The whole expatriate teacher ‘moving on’ business is not only challenging on a practical level but, on deep psychological and emotional levels also. You may have been in your present position for a long time, or maybe it has been a relatively short term posting. You may have been lucky enough to develop deep roots […]

Read more "Saying Goodbye… Advice for Expat Teachers on the Move"

It is all around us, in everything we do. It is how we access the world, how we learn about each other, how we find, buy, sell and make. It is how we connect and communicate. It is both where we find freedom, and where we hide. It is where we express our thoughts and, […]

Read more "Batteries Not Included…"

Last week I was invited to say a few words at a rally held by students at my school. It was a gathering of young women who were protesting about, on the face of it, the school’s dress code. But it wasn’t really about that at all. The impassioned speeches and recited poetry weren’t about […]

Read more "Why We Need Kids to be Angry"

We recently watched the documentary Screenagers with our parent community. If you haven’t watched the movie you are in for a treat. That said, if you are a parent you may also be in for a bit of a shock…. Watching the film reinforced for me a whole set of worries and concerns that I […]

Read more "An Online Guide to Being an Offline Parent"

There is a line from Ransom Riggs’ novel ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’ that always make me angry and resentful every time I read it: “… One day my mother sat me down and explained that I couldn’t become an explorer because everything in the world had already been discovered. I’d been born in […]

Read more "“We are such stuff / as dreams are made on….”"

One of the challenges of recruiting expatriate teachers for international schools is the personal / professional dynamic. As Headmaster of an American international school here in Rio de Janeiro, I have to take into consideration both the likelihood of a potential new hire being professionally successful at my school as well as the likelihood that […]

Read more "What Makes a Great International Educator?"

The weeks up to Christmas are traditionally a very social time, especially for students in the older grades of the High School eager to enjoy parties with their friends at the end of a long semester. However, as much as it is a time of joy and excitement, it is also a time when parents […]

Read more "Of Peer-Pressure, Parties and Parenting…"