Fragments - Journal

Entries in climate change (4)

Friday

Jan152010

Weathering today’s economic storm

Friday, January 15, 2010 at 1:30PM

It was already two years ago that we began to feel the effects of economic climate change.

And, just as with environmental climate change, a cycle seems to have emerged whereby we have all had to listen to the refuters, scratch our heads over the fact that our current models and forecasts no longer apply, and work extremely hard to respond to a dramatically changing environment.

Two years on, it is hard to find any corner of industry unaffected by this economic storm and still no clear evidence that we are really ‘out of the woods’. Some green shoots, perhaps, but in truth, it seems, the new business horizon continues to be vague and everyone remains cautious.

International schools across the world have also been affected – in some areas more than others. This is hardly rocket science, of course. After all, if many of these schools continue to provide a service to globally mobile families on expatriate assignments, there is going to be a direct correlation between companies having to downsize in particular regions, on the one hand, and school enrolment in that region, on the other.

Ironically, though, in many corners of the world the industry of international education has continued to flourish. Even our own experience at the International School of Brussels (ISB) has, so far, been less impacting that we had first feared.

Make no mistake, the future still remains uncertain. However, one of the lessons that we have begun to learn as an organization is the importance of data management. Put simply, better management and analysis of data at ISB over the past 2 years has broadened our understanding of what is currently going on and, in the end we hope, enabled better decision-making on the part of the Board of Trustees and school management team.

Allow me to give an example.

International schools are notorious for their lack of institutional memory. With 25-30% turnover in most schools every year, even amongst the Board of Trustees, it is often difficult to remember why decisions were taken or what happened as long as five years ago. Faced with the threat of a downturn in enrolment, we therefore decided to take a 50-year perspective on school enrolment. What this showed us was that enrolment had steadily increased over this time, but that there were a number of dips in this line graph that tended to last 2-3 years before new peaks were reached. Critically, though, our moment of insight came when we began to see a direct correlation between these dips and major US or global recessions. In short, every time there was a major economic recession, ISB experienced a downturn in enrolment that was staggered and lasted 2-3 years before steadily growing to a new ‘high’.

This simple but insightful piece of data subsequently became the foundation for our strategic plans moving forward. The question, it seemed, was not if enrolment was going to be affected, but by how much. A series of scenarios were then planned – from ‘business as usual’ (we ruled out the further growth scenario) to anything up to 30% drop in enrolment.

As a new school year opened that was only marginally short of ‘business as usual’, we began to look again at why we seemed to be bucking the trend of history. Was it perhaps that the impact on our enrolment was still to come? Was it that we had simply taken a larger share in a shrinking market? We continue to think carefully about these questions. However, as we dug deeper, we noticed two remarkable trends relating to the demographic make-up of our community that may well explain what was happening.

First, we continue to see a decline in the number of US families at ISB. In 1999, US families comprised 42% of our community. Today, whilst the US is our largest community and continues to be extremely well represented in all sections of the school, this percentage now stands at 20%. And it is not at all the case that they are leaving ISB to another school. Our colleagues in other international schools in Brussels are reporting as seeing the same kind of demographic shifts.

Second, we continue to see a rise in the number of local Belgian families joining ISB. Five years ago, this figure was 5%. Today, it is 13% - a 4 point rise even over the past 12 months. And we are seeing the same increase amongst our French and Dutch communities – many of whom are choosing to relocate and live in Brussels for a variety of reasons, including the quality of the international schools in Belgium.

So what does this all mean? It appears that the traditional notion of ISB as a school for globally mobile families is changing. Today, in other words, we are perhaps not just a ‘local school for global families’. We have also become a ‘global school for local families’ - responding to the growing number of local parents who want to offer their children a different kind of education in a truly international environment.

Our inquiry into the role of data in schools has really only just begun at ISB and is taking us in a number of directions – from the development of a school-wide data dashboard to questions about the use and role of KPIs in a learning environment. What is clear, though, is that the new economic reality that we now face is only going to drive us further in this direction in the future. We cannot any longer be blown around by the winds of chance with our fingers crossed.

David Willows |

Our iceberg is melting: stories that are bigger than we are

Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 4:40PM

Let’s face it: climate change is no myth.

Most of us would now agree that the dramatic disappearance of our icebergs over recent years is an early warning signal we simply cannot afford to ignore. We therefore face a change management project, the likes of which none of us have ever seen before.

And the stakes are high.

In their book, Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions (Macmillan 2006), authors Kotter and Rathgeber helpfully bring these overlapping ideas of ‘climate change’ and ‘change management’ together in the form of a pleasant, yet thought-provoking, tale about a colony of penguins faced with the immediate impact of shrinking ice caps on their way of life.

This conversation could go in any number of directions, but here’s what it left me thinking:

Some stories are almost too much to handle. Epic tales always demand more from us. They are not just longer, but broader in scope and force us to focus on both the details and the wider socio-political and historical themes. Whether at the cinema or simply curled up reading a book in a favorite chair, epic tales captivate our attention and draw us into worlds that are so far beyond the scope of our day-to-day, comparatively mundane, lives. Go too far, though, and we simply cannot take it in – any more than most of us can handle thinking too long about Einstein’s theory of relativity and the prospect of parallel universes. The danger of the tale commonly known as Climate Change is that it can often seem too epic and, critically, we can simply no longer find our place in the story.

So we switch off, give up and toss the ‘book’ onto a dusty shelf to sit alongside our unread copies of War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov and The Collected Writings of Proust.

We need to start telling this story in the first person. Only when the ‘I’ returns to climate change do we stand a chance of getting involved and staying involved.

Climate change: it’s all about me.

The story itself is the medium of effective change. The case for climate change was all too clear to the Penguin authorities, but they needed to find a way of creating a sense of urgency and motivating the rest of the colony to change their way of life.

So one of the Penguins creates a 97-slide powerpoint presentation, only to find that the only thing it encourages is sleep.

(I have a book on my desk that I am about to read, entitled Wake me up when the data is over. I suspect that it is making the same point.)

So how does change happen?

Eventually, or so the story goes, they turn their efforts to another strategy: they just keep on telling stories to one another; narrating the future that they would like to inherit.

Too simple? Maybe. But as the world turns its attention to a meeting of global leaders in Copenhagen in the next few weeks, wouldn’t it be good if we were to come up with a story that was good enough for us all to live by? And then just keep repeating it.

At the very least, it would surely conjure up some fascinating possibilities!

Climate change: it’s all about a story.

The role of education in this particular change management endeavour is critical. Interestingly, Kotter and Rathgeber have a strong view on the role of education as they narrate the fate of this colony of Penguins. They explain (and remember this is a fable) how one of the penguin Kindergarden teachers, in the early stages of the ‘crisis’, was found to be telling terrifying stories of impending disaster.

The critical importance of the teacher was clear to the Penguins. They were smart enough to realize that, at least. The problem was that she was telling the wrong kind of stories – stories that closed down options and induced a paralyzing fear, rather than tales of hope, empowerment and the vision of a different, better life.

Intuitively, I think most of us realize that education is key to fighting climate change. But are we so clear on what stories we should be telling our children?

Stories like this one...

Climate change: it’s all about education.

Most of the business management books you will pick up and read will undoubtedly chart a course towards success. This is one, however, that charts a course for survival and narrates a tale of truly epic proportions. I would certainly recommend it as a deceptively easy read.

David Willows |

Drop a fork on the floor and watch the world change: you, me and climate change

Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 4:41PM

Most of us have heard of the butterfly effect.

Otherwise known as ‘sensitive dependence on initial condition’, the butterfly effect is the theory that disturbance by the wings of a single butterfly is enough to change the weather patterns throughout the world. In other words, change anything and you change everything.

The fact is, however, most of us don’t believe it. Take the fight against climate change, for example. How many times have we been told that we can make a difference – by apparently simple acts, such as turning down our central heating by 1 degree, recycling our waste or leaving our cars at home.

Our icebergs are melting, but still most of us find it hard to make the link between the fate of human history and our seemingly mundane, day-to-day existence.

And it’s the same with so many of today’s most pressing global issues. Faced with the hugeness of the challenge, we are paralyzed by a crisis of insignificance. We get tired, stop trying and look to global superstars such as Bono and Sting to make poverty history and ensure the rainforests stick around for a little longer.

They tell us, ‘together we can make a difference’. We tell them, ‘we don’t believe it’.

But how do you think the butterfly feels?

A bit like my youngest daughter perhaps, as she watched an unlikely series of events unfold before her last night sitting outside on the terrace of a local restaurant.

It all began with an innocent act: she dropped her fork on the floor.

Within minutes, however, her world had changed.

You see, a man happened to be passing by and saw the fork fall to the floor. No one else in the crowd noticed. They simply went about their business and paid no attention to our family meal.

He looked a little worse for wear, but I appreciated his offer to get a new one from inside the restaurant. It was a simple act of kindness on a busy, late summer’s evening.

It would have been a normal evening, except that the waiter happened to see the man take the fork and give it to my daughter. Perhaps distracted by the appearance of this passer-by, he was clearly very upset and within seconds we were all watching a loud and somewhat physical argument unfold at the end of our table.

And that would have been the end of it, except that the cook of the restaurant happened to come out of his kitchen at just the same moment. And he just happened to have a 2-foot knife in his hand! So when the cook started chasing the man down the street with his knife, we decided it was time to leave.

My daughter dropped her fork on the floor and began a train of events that left a man running for his life for a simple act of kindness.

Sometimes our world is hard of understand. That much is true. But let’s not forget that we are all connected and only when we start changing the simplest things will the world change.

As far as how it will change, though, your guess is as good as mine.

David Willows |

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Environment

Saturday

Mar072009

How green is our school? Thinking through the challenge of environmental impact

Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 4:25PM

What should our children be learning these days?

There’s a question out there that I keep stumbling across: Are kids learning the right ‘stuff’? There might be better ways of asking the question, but even here the modern pedagogical challenge is clear: to what extent are we truly preparing children for a world that is quite significantly different from the world in which we ourselves grew up.

Let’s start with climate change.

Ten years ago, most of us had not heard of it. Five years ago, it was a topic of conversation that only caused a few to sit up and take notice. Today ... well, it goes without saying. It is impossible to get through a day without being reminded of the detrimental effects of our actions upon the environment.

And so schools have begun to change – and there are some outstanding examples out there of what can be done to help children of all ages grow in understanding and believe that they can truly make a difference.

ISB has certainly begun to change too. We would never be so bold as to claim that we have already found the answers, but we believe that we have at least come some way in understanding the complexity of the task and mapped out a clear future direction.

The ‘greener’ side of ISB

Set in an idyllic campus, surrounded by the famous Forêt de Soignes, ISB has always been reminded of the importance of helping students understand their relationship to their environment. Children learning in the forest, initiatives by students and teachers for better recycling, working with the local Commune and Brussels Region has therefore been commonplace. ISB was even the first school in Belgium to be awarded an ‘Eco’ Star by the Brussels Institute for Management of the Environment (IBGE).

The problem was that we did not have a school-wide plan that ensured both that people (students, parents, faculty...) knew about what we were doing – and that we understand where we needed to go next.

ISB 2010 and ISBEarth

Today, ISB has a plan for the future: ISB 2010, setting out the goals and priority agendas that will drive the development of the school over the next few years. Central to the plan is an ambitious environmental agenda, commonly known as ISBEarth. Our stated aim is to be:

A school in which all individuals understand that international citizenship includes taking real responsibility for finite, shared resources.

The project itself recognises a series of interconnected questions, that bring into sharp relief the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead of us. But let’s imagine for a moment a school in which what is taught in the classroom, is modelled by the way we organise ourselves, is supported by a range of community stakeholders, is effectively communicated and even resourced by external ‘Partners’ who also share our vision. ISBEarth is all about trying to make particular dream a reality.

But how will it happen? In understanding the way ahead, we have found ourselves often turning to Michael Fullan’s recent remarks on sustainable leadership, which, he explains, absolutely requires top-down, bottom-up and ‘sideways’ support of your school’s goals and objectives.[1] In practice, this means total Board-level and leadership commitment to an ambitious environmental agenda; support from key stakeholder groups such as the school’s ‘Environmental Committee’ who have long campaigned for more environmentally-friendly practices in the classrooms and across the campus; plus the realisation that we simply will not achieve what we want to achieve without actively ‘building lateral capacity’ with other schools, organisations and networks that share our values and mission.

Vision Partners: Lateral capacity building in practice

Believe me, it’s not just about the money. What we are beginning to discover at ISB is that a school as complex and ambitious as this cannot achieve its goals without the development of partnerships that will give entry into new worlds of understanding, knowledge, insight and perspectives. A recent partnership with the Directorate General for Energy and Transport of the European Commission illustrates the point.

In 2005, the European Union launched a major campaign – Sustainable Energy Europe[2] – that was designed to raise awareness and change the landscape of energy both in terms of sustainable energy production and energy efficiency. In acknowledgement of the work that it was doing in this area, as well as its capacity to model good practice to other schools, ISB was invited by the Commission to become the first school ‘Campaign Associate’. This formal acknowledgment was, of course, welcomed by the school in that is gave increased visibility, but also had another, unexpected and immediate impact. It was as if the acknowledgement itself challenged us to go further than we had gone before... a self-fulfilling prophesy was at work!

One of the most tangible expressions of this partnership was an environmental and energy day, set in the context of the European Sustainable Energy Week 2007. Entitled Reducing our impact, the day consisted of a series of plenary sessions and hands-on activities, each designed to help students realise how they can respond to today’s global energy and environment issues and mitigate their environmental footprint.

In total, the event involved more than 400 high school students and faculty members – as well as a number of external experts on the subjects of environmental impact and sustainable development. European Commission representatives were present, as well as other key external stakeholders from Exxon Mobil, WWF, Unilever, Toyota and the Brussels Institute for the Management of the Environment. “A day like this certainly makes you sit up and think!” says Rachel Chapman, a high school student at ISB. “By measuring the size of our ecological footprint we realised it was time to begin to act. What is important now is to change what we do in the future and to believe we can truly make a difference.”

The Sustainable Energy Europe campaign is proving extremely successful. Originally foreseen to last for four years (2005-2008), organisers have announced that they intend to prolong the campaign for a second four-year term until 2012. This will mean extended reach to citizens across Europe and undoubtedly a greater emphasis upon the role of schools. After all, as Kevin Bartlett, ISB Director, explains: “The Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign is about changing habits, a notoriously difficult process. By engaging schools and other organisations as partners, the European Commission multiplies its success. The real future of sustainable energy lies with forming habits, and that is the work of schools.”

Delivering on the Promise

So where are going next? Today, there are teams of teachers across the school working on a major curriculum initiative that specifically addresses the question of what kids are learning in terms of global issues and, specifically, environmental impact. This year’s Annual Giving Programme is soliciting funds for a ‘Forest School Project’, designed to ensure – via the building of outdoor wireless networks to support the school’s 1-to-1 technology project, an outdoor classroom, observation platforms, signage, etc – that the forest is preserved and yet also a place where students can gain a deep understanding and respect for the outstanding natural beauty surrounding them them. New energy smart buildings and mobility solutions are also being planned – to ensure that, at every level and in every way, we really do practice what we preach and begin to reduce a carbon footprint that for too long has remained too large.

[1] M. Fullan, Leadership and Sustainability: System Thinkers in Action (Corwin Press, 2005).

[2] For more details on the Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign, as well as how schools can get involved, visit: www.sustenergy.org.

This article was first published in IS Magazine (ECIS) in January 2008.

It was republished in the Annual Journal of the National Association of Field Study Officers in 2009.

Click here to view in PDF format.

David Willows |