Educator Deep Learning Through School Partnerships

This past year my K-12 independent school launched an educator exchange program with the Soong Ching Ling School in Shanghai, China.  Our school president and I visited the school in the spring of 2013 and we were enchanted with the passionate teachers, engaged and happy students, and drive to improve teaching and learning and education on a national and international scale.

The school's remarkable Vice Principal, Linda, was our first visiting Fellow.  She lived in our faculty housing for six months and remained a guest of ours and an employee of her home school, who handled her securing her business visa and her compensation.  She came to the school with a set of essential questions around themes of school leadership and organizational psychology, along with interest in curriculum development.

Linda is a start up wizard, in Shanghai's booming economic growth in the last decade she has played crucial roles in spearheading the launch of two huge schools.  For us, with our nearly 175 years of tradition, Linda's start-up ethos was a remarkable asset.  As she arrived we were launching an immersion program in mandarin Chinese for elementary schools students after school.  Linda's presence and expertise in terms of the structures, procedures, and curriculum was invaluable.

While she spent her days exploring our school, having conversations with teachers, staff and administrators, observing classes, consulting us on our own programs, she spent her evenings writing, reflecting, and thinking about how to improve her own school in Shanghai.  And, perhaps more importantly, she had time and space to consider her role and agency in change in education globally. 

For me, this partnership had another layer.  Linda became not just a trusted and admired colleague who I continue to consult on a regular basis, but a dear friend. 

A second teacher from SCLS joined us this Spring and Amiee brought a new set of questions and expertise to our community. This fall we will be welcoming educators from communities in San Pancho, Mexico, and Rapa Nui, Chile.  It is exciting to think of all the connections that will come from this program, and how it can contribute to our mission to make our campus an increasingly global community, unbound by our school walls.