Category: Leadership
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Three Years
A personal post, three years into Covid-19 in China, and three years in this role. Some highs, some lows, some “I don’t knows” and some “where to gos?”. I wish I’d written more of this down along the way, but it has been intense, and there will be plenty forgotten.
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The Buoyant Force: L2 Talk & FOEN Workshop
This was a great challenge during the Learning2 Conference last week in Nanjing. It was my first time at the conference and I was looking for an experience that would push me and provide something to think about. I presented this short talk, and an extended session on Global Ignorance, Factfulness and Data-Informed Inquiry. You…
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Clear is Kind.
I love this post from Brené Brown, adapted from her book Dare to Lead: “Clear is Kind. Unclear is Unkind.” In leadership roles in spaces with many moving parts and challenges, I’ve learned that unnecessary ambiguity can lead to unnecessary conflict. As a coordinator we can often predict where some of these conflicts might arise.…
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Middle Leadership: The Sponge
A rough metaphor for leading from the middle, the Middle Leader Sponge often has to clean up spills and messes and absorb the stresses or worries of others so that they can go about their own job without passing on that stress. Sometimes an approach needs the soft side. At other times a little more…
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Wayfinders: Respecting The Journey
After a decade acting in coordination/leadership/HOD/coaching-type roles, I think one of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned – and want to encourage in others – is to respect the journey. This generates more questions in my head than most topics, as it is so nebulous and complex, yet so important. Where I like to think…
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Dodging Dolphins
Last week this gif was popular in the surf media: ……….o0O0o……….
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Tankyuu (探 究): A Quest for Teacher Professional Inquiry
One of our big projects over the last few years has been to shift the focus of professional learning and goal setting from competence in the programmes and practices into genuine teacher inquiry. As a lot of foundational work had been done in curriculum, assessment and differentiation practices; it was time build on this and…
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Book Recommendation: The SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education
Title: The SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education [SECOND EDITION] Editors: Mary Hayden – University of Bath, Jack Levy – George Mason University, Jeff Thompson – University of Bath Update Dec 2017: I fleshed this out into a full review for the Journal of Research in International Education. My first official journal publication, and available online ($$ or…
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Down the Rabbit Hole: Professional Learning for International Educators
Eyes-deep in reading for the MA dissertation, with 200 links in my Paperpile and counting, concurrently thinking about future professional learning at school, and following the threads of developing the IMaGE of a school, I keep stumbling across articles, books and papers that offer distractions from the work at hand. The result is a bent…
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Seven Reasons to be an #IBEN Site Visitor
A quick run-down of some of the benefits I’ve found in my first year or so in #IBEN as a school visitor.
Wayfinder Learning Lab - Stephen Taylor 