Author: billkralovec

I try to do one accreditation visit per year. I am a lead visitor (Chair) for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). I usually accredit international schools along with our partners, the Council of International Schools (CIS). We use CIS protocols when it is a joint visit so I work closely with the CIS Chair. 

I like doing accreditation visits for many reasons. I have enjoyed a long career in international schools and feel it is important to give back and support international schools. My many years of experience help me give support and advice to the schools NEASC accredits. Visiting team members are all volunteers and I am always impressed at how much effort we put in to do our best to help other schools. These 5-year visits affirm the good work schools do and give direction for the future of schools. Ultimately, our work improves students’ learning and development. 

Serving on a team is also great for professional development. I learn from the team members and from the dedicated professionals at the schools we visit. I always get an idea or two to use at my current school. It also helps my current school in our own accreditation process. 

Finally, it is a nice way to see the world and I just completed a week in Izmir, Türkiye, on the Aegean Coast. Not being a capital city and with Turkish law prohibiting Turkish citizens from attending international schools, the school was quite small. It was a fine little school however, and it was a pleasure to go behind the scenes of the school and get to know the students, parents, and teachers in their community. 

I am taking the course “Rethinking Global Citizenship Education (GCE) and Service Learning (SL) Using a Critical Lens” along with several of my colleagues at the school. Tashkent International School was founded by service organizations (United Nations and Diplomatic Missions). The course aims to improve our students’ community outreach and service learning. For many years, TIS needed to be careful because the first president of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, led a government that was suspicious of foreigners and international organizations. The school needed to keep a low profile. With the new president and the opening of the economy, TIS is now in a position to develop relationships with local groups and contribute to the development of the country. More importantly, to instill a mindset in our students that service to others should be a priority in their lives.

The graphic above presented in the first module sums up the goals of the course. The big idea I am taking away from the first module is to get students thinking about the root causes of inequities in our societies. Moving away from thinking of service learning as something students do to or for, but instead with and by the school’s partner organizations. One challenge facing international schools is our schedules are jam-packed with activities and initiatives. Both faculty and students do not often have the time to slow down and really think and reflect on our service projects.

The assigned reading for Module 1, “Soft Versus Critical Global Citizenship Education” by Vanessa Andreotti was thought-provoking. She refers to Open University Professor Andrew Dobson’s view that global trade creates inequities and by being from the West, by not doing anything, we are active in keeping the developing world poor. 47% of the world is considered poor by the World Bank with incomes under $6.85 per day. He thinks “justice” should be our governing factor instead of ideas of “making a difference” and “being charitable”. Along with other thinkers, he believes that only rich nations and citizens can be global, as most people can only think and act locally because they are too poor to have other options. The G7 countries say they are acting globally, but they act in their own self-interest. Andreotti pushes back and says that Dobson’s view is a bit too simplistic. He also thinks the individual responsibility is more important than organizational change.

She presents the work of Columbia University professor Gayatri Spivak. Professor Spivak believes that “Western” values are projected as universal and we should not forget that colonialism created global inequalities. The “elite global professional class” (me) often reproduces these problematic power dynamics.

Claude.ai summarized the article with the following take:

“The main takeaway is that effective global citizenship education requires moving beyond simple charity-based approaches to develop deeper understanding of global relationships, power structures, and responsibilities. As a school leader, you’re uniquely positioned to implement this more nuanced approach while respecting local contexts and perspectives.”

I completed the two-day “Leading an IB Education,” one of six IB Leadership Workshops. I would like to thank the trainer, Seden Chouseinoglou for leading 24 of us. It was a good refresher for me to continually educate our families on the uniqueness and positive aspects of an IB education. The other big idea for me is that “language is the gateway to culture” and I need to work harder on learning Russian.

Inquiry #1 What are the aims of an IB Education?

1. International Mindedness (local and global outlook)
2. Learner Profile (personal characteristics)
3. Broad, Balanced, Contextual, Connected (type of curriculum)
4. Approaches to Teaching and Learning (methodology)

Reflection – This workshop is a good reminder that we need to continually educate our parents, employees, and students about the impact of an IB education on our students. Further Study – I would like to read more about the IB Leadership Intelligences.

Inquiry #2 What Does It Mean to be Human?: This section focused on the IB Learner Profile, which are traits that make us human. Let’s see if I know all of them. Knowledgeable, Thinker, Inquirer, Carer, Risk Taker, Communicator, Principled, Balanced, Reflective. The best definition of the learner profile is as follows:

“The IB learner profile represents a broad range of human capacities and responsibilities that encompass intellectual, personal, emotional and social growth. Developing and demonstrating the attributes of the learner profile provides an important foundation for international-mindedness. The learner profile supports students in taking action for positive change.”(PYP: From Principles into Practice, The Learner 2018)”

Reflection: Son, Brother, Husband, Father, Friend, Grandfather (hopefully). :::: Friend, Student, Teacher, Colleague, Mentor, Memory (Write a 6-word essay, in the style of Ernest Hemmingway, for your reflection on the Learner Profile)

#5. How do leaders focus learning around the key principles of IB curriculum design? This section focused on the IB curriculums (learning plans). It is more “concept-based” than memorizing facts. Concepts are ideas (skills/knowledge) that students can use their entire lives, or in other words, transferable, big ideas. The trainer referred to the term, 3D curriculum, which means teaching beyond facts. Lynn Erikson is a well-known educational expert who consulted on the new MYP curriculum. The IB Key Concepts are function, form, change, responsibility, perspective, connection, and causation. She shared the video Dove Real Beauty Sketches to use as a prompt to discuss these key concepts. Rob shared with us that the IB thinks of the continuum of the thee academic programs as this: PYP is transdisciplinary, MYP is interdisciplinary, and DP is disciplinary. Two videos were used by the PYP group to humorously show how a concept-based education is better than a content-based education. 5 Minute University and Are Our Children Learning Enough About Whales?.

#6 How do leaders nurture Lifelong Learners?

Students build learning through starting close and then transferring the skills to new contexts. This is a constructivist approach to education. A good activity is drawing the back of your hand with parents.

local context	global context
concrete	abstract
self	others
known context	unknown context
familiar	less familiar
act locally	think globally
comfortable	uncomfortable

I recently completed the Introduction to Safeguarding online course offered by the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC). The TIS Safeguarding Team is piloting the course to see if it will be an alternative to our annual refresher course offered by TES Safeguarding. We also use Childsafeguarding.com for our Russian speakers to complete their annual refresher course.

The ICMEC course is similar to the TES Development course. It covers the basics and gives a good overview of safeguarding and will be a good refresher for our faculty and staff. I liked the extra resources that are available when completing each of the four modules. My big takeaway was the concept of contextual safeguarding. That is taking a balcony view of safeguarding and developing systems and habits that ultimately for schools, encourage people to be aware of possible child abuse and report disclosures and observations to the Designated Safeguarding Leads.

Annually during the Faculty and Staff Preparation Week employees participate in a Child Safeguarding workshop to refresh ourselves about the importance of keeping students safe. This year we are having both sessions for academic staff (teachers, teacher assistants, and assistants) and support staff (guards, housekeepers, maintenance, grounds crew, business office). In my remarks to open the session, I mentioned the following key points:

• This session is more than compliance, it is a reminder of our collective responsibility of keeping students safe.
• We are responsible not only for physical safety but also emotional and psychological safety.
• TIS has a legal and ethical responsibility to safeguard children. We adhere to international school standards set forth by our two accrediting agencies, CIS and NEASC and Uzbek and International Law.
• TIS has an additional challenge in safeguarding children because of the different languages and cultures. What is acceptable in one culture, might be acceptable in another culture when it comes to parenting.

My key takeaway from the session was how the Child Safeguarding Team will follow up with teachers and others reporting disclosures. We get a lot of reports and there are some confidentiality concerns. The team this year will work on this.

Finally, for outside readers, I would like to define ‘safeguarding” as all programs, initiatives, practices, polices that a school does to keep students safe. “Protection” means actions taken to protect a child once there is a disclosure or report is made.

One of my favorite writers and thinkers is NYU professor Scot Galloway. He is an advocate for young men and he wrote about the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump. The shooter was a disaffected young man with access to an AR-15. There are too many of these types of lonely and hopeless young men in America. It is more difficult for boys to get started today than it was when I graduated from high school almost 40 years ago. Galloway cites the statistic that 35-year-olds have half as much wealth as they did when they graduated from college in 1989 and 70-year-olds have twice as much wealth. The number of men in university compared to women is dropping and in 2023, it was 41%. He points out American media is not focusing on the real problem of depressed young men with access to guns and instead is focusing on the political implications of the shooting.

My current school, the Tashkent International School does not have the same problems for boys as in public schools in America. Our families are wealthier and give their sons a good start in life. However, it worries me about the larger societal issue of the struggles of young people (both boys and girls), to get started with their careers, finding mates, and living a fulfilling life. Galloway proposes solutions to this in the graphic below.

We are removing cell phones from secondary students in the 2024-2025 school year. From my observations and feedback from teachers and students, they are a distraction to learning. We noticed especially for middle school students and early high school, they are on their devices too much. In our communication with parents they were overwhelmingly in favor of the initiative. We contemplated using Yondr Pouches so we did not have to collect them and store them daily. We decided not to use them due to the cost and reports of hacking them, and we’ll see how it goes with just taking them away in homeroom and giving them back at the end of the school day. Our school is small enough for us to do this. Our pilot went well in June, and we’ll continue to tweak our procedures. One key is being consistent when students are found with cell phones during school hours.

I continue to read with interest about the impact of cell phones on education. This Edutopia article, “Three Schools, Three Principals, Three Cell Phone Bans”. US public schools have bigger challenges with hundreds and thousands of students. As the principals in the article said, teachers still need engaging lessons to capture students’ attention.

Last week we went on a tour of less visited monuments/memorials as part of the Leadership Possibilities and Paradoxes project hosted by the US State Department’s Office of Overseas Schools. We had an insightful tour guide, a former federal prosecutor, lawyer, and history buff who gave us the context and history of each monument. This morning we had a reflective conversation about the meaning of monuments of great leaders in our society led by a professor from St. John’s College. St. John’s is known for its Great Books curriculum so John was an expert discussion leader.

The Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Grove is the bank of the Potomac River and is rarely visited. This spot was chosen because LBJ and his wife enjoyed relaxing there as it looked over the city. It made me think about how my wife Nadia is always there for me. Leadership can be stressful and emotional draining and it is important to have a supportive spouse or partner. LBJ had a tough time (1963-1969) because of taking over from President Kennedy and the on-going Vietnam War. Reading his biography, I was impressed with his accomplishments and his idea of the “Great Society”. He created Medicare and Medicaid, established federal loans for university students, and two important Civil Rights Acts. I can imagine him and his wife talking about a tough day in the White House and looking across the Potomac over the beautiful city of DC.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial is more visited and more prominent in the city. He is the longest-served president, 12 years from 1933 to 1945. The monument has four “rooms” that cover each of his four terms. In reading his quotes and thinking about his accomplishments, the Democratic Party needs another FDR today! Someone who strongly advocates for marginalized populations (poor, immigrants, elderly, etc.) He also had a strong spouse and his wife is also featured with a statue, the only First Lady to have this honor.

The final monument was his cousin, Teddy Roosevelt Island. I have not read much about him and only know that he was a driving force behind the National Park System. I learned he was the youngest president, elected at age 42.

Some of the major ideas discussed by our group after the tour were as follows:

• John felt that no monuments should be taken down or changed as they are history. People today are taking down some statues and monuments because the values have changed since the monuments were reflected, for example Civil War Confederate heroes in the US South.
• One school leader thought it could be viewed as selfish, previous generations dictating to future generations what was important and to keep them forever.

In preparation for the US State Department’s Office of Overseas Schools Leadership Symposium, I read retired General Stanley McChrystal’s book, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World. The premise is in a rapidly changing environment, the traditional hierarchical structures of leadership fail. It advocates for flexible, decentralized teams that can rapidly adapt and communicate across organizational boundaries to foster innovation and resistance in complex environments.

I see the leader needing to reiterate the shared purpose of our school often to all employees, emphasizing our goal and each team’s part in it. (COMMON PURPOSE). We need to ask good questions with a kind demeanor and look for ways for teams to contact each other more frequently. (TRUSTING TEAMS). Leaders should create a culture in which these questions are not threatening and develop non-defensive answering techniques. Hold more frequent, shorter, daily Operations and Intelligence briefings (SHARED CONSCIOUSNESS). School leaders have a mindset of “EYES ON – HANDS OFF” and show enthusiasm, and interest and offer not only advice but encouragement while doing the rounds. Remember to first observe and listen deeply to understand. (EMPOWERED EXECUTION).

I also read on his website this idea of “Leading Like a Gardener”. I see this style of leadership as focusing on coaching individuals to develop their decision-making skills and motivation, instead of telling people what to do all the time. A leader develops a soil (culture) that plants (people) can thrive in.

McChrystal is an interesting figure. Is was a career military man and an innovative US military leader in Afghanistan and Iraq. President Obama replaced him when Rolling Stone Magazine published his (and his aides) disparaging opinion of the US government’s policies and actions in the war effort. His techniques were also considered controversial by some. He seems highly respected, however, as his post-military life is successful. He teaches at Yale and runs a consulting firm, the McChrystal Group. We will be spending an afternoon at the offices of the McChrystal Group. I also am interested in his personal lifestyle of running 7-8 miles daily and eating only 1 meal. I think it is important for leaders not only to stay mentally sharp but physically fit as well and I would like to hear from him if he feels the same and exactly why this is so. I am going to listen to several interviews he has given over the years to get a better feel for his leadership philosophy.

I have time to read more in the summer. This week’s AAIE (Association for the Advancement of International Education) newsletter highlights the issues of Artificial Intelligence (AI) generating CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material). As an international school leader and the Strategic Head of our Child Safeguarding Team at our school, I need to keep abreast of online threats to children. The Washington Post reported a record high number of CSAM reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The Center was alerted to 88 million files in 2022.

The problem has a new layer with AI generating inappropriate images of minors. Governments are fighting it through laws and hearings. Tech companies are using AI to detect and scrub the internet of these images and videos. This article in Time “As Tech CEOs Are Grilled Over Child Safety Online, AI Is Complicating the Issue” has a good overview of the problem.

United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), through its Centre for AI and Robotics, launched an AI for Safer Children Initiative as described in the video below.

This NBC News article reports AI companies and the non-profit Thorn are combating AI-generated CSAM. Stanford researchers found CSAM in the data that some AI Large Language Models trained on. Thorn is helping companies develop principles, such as checking data sets before inputting them into their AI models. This is a link to the Thorn website for more information.