Q:
Q:
A:
A:
Keystone’s leadership team members come
from many different education backgrounds
and work experiences. Each member has strong
opinions and their own way of working and dealing
with problems. How will you coordinate and
manage all of these differences and diverse people?
It is not always going to be easy and harmonious. And
we should not expect it to be, because when you bring
together people from different backgrounds, they will have
different views and sometimes their views will clash. But that
is part of the project of developing global-mindedness in
people, and to get them to see that other ways of doing things
have their value. The mission statement of the International
Baccalaureate (IB) ends with a wonderful sentence, which
says something to the effect that other people, with their
differences, can also be right. And that is exactly what we
have to try to do.
I expect that the people who join Keystone will have an
interest in hearing about other ways of doing things, learning
from other people and wanting to change themselves as
they see things that other people do which might be better
than their own way of doing things. That means we should
be able to accommodate a plurality of interests and styles
and ways of doing things. We are going to have to work
very hard at this. In particular those first four weeks, July
into August just before we open, when we are all coming
together as a group of founding teachers. We will need to
figure out how we can open up and listen, so as to say to
each other this is what I do, this is how I like working, but
I want to hear about how you do it so that maybe we can
share and learn things mutually.
I can give you an example. When I used to work at Atlantic
College, every week the students would organize a focus
week. They had a whole academic year full of focus weeks.
And each week would focus on a major international topic
such as human rights, gay and lesbian rights, problems
of migrant labor, or refugees, or perhaps a particular
part of the world. There were students from about 70100 countries, very different cultures and very different
prejudices. Sometimes they would get really excited and
they would argue, passionately. Teachers would encourage
this because that is the only way to resolve certain issues.
You do not resolve them by hiding them and pretending that
they do not exist. You resolve them by bringing them to the
surface: this is what I believe and that is what you believe.
And what you believe is very different from what I believe.
What do we do about it?
You and your leadership team have
expressed multiple times, in different
settings, the excitement of building a new school.
However, have you thought about the risks
involved? How will you deal with these risks?
You deal with each risk as it comes along, by looking
at it, analyzing it, not pushing it under the carpet,
and then finding a way through it. And most problems you
can get over if you have the right people addressing the
problem, and you have the sense of purpose and will to do
it. Learning to make mistakes and growing through them
- to grow from failures - will be a part of the culture of the
place. We need to talk about risk, accept and understand
it. We need to welcome it. We are going to make mistakes,
and we have made some already. We are going to have our
failures. I am not concerned about that.
For parents who are worried about the risks involved in a
new venture and experimenting with their child we might
consider asking the question, “As parents have you never
experimented with your child?” Parenting is all about
experimentation. But Keystone is only an experiment at
the level of vision and mission. When it comes to planning,
practicalities, and operational considerations, we are rock
solid.
But on a more serious level, we live in a world where the
level of tolerance for risk amongst the middle- and uppermiddle classes is becoming more and more diminished. In
post-industrial societies, we have become more and more
risk averse. I used to hitchhike all over South Africa. When
Judith and I were married in Oxford we hitchhiked as our
honeymoon from Oxford to Greece and back. When I tell
students this, they think that I am some kind of crazy guy.
But we did that. I know that it is too risky to do that now and
I am not recommending it. But we must take risks that are
appropriate to our current context.
I think we should open people up to the fact that we need to
produce young adults who are able to lead fulfilled, creative,
and productive lives because they understand the value of
risk and how to cope with failure. So we need to talk openly
about this in the school. As it relates to the Chinese context,
a low tolerance for risk may be connected to the one-child
practice because if you have only one child as a parent all of
your energy and hopes are focused on that child. We shall
see how that plays out in a boarding setting.
www.keystoneacademy.cn
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