education, What is and what might be (4) is divided into two halves entitled 'Path of Mechanical Obedience' and 'Path of Self-Realisation', an unashamed polemic on the

neglect of the education of the soul. Kurt Hahn, a figure closely linked to the origins of the IB and sometimes unfairly associated with cold showers, rough seas and the motto mens sana in corpore sano (which he never used), promoted a balance between the inner and the outer self: 'I regard it as the foremost task of education to ensure the survival of these qualities: an enterprising curiosity, an undefeatable spirit, tenacity in pursuit, readiness for sensible self denial and above all compassion' and in 1940, in a lecture in Liverpool Cathedral, he included rather controversially amongst his three essential virtues the love of 'aloneness', not a million miles away from Wellington College's 'stillness'.

Education has focused on the outer rather than the inner environment during the twentieth century. The distinctive IB diploma hexagon, for example, identifies six essentially different disciplines through which we try to make sense of the world around us rather than the world within us: literature, language, the individual and societies, the empirical sciences, mathematics and the arts. During a period when the economic, rather than the social or personal, benefits of education have been emphasized, it has required an unusually enlightened and determined teacher to identify the 'inner' components of each of these disciplines.

But, again, times are changing and the growing influence on the training departments of many commercial organizations of the concept of 'emotional intelligence' is just one example. The psychological change from expansion to contraction that I discussed earlier will surely develop a deeper sense of internal reflection, and it is not wholly fanciful to imagine a new IB hexagon representing the holistic elements of the academic, spiritual, emotional, ethical, physical and psychological.

Summary In looking ahead to the environment in which the IB will operate in the next, let us say, 25 years, I have identified three different 'polarities': • between increasing regulation caused by fear of climate change versus the intellectual freedom required to stimulate and implement ways of mitigating its effects, • between the so-called 'universal values' promulgated by the Western nations versus alternative values of different cultures that are assuming a greater world influence, and • between the importance afforded to our understanding of the external versus the internal environments of humankind.

How the IB positions itself relative to each of these polarities must be an issue for further debate. ◆

Notes and References

1. Peterson A D C (2003) Schools across Frontiers. Chicago: Open Court.

2. I developed these three consequences of globalization in a lecture given on 16 August 2007 at Renaissance College in Hong Kong.

3. This was contained in a lecture given at the 25th anniversary opening ceremony of the United World College of the Adriatic in Trieste on 20 October 2007.

4. Holmes E (1911) What is and what might be. Edmund Holmes. London: Constable & Co.

Summer 2022 | International School | 41

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Book Review

The Needful

by Peter MacKenzie Market Harborough, The Book Guild (2022) Reviewed by Wilf Stout

P

eter MacKenzie’s debut book has provided the world of international school Heads, teachers and Boards with a hilarious romp through a world that most readers, outside the aforementioned coterie, would believe was a work of extreme fiction. Not a bit of it. The author has indeed done ‘The Needful’, in providing a work that will resonate with Heads all over the world, but particularly with those who serve, have served in, or are contemplating a move to, Africa. He has provided a similar service for international schools to that provided by Tom Sharpe for Cambridge colleges!

The story follows a month-by-month resume, describing how this day school, despite the legacy of bankruptcy, manages to recover in most respects during the school year Why do I make this statement? I can honestly say that I have shared almost every one of MacKenzie’s experiences whilst serving in the leadership role in six international schools in Africa. That is not to say that these experiences are unique to Africa. Arguably, the various constituencies – students, parents, staffs, Boards, national and local authorities – that make up the milieu of most international schools are pretty much the same.

The differences are the location and the levels of bureaucracy, or, on occasion, indifference, encountered. Without doubt, the greatest source of anxiety facing most Heads of international schools is ‘The Board’.

MacKenzie’s narrative reveals it as the educational equivalent of ‘The Godfather’.

Our hero, Peter Corby, arrives in Ndwalowe, the capital city of Awanza, a fictional country ‘whose southern border touches the Tropic of Capricorn’, as secondary principal.

Almost immediately he

accepts the Board’s request to take over as Head of School, from a predecessor who was clearly delighted to escape from a school that had become bankrupt during his tenure. From then on, it is his intention to make this the finest school in the country. And isn’t this the aspiration of all Heads? Following the year that ended in the school’s bankruptcy, the resignation of the Board, and the departure of several staff, Peter begins a new school year with a brand new Board constituted just prior to his arrival, no secondary principal and a number of staff vacancies.

After many years of experience in several countries in Europe, and as a teacher and secondary school principal for five years in a small school in Japan, Peter has never held the role of ‘Supremo’. The story follows a month-bymonth resume, describing how this day school, despite the legacy of bankruptcy, manages to recover in most respects during the school year following the appointment of Peter as Head. Almost immediately upon arrival he faces the challenges posed by the new Board.

Mercifully, the Board Chair appears to be equal to the task and fully supportive of the new Head. The Board meanwhile appears to have little realisation of the fact that it does not own or manage the school, and the early months of Board meetings provide tense moments as one Board member takes exception Summer 2022 | International School | 43

Book Review

educational experiences of those parents.

It is against this background that Corby shares his experiences both good and bad, but never boring. International school Heads bring their own flavours to their schools. Many such schools tend towards a US or British curriculum – IGCSE and A Levels, or the International Baccalaureate – and ‘ne’er the twain shall meet’. Aspiring Heads should think carefully before taking on a school outside their own ‘comfort zone’. We see this played out by Corby in an amusing way when it comes to dress code, the Prom, International Day, and so on. Throughout the book Corby’s affection for the Awanzan context to whatever Corby recommends. Corby points out that in an ideal world the Head should be working with the Board and not for the Board. As the year progresses one follows with interest the way in which Peter manages to convince the Board that ‘management is about doing things right’ and ‘leadership is about doing the right things’. As such it is he, and not the Board, who has responsibility for both.

The descriptions of teaching colleagues and staff/faculty rooms run oh so true to form. It seems that the dramatis personae of this school staff throw up the same idiosyncrasies and problems that mar or make the life of any Head. All schools have a staff/common/faculty room, and everyone has territories marked out, often according to sex, age, tenure, and position in the pecking order. In general, the staff are supportive of Peter, who for most of the year lives alone as his wife is still teaching in Japan. Likewise, some parents can have unreasonable perceptions and demands. Here Corby recognises the need to ‘choose his battles’. Accounts of his dealings with support staff, whether secretarial, financial, ground staff, maintenance, transport or security, all provide a wealth of amusing incidents, giving rise to the book title ‘The Needful’. Those used to living in southern Africa will be familiar with the phrase ‘I will do the needful’ as an all-embracing term that comes as a response from one person to another when charged to fulfil a specific task however large or small, significant or insignificant, without any reference to detail or timescale.

Whenever I heard this response, I usually remained totally bewildered as to how, when, or if, the said task would be carried out.

44 | International School | Summer 2022

It seems that the dramatis personae of this school staff throw up the same idiosyncrasies and problems that mar or make the life of any Head.

Unsurprisingly, the focus of the book is, in order of importance: children, parents, health and safety, staff recruitment, staff ‘issues’ and finance, and MacKenzie offers several amusing incidents which illustrate his interactions within these areas.

Students represent a familiar eclectic mix of local nationals, children of multinational company employees and the Diplomatic Service, and first, second or third generation non-Awanzan entrepreneurs (usually from the Far East or the subcontinent), overlain in aspirational terms with children from the US, Europe, the UK and post-colonial nations. Parents of all children tend to react to the school in stereotypic ways, depending upon the

shines through, and there are many fine moments where the reader is enthralled by the descriptions of flora and fauna, not only of the campus, but also of the game parks within Awanza that bring him relaxation.

This book is a ‘must read’ for staff and Board members in international schools; for aspirant Heads – to see what they are letting themselves in for, and for experienced Heads – who will take comfort from the resonance of past and future battles with Board members, staff, parents and local bureaucracy. Just remember ‘to do the needful’.

Peter MacKenzie, I salute you. I wish I had written this book. ◆

Wilf Stout set up the International School of South Africa, in Mafikeng, and subsequently established four more schools in South Africa before other roles including that of Consultant Headmaster, leading schools in Germany, Qatar, Thailand, Cyprus and Tanzania.

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