The heart of the problem: the necessity of upstream thinking in our schools

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Returning to Australia after nearly 20 years overseas, I am struck by the unrelenting focus on short-term gain as opposed to long-term strategy. In Australia we are experiencing the consequences of a focus on what Dan Heath (2020) refers to as “downstream thinking”. These consequences include a broken medical system, especially in regional Australia; a worrying teacher shortage in public education; soaring energy prices on the east coast of Australia as a result of a shortage that does not reflect production but the pursuit of profit by big business; and weather events indicative of a climate crisis.

Dan Heath (2020) in his book Upstream gets to the heart of what drives our short-term thinking and I think it is a must read for all leaders. It is incumbent on leaders in schools to model this way of thinking for the sake of our students now and into the future.

Upstream thinking is really quite a simple process and it makes sense. However, it takes incredible courage to embark on this path. Heath describes upstream efforts in the following way: “as those intended to prevent problems before they happen or, alternatively, to systematically reduce the harm caused by those problems.” (Heath, 6) He goes on to say that “a tell-tale sign of upstream work is that it involves systems thinking.” (7) Heath prefers the “word upstream to preventative and proactive because … you don’t head Upstream, as in a specific destination. You head Upstream as in a direction.” (7) In this sense, working upstream means that we focus on the process and a constant analysis of the problem to identify the optimal point of intervention. By contrast, downstream work, by its very nature, tends to be reactive: we see a problem and we deal with it. It is much more destination focused: I am working towards a specific solution that works at this point in time. Whereas upstream work involves both a close analysis of the immediate problem as well as a deeper look into the causes of the problem to get to the root of the issue within the system itself.

An example within education would be discipline in relation to work that is not completed by a student. The downstream work is the immediate consequence: a detention, the docking of marks for lateness or the refusal to mark the late work when it is submitted. Here the problem is the late submission of work and the downstream solution is to ensure an immediate punishment to deter the student, and others, from submitting late work again. It becomes about upholding standards and not letting students get away with missing deadlines.

An upstream approach might instead look like this: a student submits an assignment late (or not at all) so the teacher sets up a time to have a “prevention interview” with the student (source). This interview involves “listening with intention” so that the teacher can better understand the barriers the student was facing which may have led to the late/non submission. The interview begins with building rapport with the student and taking the time to get to know him/her/them beyond the subject outcomes and the assignment itself. The first half of the interview involves the teacher understanding when and where the student feels most successful, particularly with organisation and meeting deadlines. The goal is to ask the right questions that create safety, openness and deep reflection on the part of the student. The last part of the interview tackles the problem at hand: the non-submission of work. The time invested in relationship building and reflective prompts reap huge rewards as the student reflects on what didn’t work this time round. It could be that the student didn’t really understand the task or that the student has executive functioning challenges and so time management and prioritisation are a real struggle. It could be that at home things are hard and the student just found it difficult to have the time and space to focus.

In this scenario, the teacher might still need to follow school policy and not accept the late work, but the teacher can agree to reviewing the work that has been completed and giving feedback. More importantly, the teacher has a deeper understanding of this student and the problem itself so upstream work now become a possibility. The teacher can now work with this student – and a broader team of educators – to put upstream strategies in place to help the student tackle the challenges he/she/they are facing. It won’t be a quick fix – upstream work never is – but now the teacher is working alongside the student as an ally. It might be that the student needs interventions that help with time management or it might be that more flexibility is needed because of what is happening at home. With clear goals for learning and concrete strategies in place that get to the heart of the issue, the student can see a way forward and knows that the adults want to understand who they are and how they learn to help them fulfil their responsibilities as a learner.

Reading through that scenario, it all seems so simple and the outcomes are undeniably positive. So why is it that upstream work (getting the to the heart of the problem) is so hard? Why is is that as educators we often turn to the quick fix solutions (e.g. detention or deducting marks for late work)?

Heath (2020, 19) identifies the three barriers to upstream work:

  1. Problem blindness
  2. A Lack of Ownership
  3. Tunnelling

Problem blindness occurs when we have become so used to a problem that we no longer see it as one: it is an inevitable part of life. It involves perceiving the problem as ” a regrettable but inevitable condition of life” (29). If we return to the problem with the student who submits work late, in schools we often accept late submission of work as an inevitable condition of school life. We expect it will happen, put rules in place to deal with it when it happens, but don’t always invest the time in understanding why it is happening (for individuals and cohorts) and intervening in the system. As Heath says, “To succeed upstream, leaders must: detect the problem early, target leverage points in complex systems, find reliable ways to measure success, pioneer new ways of working together, and embed their successes in to systems to give them permanence.” (29)

A lack of ownership comes when nobody sees the problem as theirs to solve. In the example of late work, it might be that the teacher sees it as his/her/their responsibility to clearly communicate deadlines for work and the student’s responsibility to meet those deadlines. If the student is struggling to do so, then another teacher picks that up or the parents have to help their child get organised. Understanding the why is not the teacher’s role; clear communication about what is due is the role of the teacher as well as letting the parents know when a deadline is not met.

In this case, nobody is owning the work of understanding the student. Heath (41) writes that “upstream work is chosen, not demanded. … if the work is not chosen by someone, the underlying problem won’t get solved”. The immediate problem of late work demands a response from the teacher, which occurs as an email home and the docking of marks or the refusal to assess the work. The teacher has to make a conscious choice to work upstream with the student and if he/she/they don’t see this as their work, it won’t happen. The teacher might think: “this is not my problem to fix. I communicated the deadline, contacted the parents and my immediate line manager, so I have done my job”.

Problem blindness comes because we are habituated to the problem and accept it as inevitable. Lack of ownership occurs because we don’t feel empowered to solve the problem because we don’t see ourselves as part of the problem itself and having the skills to plot a way forward.

We move into tunnelling when our time, energy and resources are scarce. Tunnelling is adopting a narrow rather than expansive perspective and focusing on short-term, reactive thinking rather than longer-term strategic and systems thinking. When we are overwhelmed, we drown out the myriad of problems facing us and narrow in on those we can solve in the here and now. The problem with this as a pattern of behaviour is that we bounce from one problem to the next, looking only forward, and don’t take the time to breath and look beyond the immediate to longer-term, sustainable solutions.

In the case of late work, it might be that there is a reporting deadline around the corner for the teacher. There is no time to mark late work and write reports, let alone find time to do preventative interviews with students. It is all systems go towards the end of term and it is about survival! Tunnelling involves focusing on solving a discrete issue and not looking beyond the immediate problem.

The challenge with tunnelling is that the problem doesn’t go away. Next time a piece of assessment is due, the student might once again miss the deadline. The teacher will once again enforce the rules, inform the parents and the cycle continues. The bigger issue remains and intensifies. The teacher is now not certain if the student has a sound grasp of the key concepts and skills. The student is falling behind and not learning. Gaps could emerge in the students core skills, and frustrations will arise on all sides. The problem just gets bigger and bigger.

Tunnelling is a systemic problem in schools. As Heath writes, “escaping the tunnel can be difficult, because organisational structure resists it.” (63) In schools we are often driven by cycles of accountability in terms of reporting on results and completing standardised tests. We encourage a laser like focus on “getting good results” and less on the time it takes to build relationships with students and have the conversations that matter (such as prevention interviews). If we are constantly looking ahead to ensuring our students get the best NAPLAN, HSC or IB results “we never stop to ask whether we are going in the right direction.” (Heath, 63)

The antidote to these barriers to Upstream Thinking? It is really quite simple and involves us asking ourselves the right questions:

  • How will we bring the right people together and build a shared sense of purpose? In essence “To succeed in upstream efforts, you need to surround the problem. Meaning you need to attract people who can address all the key dimensions of the issue. …. then you need to organise all those people’s efforts. And you need an aim that’s compelling and important – a shared goal that keeps them contributing even in stressful situations…” (82) To get this group moving upstream, we need to ensure they are asking the right questions and engaging with the right data. This is data focused on what is happening upstream, not short-term downstream data. Interrogating the data and using it to evaluate the progress of the team becomes part of the meaningful collaboration the team needs to do to drive upstream work. To return to the student referenced above, this means a multidisciplinary team seeking to understand the student holistically and working with carers/parents to build a complete picture of what is happening at an individual level. It also means looking at what is happening across the grade level and interrogating the systems itself (the policies, practices and procedures) to ensure they are fit for purpose and centring student learning and agency, not just meeting a pragmatic need to provide student achievement data for reports.
  • How will we change the system? Heath writes that “every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets”(100). Upstream efforts are ultimately about changing the system. If we go back to the student and the late assessment issue, the system is all the structures around the student, including the school’s approach to late assessment as well as the student’s home life which may (or may not) be contributing to the student’s struggle to meet deadlines.
  • How will we get early warning of the problem? This is an obvious one: we need to know when an upstream issue is emerging before it becomes a major issue. This is where downstream problems are helpful – they can be early warning indicators. But we need to see the problem sooner than an assessment being submitted late. What are the early warning indictors for a teachers that a student won’t meet the deadline and what interventions can be put in place early on to prevent the problem from emerging in the first place? This circles back to changes in the system. It might be that the system itself is flawed and doesn’t enable those early interventions and so the cycle of downstream effort continues because the system itself is perpetuating the problem. Hence, the student continues to submit late work and a punitive approach to late assessment continues to be enforced. There is a learned helplessness that the teacher experiences as this point because the system is not supporting sustained and meaningful change.
  • How will we know we are succeeding? What will be our indicators of success? To know we have succeeded we have to be using the right data and that multidisciplinary team is key to defining what this data might look like. Solutions to upstream problems are complex and so “the solutions are systemic not personal” (Heath, 109). As a result, “success happens when the right things happen by default – not because of individual passion or heroism”. This means that the evidence of success needs to be equally complex, systemic in nature and multidimensional. For instance, if we only use standardised testing to determine that student-based interventions are working, we’ll invite downstream thinking and solutions. It takes courage to have indicators of success that are not easily quantifiable.
  • How will we avoid doing harm? This is key and involves reflecting on upstream interventions that have been been tried before, piloting ideas and generating effective feedback loops and then being agile enough to change and shift direction. Upstream work requires humility because of its complexity, the lack of immediate and tangible results in the short-term, and because there are always unintended consequences. The latter exists for downstream work as well of course, and the key to focusing upstream is anticipating issues and having the courage to apply early interventions to re-direct the change process itself if the success we intend is not happening. This will help minimise any potential harm.
  • How will we pay for what does not happen? This is crucial because to focus on upstream work we have to put aside some reactive, downstream work that can feel urgent. Asking for money for upstream work can be tricky because the benefits are not always apparent. Downstream work, by contrast, can see immediate benefits. A different school example could be asking for professional learning money to send staff on an IB Diploma training course so they understand the assessment task better. For most leaders in IB schools this is a “no brainer” because if a teacher doesn’t understand the IB assessment task, the risk is immediate and high. By contrast, as educational leaders we will equivocate about sending a group of middle level leaders on a training course about upstream thinking in schools. We know it will generate great ideas, but little in the way of immediate change. Instead it might well lead to difficult systemic questions and requests for more time release to do upstream work! In schools we need to be ready to make this investment if we want deep, systemic change that will transform the experience of our students.

One reason we find it so hard to live in the space of upstream thinking is because it takes time and the results are not immediate or always tangible. As human beings we have learnt to be results and short-term focused – technology and most especially social media exacerbates this. Therefore we need to deliberately and systematically slow down our thinking, ask the questions that need to be asked, seek out allies in our upstream journey, and create the time and space (physical, psychological and emotional) to focus upstream in our organisations. We also need to empower our allies on the journey and give them the time they need to make the interventions that will matter now and into the future, such as prevention interviews. To paraphrase Greta Thunberg, we need to stop stealing the dreams and childhoods of the young people we serve with our “empty words” and instead model upstream thinking and action.

Works Cited:
Benson, J. 2021. “Prevention interviews: Listening with Intention“. https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/prevention-interviews-listening-with-intention

Heath, D. 2020. Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before they Happen. New York: Avid Reader.

Thunberg, G. 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit

The responsibility of white leaders to agitate for change

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One of our key areas of focus over the last year has been Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice (DEIJ). The death of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked dialogue across international schools about anti-racism and led to an interrogation of the colonial origins of the international school movement. The Council of International Schools (an organisation with which we are accredited) moved quickly to rewrite their standards in order to hold international schools to account for placing DEIJ frameworks at the centre of their structures, systems and ways of working.

Schools such as ours created a DEI task force with a specific focus on anti-racism; embarked on professional learning for staff; and opened up spaces for dialogue. As a high school we linked much of our work to mental health and wellbeing and through our climate survey determined a clear roadmap for next steps in collaboration with students.

However, now it is September 2021 and we are approaching the two-year mark of a pandemic which continues to consume much of our emotional and cognitive energy. While COVID is taking much of our energy, I believe it is important we maintain a sense of urgency around our work in the space of DEIJ. Unfortunately it took the death of a black man to spark a global “call to action” around antiracism. We need to hold onto that urgency and not just in relation to race, but across all elements of our commitment to inclusion, equity and justice. Our students need to know that all of their identities have a place within our schools and all of their voices are equally valued.

​In reflecting on my position of privilege as a white leader in an extraordinary international school, I know I have an immense responsibility to all of our community to maintain that sense of urgency. I also have the responsibility to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable”. I need to be willing to 

  • invite diverse and dissident voices into spaces of dialogue; 
  • sit with those voices while recognising the privileged position I occupy; 
  • elevate those voices so that others truly listen; and
  • advocate and agitate for change. 

All of this is crucial because education is “a major force in establishing who we were, who we are, and who we continue to become along our identity journey” (see the wonderful work of Daniel Wickner on Identity Centered Learning). We know that our students need to feel secure in themselves as they move through school so that they can make decisions about what they want to do beyond school. We also know that schools need to be spaces where students can explore different identities.

Why am I writing about this now? Because the work is urgent and because we all need to play a role in bringing DEIJ into our lives as adults so that the young people we work with have the safety and security to discover who they are and who they want to be. As parents and educators this means letting go a little, sitting alongside our young people (just being with them and not judging or valuing one identity over another), championing their voices and advocating for them when we need to.

Compassionate Action: “What the World Needs Now”

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How to make compassion thrive | TED Talks

I have spent much of the past academic year (2020-21 in northern hemisphere terms) reflecting on the role compassion plays in schools. Most particularly as we grapple with what it means to pursue justice through equitable policies, practices and procedures. The year began with tough questions about privilege and entitlement across international schools and the colonial origins of many well-established international schools such as our own. Alumni called for a reckoning, an awakening almost, within international schools around racial and cultural imperialism. Stories were told, voices rose from decades of silence, and the call to action was impossible to ignore. 

The school I work for established an anti-racism taskforce that crossed both campuses (you can read about our work on anti-racism over the last year here). We were emboldened by the call to action and sought to hear the voices of our current and past students and staff. A year ago the work was hard, the stories difficult to listen to, and the impulse to defend “our” much-loved school was never far from our thinking. At times defensiveness crept into the words and actions of staff and students. I know I started the year worried about our community becoming polarised and that the notion of being more (or less) “woke” would become a talisman determining the worth of different voices and stories. 

As the year progressed, and we listened more and more, and undertook our own training as a leadership team, my worry lessened. I could see how personal and institutional responses could be linked to cycles of grief (it is hard to have one’s assumptions, biases and vision of a school challenged) and that we were resilient enough as a community to move through these stages and towards reconciliation and healing. 

Reconciliation and healing are on the horizon, but we are not there yet. You could say we are not there because it is a journey that never ends. Absolutely; the pursuit of justice and equity must never stop, ever. However, another reason we are not there is because there is much we need to do (as I think most schools do) around teaching compassionate thought and action and making them central to the work that we do. 

In a previous blog post I wrote about the need to teach our students to think slowly and to build their resilience for reading longer, more complex texts than the average Instagram feed provides. Aligned to this is the need to help young people develop the skills and attributes to be compassionate individuals who help build compassionate communities and societies. Paul Gilbert provides a clear guide for how we can develop self-compassion and then extend this beyond ourselves to cultivate the ways of thinking and being that lead to compassionate action. He writes about the archetypes that drive us, that we have to understand and be at peace with, in order to make a decision to act differently. It is worth taking a bit more time to understand compassion from this perspective: “…compassion has been closely linked to happiness, but I believe that compassion is far more than that. A compassionate mind actually takes you on a journey deep into your evolved being – down into the building blocks of your brain and the genes that built it.” (Gilbert 473) By understanding the “archetypes and social mentalities” driving much of how we think and behave, we can then know what to anticipate in ourselves, recognise these impulses and behaviours in ourselves and others, and act with compassion and care while deliberately feeding and nourishing our compassionate minds. 

Gilbert believes, as do I, that cultivating compassion is an essential ingredient to creating a more sustainable and peaceful world. The attributes and skills needed to be compassionate involve a motivation to care, the ability to think compassionately about others and to reflect on the impact of our thoughts, words and actions. Then comes behaviour that is “generous, dedicated, helpful but not submissive.” Ultimately we can engage in compassionate thought and action “by learning to be appreciative and valuing, and forgiving and understanding.” (Gilbert 496)

To do this “[w]e need to stand back and think through the compassionate options in any situation, giving ourselves space enough for thought and discussion as we try to avoid being overly persuaded by our emotional reactions, no matter how intense they are.” (Gilbert 473) All the more reason to teach our students to slow down, to take the time to read deeply and to not always seek out what speaks to them immediately. Likewise, it involves listening deeply and knowing ourselves well enough to recognise when our own predictions and biases are impacting our capacity to genuinely listen and hear voices different to our own. 

Reni Eddo-Lodge in Why I am No Longer Talking to White People about Race writes that “structures…are made out of people. When we talk about structural racism, we are talking about the intensification of personal prejudices, of groupthink.” (Eddo-Lodge 222) Eddo-Lodge’s book is a call to action, a call to be angry not feel ashamed or guilty as white people (Eddo-Lodge 221). Eddo-Lodge talks about anger as “useful” and leading to (ideally) “white advocacy for anti-racist casuse in all-white spaces.” (Eddo-Lodge 215) Quite rightly, Eddo-Lodge disavows us of the notion that meritocracy will save the day because it won’t (Eddo-Lodge 79). Structural racism or sexism is built into the system and merit has no impact until systemic issues are addressed.

Cultivating a compassionate mind involves knowing when to be angry (a kind of righteous anger) and how to channel that anger in ways that will lead to compassionate action so we can dismantle and rebuild the system. It also involves knowing when to set aside anger to listen. Ultimately it involves recognising our shared humanity and connection and the need to intentionally build compassionate communities. It does not involve being submissive, as Gilbert says, but rather identifying and seeking to address injustice and cultivating a desire to heal and create a better world. Being compassionate involves allowing different perspectives to sit in a space between so that polarities of thought and action do not become the norm. It may also involve moving beyond labels – of being more or less “woke” for instance – to instead engaging in dialogue one person and one group at a time. In this sense it involves putting aside judgement but having the courage to name actions and words that do not embody compassion. Compassion comes from a motivation to care and a desire to engage in kindness and to be brave so that we create a better world and bring others on the journey with us. 

This is the challenge as we continue down the path of seeking justice for all marginalised communities in international schools. We have to create safe spaces for those marginalised voices to emerge, be heard and meaningful change to be created in partnership. In doing so we have to have the courage to challenge the status quo, biases and assumptions driving systemic inequities. As leaders in power, we have to use our power to advocate for change from within the places of privilege we occupy (whether they are all white spaces, or all heterosexual spaces, or all male spaces).

While we have as an international school made incredible inroads with opening up the conversation about equity and justice. There is much to be done. And as we look ahead, focusing on how we engage in this work from the place of a compassionate mind will determine the extent of systemic change and how enduring it will be. Only if we move as a community – rather than from two polarised positions – will change endure. If as a community we move together the progress may be slower but the rewards far-reaching because we will have decided to deliberately cultivate compassion as our way of being and doing. As Paul Gilbert says: “Each and every one of us can get involved in our workplaces and as consumers to demand kindness and ethical practice.” (Gilbert 504)

Looking ahead to 2021-22, I hope this becomes the modus operandi for all of us.

Works cited:

Endo-Lodge, Renni. Why I am No Longer Talking to White People About Race. Bloomsbury, 2018.
Gilbert, Paul.

Gilbert, Paul. The Compassionate Mind. Robinson. 2013

Thinking slowly and mindfully

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The last message I sent to our parents at the end of the 2020-21 academic year was about supporting students in thinking more slowly and deeply. It was about struggling through complex ideas and avoiding “quick fix” solutions and problematic generalisations. 

The message emerged as a result of a conversation with a group of students earlier in the week where I was struck by their willingness to accept opinion as fact, and their selective use of the critical thinking skills we pride ourselves on helping them develop. It also emerged from multiple conversations with staff who lamented the inability of students to grapple with complex texts and labour through research in order to develop well-reasoned arguments. The message is below.

Dear Parents

The end of 2021-22 is upon us and what a strange end it has been! After a year of predominantly face-to-face learning, we lurched back into home based learning. While it was a familiar mode for us, it was not how we imagined ending our year. However, once again I was struck by the resilience and adaptability of our students and staff. We did that pivot to HBL, then back to face-to-face classes, seamlessly, and, at the same time, we managed to do all of our exams, prepare end of year reports, support Grade 11s with their internal assessments and say goodbye to leaving students and staff!

I find the end of a school year is a great time to reflect and look ahead to the goals we need to set ourselves as a community. One of my key reflections this year, based on recent conversations with students and staff, is about the power and danger of social media and how crucial it is to teach our students to be critical producers and consumers of knowledge. As we look ahead to 2021-22, we need to set a goal for ourselves to always challenge our students/children to think more slowly and mindfully. We need to challenge them not to rush to conclusions, judgements and solutions but to instead take the time to listen, understand and pursue different perspectives. I say this because as teachers we see that a number of students are struggling to read complex academic articles or look at an issue from different perspectives. Our students are used to reading for pleasure and reading short social media and blog posts that they don’t need to work hard to understand. They are, if we are not careful as parents and teachers, losing the ability to patiently sit with a more complex piece of writing and labour through it to try to understand the complexity of what the writer is expressing. I worry that our students are less comfortable with complexity and ambiguity – the idea that two perspectives can sit side by side with neither being wrong – and more and more comfortable with the simple, quick solutions and opinions communicated in a 140 word post on Twitter, Instagram or elsewhere. 

What role do we all have in helping young people slow their thinking and be comfortable with the “uncomfortableness” that comes with seeking to understand a complex idea?

I teach TOK and the goal of that course is to ensure students can think critically and understand that our opinions (and those of others) are shaped by our biases. In an age of social media and the proliferation of blogs on any number of topics, I hear students accept as truth the opinions of others. A sweeping generalisation on instagram becomes “the truth”, as does a thought-provoking piece on Medium that represents a well-argued opinion piece. In TOK we want students to argue one claim and then pivot and argue a counter-claim because this develops critical thinking and enables an exploration of the way knowledge is constructed. There is a reason we value logic and reason as dominant modes of learning in schools; they require students to use evidence that is reliable and valid and explore alternative perspectives to test the strength of their ideas. Other ways of knowing are equally valid – emotion, intuition, imagination – but need to be balanced by our ability to step back, take stock of a situation, look at all available variables and make informed decisions. 

Next year we will share with parents courses that are being developed in Grades 9 and 10 to sit alongside our IGCSE courses. They won’t be ready for current High School students, but certainly for future students. These courses are designed to support deep, critical thinking and the development of attributes to support mission-aligned learning. As I reflect on what our students need in the future, it becomes all the more imperative that we help them see beyond exams, grades and the goal of university entrance. They need to see themselves as having a responsibility to slow their own thinking, read deeply, struggle with ideas and move away from assuming opinion as truth. 

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer, recently wrote:

When you are a public figure, people will write and say false things about you. It comes with the territory. Many of those things you brush aside. Many you ignore. The people close to you advise you that silence is best. And it often is. Sometimes, though, silence makes a lie begin to take on the shimmer of truth. 

In this age of social media, where a story travels the world in minutes, silence sometimes means that other people can hijack your story and soon, their false version becomes the defining story about you.

Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it, as Jonathan Swift wrote.

source

How powerful is that perspective? (And yes it is one perspective!) Looking to 2021-22 we have a responsibility to help the young people we parent and teach to question the stories that travel the world in minutes and look for the silences between the telling of the story and the lived experience. We need to help them slow their thinking in order to pursue deep understanding rather than stopping at a surface opinion. 

Over the holidays, I encourage you to read with your children, debate ideas with your children, and engage with them on social media so you can help to question their assumptions and the logical fallacies informing their thinking. It is hard but important work and it will help your children become the thinkers that can change the world.

A time to reflect: one year on with COVID

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I wrote this message to our parents today and it is hard to believe that we are one year on from the heart of our crisis here in Singapore. Taking a moment to reflect and express gratitude, but also to challenge any emerging complacency, can only give us the energy to continue to move forward and to feel hope.

It is hard to believe that we have only one more week left of Term 2 and 16 school days left for our Grade 12 students. This time last year we were in the throes of COVID. It was emerging as a global pandemic and we were faced with incredible uncertainty. Some countries were in denial but Singapore, having learnt from SARS, was seeking to respond quickly to keep everyone safe. Safe distancing measures were not yet part of our vocabulary but we were grappling with how to run Rock Show and Dance Showcase safely (two signature events in our High School that are produced and directed by students). We didn’t know whether we could have the Grade 12 final assembly after the April break or if the traditional leaver’s song (sung by our youngest students as a tribute to our graduating class) would happen. It was at the end of March 2020 that we learnt IB exams were cancelled, then IGCSE, and the Singaporean circuit breaker (or lockdown) began at the start of April. With this came the end of a face-to-face graduation ceremony and our teachers mobilised to create new courses for our Grade 10 students in Term 3 and optional courses for our Grade 12s in lieu of exams. 

Of course the Dance Showcase couldn’t go ahead in the end but we managed to squeeze in a few rock show sets prior to our circuit breaker. And the Leavers Song did happen in what was one of the most touching moments of my educational career.

This time last year is etched in my memory. It was hard and it was frightening. Our parent, staff and student messages were centered on how to cope with uncertainty and grief at all that was lost. The only real comfort we had was the sense that Singapore was ahead of the game in its response and that we were “in it together”. 

March 2021 is different. We are still living through a pandemic and Singapore is still ahead of the game in its response and planning. The vaccination programme has started and our biggest challenges are the absence of travel opportunities, the wearing of masks and the requirement to still only have eight in your social bubble. Our students have been on campus since August – this is not the case in many international schools – and they are thriving. 

Perhaps the greatest symbol of how far we have come is that the Rock Show is happening tonight and next week we have our Dance Showcase! These are signature events for us in the High School and symbols of hope for the re-emergence of a “sort of” normality. We have had to apply to do both events and our audience capacity is greatly restricted (and at Rock Show there is no standing or dancing). Modifying these two events has been worth it as a way of giving students the opportunity to showcase their talents. Likewise, although it is still 4 a side, our sports teams are beginning to compete with other schools. Football was washed out this week but it doesn’t matter. Our sports people are again having the chance to play competitively. 

As you approach this weekend and the upcoming break, take a moment as a family to reflect on this time last year and how far we have come. Our natural human tendency sometimes is to focus on what we don’t have. Over the coming weeks I am focusing on what we do have: an extraordinary community that is resilient, a school that is open, and students and staff who are able to work with safe distancing measures to create awesome events, play sports and raise awareness of communities less fortunate than ourselves. 

I will also add a word of caution for all of us: we have pandemic fatigue and most certainly mask wearing and safe distancing fatigue. I can see that amongst our students and we all need to remind them (and ourselves) that we are not out of the woods as yet. We need to honour the rules here in Singapore, including those around travel, and be a little more patient. The end is in sight, but not quite here yet.

Anti-racism: moving beyond polarities of thought

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One of my first blog posts was about moving beyond binary thinking. This involved embracing “and” and doing away with “but” and growing more comfortable with ambiguity. At the time I was linking this to general approaches in education; the polarised thinking that often locks us into advocating, vociferously, for one way of doing things over another in relation to assessment and curriculum content. 

Over the last six months my thinking is once again returning to this concept and to our capacity within schools to manage – and lead the way through – polarities of thinking so we can find a middle ground on which to move forward. One that is marked by a willingness to listen, active and meaningful dialogue, a letting go of entrenched thinking and a desire to learn and grow from perspectives different from our own.

As 2020 closes it is the narratives that are emerging within the space of race, equity, diversity and justice that for me necessitate a re-engagement with polarity thinking and in particular our capacity to find a space between polarised perspectives.

I work in a world class international school with an aspiring mission and practices to match. It is a school where student voice is highly valued, especially in holding us accountable to living our mission and values (we could do more to build voice, choice, agency and autonomy into curriculum for students, but that is another topic). Since June when George Floyd’s death sparked an outcry over racist practices across the globe, there has been, quite rightly, a reaction against the white colonial premise of international schooling. We have to challenge the notion of an elite class of global citizens and schools that can reinforce (albeit unintentionally) the other by seeking to rescue this other through service learning or simply by standing as bastions of white, middle class privilege in impoverished landscapes.  

It is right to question this and the fact that international schools have been predicated on a western philosophy of education and staffed by predominantly western educated teachers. It is also important to question this within the scope of child protection and safeguarding as many of these schools have functioned in the past with incredible autonomy and outside of some of the regulatory frameworks that protect our most vulnerable students.

Over the last few months, I have witnessed the anger amongst alum across international schools who have been disenfranchised in their schools and who have had racist, sexist and homophobic experiences in these schools. Our own campus has weathered a similar sense of outrage by alum through a well-organised social media campaign aimed at calling out the school and driving change. It has been painful but it is worth celebrating this call to action and the discovery of stories that leave us feeling ashamed of this aspect of our history as a College. I have had students express anger that we have not taught them about their own white privilege and fragility. These students feel guilty for who they are; but I don’t want guilt to be the driving force for a generation of students. I don’t want any students to feel ashamed for who they are as people. We have to acknowledge our positions of power and privilege and at the same time to be able to move forward as communities of learners to address injustices together and heal together. This means being aware of emerging polarities of thinking and pausing to listen, learn and map a path forward together.

Looking ahead, we need to continue to discover the untold stories but also ask ourselves these questions: How might things be different or similar now? What type of evidence are we drawing on? What is the best way to move forward that invites dialogue, understanding and community-building rather than blame and shame? As a school we pride ourselves on helping students be critical and engaged thinkers who can pursue a compelling mission by seeking to understand first before condemning. The challenge is going to be how we ask these questions, foster critical thinking and navigate the accusations of defensiveness that are likely to arise as we seek to show what is different now and what we still need to work on still.

Ibram X Kendi’s How to be an Anti-racist (2019) makes it clear that we are all potentially racist. Each time we enact bigotry, disenfranchise or silence another, refuse to engage and listen, we are playing out a racist agenda. Becoming more aware is key, listening is key, and engagement is key to breaking the cycle. We have to challenge the invitation to engage in polarised thinking as this is key to being an antiracist. Engaging in anti-racist dialogue means drawing on global and national narratives around race (for example much of what has emerged from the states) but also recognising and embracing the complexities of the local contexts in which we work. Otherwise we reproduce a kind of “thought colonialism” which disavows the particularities of context and a reductionism that is worrying. This allows a recognition of the global, national and local histories of race and how problematic they are and an understanding that our identities are a complex reflection of who we are, where we are and how we choose to live our lives.

Hope as an antidote in unsettling times

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Below is a piece I shared with our High School parents in early November during the US elections. As I reflect on the start of 2021, I am reminded that “unity in diversity” is going to be key as we navigate the ongoing challenges of COVID, the complexity of race dynamics in international schools and a world that feels very much divided and dominated by parochialism.

This week has been dominated by the US elections. Yesterday I listened to a group of primary school students walking past my office chanting “Let’s go Biden let’s go!”. Then I heard another young student shouting: “I’m not a Trump supporter! I’m not! I’m not!”. In this exchange what struck me was not the political affiliations of our youngest students but the way in which one student was feeling excluded and felt unable to share an alternative perspective. This is one of the challenges we face at this point in time when opinions are so polarised. Regardless of what we believe politically, how do we engage in dialogue together to understand perspectives? We don’t need to agree with each other, but we do need safe spaces for everyone to engage in kind, respectful and compassionate dialogue together.

On Tuesday 3rd November I listened to the Young Aurora Award presentations. Once the presentations were completed, there was a panel discussion centring on the question of how to ensure humanitarianism was a driving force in education for everyone. My reflections on this question were that, if we want education to be a force for change in the world, and most especially for peace to permeate every corner of our lives, then we have to focus on how we engage in dialogue, how we structure our conversations, how we listen, and how we use language. This is so critical at a time when the media, and our social media feeds, communicate polarising and emotive opinions. 

To ensure we pursue a humanitarian agenda in schools, we also need to slow our thinking and check our assumptions.  We also need to tell stories that cultivate a sense of optimism and hope about humanity. Rutger Bregman in Humankind: A Hopeful History aims to do just this. Bregman encourages us to think critically, step back from the sensationalist news stories and social media feeds that dominate our lives, and instead remember that “people are deeply inclined to be good to one another” (p. 397). I wonder, most especially when the US elections are dominating our conversations, are we telling hopeful stories and as adults are we helping young people slow their thinking and actively listen to those that think differently to ourselves? To understand why people turn to ideas that are different to our own, we need to take time to listen and understand, and we need to take the time to read and engage with well-researched and informed texts. This quote from Bregman’s books reminds us to consider which ‘wolf” we are feeding through the stories we consume:

“An old man says to his grandson: ‘There’s a fight going on inside me. It’s a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil–angry, greedy, jealous, arrogant, and cowardly. The other is good–peaceful, loving, modest, generous, honest, and trustworthy. These two wolves are also fighting within you, and inside every other person too.’ After a moment, the boy asks, ‘Which wolf will win?’ The old man smiles. ‘The one you feed.’” (p.3)

I can’t help but think that the way to help our students navigate the divisive nature of the world at the moment (we just have to look to countries such as France, Ethiopia and America over the last week) we need to model for them slow thinking. We need to take the time for meaningful dialogue to occur so we can really, truly listen and we need to cultivate a sense of hope.  It is through this that we build a united community where diversity in all its forms are valued and where we create safe spaces for everyone.

Works Cited
Bregman, R. Humankind: A Hopeful History. Bloomsbury: UK, 2020.

Taking action to create anti-racist culture and behaviour in international schools

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We’ve got so much awareness. We’re sick of talking about it. This is not a ribbing, it’s not a colour, it’s not a hashtag. Just think: how many women and children this year had to face the last moment of their lives? That terror. … How can I not do something? (Nicole Lee, survivor-turned-campaigner, cited in Jess Hill, See What You Made Me Do? p. 227)

On 19th February 2020 Hannah Clarke and her three children were killed by her estranged husband and the children’s father, Rowan Baxter. After killing them, by dousing them with petrol and burning them alive in a car, he then killed himself on the footpath. This happened in my old stopping ground, Brisbane, in broad daylight in the suburb of Camp Hill. The deaths sparked outrage across Australia and shock that this could happen. Rowan Baxter was a former Warriors rugby player, owned a gym and was a well-known fitness coach. The tragedy placed domestic violence (DV) back on the national agenda and made “coercive control” almost a household word. As you can see in the ABC news link above, it instigated campaigns in Australia by police departments and governments to publish the DV numbers, and media outlets began pointing victims and perpetrators to helplines.

The saddest part about this tragedy, though, was that it could have been prevented: the signs of coercive control were present before and after Hannah left her husband. 

Coercive controllers don’t just abuse their partners to hurt, humiliate or punish them. They don’t just use violence to seize power in the moment or gain the advantage in a fight. Instead they use particular techniques – isolation, gaslighting, surveillance – to strip their victim of their liberty, and take away their sense of self. … It is a strategic campaign of abuse held together by fear. Hill, See What You Made Me Do?, p. 21

On 25th May 2020 George Floyd’s horrific death was captured by witnesses on their phones. A Minneapolis police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck and refused to release the pressure even as Floyd repeated that he could not breath and witnesses pleaded for the police officer to stop and others to intervene. Like Hannah Clark, George Floyd was killed in broad daylight and it shocked the world.

Rowan Baxter was a successful middle class male who posted videos on facebook of “rough housing” with his children in a manner that few felt comfortable with, but nobody challenged until after his death. Derek Chauvin, the police officer who kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck, was one in a long line of police officers who have used excessive violence when dealing with black Americans. Racial profiling and a racially motivated response by police officers in America is all too common. Like DV, it is “a strategic campaign of abuse held together by fear.”

These two tragic events happened thousands of kilometers apart, but only three months separated them. Both events mobilised movements, advocacy groups, politicians, schools, universities, police, legal institutions and communities around a shared outrage and desire for justice and change.  Both events have also had deep implications for education because they are about challenging institutionalised, systemic violence whether this be physical or through “a strategic campaign of abuse held together by fear”. They necessitate changing attitudes, cultural norms and the language we use to describe behaviours, as well as engaging with the ways in which the status quo upholds systems of power and privilege. Both events led to a fight for justice and change in the way in which police and the legal systems work, and they brought to the surface what we seek to deny or pretend is not happening.

Above all, they represent a call to action for our schools as we seek to ensure generations of students work against systemic violence and that our schools are free of abuse and fear (whether explicit or implicit). As a leader in international schools this is all the more important because power and privilege mark the history of international education. And, if we are going to bring to the fore the impact of these systems of power and privilege, we absolutely must engage in “persistent self-awareness, constant self-criticism, and regular self-examination.” (Ibram X Kendi, How to be an anti-racist, p. 23).

Nunana Nyomi’s blog post outlining the racist underpinnings of international education is confronting, compelling and disturbing. It also invites us as white leaders in schools to engage with our own racist assumptions and practices. Nyomi reflects at the end of his blog post that like many in international education

I have not done enough to push for an anti-racist agenda. At times, I have been comfortable justifying to myself that I am doing my part to further the cause of global citizenship despite this system being built largely for the world’s elite. Recent events have reminded me that the cost of remaining silent is too high when working in an industry that shapes the education of so many young minds. Anti-racism has the potential to revolutionise our approach to staff recruitment, pedagogy, and racial inequity. Therefore, it is time for international education to strengthen its mission by adopting anti-racism as a central guiding principle in order to bring about meaningful change.

Reading Nyomi’s blogpost led me to listen to a conversation between Jane Larsson (Executive Director of the Council of International Schools) and Nyomi. The conversation began with both Nyomi and Larsson sharing their initial responses to George Floyd’s death and the protests in the States. In their dialogue, Larsson acknowledges that CIS’s pursuit of global citizenship has failed to tackle racism and to champion anti-racism.  At the end of their conversation, Larsson and Nyomi express gratitude. Larsson begins with thanking Nyomi for speaking his truth and engaging in this type of dialogue. Nyomi in turn thanks Larsson for being open, seeking change and creating space for the dialogue. 

Nyomi’s gratitude made me uncomfortable and reminded me of the thanks I received when I met with two groups of alumni in June about their experience (and that of others) of racism and discrimination in the school. Nyomi and the students I met with exhibited a degree of humility in their expression of gratitude. They were grateful that they were listened to and that the conversation was starting.  Showing gratitude is an act of courtesy. However, I hope we can get to a place where expressing gratitude that someone listened and was willing to take action against discrimination and racism is to be expected not something to be grateful for. After all it is the right of every person of colour to feel safe, secure, valued and heard; and to have access to the same opportunities and potential outcomes as any white person. Just as it is the right of every woman to feel safe in their most intimate relationships. 

Jess Hill’s recommendations of what we need to do in Australia to address the crisis of domestic violence also provides a roadmap for how we can move forward on an anti-racist agenda. Drawing on Hill’s work, in schools we need to continue with advocacy; actively listening but not speaking for the victims of racism and violence; using our power and influence to stand up for and seek out the resources needed to generate change; and empowering local communities/groups within our schools to define solutions that work in our contexts. Hill advocates for not doing “to” or “for” a community, or applying “my” solution or a one size fits all approach. Instead she advocates for keeping in mind the aboriginal concept of Dadirri:

Dadirri is inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness… We have learned to speak the white man’s language. We have listened to what he had to say. This learning and listening should go both ways. We would like people in Australia to take time to listen to us. We are hoping people will come closer. We keep on longing for the things we have hoped for – respect and understanding. (Jess Hill, p. 297)

Institutionalised and systemic violence and racism is complex and requires attitudinal and cultural change; a fundamental shift in values. However, as I reflect on how best to support our community with conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion, I am struck by Hill’s account of where the Australian Government’s campaign against DV has gone wrong. Its focus on gender equity has come at the expense of clear, definable targets against which to measure change. Hill notes that gender equity is a generational project – it takes time – and women are dying and living in fear now. A disproportionate number of these are first nations women who are living in isolated, under resourced communities with low rates of literacy, and who are dealing with intergenerational trauma resulting from Australia’s violent, colonial history. These women need help now and the help needs to be localised and contextually-responsive.

Similarly, racism needs to stop and we need to respond in ways that reflect the nature of our international school communities to maximise impact and create sustained change.  Changes in attitudes are ultimately hard to measure and they don’t always provide evidence of behaviour change or enable one to address immediate issues of safety. Our challenge will be, like for DV in Australia, to identify clear and measurable goals against which to measure our progress. This will enable both incremental change while also working towards cultural and attitudinal change. If we focus only in the long-term then we struggle to address the safety and wellbeing of individuals who are at risk now.

Jess Hill’s account of meaningful and sustained change in domestic violence rates in communities identifies these key elements to their success:

  • A shared purpose with the goal to protect victims from further harm and to consult them throughout the process of intervention. This guides decisions and actions. Equally, the goal is reform in the perpetrator by drawing on influencers within the community; and providing structural and system support aimed at changing behaviour and ensuring a high level of accountability. The latter includes clear consequences that act as a deterrent and signal that the community will not accept the behaviour.
  • A high degree of community collaboration where, in the case of DV, health professionals, advocacy groups, social services/child protection, the police and those in power work together and meet regularly to review progress in relation to clearly stated targets. The problem is treated as a number 1 priority for these groups and new structures for collaboration across these groups emerge from the shared purpose and goals.
  • Clear and tangible targets that help measure progress towards change. 

How does this translate to international schools? What might it look like for those of us leading these schools where power and privilege are inherent in the school’s DNA? Here is a potential roadmap for our work:

  1. Establish a sense of shared purpose: articulate anti-racism as an overarching, non-negotiable purpose to which education is striving. It is, after all, about our shared humanity.
  2. Establish structures, systems, procedures and practices that ensure the safety of victims and support changes in behaviour for perpetrators of racism. Have policies that provide clear consequences and hold all members of the community accountable for being anti-racist.
  3. Ensure these policies emphasise active listening, dialogue and localised solutions that empower students and privilege all voices.
  4. Designing clear, tangible targets against which to measure change in behaviour and culture. What would it look like if we are moving in the right direction? What data could we use? What structures could we put into place to gather this data?

It is the right of every person of colour and every woman to feel safe, secure and valued; and to have access to the same opportunities and potential outcomes as any white person or any man. Violence – either through actions or words – is not acceptable. In pursuing an anti-racist agenda, we are pursuing an agenda that is about dismantling structural violence against all and celebrating our shared humanity.

I came into international education because I believed in the opportunities it afforded for the students I work with and the way in which we could focus on localised solutions without needing to pursue a national agenda. We have the freedom to be different, to be change agents and we have a responsibility to do so for each and every one of our students and staff. We can achieve much within our schools by adopting a shared purpose and holding ourselves accountable to clear and tangible targets that measure change now, in the short-term, not only years down the track.

Works cited:

Other sources

  • Curtain Podcasts
  • Robin Diangelo (2018). White Fragility: Why it is so hard for white people to talk about race. Beacon Press, Boston.

 

Being or doing in a COVID holiday?

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I just read a message from a friend of mine that got me thinking. It was a beautiful message in which she made a commitment for July: it would be a month focused on passion projects that would bring her joy. I instantly felt admiration and inadequacy in equal measure. I admired that commitment and the vision that came with it. I felt inadequate as I couldn’t immediately name my own passion projects or at least distinguish them from the tasks I set for myself in this unusual summer break.

When holidays arrive I set goals – currently my list extends to about 10 tasks. Some of which are practical, catch-up jobs (doctor’s appointments, tax payments, admin for our lives back in Australia). Others are more about ongoing work on oneself, such as meditation, yoga, exercise and writing in this blog regularly. There is a duelling quality to my approach to these goals, which my response to my friend’s commitment highlights. I get caught in the pursuit of “doing”; as a school leader there is an endless array of tasks to do and in a COVID enforced staycation it is hard to put these tasks to the side. I can’t hope on a plane as we often do as expatriate teachers to escape the routines of work and melt into the holiday zone.

So, having a staycation is a perfect time to tackle those goals! Only the goals become yet another task by which I can measure my performance and therefore either match up to my expectations, or not. As I contemplated my friend’s commitment to passion projects, my inadequacy came from a sense of what a productive life looks like and what using my time well might mean. Until now, the downtime that I have had in this holiday has involved reading, exercising, eating lunch out with my family, sleeping in and Netflix binging. It has been about taking control of my life again and allowing it to move to my rhythm and breaking the shackles of work-life patterns. As yet, until today, it hasn’t involved writing and meditating. I have managed to complete quite a few of those necessary jobs and will continue to plug away at them.

This first week of my holiday – I have to remind myself it has only been a week – has also involved chunks of time sitting by the pool and on my balcony watching the world go by. It has involved decompressing from the emotional strain of leading through COVID. As a result, I am beginning to feel a little more resilient and a little more able to put things into perspective. This resilience still feels fragile and therefore very precious, making me protective of this time.

So why do I feel like it is a holiday half-lived when I read my friend’s message? And why am I sharing this?

It has been a long time since I had an enforced staycation and I can feel the restlessness ebb and flow. As I reflect on the restlessness, I am also reflecting on the pressure we place on ourselves to do, to achieve and how quickly this can take us away from our passions, what brings us joy. Sometimes what brings us joy is not doing, not pursuing, just being. At least this is the case for me.

I am also writing this now because of the unique nature of this summer break. Usually a time to recharge, re-centre and refocus on what drives us, the nature of COVID means we can’t quite let go as educational leaders of what tethers us to work and most particularly the administrative, task-orientated side of our work (getting ready for opening in August, supporting students who will inevitably be working remotely). This is exacerbated by the fact that we are not leaving the countries in which we work to see family and friends and so appear ever available. Tapping into our passions and what gives us joy is important though. As well as remembering that this might not be a task we perform or a goal we achieve, but a way of doing and being.

After writing this I am a bit clearer now about what my passion project will be over the next couple of weeks: practicing being present, slowing down, and not striving. Like writing this blog post this morning, which has been about exploring an idea that is interesting and exciting and giving it space to breath, grow and become something that feeds the soul. So I want to thank my friend for stimulating this reflection and also to invite you to let go of the pressure to do, achieve and “measure up” and instead enjoy just being. In some respects this was potentially what the lockdown (or circuit breaker here in Singapore) taught us: to slow down. I wonder if we have the courage to hold onto this learning and see where it takes us, despite the fact that we now have the freedom to do more in a post lockdown holiday?

2020 Graduating Class – a story of resilience

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Below is my recorded Graduation speech for our Class of 2020’s virtual graduation ceremony.

Usually when I sit down to write a graduation speech, I have a fairly clear narrative in my head. I know what my message will be and while it is a little different each year, the terrain is familiar. So often these speeches are about hope, optimism, being authentic and transitioning well.

Sitting down to write this one was disconcerting. How could I possibly do justice to what you have experienced over the last few months as the class of 2020? We have talked about loss and fear, there has been anger, frustration, acceptance, joy and laughter. Plans have come unstuck; the steadiness of purpose and meaning was removed from your grasp; and the rituals (including this Graduation) had to be reinvented. Terms such as COVID-19, circuit breaker, social distancing, contact tracing, stay at home notice and quarantine have become part of your vernacular. There has been a strangeness about it all and a sense of community despite the isolation.

And yet, when I think about the class of 2020, I think about a group of students who kept reinventing themselves with each new adversity. Who stayed connected and sought out connection. Whose agility came to the fore with an impromptu rock show and leavers song;  a leavers assembly that made us laugh, cry and left us in awe of their talents; and now a virtual graduation.  

So this time round I want to tell a different story – it is your story but also a time honoured one. A story of what it means to live a resilient and courageous life, that is marked by an agility which is unique and leaves you ready to tackle all that comes next. 

Your story began in 2006 when 29 of your peers began K1. Out of 321 graduates, 66 have been here since Infant School. Those 66 students – along with those who have been here a little less longer – have seen many Leavers Assemblies, sung the Leavers’ Song to countless Grade 12 cohorts, and imagined themselves in those bleachers and on the stage at Graduation for many years. Whether you joined in Junior School, Grade 6, Grade 9, Grade 10 or Grade 11, you have continued a story of hard fought gains on the field, in the pool or on the court. You have fought for the rights of others who are less fortunate than ourselves either in Singapore or through our Global Concerns partnerships. You have fought to ensure we heard your mental health concerns and the need to focus on student wellbeing. You climbed tall ships and mountains, rafted rivers, hiked in jungles, rode horses in the outback, trekked in harsh conditions and pushed your comfort levels. Our boarders have lived far from home and built new families that they will treasure forever. Each one of you has been on an unique journey and has a story that accompanies this journey.

But if the recent weeks have taught us anything, it is that we need to be ready to embrace a new reality and to let go of the stories we may hold so we can redefine a new way of living.

Kristjana Gunnars an Icelandic born writer who immigrated to Canada wrote about the experience of writing in a book called The Prowler. She wrote:

“The story is always somewhere else. … In the margins there is another story … that is where the real story is”.  In her writing; “The story disappeared. In its place there was another story. A great surprise.” For Gunnars there are always other stories – memories, possibilities, different ways of thinking and seeing the world – that are prowling in the background of the narratives we tell ourselves. If we stay open to these possibilities, then we can be agile enough to embrace a new way of being.

In the back of your minds – and that of your parents – was a vision of what the end to your story as a student of UWCSEA would look like. I am sure a pandemic and pre-recorded video of me was not part of that vision!

And yet, this moment can be your “great surprise”. As you reflect on your journey through the College, and the last few months, what will your story be? What has surprised you about your own capacity, adaptability and resilience? 

Agnes de Mille, the dancer and choreographer said: “Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.” 

This idea is taken a step further by Pema Chodron (an American buddhist nun) in Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change. She writes:

“In a book I read recently, the author talked about humans as transitional beings – beings who are neither fully caught nor fully free but are in the process of awakening. I find it helpful to think of myself in this way. I’m in the process of awakening. … I’m in the process of becoming, in the process of evolving. … I’m creating my future with every word, every action, every thought. I find myself in a very dynamic situation with unimaginable potential. I have all the support I need to simply relax and be with the transitional, in-process quality of my life. I have all I need to engage in the process of awakening. (p.18)

You also have all that you need to engage in your process of awakening. Your lives right now are about that “leap into the dark”. You have embraced uncertainty over the last few months and have demonstrated resilience in your time at UWCSEA that signals you have more in you than you could possibly imagine. You have all that you need at your fingertips to engage in your “process of awakening”. It started 12 years ago either here at UWCSEA or elsewhere and will continue. 

But don’t rush your process of awakening.

As T S Eliot said in the LoveSong of J Alfred Prufrock

“There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; …

And time for all the works and days of hands 

That lift and drop a question on your plate; 

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions, 

And for a hundred visions and revisions,…”

Pace yourself, enjoy where you are now and as you move on, keep a pace that is sustainable for you. Resilience is not a race or something you perform, it is a way of being. 

Two years ago in my graduation speech, I shared the story of a baby kangaroo – or Joey – from a children’s story book called Pouch. In these uncertain times, when we worry more than ever for our children, it is perhaps appropriate to revisit this story with the parents who are listening.

In this book Joey hops out of the pouch and encounters a bee, then becomes terrified and runs back to the mother kangaroo calling out Pouch! During Joey’s next exploration (where she goes just a little bit further), she encounters a bird and the same thing happens – “Pouch” she calls and there is mum and she jumps into the pouch. Then a little bit further goes Joey and this time it is a rabbit that sends her screaming out ‘Pouch’ and mum is there again, a symbol of all that is warm and inviting, safe and secure in the world. 

The next time Joey encounters another Joey and doesn’t run back to mum. Instead Joey is curious and sees that others can give her the comfort and warmth she needs. This time it is mum who calls out “pouch”, but no Joey comes. 

We know where this story goes – Joey will visit but no longer fit into the pouch and no longer look to her parents to feel safe and secure in the world. 

What a hard realisation to come to! Your children are in that place now…they will be transformed and each time they return they will be a little different, and in particular a little more different from you. And when you see this, you will know you have done the job you set out to do as parents. Indulge in a few tears this afternoon but also relish the adult your child has become and continue to celebrate each new “awakening” that their future holds. 

Likewise, as Graduates take a moment to celebrate all that your family and friends have given you. You would not be here – and be the resilient and courageous people you are now –  without them. 

So keep prowling through your own stories, looking for those in between spaces where you can uncover the surprises, and be open to the possibilities they bring. Remember: transition, change and uncertainty is part of the very fabric of who we are and you have the courage and resilience to embrace this uncertainty. And as Eliot said: “there will be time, there will be time” so don’t rush it. Pause and listen so you can hear the surprising stories as they unfold.