Director's Blog

I recently needed to write a philosophy of education statement for a class I am taking. I am posting it on my education blog to help people get to know me better.  Enjoy!

Being inspired by the 1950’s radio series hosted by Edward Murrow, and more recently by the National Public Radio series in the same name, my philosophy statement is in the same form of “This I Believe.” Some of the principles are old aphorisms, others are original observations I have made. I provide a bit of background and elaborate with each statement.

• I believe in treating every student like I would my own son or daughter. I always ask myself, if I was the parent of this child, what would I do? It also has guided me in being a better communicator to parents. If I hear or see something about a student that I feel the parent should know, I always contact the parent as soon as possible.
• I believe the most important job for a head of school or principal is hiring great teachers. If a school has teachers that are enjoy being around children, a knowledgeable about pedagogy and the subject area, and go beyond the regular teaching expectations, the school will be an excellent one. In my work with teachers, I always try to support and inspire them and make them feel valued and professional. The business of recruiting great faculty is paramount and much time and consideration must be put into promoting the school and country and having a competitive salary and benefit package. Much time must be put into screening candidates and I always check references and try to get as much background on prospective employees as possible. This applies to recruiting fairs and the on line interview process.
• I believe in differentiation while evaluating teachers. Different teachers need different things from a leader. Inexperienced teachers need more attention and direction than veteran teachers, but then, this may not always be the case.
• I believe in asking myself this simple question when considering re-employing a teacher: “Would I want my child to be in his or her class?” Making it personal forces me to maintain high expectations for every teacher.
• “The apple does not fall far from the tree.” My father, a long-time principal and teacher, always said this after parent-teacher conferences. After attending these for years, I understand that this is very true. To understand the student and his or her performance at school, one must understand the family which they come from. This relates to the culture, occupation, socio-economic class, genetic traits, prior school experiences, etc.
• I believe that extracurricular or co-curricular programs are just as important to a school as the academic curriculum for the development of young people. Therefore, the same amount of resources and time should be put towards them. A school can have both world-class IB exam scores and world class theatre productions or football teams.
• I believe that one must dream big when leading an international school. The amount of economic, political, and intellectual power behind and international school is incredible and it is the job of the leader to collect and direct that power.
• I believe that community service should be
• I believe that a leader must be himself or herself. There are many styles of leadership that are successful. My strengths are a calm, people-oriented demeanor, strong work ethic, sense of humor, creative thinking, and an open, honest, and humble manner with community members.
• I believe that one must not be afraid of confrontation. This took me a while to learn, as I have a peacemaking personality and dislike conflict, but there are times when difficult conversations must be conducted or decisions must be made. These can be done fairly and deliberately, always putting the good of the students and community in the forefront.
• I believe in mission statements. Earlier in my career, I used to think these were platitudes or “pie in the sky” language. As I mature as a leader, I find myself going back to the mission when we are making decisions or considering new programs, events, or activities.
• I believe in seeking other’s opinions, especially when something is bothering me. I rely on collaboration with trusted colleagues and share leadership responsibilities. I do not have all the answers and usually after mulling a situation about for some time, the answer or path forward rises to the center of our vision.
• I believe what is good for students, is good for parents and teachers as well.
• I believe that schools should teach life skills with the same rigor and attention as academic skills. The life skills are things such as dealing with one’s emotions, finding balance between work and family, relationships with others, resilience, etc. These are the things that as much as the academic skills, will determine a student’s future success. For example, for one’s happiness, it is more important the person one marries than the career path one chooses. Working in close conjunction with parents, it is the job of the school to help young people develop as people.
• I believe most students in international schools will be fine, with or without our help. This seems a bit pessimistic, but the reality is the majority of our students come from families that value education and has the resources that most often, result in highly functioning adults. The school does have a lot of impact in what direction they take and what they achieve, and I do not want to dismiss our contributions. However, the relevance of this fact must spur international schools to make a significant contribution to those in our communities that are at risk or downtrodden. The ethos of community service and the importance of caring for those that most need it in a society should permeate a school. This is where an international school can make its biggest impact on its students.
• I believe in learning the local language, history and culture of the host nation. A leader can be a bridge between the international community and the local community. Learning to speak and write at least on an intermediate level, fully understanding the historical and cultural components of the host nation shows respect.
• I believe schools are hugely affected by the cultural context which they are in. Schools in many ways are the embodiment of cultural beliefs and a good leader understands that context.
• I believe an educational leader should always have a direct connection to the students. This may mean teaching a class or sponsoring an activity. It also shows the faculty that a leader knows that this is the most important part of the school. It also gives me direct experience that helps me when working with faculty or parents.
• I believe in always asking, “Am I improving learning?” and “How does this decision affect students?” The student should be in the center of any decision making.
• I believe that good ideas come from anywhere and I always listen first. It is amazing what I can learn by asking questions and keeping my mouth closed.
• I believe to always focus on the individual student. Every student has a contribution to make to the community and it is our job to find their talents and develop them.
• I believe that students will live up to high expectations. Academic rigor and a demanding school life will result in students and community stakeholders, rising up to meet them.
• I believe that you cannot separate the personal from the professional. This is true for faculty or parents and much of what they bring to school, starts at home. This is also true for me. We all have to find a balance between work and the home. I take pride in trying to be the best father, husband, brother, son, friend that I can be.

This statement is dedicated to my father, Charles Kralovec (1932-2012), who is shown below on playground duty at the Caspian Elementary School (Stambaugh Township Public Schools – Caspian, Michigan). He was the last Principal of the school when it closed in 1971.

We had some fun yesterday at the Middle School CEESA Knowledge Bowl that ISB is hosting this weekend. We wanted to give the opening ceremony a little “pizaz” so we “resurrected” the great Serbian scientist, Nikola Tesla. A student from the Thespian Society did an amazing performance of Tesla. Instead of lighting the olympic flame in the opening ceremony, he lit the bulb from the Tesla Coil. To make the event more dramatic, we played 2001: A Space Odyssey in the background. The teachers and kids loved it.

I am the tourney director and really enjoying being involved in all the action today. The knowledge bowl is one of the events that the bigger schools in CEESA participate in, so it is nice to see some of the schools we usually do not compete against like Vienna. Hosting a knowledge bowl requires a lot of help and I would like to thank the many volunteers from the faculty, staff, and community that made the event successful.

The Knowledge Bowl is great for schools to have as it celebrates and puts in the forefront, knowledge and academics. The weak point in our form of knowledge bowl is that there are no problem solving or creative hands-on activities. It does mostly rely on information retrieval, which is some ways is very important. Overall, I really feel knowledge is important for schools and should be a part of every school!

Update: As a follow-up to this blog post, I summarized the comments from the evaluation forms to help us with future knowledge bowl competitions that we host.

Positive

• Great having gym nearby for recreation and interaction.
• Broken arm dealt with well
• Great work with competition and socialization of participants. Excellent organization and positive tone – wonderful tournament!!
• Great tournament!!!
• Coaches Meeting – Efficient and clear, awesome use of time
• Loved Tesla! Fabulous tournament
• Great job! Best CEESA I’ve been to

Negative

• Some misread questions/accents made it difficult
• Saturday morning algebra speed round tough for 6^th and 7^th grade students (algebra as a speed round???)
• Some math questions not appropriately timed

Improvements

• Have fewer math questions, more 60 second math questions
• Suggest only native English speakers reading questions (suggested twice)

My suggestions

1)      Have a creative thinking / problem solving / hands-on / teamwork round added to the competition, similar to Odyssey of the Mind

2)      Eliminate speed round and go with all toss-up questions

 

This weekend I participated in the school’s annual 24-Hour Theatre project. Every year a theme is selected and the students spend 24 hours learning new techniques and coming up with an original public performance.

This year’s theme was Stage Combat and we invited professional South African actor, Christopher Boyd, a specialist in the field to come and work with our drama and theatre students. The students learned the fundamentals of stage combat (eye contact – preparation – action (sound) – reaction), unarmed combat choreography, and sword fighting. The group performed the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet and they also devised scenes of their own to demonstrate the techniques mastered over the 24 hour period. Everyone slept in the school and in the evening we watched the classic, “West Side Story” and learned more about how to portray conflict or tension on stage.

The 20 high school students absolutely loved it! I brought my son Owen along and he also played a part in one of the skits.

These are the kinds of experiences that make ISB special. The opportunity for students to learn these kinds of skills from a professional is so beneficial to their development. I would like to thank our Theatre Director, Mr. Bruce McDonald and Mr. Christopher Boyd for putting on the workshop.

For the second consecutive year, the International School of Belgrade Boys’ High School Basketball Team are the Central and Eastern European Schools Association (CEESA) Blue Division Champions. They defeated the host school, the American International School of Vilnius, Lithuania in the finals, 43-39. The Dragons finished 7-0 over the three-day tourney and repeated as champions, also defeating Vilnius in the finals of last year’s tourney, 60-55. The Dragons cruised through the round-robin competition, winning by an average margin of 21 points. Their toughest match in the seven-team round-robin was with AISV, where they came from behind in the first game with AISV to win 49-44.

The final standings were as follows:

1) IS Belgrade 7-0

2) AIS Vilnius 5-2

3) Pechersk School International (Kiev) 4-2

4) Anglo American School of Sofia 3-3

5) Nova School of Skopje 2-4

6) IS Latvia 1-5

7) IS Helsinki 0-6

The championship Most Valuable Player was senior captain Carl Kelly. Carl scored 76 points during the tourney and made many clutch steals, rebounds, and baskets when the Dragons needed them the most. Freshman Brin Mrzel was the second highest scorer with 58 points, many coming from behind the 3-point arc. ISB had the most talent of any team in the tourney and it showed with the depth of scoring. Serbian seniors Luka Gobeljic and Dimitrije Veselinovic combined for 94 points and 78 rebounds in the tourney. Brothers Sava and Sima Stakic played amazingly together, combining for 30 steals, 15 each, in the seven games. Two other seniors finished their ISB careers in style, with Matija Tausan and Simon Simsic scoring a combined 39 points and grabbing 53 rebounds. Junior guard Travis Eller played exceptional defense and senior forward, Alexander Soljakovski played valuable minutes, giving the starters the rest needed to win in the final game.

This was the most successful HS boys’ basketball team in school history. The Dragons finished with 17 wins and 2 losses. They defeated teams from 10 different countries and scored 178 more points than the opposition, that is an average of almost 10 more points a game than their opponents. In tournaments leading up to CEESA, the Dragons also defeated three “Red Division” schools, Budapest, Bucharest, and Vienna. The Red Division teams are the larger schools, with enrollments above 500 students, in CEESA.

The championship marks the second consecutive first place finish and the third in four years. The Dragons lost in the finals in 2011 to Zagreb 54-57. Carl Kelly was on all three of the championship teams!

The Dragon coaches, (Jeff Eller and Bill Kralovec) would like to thank Athletic Director Damian Hart for his relentless efforts in making the program the best in CEESA. Thanks also to the staff at the American International School of Vilnius, especially Activities Coordinator, Jolita Norkunaite, for a first-class hosting job. The care and attention to details made a big difference and this was the best CEESA tourney we ever attended! We also want to thank the parents, teachers, and ISB staff for their support for the team during the entire season.

Coaching the team this season solidified my belief that sports in schools enhances a students education and does not detract from it. Also, the school taking a lead role in developing and implementing a sports program is much better than  by a private club. The teacher-coach can be an incredibly strong mentor for young men and women. The lessons learned in a season will go far beyond high school. The student-athletes will take away skills (collaboration, finding one’s role, commitment, resilience, concentration, etc)  and fond memories of these CEESA championships. The tears, hugs, and shouts of joy of the players at the end of yesterday are signs that sports are so vital in schools.

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.