GLOBAL COMPETENCY

The following is an excerpt from Educating for Global Competence, a FREE online book. Click here for the book. 

Globally competent students are able to perform the following four competences:

1. INVESTIGATE THE WORLD BEYOND THEIR IMMEDIATE ENVIRONMENT, framing significant problems and conducting well-crafted and age-appropriate research.
2. RECOGNIZE PERSPECTIVES, OTHERS' AND THEIR OWN, articulating and explaining such perspectives thoughtfully and respectfully.
3. COMMUNICATE IDEAS EFFECTIVELY WITH DIVERSE AUDIENCES, bridging geographic, linguistic, ideological, and cultural barriers.
4. TAKE ACTION TO IMPROVE CONDITIONS, viewing themselves as players in the world and participating reflectively.

Are you educating for global competency? How does your school do it?

Image credit: globalize-campus.com

Passion Reflection and Quotes about Passion

This week I have been meditating on the word PASSION. Eve Sawyer encourages us to "never underestimate the power of passion."

What's my passion?

Have I found my passion?

Do I endure life or enjoy it? Do I live for the weekend?

Do I love what I am doing?

What do I have loads of energy for? When I am doing something I am passionate about, an hour can feel like five minutes.

What makes me come alive?

I know my passion falls somewhere in the field of education. Where exactly, I feel I am still honing in on it. One thing I do know for sure is that I love working with students and teachers. I am energized when I am in classrooms and when collaborating with teachers.

---------------------------

Quotes about Passion

Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow. - Anthony J. D'Angelo 

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. - Confucius 

Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you. - Oprah Winfrey 

A person can succeed at almost anything for which they have unlimited enthusiasm. – Charles M. Schwab

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. – Albert Einstein

A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position. – John Maxwell

Fan the flame of passion with persistence. - Misty J. Russell

Are you a self-motivated learner?

During a session today with fellow school leaders we brainstormed several ways to measure whether a student is a motivated learner. Our discussion left me thinking, "What normally motivates our students to learn?"

• A and B grades?
• Parents?
• Cultural values?
• College acceptance?

How can we send our 12th grade students into the world as SELF-MOTIVATED learners? Learners who do not need carrots and sticks to motivate them.

In 2010 I had the privilege of spending three days with learning expert Dr. Jim Knight at the University of Kansas (KU). On Jim's blog, Radical Learners, he describes learning as "not just something we do as a means to an end; it is as central to living a healthy life as breathing, eating, and drinking. Learning is not what we do; learning is who we are."

Learning is not just a means to an end. We shouldn't only be motivated to learn because:

• Our grades depend on it,
• Our parents demand it, 
• Our culture values it, or
• Acceptance into a top college requires it.

We should pursue learning because we love it, and we need it to survive, to thrive. We pursue learning because we intrinsically believe learning and growing are good.

According to Jim Knight, learners:

• believe we are here on earth to learn, so they are turned on by every chance they get to discover something new
• use technology to learn, or to teach others (and because it’s cool)
• have mentors and mentor others
• infect everybody with their love of learning

As educators, we are in the learning business. Yes, we ask students to learn new knowledge and skills, but we must go deeper. How can we help students 'fall in love' with learning itself?

How does your school develop SELF-MOTIVATED learners?

Make it a great day or not, the choice is yours.

Wayne

We ain't Foxconn!

Source: EETimes.com

Here are excerpts from a new online article about my school, The SMIC Private School.

Name a semiconductor manufacturer that runs a school and a real estate business along with their foundry service. There’s only one--Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), based in Shanghai.

Founded in 2000, SMIC symbolizes China’s ambition to become a key player in the global semiconductor industry. SMIC also developed a template for successful recruitment of world-class talent, by building close to its headquarters a residential campus together with an award winning K-12 international school, which as of 2012 had an enrollment of more than 2,000 students.

You’ve probably heard of Foxconn’s dormitories in Shenzhen, jammed with young production line workers recruited from the countryside. Far less known is this semiconductor company–unusual in China or anywhere else in the world–that actually operates a school and provides family living quarters for workers and executives..

SMIC deserves credit for writing a textbook scenario on how to set up a successful operation in emerging markets. The key is the school.

The SMIC School, offering an English Track that runs on a U.S. curriculum, is known as one of the best schools in Shanghai--even better than the American School in Shanghai--by the expatriate community. On the theory that the best school needs the best teachers, the bilingual school recruits its teaching staff globally, including career educators from prep schools in the United States. 

A Harvard Business Review article in 2009 that examined SMIC’s strategy–including the SMIC School–pointed out that “graduates from the school had been admitted to top universities in the U.S., including many Ivy League schools. The school became a popular choice even for non-SMIC employees, which accounted for more than 60 percent of the student body.”

In short, this may be China, but it ain’t Foxconn. 

Read the full article here.

How Do Principals Really Improve Schools?

Image credit: washingtonpost.com

Source: ASCD 

The following excerpts resonated with me as an educational leader.

The key to improved student learning is to ensure more good teaching in more classrooms more of the time. The most powerful strategy for improving both teaching and learning, however, is not by micromanaging instruction but by creating the collaborative culture and collective responsibility of a professional learning community (PLC).

Research shows that educators in schools that have embraced PLCs are more likely to

• Take collective responsibility for student learning, help students achieve at higher levels, and express higher levels of professional satisfaction (Louis & Wahlstrom, 2011).
• Share teaching practices, make results transparent, engage in critical conversations about improving instruction, and institutionalize continual improvement (Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010).
• Improve student achievement and their professional practice at the same time that they promote shared leadership (Louis et al., 2010).
• Experience the most powerful and beneficial professional development (Little, 2006).
• Remain in the profession (Johnson & Kardos, 2007).

The effort to improve schools through tougher supervision and evaluation is doomed to fail because it asks the wrong question. The question isn't, How can I do a better job of monitoring teaching? but How can we collectively do a better job of monitoring student learning?

Today's schools don't need "instructional leaders" who attempt to ensure that teachers use the right moves. Instead, schools need learning leaders who create a schoolwide focus on learning both for students and the adults who serve them.

Read the entire article here.

Our D.O.G.S.

*** D.O.G.S. stands for Dads Of Great Students

Here is how we are increasing father involvement at our school...

• Our Dads take a day off work (Busy working Dads, general managers and partners in large firms, taking a day off work to spend at school with their kids).
• They arrive wearing their Watch D.O.G.S. uniform T-shirt.
• We slap on a DOG tag (Name badge).
• A photo is taken of them and their kids.
• We run through their daily schedule.
• Our D.O.G.S. help greet students as they arrive at school. High fives and hellos.
• They spend time in five different classrooms supporting teachers.
• Our Dads enjoy recess and lunch with their kids.
• They help supervise our middle and high school lunch periods.
• Our D.O.G.S. spend time in the Library reading with kids.
• They end the day by saying goodbye to our students.

Interested in starting Watch D.O.G.S. in your school? Talk to the good folks at Fathers.com. Click here to learn more.

What I try to live by at school