As a professional educator with over 25 years of experience at all levels of both public and independent education in the United States and abroad, I have found that when treated with respect, honesty, and compassion, all people react by giving the best of themselves. With that in mind, my practice is founded on the following principles:
Vision
Start with why. – Simon Sinek
I often tell others that I am unashamedly “unicorns and rainbows” when it comes to education, and that I think all great educators are inherently idealists. This is true of effective leaders too; they inspire those around them to see beyond themselves and commit not just to the common good but to the common best. People do not make these commitments based on the “what” or even the “how.” As Simon Sinek points out, they make them based on the “why.” A relevant, clear vision is the key for any leader and organization in this regard. For me, the “why” is simple and uncompromising: students. I often refer to the fable of the man on a beach, moving one of hundreds of starfish washed ashore back into the ocean. When questioned by a passerby why he bothers, that he cannot possibly move them all back to the water before the rising sun dries them out, the man simply replies, “that may be true, but tell that to this one.”
Compassion
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou
Servant leadership is at the heart of my practice as well. Great leaders and educators always remember that inspiring people requires knowing them: their needs, their wants, their dreams. This happens best by first “seeking to understand” (Stephen Covey) and finding common goals and interests from which to build a common purpose. By taking the time to be fully present with someone and letting them know in that moment that they are the most important person in the world, a leader can forge a relationship of empathy and trust in which both parties know that together each can be their best selves and form a partnership wherein the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Action
We choose to go to the Moon … and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. – John F. Kennedy
As the Academic Director of the Lincoln School Costa Rica, I began the 2018-2019 school year by encouraging everyone to challenge themselves with a “moonshot goal,” one which might at first seem impossible but is still worth the effort. The result has been a community of educators and students modeling the practice of taking risks, valuing the process over the product, and supporting one another as they grapple to achieve the seemingly unimaginable. We have teachers learning new languages, students inventing new educational apps, and parents founding corporations that a year ago were only a “what if” in danger of becoming “what could have been.” Whether employees or students, it is a leader’s responsibility to create a community of creativity comprised of problem solvers and innovators who by nature of habit take ideas into action.
Inquiry
Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire. – William Butler Yeats
In the modern world, knowledge is everywhere. Between Siri and Google, there is very little factual information that remains out of the immediate reach of our students. The pail is figuratively full. Intellectual curiosity, creativity, and wisdom, as well as the ability to collaborate and communicate with others, should now be the focus of our schools. The modern classroom must be a place where students are challenged to solve unsolvable problems and answer unanswerable questions. They should be laboratories of learning where students experiment without risk of failure but instead with a sense of excitement and urgency to ideate and act. Design labs are an obvious physical manifestation of this approach, but all classrooms should approach learning with the same sense of wonder, feeding the fire of understanding.
Sustainability
The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it. – Robert Swan
As Academic Director at Lincoln School, I have helped to guide the institution in adopting the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a touchstone for our academic and service-learning programs from pre-school through twelfth grade. In terms of academics, we have included the 17 UN Sustainability Goals as learning targets in our curriculum writing process and have asked teachers to make overt connections between course content and the Goals as a part of daily instruction. More importantly, we have sought to create opportunities for students to find and explore their own connections between course content, the Goals, and their lives. We seek connections between our students and families, the school, the Central Valley of Costa Rica, and the greater world. This can be seen in our IBDP Business classes where high school students complete case studies of local businesses through the lens of the triple bottom line, as much as it can be seen in our elementary classrooms where students tend community gardens using recycled compost and reclaimed water before donating their crop to the local food bank.
Service
Be the change you want to see in the world. – Gandhi
As the Middle School Principal of Lincoln School in 2016, I created the CLAS (Character, Leadership, Advocacy, and Service) program to provide students an opportunity to engage with the local community in authentic community-service programs targeted to the UN Sustainability Goals. As the program has evolved, we have partnered with almost twenty local NGOs to address issues related to our own categories of the Goals: environmental sustainability, equity and equality, and human dignity. Students work in groups and with an assigned NGO to study a local issue, develop solutions, and enact their programs with a full day of field work after which they reflect on their successes before modifying their program and returning for further work. As High School Principal, I have now brought this program to the high school, where our ninth and tenth grade students continue that model with the autonomy to select their own issues and partners as a bridge to guide them into the IBDP CAS program in eleventh and twelfth grades. Our students have started tutoring programs in under-served rural communities, partnered with animal rescue programs, brought food to the homeless of San José, and continue to seek opportunities to have a personal impact beyond themselves.
Taken together, these principles, experiences, and accomplishments inform who I am as an educational leader and guide my interactions with families, teachers, and (most importantly) students. They are the reason I look forward to coming to work every day, and they are why I believe in my heart that I can contribute to making the world a better place for this generation and those to come.
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