Conversations that are shaping the future of international education

Our friends in the corporate world woke up to this idea a few years ago.  Communication, they told us, is all about a new kind of ‘conversation’ in which everyone is talking to one another in language that is open, natural, open, honest, direct, funny, and often shocking.’[i]  Hardly could they have imagined how far we would have come.  Hardly could they have imagined a world, not even ten years later, in which almost every aspect of what we do is caught up in conversations mediated by the growing authority of Social Media.

David Perkins summed it up perfectly: ‘Organizations,’ he says, ‘are made of conversations.’[ii]  Today, it seems, there is simply no doubting the truth and relevance of this statement.

So surely, at some point, we have to ask ourselves about the quality of the conversations we are having, who we are having them with and where on earth they are leading us.  We also have to think about a key aspect of any truly authentic conversation, namely, who we are listening to. 

Schools are complex organizations.  It is hardly surprising that they tend to be dominated by numerous overlapping conversations. 

So if you want to eavesdrop, here are a number of conversations that we are having right now.

Listening to our students: we are talking with students about their learning; inviting them to rate this learning against commonly agreed standards. 

Listening to our parents: we are leveraging the power of web 2.0 technology to listen-in to what people are saying about us. We are also spending a lot of time in more traditional face-to-face meetings with parents.  We want to better understand the hopes, fears, expectations and concerns of families arriving from every corner of the world. 

Listening to companies: we are preparing our students for life beyond school, recognizing that many of them will pursue careers in the world of business and enterprise.  We cannot afford simply to assume that our programmes of learning are adequate in their preparation of these students; so we are talking to companies, listening to their present challenges and future predictions. Only in this way, it seems, do we stand any chance of equipping our students with the knowledge, skills and dispositions they will need in the future. 

Listening to other schools: no school knows it all! Not surprisingly, then, by some distance, the most utilized forms of learning for school leaders are the well-established global networks of ‘schools talking to schools’.  On any given day, schools leaders from across the globe are talking to one another, gathering best practice and finding new solutions on any number of practical or pedagogical issues.  Social Media is undoubtedly making these conversations more effective and more immediate. 

So where is it all going?
How we finally engage people, listen for understanding, problem-solve and reach collaborative solutions will vary. In some cases, we will focus on the promise of Social Media.  In others, we will do better to stick to traditional face-to-face meetings.  In the end, however, it is clear that the emerging future of international schools will never depend on smart business plans or even the most promising educational manuals.  On the contrary, we will discover a future for ourselves by engaging in better, more collaborative, more thoughtful, more honest conversations with the people who really matter.   

This article was co-authored with Kevin Bartlett, ISB Director.  It is due for publication in Newsweek (Europe and Asia) on 28 September 2009.  The ISB Let's Talk Campaign will also begin on this date.  Click here for details.

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[i] Levine et al, The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual.  Pearson Education, 2000.

[ii] Perkins, King Arthur’s Round Table: How Collaborative Conversations Create Smart Organizations. John Wiley, 2003.

Corporate investment in the future of our schools

There are no longer blanks on the world map.

Old atlases with areas of pink indicating uncharted land have been replaced by satellite pictures that have literally opened the eyes of the world. Only, what we now see in the form of daily news reports on climate change, religious and cultural intolerance, the spread of poverty and the impact of rapid social change causes us to respond with a mixture of bewilderment, misunderstanding, confusion and, often, a growing sense of injustice. The task of educating the next generation has always been pressing, but perhaps now more than ever.

There have been a plethora of articles recently in the world's press, outlining the future needs of companies in this 'brave' new world, as well as the need for schools to begin to redefine teaching and learning accordingly. The task of education today, it is argued, is to equip young people with a world-view by which they can succeed, thrive and, above all, make good choices in the new global economy.

Multi-national companies, which have long appreciated the value of international schools to recruit and relocate employees around the world, are now seeing these institutions as leading the way in redefining the formative learning experience of their future workforce. Many international schools have therefore gone beyond simply serving global-mobile families, to engaging them in meaningful partnerships that begin to transform what is going on inside the classroom.

As John Valeri, Vice President of Human Resources Department at UPS, remarks:

'Organizations are eager to have employees with a set of traits that enables them to succeed in complex business environments that have become the norm in the new world order. International Schools' programs provide students the impetus to open their minds to a greater set of diverse possibilities and opportunities. Students who are exposed early on to values and ideas from other cultures develop a strong sense of concern and adaptability to a host of environmental conditions that they take with them into their careers. These educational experiences equip students to better understand global conditions and how situations across geographies and different cultures can vary. Great competencies in any walk of life, these traits are very conducive for success in business – enabling individuals who possess them to thrive once they enter the work world.'

Of course, the costs of providing a world-class international educational experience are high. Increasingly, however, many companies are seeing the direct benefits of investing both intellectual and financial resources. Take, for example, the experience of Atlanta International School. Several leading organizations, such as The Coca-Cola Company, Kimberly-Clark, Bain and Co., Porsche North America, and UPS, have operations in Atlanta, Georgia and have developed strong ties with the school. Initially, they saw the school simply as a benefit to some of their employees, who needed a place for their children to go to school while they were assigned to the city. After observing the learning environment, with its emphasis upon developing tolerance, risk-taking, a broader perspective of social reality and language acquisition within a milieu of teachers and students from a myriad of countries, these businesses saw greater potential. And so new partnerships were born.

It is our belief that corporate partnerships are and will continue to be integral to the success of international schools. The nature of the partnerships may take many different forms and is not just about the 'dollars' that companies might contribute. It is much more to do with a relationship in which together, for the sake of our children, we can begin to make sense out of a complex set of economic and educational realities.

This article was written with Robert Brindley and first published in Newsweek, March 2007.

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Building Partnerships for the Future of International Education

Great places of learning are like great companies or organizations in that they are built upon a small number of fundamental principles: vision, people, discipline and sustainability.

Of course, each principle impacts upon the other. After all, there is no point in having a clear and bright vision for the future of a learning institution if you don’t have the people, discipline and other resources needed to sustain your ideas over an extended period of time.

In his recent work, Leadership and Sustainability: Systems Thinkers in Action, Michael Fullan (Corwin Press, 2005) adds another perspective to this now common debate: ‘lateral capacity building’. Simply, Fullan argues that effective, sustainable schools have often learned the art of interdependence and purposeful exchange with other schools, organisations and networks.

Set against this context, at the International School of Brussels (ISB), we have begun to learn a valuable lesson. By looking beyond our own resources to other organisations, companies and individuals, who share our core values, we have seen a tangible and significant impact. In short, by actively searching out would-be travelling companions or ‘vision partners’ as we call them, we have discovered that we can go much further than we otherwise could on our own.

A ‘Benelux’ example will illustrate the point.

While an international education offers a wonderful, enriching experience, there is always the concern that students may lose their strong sense of personal, cultural identity. Similar to many international schools, ISB believes it is vital to appreciate one's own culture if one is to appreciate the cultures of others. We also know that a strong mother-tongue is extremely important in helping students acquire other languages. 

For these reasons we offer a range of mother-tongue programmes, now including Dutch. It was about three years ago that the school first identified the opportunity for a new kind of collaboration between the school, a group of parents, the Dutch embassy to Belgium and the Foundation for Dutch Education Abroad (Stichting NOB).

At the time, the school was home to about 50 students from the Netherlands. Today, there are nearly 120, most of whom are part of De Kattenberg, the ISB Dutch School. The Foundation for Dutch Education Abroad supports the initiative and the programme is regularly assessed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. Throughout the year, students of all ages are engaged in a range of curricular and extra-curricular activities, including several field trips and the not-to-be-missed annual sintfeest celebration.

The ISB Dutch School project, of course, is not unique. It simply illustrates a simple point: learning gets better when schools look outside themselves and find like-minded individuals, organizations and companies who share their values. Certainly, in this case at least, the partnerships we built took us further than we could have gone on our own.

This article was first published in Newsweek in March 2008.

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It’s all about fit! Choosing an international school in the Benelux

  

You could say that we’re all involved in the people business because no matter what our job is, we work with people every day.

And the way we work with them almost always determines how successful we are in our job.

International schools are no exception. With often hundreds of students from every corner of the world - each child bringing their own learning style, skills, interests, passions, personality, hope and dreams – it is hardly surprising that learning communities are notoriously complex organizations! And again, the way we work with the students and their families who join our school communities almost always determines how successful we are in achieving our educational mission.

Schools are a bit like people too. They all have ‘personalities’, generating a particular feeling or atmosphere, which goes way beyond a simple analysis of the curriculum offered, number and range of sports teams or success in getting kids into the best colleges. These factors are, of course, important, but there is often more to making the decision. Many families, after they join the International School of Brussels (ISB), for example, explain how their eventual choice of school was based simply on a sense that ISB and the experience it offered was the right ‘fit’ for their children and the family as a whole.

It could be argued that the Benelux stands apart from the rest of the world in terms of the quality of education offered by the various international schools in this region. In Brussels alone, there are plenty of good schools to choose from. In fact, the only problem families moving to Brussels often seem to have is that they are spoilt for choice!

So, in the end, how do you know you are making the right choice for your children? How do you know that the ‘personality’ of a school is right for you? My advice is simple: take the time to visit each school; meet the people who work there; talk to them about the hopes, fears and expectations you have for your children; and ask lots of questions about the school’s core values and philosophy of learning.

For some people, the decision is easy. It is literally, ‘love at first sight’. For others, it is a growing sense of trust in a particular school. In the end, however, the best schools are not out there giving you the ‘hard sell’ – even in times of global financial crisis. They are simply wanting to help you choose the best school for your child, even if it isn’t theirs!

This article was first published in Newsweek in February 2009. 

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