–Highlights–

 

• 29,136,553 Cases World-wide (Johns Hopkins)
• THIS WEEK's  CONVERSATIONS
• AN ESSAY– The power of a community to make change– from Will Richardson
• Today's UPDATE on the AAIE New School Project– Seven Principles of School Change 
• Scheduling the Friday CONVERSATIONS ahead
• Johns Hopkins- "7 Months In, 5 Things to Know"
• Connecting to the Masterminds Leadership Cohort
• From our COVID-19 Thursday CONVERSATION:  The research on temperature checking at the front gate– a peace of mind process only

–QUICK LINKS FOR BUSY PEOPLE–

THIS WEEK'S LEADERSHIP CONVERSATIONS 

with International School Leaders Around the World

As the pandemic lengthens, deepens, and broadens, it is clear that normal will not be arriving today or tomorrow.  Even the limited return that many of us have so far experienced, highlights a gap in learning that cannot wait for “the end of the pandemic”.  How can we balance the desire to return to a normal where we can control the future, with the imagination required to invent and adapt to an unknown future?  How can we imagine what the pandemic may enable, rather than using energy to overcome varying degrees of the limitations imposed by Covid. Liberating Structures are simple and easy-to-learn microstructures that help to build shared understanding, awareness, and agility: key assets for uncertain times.

 

“Liberating Structures introduce tiny shifts in the way we meet, plan, decide and relate to one another. They put the innovative power once reserved for experts only in the hands of everyone."

Ten principles help to focus on where we want to go, and how we can collaborate to get there:.

• Include and Unleash Everyone
• Practice Deep Respect for People and Local Solutions
• Build Trust As You Go
• Learn by Failing Forward
• Practice Self-Discovery Within a Group
• Amplify Freedom AND Responsibility
• Emphasize Possibilities: Believe Before You See
• Invite Creative Destruction To Enable Innovation
• Engage In Seriously-Playful Curiosity
• Never Start Without a Clear Purpose(s)

David will provide an overview of a key form of structured engagement, and facilitate some practice with a couple of liberating structures to continue our CONVERSATION. Adding a new tool to your leadership toolbox.  

All international school senior leaders are welcome.  A Weekly CONVERSATION  between School Heads and Senior Leaders– #28. Our discussions continue to be contemporary, important and a time we teach each other.  The dilemmas and conundrums are changing the longer we live with a global pandemic. Stay current and stay thoughtful in the company of colleagues. With thanks to Will Richardson who has facilitated our Thursday CONVERSATIONS  since the very beginning. 

The weekly Thursday CONVERSATIONS between Latin America school heads and senior leaders resumes in collaboration with Tri-Association and AASSA. All are welcome to join the discussion. Our sessions are hosted by Sonia Keller and Dereck Rhoads.   

–An Essay–

by Will Richardson

But what if you had to do all of that in isolation? For those of you who have been on these calls, can you even imagine that? 

It’s not that AAIE is unique in this. I know that other organizations have also connected and shared and discussed problems and solutions. But I don’t know of any other that developed a deeper sense of community than what you’ve all built. And even more, I know of no other educational organization that not only found the consistency of support and knowledge building in this moment, but who then also decided to look beyond and outward and summon up the courage to ask “What do we aspire to?” 

That is unique as far as I can tell. And awesome.

To me, the AAIE “New School Project” is one of the most powerful examples I’ve seen of an online community of practice creating opportunity out of chaos and uncertainty. It’s fueled by such a rich mix of elders, those with shared expertise, and newbies all coming together around a big question and a commitment to change. Those of you that participated in it know that it was difficult, heady, painstaking work. The seven principles that have emerged are a forceful statement of not only the challenges of the current educational narrative but are an invitation to do “different,” not necessarily just do “better.” That may not seem like much of a distinction, but it is in fact what I think makes those principles so compelling.

But here’s the deal: Those principles, and these ongoing conversations are really just the start. They may have been launched by our need to make sense of the implications of a global pandemic, but they will be no less important or relevant when this crisis ends. In case you haven’t noticed, we face many crises right now, and more than ever we’re going to need one another and a coherent vision for how our work in schools must live in the larger world to guide us.

In that respect, the community “roots” you’ve put down are more important than you may realize. As a collective, the AAIE community has the potential to influence the arc of education far beyond individual member schools, and our Thursday or Friday Zoom meetings. The ways in which you expand the meaning and articulation of each principle, imagine and create examples of those principles in practice, and then share all of that with the larger world could become an exemplary model for what’s possible when we build community around important ideas. 

Earlier this summer, Foreign Affairs published an issued dedicated to “The World After the Pandemic.” In the preface, the editors wrote:

“In truth, what is killing us is not connection; it is connection without cooperation. And the cure is not isolation but deeper connection, the kind that can support collective action.”

If that truly is the “cure,” then the AAIE community is much more ready for whatever the future may hold than most. I’m excited by the next phase of this work that we’ll start in early October, together. 

–MORE ON THE AAIE NEW SCHOOL PROJECT–

The Conversation Continues

THE FRIDAY CONVERSATIONS AHEAD

 

For your calendar, here are the Friday dates for our CONVERSATIONS, meant to bring life and vitality to the Seven Principles:  

From Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

7 Months in, 5 Things to Know

 

From Sobering to Hopeful

• “Each of us can still make a big difference.” Everyone knows people who are at increased risk of COVID-19 death, and each day that we minimize our own risk of infecting those high-risk individuals “is a success.”
• “The pandemic isn’t fair.” Not everyone has the luxury of working uninterrupted on Zoom and earning their pre-pandemic salaries. “The people suffering the most from this disease are the ones working the hardest to keep the rest of us safe,” Dowdy wrote. Essential workers who must be on-site at their workplaces, parents managing childcare while providing for their families, and frontline health care workers—to name just a few—are facing enormous stress due to the pandemic.
• “We will win this war.” There are encouraging signs about our not-too-distant future, Dowdy wrote. “Our immune systems are designed to fight viruses like this. … In five years, COVID-19 will not be a top-10 cause of death. It may take time, but we will beat this virus.” It’s important to note that vaccines and natural immunity can work together to achieve population-level immunity.

"Leadership Can Be Lonely; Let’s Change That"

Having Critical Leadership Friends May Be More Important Than Ever

This year's cohort begins on October 15, 2020 

–THE NEWS of COVID-19–

29,136,553

Cases Worldwide (Johns Hopkins CSSE)

The World Health Organization on Sunday reported the highest global one-day increase in coronavirus infections since the pandemic began: more than 308,000 new cases, with India, the United States and Brazil topping the list. Global health leaders also shared concerns that Europe will see a spike in coronavirus-related deaths in fall as cases there climb to levels not seen since the spring. (Washington Post)

Temperature Checks, Required in Many Public Places, Have Little Value, U.S. Health Officials Say.

 

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the practice of checking for fever in public spaces has become increasingly common, causing a surge in sales of infrared contact-free thermometers and body temperature scanners — even as scientific evidence indicating that they are of little value has solidified.

 

But while health officials have endorsed masks and social distancing as effective measures for curbing the spread of the virus, some experts scoff at fever checks. They say that taking temperatures at entry points is a gesture that is unlikely to screen out many infected people and offers little more than an illusion of safety.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines a fever as a temperature of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. But some reports have questioned the accuracy of thermometer guns, and while temperature checks may identify people who are seriously ill, those people are unlikely to be socializing much or going out for meals. A growing body of evidence also suggests that many of those who are driving transmission are silent carriers — people who have been infected but feel fine and don’t have a fever or other symptoms.

 

Last week, the C.D.C. — which in May told employers to consider checking workers daily for symptoms like fever, but appeared to reverse itself in July — said it would stop requiring airport health screenings beginning Sept. 14 for international passengers from countries like Brazil, China and Iran because the checks do not identify silent carriers.

 

Temperature checks are akin to “getting the oil checked before you go on a long car trip,” said Dr. David Thomas, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “It makes you feel better, but it’s not going to keep you from wrecking the car or prevent the tires from falling off.” “It’s something you can do, and it makes you feel like you’re doing something,” he said. “But it won’t catch most people who are spreading Covid.” (Washington Post)

 

 

Another Nationwide Lockdown in Israel

Israel is heading back into a nationwide lockdown for at least three weeks starting on Friday, the eve of the Jewish New Year holiday, in the clearest sign yet of the government’s failure to contain the spread of the coronavirus. The announcement on Sunday came barely four months after Israel emerged from its last lockdown — too hastily, many critics said — and as its per capita infection rate rose to among the highest in the world. More than 1,100 people in the country have died from the virus. (The New York Times)

 

 

German Schools– No Major Outbreaks

German schools, reopened a month ago, have seen no major coronavirus outbreaks

It's been a month since German children began to lead Europe in the post-summer ­return to school, streaming back into classrooms and onto playgrounds, with little aside from masks to differentiate the scene from pre-coronavirus times.

So far, epidemiologists are cautiously optimistic.

 

The school openings have been accompanied by some panicked closures and quarantines. In the first week, there were 31 clusters — amounting to 150 cases — of the novel coronavirus in schools, ­according to Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI). At least 41 schools in Berlin were reported to have been affected in the first two weeks. But there have been few transmissions within schools themselves, health experts say, and although the number of new daily cases in Germany has been rising, schools haven’t been identified as a driver of infections.

 

“It’s looking promising,” said Johannes Huebner, president of the German Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases. “There have not been any major outbreaks yet. Single cases, but they seem to be manageable.” While Germany’s full-throttle return to class may provide some assurance for those fretting about school returns in the United States and elsewhere, health experts note that it’s still just the early days — and they warn about extrapolating too much. They say the risk associated with re-openings has a lot to do with the levels of the virus circulating in a community. (New York Times)

 

India Infections Continue to Surge

The Covid-19 surge in India over the summer has been staggering. It took five and a half months from the beginning of the pandemic for India to reach one million infections. The second million took three weeks. The third million and the fourth million each took two weeks. India now has registered around 4.3 million confirmed cases. But serological surveys suggest that the true total is several times higher, meaning that India has probably overtaken the United States in having the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world. In August, reports emerged of infections among remote tribal communities in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal, a testament to how deeply the virus has penetrated the country  (Foreignaffairs.com)

 

More on India

India reported 92,071 new cases on Monday, the fifth consecutive day that new cases exceeded 90,000 in the country, according to a New York Times database. India has the world’s second-highest number of cases after the United States. On Monday, members of Parliament are gathering for a session with social-distancing precautions. (New York Times)

 

Mass Vaccinations in China Minus the Scientific Studies

A Chinese pharmaceutical company has injected hundreds of thousands of people with experimental Covid-19 vaccines, as its Western counterparts warn against administering mass vaccinations before rigorous scientific studies are complete. China National Biotec Group Co., a subsidiary of state-owned Sinopharm, has given two experimental vaccine candidates to hundreds of thousands of people under an emergency-use condition approved by Beijing in July, the company said this week. Separately, Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech Ltd. said it has inoculated around 3,000 of its employees and their family members, including the firm’s chief executive, with its experimental coronavirus vaccine. (The Wall Street Journal)

 

The UK “R” Number is Up

The UK’s coronavirus epidemic is growing, according to the latest government figures. Simon Clarke at the University of Reading described this as a “massive blow to the government’s strategy to contain the spread of covid-19.” The UK’s R number – the estimated number of people each infected person goes on to infect – is between 1 and 1.2, up from between 0.9 and 1.1 last week. This data is representative of the situation two to three weeks ago, due to a time-lag in the data used to model the R, but is in line with more recent data for England from a separate study by researchers at Imperial College London, which suggests England’s R number could be as high as 1.7. (New Scientist)

 

Latin America– Some of the Worst Numbers in the World

Seven months after Latin America diagnosed its first case of covid-19, the region continues to rack up some of the worst numbers in the world — failing to flatten its curve as it reels from persistently high infection levels and devastating mortality rates. Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Colombia and now Argentina make up half the global top 10 in total coronavirus cases. Add Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador, and Latin America accounts for eight of the 12 countries suffering the most deaths per capita. (The Washington Post)

 

USA College Bound International Students– Colleges Are the New Hot Spots- Exceeding Hospitals and Nursing Homes

Colleges are now hot spots, as nursing homes and meatpacking plants were earlier in the pandemic. It began as a trickle of coronavirus infections as college students arrived for the fall semester. Soon that trickle became a stream, with campuses reporting dozens, and sometimes hundreds of new cases each day.

Now the stream feels like a flood. In just the past week, a New York Times survey has found, American colleges have recorded more than 36,000 additional infections, bringing the total of 88,000 cases since the pandemic began. Not all those cases are new, and the increase is partly the result of more schools beginning to report the results of more testing. But The Times survey of 1,600 colleges also shows how widely the contagion has spread, with schools of every type and size, and in every state reporting infections.

 

Only about 60 of the campus cases have resulted in death — mostly of college staff members — and only a small number have resulted in hospitalizations. But public health experts say the rising number also underscores an emerging reality: Colleges and universities have, as a category, become hot spots for virus transmission, much as hospitals, nursing homes and meat packing plants were earlier. Hoping to salvage some sense of normalcy — along with lost revenue from housing fees and out-of-state tuition — many schools invested heavily in health measures to bring at least some students back to campus. But outbreaks have forced course correction after correction. (New York Times)

 

More on Risks to Young People

A new study of hospital patients challenges the notion that young people are impervious. The research letter from Harvard found that among 3,222 young adults hospitalized with Covid-19, 88 died — about 2.7 percent. One in five required intensive care, and one in 10 needed a ventilator to assist with breathing. The study “establishes that Covid-19 is a life-threatening disease in people of all ages,” wrote Dr. Mitchell Katz, a deputy editor at JAMA Internal Medicine.(JAMA)

 

 

Proactive New Zealand Response

New Zealand is likely to end coronavirus restrictions across the country on Sept. 21, with the exception of its largest city, Auckland, where an outbreak occurred last month. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday that current alert levels would be maintained for another week and then lowered if case numbers stayed the same. She also said physical distancing rules on planes and other public transportation would be dropped immediately, allowing more passengers to travel at the same time, though they are still required to wear masks. New Zealand reported one new case on Monday linked to the Auckland cluster, bringing the country’s total to 1,798. (New York Times)

–Tracking the Virus Around the World–

–FROM JOHNS HOPKINS CSSE–

The Cultures of Dignity Resources for Supporting

Social-Emotional Wellness 

A Final Note: The AAIE COVID-19 Briefing is provided to support your leadership for the school community you serve. We encourage you to use these resources in any way, shape or form that helps you, your communications and toward furthering close relationships across your community.  – The AAIE Board