While we have one more week to go, this will be our last Faculty Blog post for the year. 

ISY Elementary School Faculty BlogLooking Back Mike Simpson May 27, 2022From October 23, 2020.... In case you are wondering why you are tired, we went online 219 days ago. We all know we are doing our best…. even when we are not at our best! Check in. How am I? What...

As we come to the end of the school year, I am looking back on blog posts from the last two years.

We have Student Review Meetings coming up at the end of the month.

If anyone wants to give interactive videoconferencing a try next year, just let Lindsey know.

I hope your conferences went well today. The parents who I have been speaking to today are all very appreciative of their children’s teachers.

Please keep the focus on the ISY Learner Attributes as we finish out the school year.

Thank you for the time and effort you put into Spirit Week to help our students focus on what makes ISY special. 

Next week is Spirit Week. This comes at a perfect time and we want to make the most of it to re-establish an ISY identity in our students.

Olympiad is an ISY tradition that has been a part of ISY for 32 years . It is often referred to by staff and students as the Greatest Day of the school year.

It has been a good week. Even sitting here in New Zealand I can feel what makes ISY special returning.

Our Mission is our purpose and it is very important that we reconnect with that purpose in Quarter 4.

The ISY Compassion Conference 2022 Google Site has been updated with resources from our presenters.

Next week is a short teaching week with Friday being set aside for our Compassion Conference.

Through continuing to teach online when you can’t make it to campus and by covering classes, duties and ASAs when you can make it, our students are still getting what they need.

I’m quite glad to see that back of that week but very proud of how we managed to get through it. Well done, everyone.

Take pride in the fact that we are all making literally hundreds and thousands of decisions each day and acting on them for our students, our colleagues, and our community.

Our students take their cue from us. The fact that they are feeling positive during this time of change is a credit to how you are managing and presenting the changes. 

Anyone else feel like a duck? I know you are all putting in a lot of work to make this transition into Semester 2 a smooth one for our students and their families. Thank you!

For those who have not met Joey, he is a sugarglider. I’ll miss him when we go back to in-person learning….

I am convinced that gratitude and a love of learning will be important in making the most out of whatever happens this year.

The second half of this year will be a busy one with many of its own challenges.

When students see others sharing their ideas in a less than perfect situation (and having fun doing it), they realize that they don’t need to be perfect to make a valuable contribution.

Someone a lot smarter than me is supposed to have said a long time ago that knowledge is a belief tied down by understanding.

We all have a lot to be grateful for but it would be fair to say that things haven’t exactly gone to plan over the last couple of years.

Every lesson needs to start somewhere but it does not need to end there. By using one culture or history as a starting point, a lesson can still be inclusive of all of the cultures and histories in a class.

The answer to my question was ‘Yes.’ Yes, you really can stretch and do yoga while eating an ice cream…

Parent Teacher Conferences on Wednesday!

Happy Thadingyut!

Tuesday was World Teachers Day. I had not realized until a student emailed me an apple!

Thank you for your contribution to our Student Review Meetings this week. They are very important.

In thinking about really big ideas, students practice critical and creative thinking techniques and develop a belief that everyone’s thinking has value – including their own.

Thank you for your hard work and energy this week. The students are settled and upbeat and that is because of you.

Keep checking in on yourselves and those around you.

With next Wednesday firmly in mind, this week’s metaphor for the year that we have had comes via Shrek 2 via Franco.

My daughter, Milly, has been introducing me to Friends which has been a lot of fun. I think Ross, Rachel, and Chandler trying to carry a sofa up some stairs is a pretty good metaphor for this year…..

Here is another article that is worth reading as we think about how schools might come out of this year stronger… For Keeps.

ISY Elementary School Faculty Blog Something else to think about for next year… Mike Simpson May 21, 2021 We still might not know what next year will look like yet but I found this blog post useful in helping me think about what it could look like…"No More Easy...

We will have no classes this Thursday and Friday, May 13 and 14. Happy Eid-al-Fitr to our Muslim students and families

We might not know what next year will look like yet but we can begin to think about what we will need to focus on.

Parent Teacher Conferences have come at a perfect time to reassure our parents that they are doing a good job and that their children are going to be ok.

Thank you, Delphine. We appreciate all that you have done for us and our school. 

Each day this week has seen more emails from families preparing to leave Yangon and we expect that this will continue throughout this quarter.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for you all. It means a lot to be part of this group and I think it will mean even more as time goes on.

We might not feel like experts but today’s assembly was a chance to remind ourselves that we are now good at many things that we did not know how to do at all just a matter of months or weeks or days ago.

The reality of the current situation can make finding the bright side difficult. But research shows that in difficult times, it is important for our mental health to allow ourselves to acknowledge that times are difficult and to feel rather than suppress negative emotions.

We have long term, yearly, quarterly, monthly, and weekly plans but our planning and preparation has now taken more of a day by day focus. It will therefore need to be very fluid as we plan for our students’ safety and wellbeing, connectedness, and learning.

June is coming!

To my Myanmar colleagues, on behalf of all my international colleagues, thank you for the support that you continue to give us as we work together for our students in these most challenging of times. We want you to know that we support you and can adapt the way that we work to allow you to deal with whatever you need to deal with outside of school.

Thank you for all the work you have put into reports. Reports provide a very important window into the ethos and operation of a school.

This has been a challenging and unsettling week that has added another level of uncertainty to an already uncertain time. 

Teaching is a caring profession and good teachers care a lot. About everything.

By acting and continually improving on what works best for you and your students now, you are creating a new normal that the late Ken Robinson would hope is the lasting legacy of such a difficult time.

This is the first school I have worked in that has a performance culture in which everyone is focused on getting better than they are now. 

We go to the break not quite having finished the first semester. At the end of January we will have got to the halfway mark of the 2020-2021 academic year.

Having children on campus this week has given us a real lift as we head into the holidays. 

While you are in the middle of reimagining teaching and learning, I was wondering if you would like to share your thoughts or experiences.

According to legendary basketball coach (and teacher), John Wooden, there is an important difference between winning and succeeding.

Is pressure is necessary for people to do their best work?

Childish wisdom mixed with a global perspective and some ‘grown up’ expertise and experience will go a long way in finding the answers to many of the problems that our children will need to solve.

Hello Quarter 2!

In case you are wondering why you are tired, we went online 219 days ago. This is the first chance we have had to rest for a very long time. Your work up until this point has set us up for the rest of the year and the rest of the year can wait for week!

Chinthes Show Their Colors

As expected, we have retained our fully accredited status as a WASC school and this extends to our ISY Nay Pyi Taw campus.

Just be yourselves – positive, proud, and humble.

Alex Grace gave me a book about Winnie the Pooh as a Taoist master. I still don’t quite get Taoism but I have a new-found respect for Winnie the Pooh.

Here we go again! Dr. Ken Robinson says there is no time like the present to reimagine education.

Our first Elementary Faculty Blog post for the year. It has been an up and down week brightened by some very positive feedback from our grateful community.