Head of School's Corner

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

Last week I prepared a recorded speech for a conference called “The 21^st China International Education Conference", the theme of which was “China's Education Quality Improvement and Innovative Talent Cultivation”. The gathering was hosted by China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE), organized by KingLead Education, and supported by the China Children and Teenagers' Fund. Owing to ongoing public health precautions, the forum was held online, last Saturday. I was given this topic: Cultivation of Innovative Talents in the Post-epidemic Era. It was a pleasure to prepare and record some thoughts to share with the participants, and to have my colleague and Associate Head Jia Lili assisting with the Chinese. In this article, I wish to share with you a summary of this address.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

Last week I prepared a recorded speech for a conference called “The 21^st China International Education Conference", the theme of which was “China's Education Quality Improvement and Innovative Talent Cultivation”. The gathering was hosted by China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE), organized by KingLead Education, and supported by the China Children and Teenagers' Fund. Owing to ongoing public health precautions, the forum was held online, last Saturday. I was given this topic: Cultivation of Innovative Talents in the Post-epidemic Era. It was a pleasure to prepare and record some thoughts to share with the participants, and to have my colleague and Associate Head Jia Lili assisting with the Chinese. In this article, I wish to share with you a summary of this address.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

I am so very pleased to tell you all that Meredith Phinney will take over as Head of the Middle School at Keystone in July next year, after Maureen McCoy retires. This is such good news, on so many levels. Meredith has been at Keystone since August 2017 and has shown us all that she is a distinguished teacher, administrator, and leader. The British recruitment company RSAcademics has been leading a search since early summer for the second Head of our Middle School Division. Meredith rose to the top of a strong group of applicants. It is so good for our school to have internal applicants apply for significant leadership positions and to do so successfully.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

Here is the second and final installment of reflections from the two Keystone graduates who wrote last week, Jacky Liang, 梁小龙 (2018) and John An, 安兆宁 (2019). Both are students in the hospitality industry, studying in Switzerland at the famed Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL). Their thoughtfulness epitomizes for me an essential quality of a Keystone graduate. We describe it like this in our mission when we say: “Our graduates will possess the intellectual, cultural, and ecological fluency to navigate gracefully the colleges, careers, and communities of their choice.”

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

My weekly column this week, and next, is written by two Keystone graduates, Jacky Liang, 梁小龙 (2018) and John An, 安兆宁 (2019), with just a brief introduction from me. Both are students in the hospitality industry, studying in Switzerland at the famed Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL). Let me explain how this collaboration has come about. I have thought for a long time that schools can learn some valuable lessons from those who specialize in hospitality. The ways in which a top hotel presents itself, for example, might be taken up in part by a top school, to beneficial effect. And so, I asked Jacky and John to send me a few bullet points on this topic which I might then work up into this article. However, these young men being Keystone graduates, I received more than I had requested, or anticipated, from them. Here below, and only very lightly edited by me, are the first two of four points that they made, and explicated beautifully. I am sure you will enjoy hearing their views, so thoughtfully articulated. You will need to wait until next week for the other two. It will be worth the wait!

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

Last week I prepared a recorded speech for a conference called “The 21^st China International Education Conference", the theme of which was “China's Education Quality Improvement and Innovative Talent Cultivation”. The gathering was hosted by China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE), organized by KingLead Education, and supported by the China Children and Teenagers' Fund. Owing to ongoing public health precautions, the forum was held online, last Saturday. I was given this topic: Cultivation of Innovative Talents in the Post-epidemic Era. It was a pleasure to prepare and record some thoughts to share with the participants, and to have my colleague and Associate Head Jia Lili assisting with the Chinese. In this article, I wish to share with you a summary of this address.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

I wish to make a few points about ‘commitment’ this week. The root of our English word commitment lies in Latin, and it is a combination of two shorter words: ‘com’ means ‘with’ or ‘together’, and ‘mittere’ has as its standard or typical meaning ‘to send’, amongst a few related possibilities. Commitment, therefore, literally ‘sends us with each other, together’. If we are committed, we are sent, we journey, on the same path, or mission. If we are committed to someone, we do what we do and we go where we go together. If I am committed to someone or something, I am ‘sent together with’ that person or ideal or value. Commitment and community are allied, tied.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

I hope that you can recall a piece that I wrote on leadership at the beginning of last year. This was, in essence, a report on a series of reflective exercises by your Keystone leaders at our June retreat in 2019. We believe strongly that it is crucial for us to think and talk deeply about how we want and aspire to lead Keystone, and also to model leadership. We know that at least two major positives flow from this, if we do it successfully. First, our school functions smoothly and successfully. Second, our students learn an essential skill from observing, consciously and unconsciously, the process of leading. A school with resources such as Keystone must set out to produce future leaders, and do so humbly. Wise and strong leadership is so high in demand everywhere, and yet so low in supply. In our school there are openings for student leadership posts and positions of responsibility for many, at all ages, and opportunities for developing leading skills for all.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

It was a pleasure speaking to some of you on Monday evening, September 21, with my colleague and Associate Head, Jia Lili. Just over 400 of you joined in the virtual townhall meeting arranged by the Keystone Parent Teacher Association (PTA). I said then that I would summarize in writing some of the important points that I made, and I shall do so in this article. I hope that these points are useful to you. Remember that I also said, as I have done before, that you are welcome to come to see me about anything, whether that be a request for information, clarification, or a suggestion for improvement. You may also ask the PTA to set up larger meetings to talk through particular issues. I hope that such meetings will not have to be virtual for too much longer. It will be such a pleasure to have you coming on to the campus in the ways that we used to.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

You all know by now how engaging it is for me, as I hope it is for you, to continue building our Keystone culture, all of us together, in our still new and evolving school. Many of my Friday pieces in In the Loop touch on this, at times quite directly. I wrote about courtesy two weeks ago. Five years ago, I wrote two short, direct pieces on six aspects of Keystone culture. Those were printed on August 28 and September 11, 2015, respectively, and both later republished in the first volume of my Keystone letters. These six aspects have not changed much, for me, and I want to revisit them now, with you. One of the many features of culture that intrigues me is the balance between what endures and what emerges, the old and the new. These six aspects have lasted well, but they perhaps need some refreshed interpretations.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

Two weeks ago, early on a Friday morning Beijing time, I was in a group Zoom discussion led by Maxine Williams, the Global Chief Diversity Officer at Facebook. About 50 people joined in from different time zones. The topics, advertised in advance, were these three:

• How are global organizations responding to Black Lives Matter and approaching the issue of diversity in the workplace?
• How might they innovate as the conversation moves from diversity and inclusion to ending systemic racism?
• How might individual employees, organizational leaders, and board members alike navigate and catalyze change?

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

In this my second Friday article of the school year, I invite us all to start a new academic cycle with some old thoughts. Many of these opening-of-the-year thoughts below were in an article that I wrote for In the Loop some years back. I am updating that piece slightly here. My views on this topic are essentially the same as they were three years ago. The message seems to me fitting as we set out on a year that promises to be exciting and challenging, yet volatile and difficult, and in a world where civil discourse is more in demand and less in supply than before. May we emerge from it in June in harmony, and in health. This will not be easy. There are not many things that I feel certain about right now, but I know for sure that this will not be easy.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

At the end of our orientation week in August, I spoke to all our Keystone employees, about 450 people, about various aspects of the year coming. At one point I touched on leadership, and I said this:

As adults in this learning community, we are all leaders. Our students, the children of the community, watch us all the time, consciously and subconsciously, and learn leading and other skills and values from us. That is as it should be. As leaders, we are the guardians and the creators of our Keystone culture. Guardians protect their territory and creators push new boundaries. Leaders must conserve, and also create. Think about this balance, please. It applies to all of us, in all that we do here. Although we are all leaders, we think often of senior administrators as our obvious leaders. In this regard, we have welcomed recently 5 wonderful administrators to our school.

Dear Parents, Colleagues, Graduates, Students, Trustees, and all Members of our Keystone Family:

In this second semester, 2020, I have written many more letters to you all than I usually do. I enjoy communicating in writing, and you are my favorite audience, but there have been times during the past semester when I have wished for some respite from the continual correspondence necessitated by coronavirus crises! So have we all.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

Anti-racist protests have roiled the United States in recent weeks. The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 has ignited huge demonstrations against police brutality and against the scourge of racism. Solidarity marches have also taken place in other parts of the world. Anti-racist proponents are expressing a powerful message. It is easy, and absolutely right, to agree with their feelings, and philosophy, if not with every one of their actions. Only benighted white and other supremacists think differently.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

Over a month ago now, I was part of a most interesting virtual meeting of administrators from Round Square Schools across the world. I had been asked to initiate a conversation, which lasted about an hour and a half, about our experiences in developing quickly and effectively an online learning program, and then to share our ideas and plans for a gradual reopening of the campus and the return of students. This two-part discussion was about looking back, and then looking forward. I was joined by my colleagues Sandra Chow, Director of Digital and Innovative Learning, and Jia Lili, Associate Head of School, who has played a lead role in our Health and Safety arrangements for the immediate future. Their expertise was invaluable in responding to questions from those in regions where the pandemic is newer than it is here. What I am sharing with you in this article is a summary of my opening remarks.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

My piece two weeks ago quoted extensively from a recent speech given by two of our seniors on the day that they returned to the campus. Cady and Francis spoke in a most memorable way about the leadership handover ceremony that is so important in our school. Last week, I wrote about leadership from the perspective of a noted educator, Michael Fullan. This week I am featuring some of our Grade 9 students. They are both the current (because they are on their own here right now) and future leaders of our school.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

Michael Fullan is a renowned Canadian philosopher of education. He is a prolific writer on educational policy, school reform, learning and teaching strategies, and much else besides. He is a Professor Emeritus of the University of Toronto and the former Dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. He is also co-leader of the New Pedagogies for Deep Learning global initiative. For a long time, Fullan has been fascinated by styles of leading, and effective leadership. Last year, he published an engaging short book called Nuance, subtitled ‘Why some leaders succeed and others fail’. Fullan’s thesis, born of years of thought, is well worth examining. Right now, and especially in this time of pandemic, we need leadership that is not only better than what we see in some places, but exceptional everywhere. A consideration of Fullan’s ideas could help.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

Celebrations are lovely, and refreshing. Traditions can be vital, and invigorating. When our Grade 12 seniors were here on campus just over two weeks ago, they combined both, successfully and graciously. Thank you, seniors. Your presentations on our Keystone values, and on how these values now live in and through you, were sincere and compelling.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

Next week, the Grade 9 students will be learning on our campus again. What a delight for us all, wherever we are. And so it will continue to be as we gradually welcome more students back to campus. As we do so, there is no better time to look closely at our values as a community, and to dedicate ourselves to them again. They are needed even more now than they were when Keystone opened. Let’s treat this reopening as a rebirth.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

It is such good news that we are at last able to plan for the gradual reopening of our campus, and for welcoming back some students. We had a beautiful, emotional day yesterday. The Grade 12 students came to campus to make their critically important presentations to each other, and their teachers, on how they have lived our “character and community” keystone, an essential element in the award of the Keystone Diploma. What a powerful time to do this. If ever our Keystone emphasis on character and community is needed, it is now.

Dear Parents, Students, Colleagues,

It is so amazing, wonderful, and exciting that we are at last able to plan urgently for the return of some of our students. This short note is an introduction to the detailed Health and Safety Plan for the reopening of our campus that I promised to send you at the end of this week. Please note that this plan goes hand in hand with a Residential and Student Life Plan, as well as an Academic Plan. I do not want to bombard you with too much information and, as safety first is always our policy, here is our health and medical plan overview.

Our Head of School Malcolm McKenzie sends this short Friday note to the Keystone community:

I was so happy to be able to write to you two days ago with news of our partial reopening starting soon. It will be lovely to have some students back on campus. I know that it will be strange to welcome only a few at first, but it will also be really good. Those who have to wait longer, students in other grades and those teachers and students outside China, will just need to be patient.

Dear Parents,

Hello to you all, at the end of another week.

I miss your children, as do all of us who work at Keystone, and I also miss you. It has been most strange, for over two months now, living and working on our residential campus with so few people here. However, I am in regular contact with the Chairs of the PTA Committee. We try to talk once a week, and I gain useful information from them, most of which comes directly from you, the parents of our students. I listen carefully to your opinions, whether I agree or not, and I act on your advice when that seems appropriate and in the best interests of Keystone.

Dear Students, Teachers, Parents, Employees, and all connected to Keystone,

As we move into a much needed, and well-deserved, break from online learning, let me express my gratitude to you. This is a short letter of deep appreciation to all:

To the students, for adjusting to quite different, new routines so well;

To the teachers, for developing such a fine online program so quickly;

To the parents, for supporting us all, in so many wonderful ways, including re-enrollment for next year;

To my non-teaching colleagues, for carrying on with your essential work so calmly;

To my fellow school leaders, for resolute and inspired work;

To the trustees, for being adaptable, always there, and generous;

To kindred-spirit educators and friends around the world for keeping me connected.