School reports: two words that resonate in the hearts and minds of adults and children alike. Many of us look back ruefully on those seasonal pithy phrases, bland expressions or, occasionally, those perceptive dissections of who we were when we were young. As a father and as a school head I find myself on every […]
Read more "Could Do Better…?"I recently had the honor of delivering the commencement address to the graduating class at Khartoum International Community School. They are a wonderful group of young people, blessed with so much potential and benefitting from considerable privilege and opportunity. My question to them was this: with all this opportunity and talent what are you going […]
Read more "What Makes You So Important Anyway?"NB This is a blogpost that I published back in 2014 that I hope still has some value for teachers approaching the job fair season.. It’s 4:26pm / 11:26pm Sudan time today – or actually 3:26am tomorrow if I go on Bangkok time. I’m inside a Thai Airways 747 flying at some hideous speed at […]
Read more "International Teacher Recruitment Fairs 101"So, 2016 has been a bad year. The worst year in living memory. The worst year ever. That’s what everyone is saying. My Twitter feed has become a litany of despondent angst. 2016. The end of days. But hang on a minute. Haven’t we been here before? Wasn’t 2015 a terrible year? It was the […]
Read more "“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so..,”"Bread, fruit, vegetables, diapers, car tyres, hot sauce, stationery, viagra (I kid you not), furniture, milk, Lego, a TV – and a shotgun. All things that you can buy in that mammoth one-stop-shop that is Wal-Mart. And don’t forget Safeway, Tesco, Costco, Trader Joe’s, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Morrisons and Lidl. All places where you can get […]
Read more "I Blame Wal-mart …"As the new school year begins tens of thousands of international teachers the world over have a decision to make: do I stay or move on? Our profession is dominated by contracts of two or even one year’s duration leading to an annual cycle of conversations, reflections and the agony of decision-making. It is […]
Read more "Should I Stay or Should I Go?"I admit it: there was a time when I drank long and deep from the data-driven Kool-Aid. If there was data to be had about my school I sought it out, analysed it and set about changing things. IB point scores, IGCSE grades, ISA tests, reading levels, GL tests… Schools can be bottomless pits of […]
Read more "“I am not a number… I am a Free Man!” (or Why I’m Worried About Data-Driven Schools)"