Retreating!

by | Mar 27, 2012 | Blog

Do you have an iPhone?  I don’t, although I’ve often wished I did.  In fact I’ve never had a smart or smarter phone.  I missed the wave that propelled the average lay person into ultra high tech gadgety-phones back in approximately 2007.  I was living in Korea at the time, and got by on a borrowed phone, which probably cost me about $10 a month to operate.  When I moved back to the US for a year and half, iPhones had just hit the market, but were out of my price range.  So even though I have an iPad now, I’ve never been exposed too heavily to apps. That’s why I was surprised to find out the other day that the average American spends 81minutes per day using apps, and another 74 minutes per day mindlessly surfing the internet.  If you add it up, that’s 77.5 hours a month doing almost nothing.  I once heard Jeff Utecht, the tech guy at International School Bangkok, say that our current students are a part of the “mobile generation.”  These students, not only don’t remember a time when there was no internet, they don’t remember a time when there was no internet on their phones.  Crazy…but no doubt true.  It’s understandable that some believe that we can’t possibly expect these students to disconnect, since they were practically born connected. On the other hand, I’ve been hearing more and more a similar message from some who argue that some of their clearest thoughts came not when they were plugged in, but when they retreated.  This last week I had the chance to to...

My Amazing Teachers

by | Mar 25, 2012 | Teacher's Corner

Clearly there is a big difference between a bad teacher and an amazing teacher and most of us don’t fall into either camp.  I believe Dr. Jurgensen’s article is a good reminder for both teachers and administrators.  For teachers, it’s a reminder of the multi-layered and comprehensive style that great teaching requires today.  For administrators, it’s a reminder to not only search for teachers like this when hiring, but to also to empower your current teachers to think like this, as well as give them the resources and time to become Amazing Teachers. My Amazing Teachers By Dr. Christiana Jurgensen Each year, as recruiting season gets under way, I am asked to write recommendation letters for teachers who have decided to try their luck in the international teaching world.  Some are easy to write, making it hard to fit the words on the preferred page size.  Other are a struggle, and I think have to reflect over the year to think of noteworthy things to include in an otherwise form-like letter.  What makes the difference between a fine teacher and an amazing teacher?  Here are some of the trends I have noticed in my experience over the years. When I walk into the classroom of an outstanding teacher, the kids are not seated quietly at their desks.  Instead they are working in groups, reading on a pillow, asking the teacher a question, or taking it upon themselves to find the resources they need to complete the task at hand.  To take that a step further, in the very amazing classes, most students are not even working on the same...

Building Schools For 2030

by | Mar 19, 2012 | Blog, Education, Teacher's Corner

Last week during my interview with Dr. Dick Krajczar he stated that school leaders need to envision what classrooms and schools will be like in 2030.  I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, but still have few answers about what my 8 month old daughter’s classes should look like in 18 years.  As I think about it from the perspective of a teacher I think how depressing it would be if 18 years from now I was doing the same things in my classes. This is not to say that innovation requires us to throw out everything we’re doing now for some flashy new techno-classroom of the future.  In fact I often hear a lot being said about schools integrating technology into the classroom.  Often evidence of this is that the school has LCD projectors in every classroom.  How is this much different from the modern day equivalent of the overhead projector?  I know what you’re going to say, “overhead projectors can’t show clips from youtube.”  Valid point, but an iPhone in the hands of my 83 year old grandma is pretty much just a phone and although we talk-up the use of technology at our campuses, its frequency of use is often generational. So toss out the old teachers, right?  The other day I pulled out much of my hair trying to explain to some “older” teachers how to use googledocs and was amazed to find out that one of  our teachers was unaware that if you double-click on a file it will open automatically, which she remarked is much faster than highlighting and selecting open from...

The Leadership Project: Dr. Dick Krajczar

by | Mar 16, 2012 | The Leadership Project

In the first installment of The Leadership Project I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Dick Krajczar, the Executive Director of the East Asia Regional Council of Schools, better known as EARCOS.  Dr. Krajczar generously discussed a number of topics regarding international education for over an hour, and not surprisingly had much to say about this quickly growing field. After over 40 years in international education which included assignments in Afghanistan, Syria, Jordan and Malaysia, it’s obvious that Dr. K has seen international Ed change in many way. “[When] many people started in these schools they generally would come for maybe two or three years…then they’d go home…because it wasn’t as easy to make international education a professional career opportunity.”  Certainly the rise in professionalism amongst teachers and administrators has led to a flip in relations between international schools and schools in the states and other developed nations. “[As international] schools get more sophisticated and more refined…many of us [school leaders] feel that we are working in the best schools and we would be a big help to a lot of the schools back in the US or other countries.” Where as budget crises and low student performance has been common in the states, international schools, especially in Asia, are performing at high levels and continue to spring up all over the region.  When asked whether this was a bubble, Dr. K explained, “many schools will survive because…[only] 12 years ago in China there were only 20 international schools and today there are over 200.  With the economy booming in China and with so many international companies doing business...

For Effective Leadership, New Job Descriptions

by | Mar 15, 2012 | Leadership News

I especially like her comment about the “black hole” of vetted educational ideas.  It’s funny, or ironic, that often as educators we talk about empowering our students to take control of their learning, take risks or any number of tasks.  Yet as ed leaders we often find ourselves “knee-deep” in tradition or routine to affect change in our communities.  Is the answer as simple as demanding that job descriptions be a source of empowerment rather than a school’s (and a dictionary’s) definition for the job?   On the other hand do your teachers and other faculty  want the authority to create change, or is the culture of school such that it’s dangerous to make suggestions and work towards improvement?  Then what? For Effective Leadership, New Job Descriptions By Bambi Betts Just a few weeks ago at a high profile international school, a group of middle school heads of grade and department leaders gathered for some professional development. They were asked one question: What decisions is your team empowered and required to make? The answers, or lack thereof, were telling: no one really knew. If you work in a school, you have been there. An idea about learning bubbles up. It is on the agenda at meetings, at every level. Teachers discuss it; department and grade level leaders discuss it; principals discuss it; and everyone reads about it. Input pours in: opinions, reactions, embellishments. Our investigation confirms it is a valuable practice, adding value to learning. And a year goes by… What happened to that good idea we invested so much time in? Right into the “black hole,” the resting place...