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.