InterEd Journal, Winter 2020 edition

We invite you to enjoy the read and to please consider sharing your writing, your thoughts and your storytelling during this unique period for international schools’ growth and development. And please, let us know what you think, and how we can continue to connect schools around the globe. 

1.

From a Room Called Fear to a Room Called Hope: A Leadership Agenda for Troubled Times

Leadership matters most—and is hardest to do well—when people face objective threats, when old ways of working are no longer possible, and when confusion and anxiety abound. These are brutal and relentless facts of organizational life for tens of thousands of leaders who feel heightened responsibility for billions of people as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. In this McKinsey Quarterly article Hayagreeva Rao and Robert Sutton offer an agenda to help such leaders as they try to fulfil their most important role: stopping a disaster from turning into catastrophe.

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2.

Cooperation vs. Compromise: How High Performers Handle High Stakes Conversations

When opposing ideas clash, it’s tempting to believe that compromise is the answer. That’s a mistake. High performing individuals and organizations recognize that there’s a big difference between compromise and cooperation. Compromise waters down your ideas, cooperation makes your ideas better. In this Forbes article, Lisa Earle McLeod warns leaders that a compromise mindset puts you in a defensive posture and keeps you thinking small.

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3.

When Nothing is Normal: Managing in Extreme Uncertainty

In normal times, organizations face numerous uncertainties of varying consequence. Managers deal with challenges by relying on established structures and processes. In a serious crisis, however, uncertainty can reach extreme levels, and the normal way of working becomes overstrained. At such times, traditional management operating models rarely prove adequate, and organizations with inadequate processes can quickly find themselves facing existential threats. In this McKinsey & Company article, Patrick Finn, Mihir Mysore, and Ophelia Usher discuss how, if uncertainty can be measured in magnitude and duration, leaders need to understand the extreme uncertainty of today.

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4.

Philosophy for a Time of Crisis

From Socrates to Camus, thinkers have asked how to respond when adversity turns our lives upside down. Thanks to the pandemic and its economic fallout, we are all philosophers now. In this Wall Street Journal essay, Eric Weiner explains how philosophy helps us to untangle the knotty ethical questions raised by the pandemic, but it can also help us to answer far more personal but equally urgent quandaries. Philosophy provides no easy answers, but it reframes our questions and alters our perspectives—a skill that is helpful during good times and invaluable during bad ones.

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5.

Traveling Turtles, Cardboard Playgrounds, and Bear Puppets: How Early Childhood Educators are Ensuring Joyful, Engaged Learning at a Distance

Early childhood education at a distance is far from ideal. Since March, students, educators, and families have grappled with technology challenges, a lack of socialization, and a new structure of digital learning which, at times, is at odds with what decades of research has shown to be best for young children. Despite this massive interruption to children’s pre-K and kindergarten experiences, early childhood educators are taking innovative approaches to ensure that their virtual classrooms remain developmentally appropriate, engaging, and joyful for their young learners. In this New America blog post Elise Franchino takes a look at some of this innovative teaching.

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The Margaret Sanders Scholarship

The Margaret Sanders Scholarship is awarded to students who demonstrate character strengths such as persistence and motivation, resourcefulness, as well as acceptance of other cultures and points of view. Factors considered in the selection process include academic achievement, financial need, and higher education and vocational aspirations that will impact future improvements within local and global communities. Leadership and service contributions that directly address community and societal needs and solutions will be considered in the selection process. Application Deadline for the 2020-21 Margaret Sanders Scholarship is November 30, 2020