Features
After the Flood By Richard Pearce
A
s the pandemic has passed through its many phases, different in each country, the common cry has gone up: ‘What will be the New Normal?’ For some that stability is still far ahead, but enough time has passed for us to reflect on what we have seen, how we have reacted, what has worked and what hasn’t. What is happening as the new Northern hemisphere school year gets underway in many international schools? International schools need to meet the expectations of Western parents and faculty at the same time as satisfying local governments and parents, so they always have built-in tensions; this time the divergences may be a matter of life and death. The privileges which often belong to expatriates or to the local elites who seek ‘international’ education are painfully clear in this crisis. While rich nations strive for complete vaccination of the domestic population, and build the same expectation in their expatriate communities, the host nations in which those schools are embedded may be struggling for even initial injections.
14 | International School | Autumn 2021
The image of the community of an induction programmes are impeded and international school has never been the conversations around the coffee so clearly dissociated from the host machine are denied? In our schools nation. How is this working out? Can the pre-term period for new teachers your ‘community engagement’ extend is crucial, but both the timing and the to donating doses of vaccine? How degree of integration of the sessions are can a school express problematic. And all its commitment to those thoughtful, caring, In the classrooms, transition programmes, vaccination in a society which doubts its value, aiming to bring children the needs of or even denies the into close enough existence of the disease? social distancing contact to form new In the classrooms, friendships – how go against many can we do that? How the needs of social distancing go against many schools have an of our dearest many of our dearest Adventure Weekend principles of schooling. close to the start of principles of Learning is a social the year, to establish schooling. process, and education community spirit and as we practise it relies give the new child a upon establishing social sense of belonging, and relationships between teacher and can it be run while Covid rages outside? students. On the domestic scene ‘working Online learning programmes have a from home’ has been a widespread long history, and in the last two years success, but virtual communication is many international school teachers have better at the maintenance of working worked far beyond their normal bounds relationships within a team than at of duty to become effective distance initiating them. How does a brand new teachers. But most programmes that were employee become one of a team, when readily available have been developed
