–Today's Briefing Highlights–

• 45,373,712 Cases World-wide (Johns Hopkins):                Again,1,000,000 more infections in two days                    
• NEXT week's CONVERSATIONS
• Tri-Association and AASSA sponsor a global CONVERSATION:  Innovation Academy (IA): Student-Centered Learning Online or In Person
• The nature of "burnout" in leadership– a serious concern with solutions
• One school's contact tracing protocol:  thank you GRADED
• Without global collaboration– a worse pandemic than this one
• A POEM TO CONSIDER

–thanks to the New Yorker

 

 

–QUICK LINKS FOR BUSY PEOPLE–

Today's Quote to Consider: 

 

"

“Burnout has been studied for decades and it's serious. If you don't address burnout early, oftentimes the only solution available is for the person to leave their job. Many are worried about attrition- that we could lose some of our best school leaders and best teachers because they've experienced this build up of symptoms toward burnout that wasn't addressed early. ”

–Kristin Daniel and Ellen Mahoney, Circulus Institute

Next Week's

LEADERSHIP CONVERSATIONS 

with International School Leaders Around the World

• To work together and strengthen our resilience and build efficacy strategies to increase resilience for our school community. 
• To explore strategies to care for both ourselves and others in our school community during stressful times.
• CLICK HERE for the AGENDA

Weekly Learning as a Community– All international school senior leaders are welcome.  A 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 our Thursday CONVERSATIONS, since the very beginning. 

Innovation Academy (IA): Student-Centered Learning

Online or In Person

 
Join us from around the world on November 5, 2020 at 10:00 a.m (Eastern Time, US) for a one-hour “Kick Off” Panel Presentation to learn:

• The value of having your students participate in the online IA program hosted through the American School in Lima, Peru (FDR)
• How your school might start/improve IA type programs at your own school
• And about upcoming professional learning opportunities for your teachers to extend IA concepts (interdisciplinary, real-world, project/problem based approaches) in their own teaching as well as collaboration with colleagues.

Meet the Panel:

• Kerry Jacobson: Kerry is the Superintendent of the American School in Lima, Peru (FDR) and a strong advocate and supporter of both the IA Online and the Innovation Academy at the American School in Lima, Peru.
• Michael Adams: Michael is Superintendent of the American School Foundation of Monterrey, Mexico. Michael has seen first hand the impact of the IA, having observed IA classes at FDR as a part of a past AdvancED accreditation visit. He has supported student participation in the IA and collaborated with FDR.
• Corey Topf:  Corey is the Director of the IA Online and the founder of the Innovation Academy at the American School in Lima, Peru (FDR).

More about the Innovation Academy (IA):  

In the fall of 2012, a small group of teachers and administrators took the research-based practices from John Hattie, John Medina, Tony Wagner and others and began designing a program that they would have loved if they were still in school. After months of planning, iterating and talking with students and parents, the Innovation Academy (IA) was finally ready to launch in August of 2013 with the first pilot group of 15 juniors. Since that time, the IA has continued to grow. In the summer of 2020, FDR and ASFM held a collaborative IA online with students participating from around the globe. What students value most in the IA is the autonomy they have over their learning, the authentic projects they create, and the deep relationships and learning they enjoy with their IA cohort and IA mentor.

NEXT WEEK:  We take on The Principle:  Well-being

 

“WE CO-CREATE A CULTURE THAT NURTURES THE INTELLECTUAL, SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL, PHYSICAL, SPIRITUAL, ENVIRONMENTAL, AND WELL-BEING OCCUPATIONAL WELL-BEING OF ALL COMMUNITY MEMBERS.”

A SUMMARY OF TODAY'S

NEW SCHOOL PROJECT SESSION:

(With thanks to our curators Dana Watts and Shelley Paul)

 

Principle Two, Week Two

 

CAPACITY: We develop the capacity in our people to implement high quality and sustainable solutions in a time of rapid and unmitigated change

 

This morning we shared strategies for 'living' this principle. As usual, the conversations were 'deep and wide', as we unpacked the challenges of capacity building in depth and drew on a range of perspectives, sources and voices. Among other things, conversations focused on ways to build the capacity of all 'our people', mining for the gems of capacity in all stakeholders.

 

Thanks to this principle’s curators, Dana Watts and Shelley Paul, who launched the discussion, including considering framing around Freezers, Farms, Fragility, Equity & (Eco)Systems, as a group we discussed the limits of our capacity, using various metaphors, intersections with other principles (particularly equity), and the quality of becoming “anti-fragile.”

 

In echoes of our discussions on Adaptive Change, we wondered about building capacity for new solutions by shedding old practices that fill up our 'capacity space' but are past their sell-by date. We also touched on the ways in which the language we use may influence our mindset as to what is possible, and thus limit or expand our capacity. Systems thinking has a place too, where building common language about needed change within our complex schools can be achieved through professional learning community protocols.  

 

Another rich and provocative discussion. Maybe more questions than answers but hey, a while back we committed ourselves to 'fearless inquiry' !

Big thanks to all who are contributing their time and talents each week!  

 

NOTE: You can catch up, comment, and browse the curation Padlet, slide deck and more here: bit.ly/aaienshome (this is the AAIE New School Home Base - aaienshome).

The Reality of Burnout and Protecting 

 Your Community and Yourself

–by Kristin Daniel and Ellen Mahoney

 

Burnout has been studied for decades and it's serious. If you don't address burnout early, oftentimes the only solution available is for the person to leave their job. Many are worried about attrition- that we could lose some of our best school leaders and best teachers because they've experienced this build up of symptoms toward burnout that wasn't addressed early. The only option left for that person is to then leave the situation for the good of the community and for themselves. Such an outcome is preventable.  

The number one most powerful way to complete the stress cycle and therefore prevent burnout from happening is to exercise. You have to move your body in any way you can. The physiological responses from trauma will stay in the body if we don't exercise them out.

Boundaries are really important and shouldn't be considered negatives. One area of focus is digital boundaries- not being on social media before bed and not checking news headlines every two seconds as these activities are bad for your physical and mental health. Be strategic if you have to be on social media so your time isn't sucked away. Set intentions beforehand to find 'a resource' or 'connect with a specific person'. If you need to check the news, look once at a specific time of day. 

Using small rituals to signal your body to make the physical separation between work and personal time is very helpful in making those transitions. Blocking time for yourself and sticking with that is also important. As a leader, this not only goes a long way toward prevention of burnout but it serves as a great model for everyone around you.

KEEP LEARNING:  Three books to guide your thinking and doing

–TODAY's POEM TO CONSIDER–

A poem, just for you as a source of peace and reflection...

(today's– thanks to Bob Hetzel)

Without a Doubt

  

Could be you feel

like a tiny bird.

Even the loveliest nests

become traps,

and so you fly.

You tell yourself

you know where you

are meant to go

and you map and you plan

and fly straight into the wind.

Could be no matter

how hard you flutter

you arrive nowhere,

and that flying

becomes a new kind of trap.

All that fluttering

exhausts you

until wing wearied,

will spent,

certainty lost,

you turn away

from whatever it is

you thought

you must fly toward.

And then perhaps

you understand

that wherever the wind

is going to go

it will go. Could be

you find yourself

saying yes to the wind.

Could be that it

is so beautiful,

this new kind of flying,

that you forget

to be frightened when you don’t know

what will happen next.

Could be you’ve never

been quite so aware

how sweet the invitation

to let your self be carried,

how unbounded a story, the sky.

 

— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

The American School of Sao Paulo's Approach to Contact Tracing

–THE NEWS of COVID-19–

45,373,712

Cases Worldwide (Johns Hopkins CSSE)

 

It Gets Worse Without Global Collaboration

Future pandemics will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, do more damage to the world economy and kill more people than COVID-19 unless there is a transformative change in the global approach to dealing with infectious diseases, warns a major new report on biodiversity and pandemics by 22 leading experts from around the world. Convened by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) for an urgent virtual workshop about the links between degradation of nature and increasing pandemic risks, the experts agree that escaping the era of pandemics is possible, but that this will require a seismic shift in approach from reaction to prevention. (Eurekalert, ipbes.net)

 

COVID-19 Moves Faster Than Our Ability to Respond

The Covid-19 pandemic teaches one lesson, over and over: The virus is moving faster than we are. That difficult message was driven home Wednesday evening with news that an antibody cocktail developed by the drug maker Regeneron — the same cocktail used to treat President Trump — reduced infected patients’ need to visit the doctor, virtually or in person, or go to the hospital by 57%. Those are encouraging results — and, if authorized, the cocktail could be an important tool in beating back the virus. But right now, there are only 50,000 doses available, a pittance in comparison with the number of infections across the country. (STAT News)

 

Science Takes Time

The ambitious drive to produce Covid-19 vaccine at warp speed seems to be running up against reality. We all probably need to reset our expectations about how quickly we’re going to be able to be vaccinated. Asked Wednesday about when he expects the FDA will green-light use of the first vaccines, Anthony Fauci moved the Trump administration’s stated goalpost. “Could be January, could be later. We don’t know,” Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an online interview with JAMA editor Howard Bauchner. (Bloomberg Businessweek, STAT News, JAMA Network)

 

One New USA Infection Per Second

Yesterday, the United States recorded at least 90,000 new cases (that’s the equivalent of more than one per second) and crossed the threshold of nine million cases since the start of the pandemic. Over the past week, the U.S. has recorded more than 500,000 new cases, averaging more than 77,000 a day, and nine states reported daily records on Thursday. More total cases have been identified in the United States than in any other country, although some nations have had more cases in proportion to their populations. (The New York Times)

 

More and Faster-Rising Deaths in Europe

Europe is once again at the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, with the continent now recording more and faster-rising deaths than the U.S. in an abrupt reversal of fortune that is leading some governments to reimpose lockdowns they had hoped to avoid. The dramatic rise in infections is stretching the capacity of hospitals in the worst-hit cities in France, Belgium, Italy and elsewhere. Around 1,370 Covid-19 patients are dying in the European Union and the U.K. every day on average, compared with 808 in the U.S. Not since March has Europe suffered more recorded deaths than the U.S. On a per-capita basis, deaths from Covid-19 in Europe are now rapidly approaching the U.S.’s level, after running significantly below U.S. fatalities since May. (The Wall Street Journal)

 

Angela Merkel Pushes the Populists as "Irresponsible"

Angela Merkel launched an impassioned defense of Germany’s new lockdown in a fractious Bundestag debate on Thursday that exposed widespread anger among opposition MPs about the latest measures to curb coronavirus. Ms. Merkel said Germany was in a “dramatic situation” and insisted the new shutdown was “appropriate, necessary and proportionate”. “The winter will be hard — four long, hard months — but it will end,” she said. However, attempts by populists to play down the crisis were “not only unrealistic” but “irresponsible”. (Financial Times)

 

A Coronavirus Variant Infecting Europe

A coronavirus variant that originated in Spanish farm workers has spread rapidly through much of Europe since the summer, and now accounts for the majority of new Covid-19 cases in several countries — and more than 80 per cent in the UK. An international team of scientists that has been tracking the virus through its genetic mutations has described the extraordinary spread of the variant, called 20A.EU1, in a research paper published today. Their work suggests that people returning from holiday in Spain played a key role in transmitting the virus across Europe, raising questions about whether the second wave that is sweeping the continent could have been reduced by improved screening at airports and other transport hubs. Because each variant has its own genetic signature, it can be traced back to the place it originated. (Financial Times, medrxiv.org)

 

Infections Doubling Every Nine Days in UK

The policy response to coronavirus in England isn’t succeeding in controlling the disease’s spread, scientists said Thursday, adding pressure on U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson to introduce another national lockdown. Infections are doubling every nine days and an estimated 960,000 people are carrying the virus in England on any one day, according to the latest findings from Imperial College London and Ipsos MORI (Market and Opinion Research International), which is conducting one of the country’s largest studies of the disease. The reproduction rate of the virus -- a measure of how many people on average are infected by a single carrier -- has risen to 1.6, compared to 1.2 when the last figures were published Oct. 9. (Bloomberg News)

 

Parts of Beijing in Lockdown...Again

A cluster of dozens of new coronavirus cases in Beijing has prompted authorities to lock down parts of the city again after nearly two months without any new local infections. The outbreak has affected dozens of people, most of whom are asymptomatic, and raises concerns about how the virus might re-emerge, even in places where it appeared to be under control. (The Guardian)

 

India: One Million in July, Two Months Later, Five Million

India’s confirmed number of coronavirus cases has surpassed 8 million, as concerns grew over the looming Hindu festival season. It is only the second country worldwide to confirm more than 8 million cases, after the US, which has more than 8.8 million. The Indian health ministry reported another 49,881 infections and 517 fatalities on Thursday, raising the total death toll to 120,527. It took until mid-July for India to record its first million cases. Two months later, 5 million people had tested positive. But the nation has seen a slower spread since 16 September, when daily infections hit a record 97,894, with daily deaths at a high of 1,275. (The Guardian)

 

Mapping the Coronavirus

To better understand how the novel coronavirus behaves and how it can be stopped, scientists have completed a three-dimensional map that reveals the location of every atom in an enzyme molecule critical to SARS-CoV-2 reproduction. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory used neutron scattering to identify key information to improve the effectiveness of drug inhibitors designed to block the virus's replication mechanism. The research is published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.  (eurekalert.org)

 

Italy's Daily Coronavirus Cases Hit New Record,

Infections in Lombardy Soar

Italy has registered 24,991 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Wednesday, a record high and up from 21,994 on Tuesday as cases in the northern region of Lombardy surged. The ministry also reported 205 COVID-related deaths compared with 221 the day before. The number of swabs carried out rose to a new record of 198,952 from 174,398 a day earlier.

 

Looking to slow the spread of the virus, the government this week imposed new restrictions on the country, ordering the early closure of bars and restaurants and shutting down gyms, cinemas and theaters, among other measures. A total of 37,905 people have now died in Italy because of coronavirus, the second highest tally in Europe after Britain, while 589,766 cases of the disease have been registered to date.

 

The northern region of Lombardy, which includes Italy’s financial capital Milan, was the epicenter of the country’s original epidemic earlier this year and remains by far the worst-impacted as the second wave hits. The region reported 7,558 new cases on Wednesday against 5,035 on Tuesday. The neighboring Piedmont region had the second highest tally, chalking up 2,827 cases.

 

Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to the health ministry, was quoted as saying on Wednesday that both Milan and the southern city of Naples should be put under lockdown. The mayors of the two cities urged the government to reject the idea.

Wednesday’s data showed hospital admissions rose by 1,151 across Italy over the past day to 16,517, while intensive care patients rose by 125 to 1,536 -- more than when the government introduced a nationwide lockdown in March. (Reuters)

–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