New Chapters and Challenges

At the end of my first full week in my new role, I decided to help chaperone the first student council event.  We (the high school) rented out a local ice skating rink for two hours of “Chaos on Ice” – every imaginable skill level on ice (200 students) moving in a clockwise, sort of, pattern with the Finnish hockey player and the Canadian speed skater darting in and out, zigging and zagging through the crowd.  The sporting person that I am, I decided to participate and lace up a pair of skates and slowly make my way around the ice for the first time in many years.  After a few ovals,  my confidence level grew.  In the meantime, the Finn and the Canuck continue to zag and zig so I, as the safety conscious mature adult quietly and politely ask them to slow down a bit as it would be a bummer if they took out a kid or an adult! Meanwhile, I’m feeling pretty good on the skates and challengesdemonstrating that Mr Smith, that new old man Principal, can skate alongside most of these kids.  I pick up a little more speed, feeling good, and sure enough, before I knew it a wall of people appeared …”I’m going down, oops, I can’t stop”. Indeed, Mr Smith, the new old man Principal, takes out a kid….oops.  My pride hurt, my wrist throbbing.  I retired to the sidelines.

I sat on those sidelines watching the 200 kids out on the ice having a great time, truly, they were really enjoying themselves on a Friday night with their friends at the ice skating rink!  But I was also watching the dynamics and interactions, the hand holding, the testosterone laced speed skaters, the laughter, the uncomfortable and insecure interactions and the general intensity of the exchanges that you only find in adolescence.  I was reminded how the challenge of finding your way as an adolescent is bumpy.    Navigating the ups and downs, stressors and celebrations, and layers upon layers of tricky relationships is daunting.

I was considering the “age unique” obstacles.  Grade 9 challenges aheadstudents challenged with fitting in, finding of friends, growing elements of risk taking, breaking away and establishing of independence.  It is huge.  At school they are challenged by the  establishment of new routines in  high school,  finding the place where they “belong” on a campus.  Academic challenges are stepped up with a growing set of responsibilities that need to be navigated.  It is a big jump from middle school to Grade 9.  It requires greater organizational routines, avoiding procrastination, managing time and developing true study habits.  They must manage the expanding rigor of a high school curriculum.  They are always challenged.

As I was thinking about this piece of writing, I recalled something I posted last year on my blog.  It was a response to a Grade 9 parent meeting and relates to the challenge of parenting a 9th grader. Here’s the link:

https://lcsprincipal.edublogs.org/2014/11/04/parents-9th-grade-teen-angst/

Similarly, Grade 10 students will find a bump up in responsibilities and challenges. Developmentally, they are pushing boundaries much more.  They are seeking greater independence, they continue to navigate a peer group, they are becoming a more unique individual but still crave approval.  It’s a confusing time. Bodies and minds are forever changing.  As the year progresses for Grade 10, they are expected to give significant consideration to their course selection for their final two years of high school.  While this happens towards the end of the school year, the consolidation of study habits, managing growing academic commitments, and setting personal goals relative to school are all part of expanded maturity in Grade 10.

I’ve always found the transition from Grade 10 to Grade 11 the most challenging from an academic standpoint. This makes sense developmentally as well. Many Grade 11 students begin their third year of high school with a new found sense of maturity, ready to accept responsibilities and challenges.  This is developmentally appropriate relative to brain research and neural growth.  The pre-frontal cortex (decision making) is more in control but still not fully developed.  They are feeling older (and they are!) but, let’s face it they are still just 16 years old at the start of grade 11.   IB classes raise the bar of challenge for kids in Grade 11.  When 11th graders return to school in august, they are always prepared with a stronger handshake and new found confidence in the early days.

Finally, our Grade 12 students are looking at a significant collection of responsibilities in the coming months.  Extended essays, CAS requirements, Internal Assessments, college applications, mock exams, and the progression towards exams in May 2016 imply layers upon layers of tasks.  Organizational skills are a must, time management is essential, and managing the stress is an important consideration for students, parents, and teachers. Students must truly practice independence and find their voice as a self-advocate.  In a matter of months they will be on their own and during Grade 12 the opportunity exists to safely grow their functional independence.  Simultaneously,while that independence is critical to establish and nurture, they are still vulnerable and can find themselves at risk relative to decision making.  Parental input, communication, guidance, support, and connections continue to be critical at this point in their lives.

So, the evening of ice skating, despite the embarrassing fall which, incidentally, did not result in a broken wrist as evidenced by the doctor’s visit and x-ray first thing on Saturday morning, was a fruitful evening.

I sat back, nursing my wrist with ice, and watching this collection of international school students who I have most recently met for the first time, while actually knowing a great deal about where they are at in their development and progress as young people and as students.  These kids are remarkably similar to my students of 10, 20, and 30 years ago.  In schools, kids change each year but it’s abundantly clear that the journey of adolescence remains similar year after year.   Kids change but the high school journey remains consistent over time.

Each grade level is beginning a new chapter. Frankly, as challenge up for iteducators, the more we embrace and understand this journey as we  work alongside teenagers, the stronger we become as guides, facilitators, supporters, and mentors.    Our job, as educators, is to provide a developmentally appropriate and rigorous framework of learning experiences in and out of the classroom and to truly know our students, understand their needs, and support their development.  Luckily we, as the adults, don’t have to truly experience the challenge of adolescence – we just have to watch it, empathize with it, and support it!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transition in International Schools

This is a note relevant for the “Leavers”, “Stayers”, and “Newbies”.  You know who you are in an international school.

Transience in international schools is part of the landscape.   The end of another school year is approaching.    Almost all international educators and membes of an international community will be transitioning in the coming months.  Whether you are leaving or staying, you are transitioning.   Transition is something to think carefully about. Inevitably transition comes with a specific collection of emotions, actions, and characteristic behaviors.  It’s natural to “pull back” if you are leaving.  It’s also natural to “pull back” if you are a Stayer, surrounded by Leavers.  Sometimes this is simply to protect oneself from the discomfort that comes with being left behind.

The transition from being a “newbie” in a school community to being a ‘veteran” after one year, while preparing to support the transition of next year’s newbies is also a pattern to consider.  Transition may become more complicated when you are a veteran of the school, or a host country teacher who has been part of a specific school for many years and will now see another “flock” of newbies arrive, two years after the last newbies arrived and two months after they have left!  People come and go.   It’s the nature of an international school.

I urge people to remain as present as possible.  How do you want to “show up” at work amongst peers in the final weeks? My hope is that members of the community remain as connected as possible as the year draws to a close.  Students and families deserve the best, and most focused, attention and all educators deserve the best from one another each and every day.   Pay close attention to your actions, your thoughts, and your feelings over the coming weeks.   All need to manage personal responses to the multiple transitions.

The fact is that it takes an entire faculty to build and sustain programs for students in schools.  Commitment and dedication to students and learning must be kept in the forefront.

 

Another School Year Ends….an important assembly

Congratulations to all of us for getting to the end of another school year.  The end is always a busy time with lots of activity.  From the activities with the Grade 12 students that culminated with graduation on May 24 to final exams a week later to sports day to the final couple of assemblies and then……it’s good-byes all around, some permanent and some temporary until August.   It is an emotional time.  It is important to feel emotion when a good friend is leaving or a teacher you respect is moving on, that means the relationship has value in your life.

I appreciated the last few days of school.  In particular I appreciated the final assembly.  The final assembly allowed us to acknowledge and send off all of our Grade 6-11 students who are leaving LCS.  Every year students leave…..and it is emotional.  We also farewelled 12 teachers.  Students did a great job in farewelling the teachers.  Students, through their claps and cheers and expressions of “we will miss you” created an atmosphere of appreciation that sent a powerful message to their teachers.  These relationships matter.  All students should know that these relationships matter to all of the teachers as well.  Teachers care deeply about their students.

A school is just an empty set of classrooms until students and teachers show up.  Then relationships are built, connections are made.  It is in the power of the learning amongst teachers and students in schools that real change happens.

I hope and trust students have finished the school year in strong fashion and that you are prepared to enjoy the next couple of months and, most importantly to me, that you are well rested to begin again in August. There will be many new students, new courses, and new ways to explore options and interests.  For right now, on a Sunday night at the close of the first weekend of summer vacation, enjoy the horizon of time that stretches in front of you.  I will be sending periodic posts in the coming weeks. I want you to read my posts!!! Maybe, if you are so motivated, you will even leave a comment!

Transitions…It’s that time of year!

Schools have a unique rhythm and we are heading into what is the most sensitive, stressful, and emotional collection of experiences within that rhythm.

In the coming weeks many members of the LCS community will be in the midst of transitioning away from LCS and Accra. Students will be bidding farewell to friends and contemplating the uncertainty of next steps. Parents will also be experiencing similar transition steps. It can be challenging.

During this process, students will also be immersed in activities at school including pushing forward with academic projects including final exams for high school students. The stressors grow in the coming weeks.

Graduation is the penultimate ceremony and most significant and memorable transitional event. The pomp and circumstance of graduation are greatly symbolic of the multiple layers of transition that our high school graduates will experience.

Generally we think about the impact on those students who are leaving and we do our best to ease their challenges for departure. However, years ago it became very apparent to me that transitions are also about those who are not leaving. Those remaining Continue reading

Transitioning from Grade 5 to Middle School

The move from Grade 5 to Grade 6 is a big deal.  Having said that, witnessing this transition for students for the past 20 years it is also fairly predictable.  It is exciting and challenging for the average student.  It is extremely difficult for kids who struggle with organization.  It is a joy ride for students who thrive on multiple notebooks, organized pencil cases,and  multi-colored highlighters. By and large, it is an opportunity that most kids embrace to experience growing privileges, added responsibilities, multiple workloads to balance, and a fast paced collage of social interactions that include complex friendship groups, online exposure and interactions, “by the lockers” gossip. Make no mistake, the social world of a Grade 6 student is a not so subtle challenge.

Add social challenges to the academic workload to the new found freedom to moving between classes to exposure to older students and older ideas and you have a stew that brews for weeks and months and leads to a myriad of challenges along the way.  It is not easy being a grade 6 student.

But…..all is not lost!  Good teachers who are sensitive to the needs of this age group, structured opportunities to interact, ongoing and specific attention to challenged students, and a general openness of grade 6 students to discuss and consider right and wrong choices  provides a mix for supporting, guiding, and teaching.

I’ve always considered Grade 6 students as the “morality police”.  They really do insist upon “fairness”.  As they move through grade 6 at different paces, they are Continue reading

The Student Survey….Here’s Your Voice:

In Mid-March, approximately 70% of the LCS students participated in an online student survey.  I haven’t posted all the results but here is what students said about certain items.   The goal of the survey was to gather student feedback on the culture of the school.  In addition, it is an opportunity to gather student feedback on the vision of the school.

Let me start with a few bottom lines for me.  I consider a school to be successful if students and faculty are engaged in learning, are eager to come to school daily, are setting and responding to high expectations and challenge, and are engaged with a variety of interests and activities.  I believe students must feel safe, supported, connected and cared about.  School should be fun.  Finally, school should help build resilience in students in overcoming obstacles and challenges.

Continue reading

Who Inspires You?

Given the unique wiring of an adolescent, how do kids make decisions about who they want to really be?  How do they learn their values?  Who influences them?  Who do they look up to who can provide guidance?

In the post below there are some links to interesting young people doing interesting things.  Who shapes you?  Who influences you?

Clearly, parents, extended family, teacher mentors, and other role models have a huge part in shaping young kids.  Having said that, I believe young people can find tremendous role models within their peer group and through their social networks.  We can find really positive role models who are teenagers who have posted their accomplishments on youtube or personal websites or blogs or through presentations at organizations like TEDxTeen.  We have alumni from LCS who are excellent potential role models, and close in age to our current students.  If kids are willing to explore these networks, there are inspiring young people out there.

Adolescence is challenging.  Knowing that there are young people out there who are working hard to figure their own paths and are willing to share their thoughts and challenges with one another through social media.  It holds really very powerful potential.

Here’s an inspiring role model!!   Recently, 14 of our students returned from the Global Issues Service Summit in Nairobi.  One of the speakers was Cassandra Lin. She’s a teenager from Rhode Island.  Talk about a role model!

Here’s a link to her presenting at a recent TED talk conference.

She’s awesome.  She was also a huge inspiration to all of our students who attended the GISS in Nairobi.

Here’s another role model!!!

Below is a great Ted Talk given by a 15 year old. Here’s the description off the web site.  She’s good fun to listen to and an inspiration to 15 year old females!

“Fifteen-year-old Tavi Gevinson had a hard time finding strong female, teenage role models — so she built a space where they could find each other. At TEDxTeen, she illustrates how the conversations on sites like Rookie, her wildly popular web magazine for and by teen girls, are putting a new, unapologetically uncertain and richly complex face on modern feminism. (Filmed atTEDxTeen.)”   

Here’s her Ted Talk at TEDxTeen

 

Here is another interesting individual.  I heard him speak at a conference a few years ago.  It is worth hearing the story of

Ryan Hreljac of Ryan’s Well.

 

One reason I am interested in this topic is that our teens are challenged daily.  Take the entertainment industry for example.  Chris Brown, the music artist, recently performed a concert in Ghana.  We had many students flock to the concert.  It’s not often that a big name in the entertainment industry holds a concert in Accra, Ghana.  I can see the lure.  Having said that, Chris Brown is known as a convicted felon, a history of violence and drug use, someone who physically assaulted his girlfriend and yet he is a celebrity who draws a huge crowd.  How can this be?  What type of role model is this man to our students.   Why expose our kids to this individual?  How come our students were so eager to see this concert?

I think our kids need powerful role models.  They must have powerful role models if, in fact, they are lured to concerts and entertainment like a Chris Brown.

We are talking about values and mindful behaviors.  We are talking about smart choices and principled actions.

Learning principled actions, treating others with respect, honoring respectful and caring behaviors is essential during formative years of adolescence. Positive role models support such learning. Finding them through sports, entertainment, one’s family, at school, or through other resources is the challenge.  There are many positive role models out there. Helping guide kids towards those role models is a collective responsibility.

 

Kids Taking Action Against Bullying

Why do some students treat schoolmates so poorly?  I’ve been fortunate to work with student populations where the norm is not to be mean. Having said that, I’ve seen my share of students being mean to one another over my 30+ years in schools.  In a school like LCS, that contains Grades 6 thru 12, you see the range of such behaviors.  As kids mature bullying and mean behaviors and actions recede, but the social and peer pressure that early adolescents experience can result in a variety of cruel behaviors.  It can be very disheartening.

I was, however, struck by the organization that I discovered below.   It is an organization established by teens, for teens, and contains testimonials and videos of teenagers who have something to say about bullying and hate crimes.  I was inspired by this site.  As adults we try hard to intervene and deal with issues when they arise.  The power of this site is the power for kids to take a stand together and to know that they are NOT alone in dealing with the tough issues around social pressures and bullying.  It is worth looking through this link and checking out the voices of teenagers around this topic.

Here is the link to the We Stop Hate web site

 

In addition, there was a recent CNN report that had some truly excellent links around the topic.  Check out this link to the CNN site.

CNN Special Report on Bullying 

 

This is an important topic and students need to utilize their resources both online, at home, and at school.

Here is another interesting site for students around the topic of bullying.  Check out

Another blog posting on bullying and the media

Parents Building Community at LCS

On Wednesday, Feb 20, over 30 Grade 6 parents (approximately half of our Grade 6 population) attended an evening parent gathering hosted in a private home.  The purpose of the evening was to get together to talk about social media and the challenges of parents and educators.  Facebook usage dominated the conversation as did the topic of challenges associated with extensive online interest, involvement, and obsession!!  Kids are plugged in.  It’s a challenge for parents to make decisions around family rules and expectations.  Every parent handles things differently.  Over the years I have found it incredibly valuable to communicate with as many parents as I can to help shape my decisions as a parent and as a school leader.  Schools have a responsibility to support, educate, and provide information to both students and parents around this important topic.  This evening meeting was a great example of parents collectively tackling the challenges of parenting.

I was very impressed with the turnout of parents.  The community is naturally very

Grade 6 Parents Gather for a Lively Discussion and a Meal on Feb 20 2013

interested in this topic. I would urge parents to rally around one another, exchange ideas, tips, and suggestions.  It is not easy to parent in the digital age.  We all share the same concerns, hopes, and fears as parents.  Moreover, we are all  in uncharted territory when it comes to technology and share similar questions.

Below is a link to the presentation.  Feel free to view it.  In addition, I’ve added  a link to an excellent Ted Talk that is worth listening to. It’s about our  “plugged in” world we have become!

This is the presentation to Grade 6 parents.  This is the powerpoint presentation.

This is the same presentation to Grade 6 parents as a movie. It’s a larger file for downloading (28 mb) but plays fine.

LCS Alumni – Role Models for Current Students!

In a recent professional development morning with faculty, we watched a presentation given by Mr Lance King (www.taolearning.org)  Mr King talked at length about developing students as self-regulated learners.  His focus upon students as self-directed lifelong learners touched on many areas.  One in particular struck a chord.  In order for students to become confident in their abilities moving forward, it’s helpful to have strong role models that they can relate to.  It’s great to hold up people like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and Mother Theresa as role models but these exceptional people are, just that, exceptional. They are not particularly accessible to our students.  Mr King talked about the valuable role alumni could have as role models for current students.  Identifying alumni as role models and celebrating the successes of alumni could be valuable in helping current students understand options, develop confidence, and instill a sense of self-efficacy moving forward.

I was recently in London recruiting new teachers.  While in London I had the

an impressive collection of LCS alumni in London, Jan 2013

pleasure of attending the first international LCS alumni reunion, organized by Khushboo Moolchandani (class of 2005) and Stan Osei-Bonsu (Class of 2005)   Here is a list of some of the impressive young alumni who attended.

  • Fritz Riha  – class of 2005, spent a couple of years at Lincoln, currently works at Barclays as a Digital Designer in their Customer Experience team)Guendalina Gianfranchi- class of 2005, left LCS in grade 6, currently studying in the UK for her masters.
  • Nathalie Wilson-  class of 2005, left LCS in grade 6 as well, studied and works in the UK as an Online Marketer
  • Gun Ming Chung- class of 2007, he is a lawyer Continue reading