TIS Director's Blog

Below is a short piece on teaching introverts by Jennifer Lahey, a teacher and blogger from New Hampshire.She writes for the NY Times and The Atlantic, where this article is posted.

Next week marks the beginning of parent-teacher conferences. I can count on a few issues to come up: how I calculate grades, the degree to which I am willing to chase students for late work, and individual parents’ expectations about the flow of information between school and home. But this year, I am hearing lot of questions about how to best educate introverted students and, specifically, the fairness of class participation grades. I have experimented with many different grading strategies over the years, but class participation remains a constant in my grade book. It counts for a lot because we spend a large percentage of our of class time in dialogue. How does Pip change once he receives his Great Expectations? What does Edmund mean when he says, “Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law / My services are bound”? When it comes time to assess my students’ engagement with these questions, I could quiz them daily and force them to write reams about the topics I want them to consider. Or I can ask them to open their mouths, turn on their brains, and share their ideas with the rest of the class. I opt for a happy medium, and require a little bit of both. This is no problem for the extroverts, who live for the opportunity to talk about their ideas. However, I also teach introverts, who live in fear of being asked these sorts of questions. There are a lot of students populating the middle ground, of course, but I don’t tend to hear from those students’ parents at conference time. The parents of introverts complain that I am not meeting their child’s unspoken educational needs, or that I am causing serious emotional trauma by requiring their child to speak up in school. I am aware that as an extrovert, I naturally teach to and understand the needs of extroverts. Consequently, I have worked very hard to research and implement teaching strategies that work for introverted students. I have a personal interest in the subject as well, as I am married to one introvert and mother to another. Thankfully, there’s more information on introverts out there than ever before. I tapped into my amazing personal learning network of educators and gathered a towering pile of books on my nightstand, topped by Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. In her book, Cain champions the often-overlooked talents and gifts of introverts, and offers parents and educators strategies for communication and evaluation. This year, I drew on this advice and made a number of changes to my classroom in order to improve learning opportunities for my introverted students. In the end, I have decided to retain my class participation requirement. As a teacher, it is my job to teach grammar, vocabulary, and literature, but I must also teach my students how to succeed in the world we live in — a world where most people won’t stop talking. If anything, I feel even morestrongly that my introverted students must learn how to self-advocate by communicating with parents, educators, and the world at large. Dr. Kendall Hoyt — introvert, assistant professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School — agrees. “You don’t get a pass for your personality type. I understand that social anxiety is a real thing – I am an introvert, and my mother used to actually faint if she had to do public speaking – but part of my job as a teacher is to teach people how to articulate and be heard.” Hoyt applies this same philosophy to her own children, both introverts. She and her babysitter have constructed elaborate social scavenger hunts for the children, games that require them to approach strangers, look them in the eye, and ask for whatever the game requires – directions, information, or signatures. When I asked her why she puts so much effort into her children’s ability to communicate with strangers, she answered, “In order to be effective in this world, you must be able to communicate. If you can’t speak up for yourself, if you can’t muster the courage to tell the person you love that you love them, if you can’t advocate for your own safety, the world will be a very intimidating and frightening place. I don’t want my kids to be intimidated by the world.” When a parent tells me that his or her child is simply not capable of communicating educational and emotional needs, I see a child even more in need of mastering interpersonal communication. I’m not talking about the value of communication as it relates to grades here; I am talking about the value of communication as it relates to personal health, happiness, and safety. A student who is unwilling to stand up for herself and tell me that she does not understand the difference between an adverb and a verb is also less likely to stand up for herself if she is being harassed or pressured in other areas of her life. Thanks to my students, Hoyt, and the reams of literature and research on introverts, I have a newfound respect for the people in my life who are less apt to jump into the fray of class discussion. But I also know that sometimes it’s important – even imperative – to speak up for one’s self. Cain starts her book Quiet with the example of Rosa Parks and the historic “No” she gave the bus driver who asked her to move to the back of the bus. Cain reports that, according to her obituary, Parks was an introvert. And yet that introvert spoke up and claimed her rightful place in the world. In honor of Rosa Parks, Susan Cain, and the many introverted students under my tutelage, I will continue to encourage them to find their voices.

I agree with Leahy that it is an important for introverts to get over their shyness and anxiety and speak up for themselves and make connections with strangers. Although my family is very extroverted, it is one of the reasons I chose to raise my children overseas. I see that they feel more comfortable speaking with a variety of people and have more self-confidence because they are with adults more. I don’t like those teenagers in the US that cannot speak with adults.

The students here at ISB are mostly great self advocates. I think this comes from being from the upper socio-economic families which gives them confidence in dealing with others. There are however in every school, quiet students that naturally tend not to stand out in groups. ISB is small enough that much of this is eliminated- because of the few number of students in a classroom, everyone has to participate and it is easier to make a contribution.

Parents can help their children, introverted or extroverted, by encouraging them and giving them opportunities to speak up for themselves. For example, whether this be at a restaurant and they want another drink, or if a classmate is bothering them at school, to state their feelings or opinion.

I read an excellent article, “Is Handwriting Worth Saving?” in the on line magazine, Slate, and it can be found at the link here. It is a book review for the book, The Missing Ink: The Lose Art of Handwriting  by Phillip Hensher. The reviewer, Julia Turner, also recommends the book, Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting by Kitty Burns Florey.

There is a debate in education regarding how much emphasis should be placed on the teaching of handwriting skills. With the advent of the word processor, tablets, mobile phones, and wireless internet, the need for good penmanship is disappearing. I can’t remember the last time I wrote an assignment or essay in longhand. I do often scribble notes during meetings or presentations and I still love having a notebook, but more of my time is typing and texting rather than actual writing.

How important is handwriting to our Upper School students at ISB?

It is very important in my opinion because the IB Exams and most of their formal, summative assessments are handwritten. Most importantly, the IB Exams are graded by external examiners that have no experience with our students’ handwriting. I also assume that this is also the case in university as well.

It is strange that there is this enormous emphasis on handwriting in schooling, but total lack of it in the workplace and personal lives. I see this changing in the near future as soon, all of the summative assessments will either be on line or can be completed by computer. Until that day however, as teachers, we need to have our students hone their penmanship skills, so the people grading their tests, can read their script easily.

I also feel that the teaching of handwriting should never go away from the Lower School. Children need the cognitive benefits of putting pencil to paper to learn the native language script. In looking at my own children, I see the excitement and concentration they put in when given paper and writing instruments. It is no secret that restaurants give paper and crayons to kids to keep them quiet while waiting for the food to arrive.

It will be interesting to see what happens to handwriting in a generation or two in the future.

During this semester my professional reading is the book, “Taking the IB Diploma Programme Forward” edited by Mary Hayden and Jeff Thompson and published by John Catt Ltd. last year (2011). The book is a collection of essays about different aspects of the International Baccalaurate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP). The International School of Belgrade is an IB World School and our curriculum for grades 11 and 12 is the IB DP.  I’ll be blogging about many of the pieces in my principal’s blog.

The first article is entitled, “Growth of the international school market in China and its potential implications for the IB” by long-time international educator and consultant, Barry Drake. He spent 17 years in Hong Kong and really knows China. The most interesting part of the article for me was not the expected growth in China, but Drake’s statistical description of the international school market. It got me thinking about how “international” is ISB.

The definition of an international school is disputed. I liked ” (1) students and staff are representative of a number of different cultures and ethnic origins, where the (2) IB and/or a number of different courses are offered and where the (3) ethos is one of internationalism as distinct from nationalism.” With our nationality cap, all three IB programmes, the first two are very clear and ISB definitely is an international school. With the third statement, it is a bit more difficult to define, but with our students focused on different national systems of university entrance, we have to not be focused on any one nationality. I feel our curriculum offerings reflect this with many languages offered, and a mix of IB and AP (and other) classes offered.

Another measure of our “internationalism” is our accreditation with the Council of International Schools (CIS). We were re-accredited in April of 2011 and it is based on a set of standards. CIS grants accreditation to international schools based on three principles:

1. Demonstrates and actively promotes internationalism in its students
2. Applies the CIS Code of Ethics
3. Undertakes an external school improvement process

Dr. Drake looks at the number of international schools worldwide and the growth of schools. He writes that CIS lists 642 international schools. This number is much smaller than the ISC Research website, a group that specializes in maintaining a database of international schools. They list 6,353 schools in 236 countries with over 3 million students and almost 300,000 teachers. The vast majority of these schools are found in Asia with Europe having the second most international schools.

There are various degrees of “internationalism” with schools. Our school is one of the most international, with 2/3 of our students being globally mobile expats, our teaching staff 60% overseas-hired, English language of instruction, and the original international curriculum (IB) offered at the school. I’ve worked in “international” schools with a mostly host-country national population and many local teachers, that by nature, are culturally more inclined towards “nationalism” rather than “internationalism.” Most of the host country nationals however, are the upper class of the country and will study abroad for their university, but many returning to their home country.

Year	# of international schools
1964	50
1995	1000
2000	2584
2010	5676
2011	5788
2020	11,000

It was interesting to read on the ISC website, there are seven international schools in Belgrade. Of the top of my head, I would say they are counting the British International School, Britannica, Chartwell, Prima, and INSB. There is also the Anglo-American, a new one, Brook Hill, as well as Prima International School. Both Crjnanski, and Boskovic offer the IB DP, and they may also be included in the total. That is not including the French, German, and Russian schools in the city.

Drake finishes the article with the staggering growth numbers of international schools in the world and especially in China. The ISC website lists 329 international schools in China and 168 in Hong Kong. China is expected to reach 581 schools by 2020 and Hong Kong to reach 312.

Why so much growth? A rising middle class wants to put their children in international schools to give them a competitive advantage with their careers. Most of the new international schools are different from before, in that they are for-profit and locally owned. Most of the students are host country nationals because the number of globally mobile expats is not growing as fast as international schools. One thing about new schools however that is not different from the older international schools, is they usually hire teachers from the US/Canada/Australia/UK/New Zealand. This seems to be what the parents want and is the reason they will pay high tuition. Finding enough quality, trained, teachers willing to travel will be difficult for all schools and makes recruiting even more important for ISB.

I am happy to be at ISB and our cultural diversity in our students is the key to us being international. It will be important for us to maintain this diversity, even in a tough economic climate of  dropping expatriate families in Belgrade. I also see a lot of these new schools in Asia have huge enrollments. I feel that big schools are not the best environment for most teenagers. ISB is a great size for teenagers because it allows all students to make a significant contribution to the school. Students are asked to participate in a range of extra curricular activities. I’ve been in smaller schools and that is not good either for most teenagers, as they need the social stimulation and academic competition in the classroom.

How Children Succeed is a new book out by Paul Tough. The book discusses the importance of the non-cognitive or people or soft skills in the success of students, especially in university and beyond. Schools spend a lot of time teaching, measuring, and reporting the cognitive side of education, I think because it is easier than measuring things like resilience or perseverance. But, Tough explains that it is these character traits that will be a bigger factor in determining the future success of our students. Here is an excerpt from an interview with Tough on the Amazon.com web site.

Q. How did writing this book affect you as a parent?

A. My wife and I became parents for the first time just as I started reporting this book, and our son Ellington is now three. Those are crucial years in a child’s development, and I spent a lot of them reading papers on the infant brain and studies on attachment and trauma and stress hormones, trying not to get too overwhelmed.

In the end, though, this research had a surprising effect: it made me more relaxed as a parent. When Ellington was born, I was very much caught up in the idea of childhood as a race–the faster a child develops skills, the better he does on tests, the better he’ll do in life. Having done this reporting, I’m less concerned about my son’s reading and counting ability. Don’t get me wrong, I still want him to know that stuff. But I think he’ll get there in time. What I’m more concerned about is his character–or whatever the right synonym is for character when you’re talking about a three-year-old. I want him to be able to get over disappointments, to calm himself down, to keep working at a puzzle even when it’s frustrating, to be good at sharing, to feel loved and confident and full of a sense of belonging. Most important, I want him to be able to deal with failure.

That’s a difficult thing for parents to give their children, since we have deep in our DNA the urge to shield our kids from every kind of trouble. But what we’re finding out now is that in trying to protect our children, we may actually be harming them. By not giving them the chance to learn to manage adversity, to cope with failure, we produce kids who have real problems when they grow up. Overcoming adversity is what produces character. And character, even more than IQ, is what leads to real and lasting success.

I listened to a pod cast from the National Public Radio program, This American Life, interviewing Mr. Tough and some other stories about school programs focusing on these character traits. It got me thinking of what we are doing at ISB in these areas. I know that we do talk with the students all the time about these things, and many of them are covered in the Learner Profile. I also feel that much of this comes from our families and these skills are developed at home. It would be more critical with a school population, for example, in a lower socio-economic demographic.

I think we can do a better job of systematically identifying and teaching the skills however, for success and a portion of our students are lacking in  these. For example in the podcast, they discuss a program in Chicago, Illinois schools that teaches at-risk students skills for success at university instead of focusing on solely on raising SAT scores. Many of these are common sense, but very important. Two things students can do they mentioned was for them to sit in the front row during university lectures, and introduce themselves to the professor and take advantage of office hours of the professors. In the US, we have the highest drop out rate of university students in the world. Only 58% of students graduate within 6 years of enrolling. I think some of this is caused by our focus on preparing students to get into university and not preparing them for coping with university life. I also think that more students go to university than in other countries, and many who drop out, would not have enrolled in other countries. It is something for me to think about, especially when we are working with our high school students. 

I will definitely download the book and perhaps get a group of our faculty together to come up with a system of looking at these skills. Perhaps in adapting our Learner Profile.

 

For international schools it is important to integrate quickly into the group, the new teachers and students. We have many new students every year, usually up to 1/3 of the student body. With so much transience, an adventure trip outside of school is a great way for students and teachers to bond and form stronger relationships. This will facilitate more collaboration during the school year and hopefully, allow students to learn more.

I spent the past couple of weeks organizing trips for each of the grade levels. It was time consuming negotiating with the travel agencies, planning itineraries, collecting money and permission slips, collecting materials for team-building activities, etc. In the end it was all worth it as you can see above, the 36 teachers and students attending this particular trip, really forged stronger relationships.

We focused on activities the entire group could do. We had two long hikes interspersed with cultural activities. The cultural aspects of the trips allowed the students to appreciate our host country of Serbia. Back at the hotel, we worked on mental team-building activities like creating a banner with traits of the Learner Profile, etc.

In reflecting upon the trips, these need to be put in every year. Ideally the cost could be put into the tuition. I also recommend having them be close to school and inexpensive. Our students travel a lot during the year for the CEESA sports and activities events.

As the Principal, I am in charge of keeping a positive and calm learning community and the retreats go a long way towards this.

We asked for feedback from students and teachers to improve the trips for 2012-2013 and got the following:

• During homeroom yesterday, I talked with the grade 10 students about their experience with thetrip. They were very positive about the trip and had an excellent time. They thought the program was good and rated the hotel accommodations and food as awesome.  Transportation was fine, they were happythey could go swimming and enjoyed the activities and the visit to the monastery.

  Their suggestions for improvement: They think the trip should be longer. They would like a one-week trip. Curfew should be later Need a little more free time built in, and more swimming time
  They felt the 9th graders were a little out of control and wanted the teachers to be stricter with them. They were unahppy with the behavior of the 9th graders at night at the hotel (noisy, running in the halls…) They felt some students were disrespectful to the culture. One example was by not dressing properly for the monastery visit. They think a little more info beforehand about this kind of thing would have helped. But all in all, very happy with the trip and want a longer one!

Today I am taking part in the annual Board of Trustees Retreat.

As a member of the Senior Administration Team, I am not a member of the board, but I need to work closely with them to support the school Director in his work, and the smooth functioning of the school. I am required to attend the Board Retreat and the open meetings of the Board. Several times a year as well, I make presentations to the Board. In June of every year, I present the student learning data (IB scores, MAP, etc.). I’ve also presented on the student laptop computer program, our foreign language offerings, teacher evaluation program, EAL program, etc. I also sat on the Board Policy and Governance Committee three years ago.

Today I am focusing on documenting my understanding of Board Governance. In this blog post, I will be featuring the key points on a functioning board.

• In the photo above, outside consultant, Ms. Adele Hodgson, is facilitating the retreat day. Ms. Hodgson works as a consultant with over 100 schools. This is a great way to start the year for the board. The purpose of the retreat is to help the board members understand their roles, and set the year’s goal for the Board, focusing on the strategic plan and our Mission and Vision statements. We use the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) International Trustee Handbook: A Guide to Effective Governance for Independent School Boards.” The other key documents for the day are the ISB Strategic Plan and Climate Surveys.
• Adele pointed out the state of international schools in the world. There are 6,037 international schools, with over 3 million students and close to 300,000 teachers in 236 countries. The market is worth 18.5 billion pounds which is growing 5-10% per year. Recent growth is from for profit schools, especially in Asia and the Middle East.
• Adele highlighted that international schools are leading the way in student-centered education. Companies appreciate the “products” of international schools: Young people who are independent thinkers, good managers of information, team players, and digitally literate.
• International School Boards should have the following committees:

1) Finance & Risk Assessment  2) Governance/Strategic Planners 3) Marketing & Development 4) Policy

• Adele recommended the work of Meredith Belbin. He has written much about board management and teams.
• Board members need to be cheerleaders of the school. They are not a conduit for complaints.
• Adele went over the board’s agenda, the one area where schools struggle is risk assessment and risk management. She also pointed out having benchmarks with schools that are similar to our school. This could be dealing with salaries and benefits, programs offered, tuition, etc.
• It is good for school boards to compare 3-4 different self-evaluations and design an evaluation that fits their particular school. It is also good for the Senior Administrative Team to evaluate the BoT. Key points are evaluating the BoT against board goals, communication to stakeholders, and effectiveness as a team.  Also, evaluating the survey
• There should be two evaluations, one in December (1/2 year) and one in May. The first evaluation would be informal and the second formal.
• It is good practice to have the Business Manager of the school give a presentation on the budget to the BoT for the first meeting every year.

There were much other topics discussed and much about the specific context of the International School of Belgrade. These are not included in this public blog post.

My big take-away is Board of Trustees training cannot be skipped for a successful school year.