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Three Schools, Two Cities, One Realisation
Education & Catastrophe 79
Image Credit: Global Citizen Diploma
Hey y’all! This is John.
This newsletter is about human flourishing. Ostensibly it’s about better parenting and fixing education, but ultimately what I really care about is helping young people flourish.
Apologies for the two-week hiatus. I’ve been on the road the last few weeks in Bangkok and Hong Kong, visiting schools, speaking to parents, attending conferences and connecting with educators. Covered in this issue:
An international school in Bangkok with its own Future-Ready curriculum
A diploma programme focused on global citizenship
An international school in Hong Kong with Human Technologies at the core of the learning experience
Regenerative Education
Over the next few months, I hope to spend more time with these organisations and write a longer piece on each of them. For now, the purpose of this issue is simply to put these organisations on your radar. I’ll keep this one short.
Verso International School in Bangkok
Verso has been on my radar for a long time ever since I heard about this pioneering new international school in Bangkok with its own future-ready curriculum back in 2020. A chance meeting with Verso’s Director of Edtech Rolly Maiquez at BETT Asia (thanks Rusydi for the intro) led to a school tour when I was in Bangkok in early December, during which I also had the opportunity to speak to a few members of the leadership team.
The first thing visitors to Verso notice is how unusual the campus is. Futuristic, almost.
The architecture of VERSO International School’s Bangna campus in Bangkok is inspired by our research into the design of learning spaces, because we know that our physical environment plays a crucial role in how we behave and learn. Our unique "loop" buildings are intentionally designed to foster a sense of flow, movement, connectedness, and a fundamental sense of continuous learning.
But architecture without heart and soul is just a mass of concrete and steel. What sets Verso apart from most international schools is its future-ready curriculum. During the tour, I did not get the opportunity to speak to learners and hear it from their perspective, but from speaking to members of the faculty and the leadership team I did get the sense that learning at Verso is very much focused on learning about real-world issues and engaging with the world.
… an emphasis on learning that is interdisciplinary, project-based, and personalized.
VERSO, with a curriculum focused on personalized learning, has moved beyond a traditional ‘one-size-fits-all’ education, placing each learner at the center of their own learning. Learners are organized into mixed-age groups, or cohorts, and work with a team of Learning Designers. We value curiosity, self-direction, and independence and help learners to think and behave like designers. This is why we have embedded Design Thinking into our curriculum. We also have redesigned the school day to create more time for learners to dig deep into their learning.
I am not a teacher, and I haven’t spent time in the classroom as an adult, but from running Saturday Kids for over a decade, I know how difficult it is to put curiosity and self-directed learning at the centre of the learning experience. Let me rephrase - it’s both easy and difficult. Easy because it’s what kids want - play-based and curiosity-led. Difficult because most parents don’t get it (‘I’m paying you to teach my child, not to let them play’) and most teachers are not skilled enough to facilitate learning that requires them to relinquish the sage-on-stage role.
Verso is taking on a fair bit of risk offering interdisciplinary, project-based, curiosity-led learning in South-East Asia, but it is exactly what kids need. Less testing, more learning. Less studying, more building.
International College Hong Kong
International College Hong Kong has one of the best school websites I’ve ever seen. Many school websites (international schools in particular) are a jargon soup of all the right words that might appeal to parents (‘academic excellence’, ‘leadership’, ‘creativity’, ‘gratitude’, ‘inspire’), but talk is cheap. What sets ICHK apart is the language they use (‘Human Technologies’ is such an elegant way to describe the school ethos) and the eloquence of the school leaders when they explain the different learning innovations in the school (watch Head of School Toby Newton explain Human Technologies).
I watched the video three times before visiting the school, and without setting foot in the school, I was already convinced this is a school with a profound ethos they live and breathe.
Human Technologies is the centrepiece of the ways in which we continue to change education for the better at ICHK.
Our ground-breaking curriculum encourages students to experience school in more positive ways, whilst developing a profound sense of the art and craft of being human.
At ICHK our core aim is to educate our students to be resourceful, resilient, collaborative, open-minded, ethical, accepting of others, sustainable in their habits, and more inclined to take the long view. We want them to have a profound and positive sense of the art and craft of being human. This is the aim and the promise of Human Technologies.
All learning and teaching is framed through the HT lens, which offers a novel perspective on human beliefs, practices and activity. of their own learning.
Thanks Chungman for the intro to Ross, and thanks Ross for the tour of the school, and for your book!
Image Credit: Global Citizen Diploma
Sophie Oxford's session at Asia-Pacific International Schools Conference this week 'Education For Their Future, Not Our Past', echoes this line from Adam Grant’s new book Hidden Potential. "The responsibility of each generation is not to please our predecessors - it's to improve conditions for our successors."
In order for young people to thrive in a VUCA world, they need to be global citizens.
"A person who conducts their daily life with a commitment to understanding others; who makes decisions with an awareness of how they affect communities locally and globally; and who advocates and holds themselves accountable for social and environmental sustainability." - Global Citizen Diploma
GCD is a programme more than it is a school, but it seems like the sort of education every school should be moving towards. Action beyond the curriculum. Encouraging students to think beyond their immediate context. Developing skills that lead to stronger voice and agency. Metacognitive thinking that supports positive contributions within the communities.
In the age of ChatGPT and relative abundance, education needs to move on from Safety and Security (employment, property etc) to the top of Maslow's hierarchy - Self-Actualisation. Instead of PISA score, let's do PURPOSE score.
My visits to Verso and ICHK and hearing Sophie speak about GCD helped me realise what frustrates me with the education system, elegantly summed up by Dr Kevin House from EIM.
Image Credit: Dr Kevin House
Schooling is an extractive industrial practice. By making kids sit in rows, take notes and keep their mouths shut, schools are extracting freedom by replacing agency with compliance. Freedom to be curious, freedom to think, freedom to act.
Instead of training young people to be systems thinkers, we are training them to be test takers. They know where the Middle East is, but they don't have a view on why conflicts keep happening. They know what AI is, but they have no concept of the ethics of AI.
Kids shouldn't be going to school to learn subjects. They should be there to learn about themselves, learn about other people, and learn about the world. Education ought to help young people form their own values and belief systems so they have a worldview.
An understanding of the nuances and complexities of the world is one of the things that separate humans from machines, and it is this understanding that enables young people to solve complex problems.
Image Credit: Dr Kevin House
Catch is - how can schools develop systems thinkers when so many educators have a limited understanding of the world and have no POV?
Saturday Kids is adding a winter camp to our Unplugged offering for the first time. Get the kids outdoors and ski in Madarao, Japan this March holidays. Much cheaper, less crowded, and easier to get to than Niseko.
Early bird price for 2 adults + 2 kids is $4800. Includes
accoms + breakfast
dinner on first and last day
mountain pass for 4 pax
ski gear for 4 pax (skis, boots, helmet only)
4 full day lessons for 2 kids
Prices vary depending on the number of guests and the number of people taking lessons. Adult lessons available.