Dreaming big. Thinking big. What might you do?

Dream big.

You have a blank canvas. You have the opportunity to build a school from the bottom up.

What initiatives would you introduce to make sure there is quality learning at your school?

What would your school look like?

 

 

 

 

 

The Culture Map

There are plenty of books any teacher or leader in international / intercultural education should read. Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map is one of them. Focusing on communication styles, Mayer provides valuable insights for anyone working in any intercultural space.

For this reader, the takeaway was the differences that exist between cultures when it comes to any level of communication. In particular, the the mapping tool that Meyer developed out of her work is a valuable tool in training teachers about what to expect when entering international / intercultural education. Meyer identifies 8 scales that need attention when communicating interculturally:

  1. Communicating
  2. Evaluating
  3. Leading
  4. Deciding
  5. Trusting
  6. Disagreeing
  7. Scheduling
  8. Persuading

While this model was developed in a business context, its application to schools is pronounced, not least because it helps the teacher or educational leader nuance “the what” that is being said with “the how”; what is being communicated is being done so in a manner that is not just appropriate but it is laying the groundwork for maximising student (and indeed parent) understanding.

In light of this, the scales that Meyer puts forward as a tool to help navigate intercultural interactions should not be viewed as something where you are graded either very high or very low. Being mapped onto one particular end of a scale does not mean that one is a better communicator or a better evaluator, or is a poor persuader or a poor scheduler. It is simply building a profile that provides clarity to the perspective one culture has of the world around it.

Learning is messy

Learning is messy.

How many times has the planned lesson turned out completely differently because of the interest of your learners and what they deemed to be important in the lesson? How different a lesson might that have been if you had not listened to your learners and gone with them?

How many times have you seen a learner’s research project go in a completely different direction to what he or she told you it would? They were convinced that their research would arrive at point A, but in reality it’s final destination was points. D, E or F.

In teaching and learning, we have an obsession with keeping things neat and tidy. Yet the day-to-day in the classroom or the principal’s office is far from ordered. In education, each and every day, we work with complex and unique individuals – and here I am actually thinking about the learner, although this can also apply to parents and teachers. The fact is that we work in and amongst chaos.

Here’s the thing: it is a peculiarity of working in education that we can only accept the existence of the chaos in which we work if it conforms to an order and discipline completely opposite to what actually defines it! It is a challenge for us to embrace that chaos authentically, to allow learning to be messy, and to see what happens.