by | Jun 7, 2013 | Blog, Disconnect[ed]

$5.00.  That’s the average expense for my mobile phone per month while living in the Philippines.  As you might easily guess, unlike most of my students I don’t have a fancy smartphone.  Not that there is anything wrong with iPhones or any of the other various pieces of technology many of us use to “stay connected.”  Nowadays, if you’re working at a tech-savvy school you’re expected to know your way around an iPad, laptop, smartboard, maybe even an Apple TV.  In fact in some international and independent schools, in addition to being allocated classroom keys, teachers are given new laptops, iPads, and other devices, which for many have become the tools of the trade.  Many schools have clearly embraced technology, moving beyond the days of computer class as the sole opportunity for utilizing IT. Of course it wasn’t always like this.  I remember just a few years ago, when the cool kids (and drug dealers) had beepers.  Once students started bringing phones to school, as teachers we were supposed to crack down on phone use like prison guards confiscating toothbrush shivs.  Then came iPods and MP3 players, texting, and then, for many of us we gave into trying to regulate, because heck…we wanted to check our smartphones too. Clearly technology is revolutionizing the way we do pretty much everything (just step into a bathroom in Japan and you know it’s everywhere), and as educators we must embrace this wave or be swept away.  Yet, I wonder if in our willingness to accept and embrace change, we missed something. Today, no one can deny that we must be equipping our...
Need a Job? Invent It.

Need a Job? Invent It.

by | Apr 25, 2013 | Leadership News

WHEN Tony Wagner, the Harvard education specialist, describes his job today, he says he’s “a translator between two hostile tribes” — the education world and the business world, the people who teach our kids and the people who give them jobs. Wagner’s argument in his book “Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World” is that our K-12 and college tracks are not consistently “adding the value and teaching the skills that matter most in the marketplace.” This is dangerous at a time when there is increasingly no such thing as a high-wage, middle-skilled job — the thing that sustained the middle class in the last generation. Now there is only a high-wage, high-skilled job. Every middle-class job today is being pulled up, out or down faster than ever. That is, it either requires more skill or can be done by more people around the world or is being buried — made obsolete — faster than ever. Which is why the goal of education today, argues Wagner, should not be to make every child “college ready” but “innovation ready” — ready to add value to whatever they do. That is a tall task. I tracked Wagner down and asked him to elaborate. “Today,” he said via e-mail, “because knowledge is available on every Internet-connected device, what you know matters far less than what you can do with what you know. The capacity to innovate — the ability to solve problems creatively or bring new possibilities to life — and skills like critical thinking, communication and collaboration are far more important than academic knowledge. As one...

Universal Tuition Benefits: The Answer to All our Problems?

by | Apr 16, 2013 | Blog

If you ask any international or independent school educator about the benefits of teaching at their school, you’re likely to hear about free tuition for dependents.  Before I had any kids myself I thought little about this benefit for obvious reasons, but also because I’ve taken for granted the relatively great education I received in US public schools.  It wasn’t until I started working at a K-12 international school that I realized the enormous benefit of working at a great school with excellent teachers who would one day teach my children. If you’re like me, a product of the US public school system, then you grew up in the same classroom as the children of the school’s secretary, principal, and custodian.  However, in international schools this isn’t as a common.  Instead of extending tuition benefits to all employee’s dependents they are often only extended to the faculty.  Even in many NAIS schools you’re unlikely to find the custodian or lunch personnel receiving this benefit.  In a recent conversation with an independent school administrator, he laughed (and cringed), at the feeling that his children had been providing the social economic diversity to a school filled with much wealthier students. This isn’t to say that there aren’t good reasons to limit tuition benefits.  For many schools, allowing even one or two students per staff member could balloon the school population by hundreds.  In international schools the difference between host culture curriculum and international school curriculum could cause some major hiccups in the school learning environment.  Furthermore, universal tuition benefits could lead to great divides and more cliques in the school.  Not...

To Sleep or Not To Sleep

by | Mar 12, 2013 | Blog, Teacher's Corner

…that is the question.  If you spend any amount of time around teenagers, like I do, you’re probably familiar with their ever-present sleepy look.  In class, in the hallway, in the library, almost everywhere one looks you’ll see at least one teenager on the verge of falling asleep.  When asked why, students will often respond by saying “I was up late doing homework.”  Being a teacher I’m familiar with the homework demands placed on students, and as a former teenager I remember the added exhaustion that comes with sports, activities, relationships, and working a part-time job (a experience many of our international students aren’t familiar with).  Of course most teachers won’t standby and let students sleep in their class, and I would argue that if they’re trying to you might want to rethink some of the teaching strategies being used in your classroom.  However, what about the other spaces in the school?  Should students be allowed a place in school to rest during study hall?  How about a quick nap over lunch in the quiet library?  Is this ok? At the risk of sharing a “when I was your age story”, I don’t remember many teachers allowing students the liberty to find a comfy corner to sleep when I was a student.  Yet, I know there is a lot of research about the benefits of napping, and as a fan of quick-naps to boost productivity, I often wish we’d encourage this practice more in the workplace.  After all don’t all those cutting edge companies in Silicon Valley providing napping rooms, video game consoles, and other non-work distractions. The truth...
Leaping into the Abyss

Leaping into the Abyss

by | Feb 8, 2013 | Blog

You’ve polished your resume, attended a recruitment fair, interviewed with some great schools, but you still don’t have a job offer for next year.  Now what?  Join the club.  The recruitment process in international education must be one of the oddest of any industry.  You must first decide whether you want to stay or go at your current position, often before you know if there is a suitable opening at a different school, and if there is, there is no telling whether that position will still be available when the recruitment fair begins.  I suppose the positive side to all of this is that at many of our schools we tell our students to be risk takers, and we undoubtedly model that trait in the recruitment season. For those of you who are trying to make the leap from teaching to admin, the recruitment process is even more risky.  Should you take another teaching position if you can’t step into a leadership role this time and postpone your leadership move for a few more years?  The irony of the whole thing is that as a budding school leader you’re probably perfectly qualified for teaching positions at schools you would have jumped to be at last time you went through the recruitment wringer. As I have had the opportunity to speak with a number of school leaders, as well as interview for a number of leadership positions, I keep hearing the same thing “Don’t give up, it’ll happen.”  Logically, this is likely true, since the more times one applies and the more experience one gets in the meantime, the more...