–THIS WEEK'S CONVERSATIONS–

with International School Leaders from Around the World

In response to our recent online CONVERSATIONS where we keep asking the question, "How do we keep our faculty and parents focused on the prize of keeping school open, while ensuring everyone takes responsibility for preventing community spread of the virus?", Sean Truman and his team will help answer the question. We will also provide more information on how best to lead through pandemic fatigue and to maintain community solidarity for teaching and learning.   

 

Everyone– this is a session that we hope you include and encourage your senior leadership team and board trustees to attend. The committee of expertise that Sean is bringing to the session is exceptional.  We also invite you to send to Mark (mark@aaie.org) any key questions you might have on the topic as we will run the session like a panel discussion where your voice will be important.   

Join our weekly CONVERSATION  between School Heads and Senior Leaders. Our discussions continue to be contemporary, important and a time we teach each other.  Thanks to Will Richardson who has facilitated each Thursday since the very beginning. 

A weekly CONVERSATION  between School Heads and Senior Leaders within the AMISA (new name for AASSA) and the Tri-Association regions. Although the CONVERSATIONS focus on specific issues within Central and South America, all school leaders from around the world are always welcome.  

This week our session will focus on PART II of our investigation of the third PRINCIPLE:  Learning:  We ensure dynamic, engaging, impactful, and joyful learning experienced owned and driven by learners. Our curators Gwyn Underwood and Rachel McKinnon will bring essential research and our discussion as a group will focus upon implementation strategies. 

 

Anytime is a good time to join in on the NEW SCHOOL discussion...we need many voices and perspectives.   

Maker/Innovation Learning PD During a Global Pandemic – Keep Transforming!

Watch Michael's explanation...

Philosophy of Maker Learning and Constructionism

Maker Learning is a way of experiencing educational content and subjects through the context of making, designing, fabricating and constructing. Stemming from the Piagetian idea of “learn by doing,” Maker Learning allows students to construct tangible artifacts of learning while also constructing mental models and cognitive associations to previous experiences, thus allowing connections between subject matter and skill development. Maker Learning requires a pedagogical shift in school culture from instructionism, to guidance and facilitation and also by intentionally designing learning experiences that are conducive to making meaningful connections. 

 

Seymour Papert, inventor of the first programming language for children and inspiration for the LEGO Mindstorms robotics systems laid the foundation for Maker Learning in his development of the learning theory called constructionism. Building on the Piagetian term of constructivism, constructionism posits that learning happens most conducively when children are engaged in meaningful projects that allow for the construction of new knowledge in environments that make use of tools and materials as objects to think with. Papert would often share the famous African parable of “teach a person to fish, rather than provide the fish” and believed that education should be no different. We should provide children with the means to learn and the means to be the leaders of their own learning instead of providing a pre-baked curriculum taught through textbooks and lectures.

 

What We Did

2020 has been a challenge to say the least. The world of education has not been disrupted globally in this way since World War Two. What does this mean for next steps? How can we leverage this disruption to move education in a direction that serves the needs of learners in the 2020s?

 

Frankfurt International School (FIS) is leading the way in many aspects and has the will and drive to continue to push the limits. When we originally planned the 4-day Maker Educator Certificate workshop there was no sign of a pandemic and very little discussion around blended, hybrid, DLP’s, asynchronous and synchronous learning. Our reality has changed, so now what? 

 

The show must go on. Consilience Education Foundation, the organization providing the workshop, is based in India. Their Maker Learning facilitator, Mark Barnett, resides in Thailand. We were prepared to run an in-person workshop with all participants in one space, a multi location workshop for smaller numbers to protect the integrity of divisional and campus bubbles, or a maker workshop in 28 different sites from the homes of all the educators involved. We eventually set up asynchronous and synchronous sessions over four days to maximize the direct contact inputs with the support and hands on making, reflection and implementation planning. 

 

Outcomes

To see 28 adults engaged in creating, playing, prototyping, failing, re-tooling and trying again was a joy and a stark reminder as to the importance of giving time to design and innovate. In a world pressed by time limits it is no different in schools as subjects, transitions and schedules drive students from place to place to learn in sometimes disconnected silos. 

 

The ah-ha moments were vast in this learning experience for all adults and this will directly translate into the development of skills and attributes for FIS learners of all ages. When one of the teachers shared, “I never thought I could code,” the discussion quickly turned to the connected nature of design and innovation. Throughout the workshop, they were making with cardboard, circuits, coding in Scratch, using a Makey Makey, hot glue guns, a wide variety of materials. A group of teachers from various disciplines and age groups shared, “It doesn’t matter whether we are using digital or product design, scissors or iPads, it’s all the same process, and there is so much learning to be had from going through the process, and failing many times”.  

 

Conclusion

Schools like FIS understand that constructionism provides opportunities for learners to lead in their own learning and have paved the way for teachers to design learning experiences that allow for meaningful connections through Maker Learning. FIS also understands the importance of building an entire school culture that supports the necessary pedagogical transitions that can allow Maker Learning to flourish. This starts with a strong foundation, supported by professional development, continuous coaching, and self-reflection. In this process, teachers are empowered to become learning designers and learning facilitators, often taking on the roles of the student and maker to master their own crafts. Teachers at FIS have reported the powerful effects of Maker Learning and are inspired to continue growing, learning and evolving.

 

And they say this in the midst of a pandemic.  

WOULD YOU KILL STEVE?-

A View on Cultural Intelligence

Global societies are more connected than they ever have been before. Yet this great movement of people and ideas has not led to greater cross-cultural understanding. History shows that when resources are scarce, or nations are stressed, xenophobia quickly gains an audience. Today, there is an urgent need to make the case for multiculturalism, while providing practical answers to the real challenges of living and working across cultures. 

 

International schools should be amazing places for cultural interchange and perspective-taking, yet, for the most part, our schools can remain fundamentally western in their outlook and values. We may pay lip-service to the ideas of being a global citizen without ever really moving beyond tolerance or respect for the externalities of others – what people look like, how they dress, and what they eat. We have the opportunity to really draw on the richness of other cultural perspectives on the human experience. So, why don’t we take this opportunity more often?

The truth is, maintaining a balance between our own cultural values and being genuinely open-minded to others, is incredibly challenging. Here is a funny and challenging story from my own life to illustrate why this is so: 

 

After university, I worked as a volunteer English teacher in the Kingdom of Lesotho in Southern Africa. I spent a year with my mouth wide open in culture shock. The Catholic mission school was way up in the Drakensberg mountains, at least three hours walk from the nearest settlement. In that place, it was normal for a nun to wear red cowboy boots to a party. A school assembly could consist of an exorcism of a pregnant teenager performed by the Catholic priest tag-teaming the local witch doctor. When big-hearted westerners came and built houses for some nearby villagers, the structures were burnt down soon afterward by people from other villages because of jealousy and a clash with local beliefs. Despite the rawness of life, there was more genuine joy and laughter in a game of cards than in any bar in any five-star hotel in the world.

 

When I first arrived, I was shown to my concrete box of a home on the dusty, red-earthed campus. Outside the door, a shaggy, brown goat had been tethered. He regarded me with yellow, pleading eyes. As I came and went during that first week of teaching, he would watch my passing with considerable nervousness and plaintive bleating. As we became accustomed to one another and the goat eventually accepted that I was not a threat, he carried on munching and I took to whistling happily to reassure him. I called him Steve.

 

At the end of the week, a welcome party was held in my honour in the mission community hall. This was a raucous affair with wild dancing, loud drumming, and beautiful choral singing, which was so typical of Basotho culture. After the food had been brought out to fill the central tables, the hall was hushed, and my colleagues moved to one side to create a pathway from the door to where I was standing. I was to be introduced to the guest of honour. The party guests began tittering under their breath. Then with a loud bang, the doors of the hall were swung open, and in came the local priest trailing a loudly protesting animal behind him. As the goat was dragged close to me, I realized in horror what was going on. In a ghastly slow-motion, Steve was pulled alongside me. Two other men wrestled with him, pulling his head back to expose his throat. Then the priest produced a huge, ornamented knife and offered it to me.

 

So, dear reader, what do you next? Do you refuse to take the knife and offend the guests, your new colleagues, and this new culture? Or do you stand up for your values, beliefs, or your compassionate feelings? Do you kill Steve?

 

It’s a sharp question, I know! And, obviously, I have sharpened the blade to get your attention. Still, if we are to nurture real cultural intelligence it does not work to continue to say that, under the skin, we are all really the same. We are not. And wonderfully so. Our attitudes to self, to time, to human hierarchies, to the meaning of life and so much more all vary significantly and thrillingly around this small, blue planet. When we engage more deeply with cultural differences, we actually gain invaluable insights into who we are and what we care about. And this – surely - is a fundamental goal of a proper education.

–TODAY's POEM TO CONSIDER–

A poem, just for you ...

Imagine Such a World

 

Imagine for a moment

a world afloat

tipped and whirling

in a measureless, unending sea of stars

spinning every night right back into day.

 

Imagine a world where

water falls

just falls

out of the sky.

 

Imagine clouds,

a visible invisibility,

that had the weight of rain,

about to loosen from their feathered folds,

perfect in its cycle of return and rise,

filling the earth’s open, grateful mouth. 

 

A world that offers

its soft arm of sleep

to follow every bursting day.

 

A world that beats a steady rhythm

of departure and return,

of new that follows old.

 

A world that can conceive

of both a winter and spring.

 

A world so longing to be heard

its blooms a meadow full of birds,

so longing for the dance

it send a pulse

of river over rock,

of wind between the trees,

and sways to its own joy

in rippled grassy fields.

 

Imagine such a world

that offers all of this

and even more,

a place, a time

for each of us to bow, to burn

a blessed fire of ourselves.

 

Oh, world, almost too much to be imagined

only asking to be met

with our most keenly joyous vow of

yes.

 

No more.

No less.

 

Imagine such a world.

— Linda Millemann

STAY FOCUSED ON COVID-19 SCIENCE

–THE NEWS of COVID-19–

63,098,003

Cases Worldwide (Johns Hopkins CSSE)

Vietnam Confirms First Case of Locally Transmitted Coronavirus

in Almost Three Months

Vietnam announced Monday that it confirmed its first case of locally transmitted novel coronavirus in 87 days. According to Vietnam’s Ministry of Health, the patient came into contact with a flight attendant who returned from Japan two weeks ago. All arrivals to Vietnam face strict testing and quarantine requirements. However, state media reported that the flight attendant tested negative twice after landing in the country.

 

The flight attendant was allowed to self-quarantine at a boardinghouse in Ho Chi Minh City. During this time, he had close contact with his mother and two friends. A third coronavirus test came back positive, however, and all three of his contacts were quickly isolated and tested. One, a 32-year-old friend who lived in the same building as the flight attendant, tested positive.

 

Vietnam does not release detailed information about infections, instead referring to them largely by the order in which their infection is confirmed: The flight attendant is “Patient 1342,” and his friend is “Patient 1347.”

 

Local media reported that “Patient 1347″ is an English-language teacher in Ho Chi Minh City and that the man had also visited coffee shops and a karaoke bar. The government is now working to trace his contacts.

 

Vietnam, which has a population of almost 96 million, has largely been successful in its push to keep the virus out of the country. It has reported 1,347 cases in all and 35 deaths from covid-19.

 

Most of the country’s cases are caught at points of entry. Vietnam announced three new imported cases of covid-19 on Monday, including the flight attendant, or “Patient 1342.”

(Washington Post)

  

After Weeks of Lockdown, Cases in England Drop 30 percent.

By the end of the third week of England’s second national lockdown, which began early this month in a bid to stem a second wave of coronavirus infections, the number of new cases has fallen 30 percent, according to new data.

 

Some parts of northern England, which had been hit particularly hard by the new outbreak, experienced an even greater drop, the latest interim findings from Imperial College London’s React study showed.

 

But Matt Hancock, the British health secretary, warned that the data, while promising, showed the country could not “take our foot off the pedal just yet,” according to the BBC. In a post on Twitter late Sunday, Mr. Hancock cautioned that “we mustn’t waste our progress now that we can see light at the end of the tunnel” with mass testing and promising coronavirus vaccine candidates on the horizon.

 

England’s current lockdown is set to end just after midnight Wednesday. But the lifting of restrictions will be different across the country, as regions move into one of three tiers based on their current rate of infection. Britain is still grappling with the highest number of Covid-19 deaths in Europe and its deepest recession on record, with experts warning that the knock-on effects of the pandemic could last for years. (New York Times)

  

Dance Hall Outbreak Takes Hong Kong’s Virus Fight Two Steps Back

It takes two to tango. But in Hong Kong, it took dozens of middle-aged women and their young, male dance instructors to spark a coronavirus cluster responsible for the city's worst outbreak, erasing impressive gains in suppressing the pandemic.

 

Described by Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, as an “ultra-large cluster,” more than 500 cases — about 10 percent of the city’s total — have been linked to the dancers, prompting officials to reinstate some of the tightest restrictions since the virus was detected here in January.

 

On Monday, Lam announced new measures that will effectively push Hong Kong back into a semi-lockdown, with yoga and other gym classes canceled, diners limited to two per table, entertainment venues shuttered and the suspension of schools until 2021. Civil servants will work from home, a step private businesses have often followed.

 

The sudden resurgence of the virus has undercut what had been one of the world’s more effective pandemic containment efforts. Hong Kong had been on track to reopen quarantine-free travel with Singapore this month, in what would have been a step toward normalized travel in Asia, but the emergence of the latest wave blew the experiment off course. (Washington Post)

 

Most European Christmas Markets Won’t Open This Year

Most Christmas markets remained closed in Europe this week, disrupting a tradition that typically gets underway at the end of November and draws millions of people each year. Even though European lockdowns and other measures have largely halted the acceleration in the spread of the novel coronavirus, the continent remains at a far higher alert level than in the summer, when many outdoor events were allowed to resume.

 

In Germany, Europe’s Christmas market stronghold where much of people’s social life is centered on the 2,500 markets in normal Decembers, infection rates have not dropped as significantly as the government had hoped when it imposed its measures in early November. The country’s partial lockdown has been extended through Dec. 20.

 

Germany reported 136 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days, compared to 297 in the United States. But shops remain open in the country and many indoor malls were crowded over the weekend as pre-Christmas shopping gained momentum, prompting questions over the sustainability of Germany’s approach this month.

 

Germans craving mulled wine, the sugary hot beverage that’s usually consumed at Christmas markets, may also still be able to find businesses that are allowed to serve it. Many cafes and restaurants that currently operate as takeout businesses have begun to sell mulled wine, and dedicated vendor stands have popped up in some cities.

 

In Landshut, a city in southern Germany, an enterprising businessman opened a drive-in Christmas market earlier this month. “I heard Christmas carols for the first time and I’m slowly getting into the mood,” customer Anton Kolbinger told Reuters.  (Reuters)

 

Italy Approved a Stimulus Package Worth $9.6 Billion, or 8 Billion Euros, on Sunday to Support Struggling Businesses.

The deal will postpone or suspend tax deadlines for some businesses, subsidize amateur sports associations and send checks of 1,000 euros to seasonal workers in the tourism, spa and entertainment industries. Italy is currently under a nationwide 10 p.m. curfew with bars and restaurants closing at 6 p.m., and some regions have further restrictions. (New York Times)

 

 Moderna to Ask the FDA to Greenlight Its Coronavirus Vaccine

Biotechnology company Moderna, one of the leaders in the race for a coronavirus vaccine, announced it would file Monday for regulatory clearance — a critical milestone that brings the United States a step closer to having two coronavirus vaccines by year’s end. Moderna’s vaccine was 94 percent effective at preventing illness in a 30,000-person clinical trial, the company said — a performance that exceeds expectations and is on par with the best pediatric vaccines. All 30 cases of severe covid-19, the illness caused by the virus, were in a group that received a placebo.

 

The application arrives as public health experts gird for a blitz of coronavirus cases seeded by holiday travels and gatherings — a surge coming so soon that no vaccine can blunt it. But Moderna’s filing marks the fourth Monday in a row with good news about the vaccine effort and means the United States could have enough vaccine to treat 20 million people by year’s end, between doses of Moderna’s vaccine and those of another candidate that is about a week ahead from Pfizer and German firm BioNTech. The Food and Drug Administration could authorize the vaccines for emergency use by mid- to late December.

 

 “You don’t want to get ahead of yourself and claim any victories, but this has the makings of a very, very important positive impact on ending this outbreak,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “A vaccine that is highly efficacious, if taken by a very, very high percentage of people, could potentially crush this outbreak — similar to what was done with outbreaks of measles and polio and smallpox and other diseases.”

 

The coming weeks, while likely to strain an already overburdened health-care system, will also bring a whirlwind of regulatory decisions on the vaccines that could signal an eventual end to the pandemic.

 

“The data are very, very promising, but I would like to see more data than is currently in the press release,” said Walter Orenstein, associate director of the Emory University Vaccine Center, who is also a member of Moderna’s scientific advisory board and a trial participant.

 

Orenstein added that even those who are first in line to receive two doses of the vaccine will likely be encouraged to continue to take precautions, such as wearing masks, if virus is circulating at high levels in the community.

 

The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer and BioNTech are a major proof of concept for a flexible and fast medical technology, years in the making, that utilizes a snippet of genetic material called messenger RNA that teaches cells to build the spiky protein found on the surface of the coronavirus. The immune system learns to recognize and block the real virus. (The Washington Post)

A Surge Superimposed Upon a Surge

America’s top infectious-disease expert sounded the alarm Sunday, warning of a “surge superimposed upon” a surge of coronavirus cases over the coming weeks due to Thanksgiving travel and celebrations. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and other experts urged Americans to take aggressive action as the December holidays loom to mitigate the surge overwhelming hospitals across the country. As the number of coronavirus-related deaths per day rose to its highest point since April, Fauci and others highlighted the importance of complying with mask mandates and physical distancing. (The Washington Post)

 

From New Mexico to Minnesota to Florida, Hospitals are Teeming with Record Numbers of Covid Patients.

Staff members at smaller hospitals have had to beg larger medical centers repeatedly to take one more, just one more patient, but many of the bigger hospitals have sharply limited the transfers they will accept, their own halls and wards overflowing. Despite months of planning, many of the nation’s hospital systems are now slammed with a staggering swell of patients, no available beds and widening shortages of nurses and doctors. On any single day, some hospitals have had to turn away transfer requests for patients needing urgent care or incoming emergencies. And rising infection rates among nurses and other frontline workers have doubled the patient load on those left standing. (The New York Times)

 

Pakistan Government, Opposition Trade Blame as Virus Cases Surge

Pakistan has reported a sharp jump in daily new Covid-19 cases over the last week, which the administration of Prime Minister Imran Khan partly blamed on an opposition alliance calling people to take to the streets to topple his government.

 

The South Asian nation recorded 3,306 coronavirus infections on November 25, the highest single-day increase in almost three months, according to data provided by the national health ministry. Despite the spike in new infections the opposition grouping protesting against Khan’s government has refused to call off a protest rally slated for Monday in Multan, a central city in the country’s most populous Punjab province.

 

The federal government has announced some restrictions this month -- including a ban on political rallies -- amid concerns large gatherings may result in a surge of new Covid-19 cases. The measures are aimed at avoiding fresh curbs on businesses and movement that could hurt an economy that had just picked up after an earlier lockdown.

 

Khan blames the opposition for “not caring for the lives and safety of the people” amid a rise in cases in the second wave of the pandemic. “Now, with new spike, when we again need smart lockdown,” the opposition wants rallies, Khan said on Twitter.

 

 

Malaria Death Toll to Exceed COVID-19's in Sub-Saharan Africa: WHO

Deaths from malaria due to disruptions during the coronavirus pandemic to services designed to tackle the mosquito-borne disease will far exceed those killed by COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa, the World Health Organization warned on Monday.

 

More than 409,000 people globally - most of them babies in the poorest parts of Africa - were killed by malaria last year, the WHO said in its latest global malaria report, and COVID-19 will almost certainly make that toll higher in 2020.

 

“Our estimates are that depending on the level of service disruption (due to COVID-19) ... there could be an excess of malaria deaths of somewhere between 20,000 and 100,000 in sub-Saharan Africa, most of them in young children,” Pedro Alsonso, director of the WHO’s malaria programme, told reporters.

 

“It’s very likely that excess malaria mortality is larger than the direct COVID mortality.”

The WHO report found there were 229 million malaria cases globally in 2019, and said that despite the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries around the world had fought hard and held the line against the disease.

 

But “long-term success in reaching a malaria-free world within a generation is far from assured”, it said. Some of the African countries worst affected by malaria have struggled to make significant progress since 2016.

–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