You have mentioned that you hope that Keystone
can become a place that is known for training
excellent teachers and the development of teaching.
How will Keystone make these goals happen?
Q:
extensively about professional growth. We need the nutrition
from other teachers coming in and keeping us lively, and thinking
about our own practice and development.
A:
Q:
In fact, we already have a number of teachers who are interested
in coming to visit and investigate our model, so I can quite
easily imagine teacher exchange happening. But I can also see
us using the campus facilities to offer training to teachers from
across China. I would love for Keystone to become a place where
teachers come together in the summer time to explore the craft
of teaching in a bilingual, multicultural setting. We can certainly
share what we have learned. As a leadership team, we have talked
This is a tough question, because you ask who has had
the “most” influence. Of course, I have had a number of
fabulous people who have mentored me as a teacher. But if I had
to pick one, I would choose my advisor in college, Beth McCune.
Professor McCune was extremely bright, but she was very playful.
To see her in class interacting with substantial ideas - she was
a professor of religion - in a flexible and playful way opened up
for me all sorts of possibilities about what scholarship really is.
And about what human endeavor can be. She was a very effective
teacher because she interacted with me in a way that signaled to
me that she took me seriously. Because she took me seriously,
was demanding and had high expectations, she suggested that
I could be much more than I was. This meant a lot to me as a
young student from Olympia, Washington. She was my guide
as I was entering into a whole universe of ideas, and she got
me thinking about the possibilities of profitable relationships
between teachers and students.
We are a world school, meaning that our ambition is to
learn from the world and to learn for the world. We are
bringing together a collection of teachers to work and live in a
setting that requires us to learn from one another, and a number
of different systems. Training for this project will be unique. I
believe that schools around the world will see the value that our
model offers to both students and faculty. I can imagine a number
of different schools sending their teachers to us in order to more
fully understand what it is that we do, for example. I have seen
this in the U.S. There are a fair number of teachers that visit truly
special programs.
A family “selfie” at the Peak in Hong Kong
Who or what has had the most influence on
you in your career as an educator?
A:
David Beare and Rachael Beare on an Alaskan cruise
www.keystoneacademy.cn
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