Last week, I was lucky enough to sit in on the Association for the Advancement of International Education’s Global Leadership Conversation. This was a chance for school leaders from around the world to listen to experts in various fields make sense of what has happened this year and wonder how this could shape the future of our schools.

Two experts who I particularly enjoyed listening to were human behavior and motivational expert Daniel Pink and child and family psychologist Michael G. Thompson. As a principal and as a parent, I found part of their message to be very reassuring – people are very resilient in the face of real adversity. As teachers and parents this year, we cannot but help but worry about the impact a whole year of online learning and countless other upheavals might have on our children beyond this year. Pink and Thompson would tell us to worry less. They gave some historical and some more recent examples to make their point that we should not assume people are fragile. We should instead look after each other assuming that we are strong enough to cope, adapt, and in many cases even thrive in the most difficult of circumstances. 

To me as a parent, Pink and Thompson’s message of strength means it is ok for me to spend less time worrying and more time making sure my children feel loved and supported and capable of adapting to the circumstances and challenges that they face now and in the future. That has always been a parent’s job but for many that job will understandably feel a lot harder this year. 

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. I think that is what all of our parents need to hear right now amongst the feedback on areas for improvement and next steps.

PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES

Friday, April 30

PRIDE OF THE PRINCIPAL

If you have any student (or students) that you would like me to recognise for living the ISY Attributes send me an email with a sentence about why they are to be recognised and a time that I could come on Zoom and say hi. Any time or day is OK – If I have a meeting I’ll suggest another time until we get one that works. I will jump on your Zoom and then I’ll get you to put the student or student(s) into a break out room with me. I’ll have a chat with them and take a screenshot that I will send to their parents.

Students Leaving Yangon

If you become aware of a student who is planning to leave, please email Patty, Nimmi, and I and we will follow up with the parents. Please email us even if you have just heard this from the student and you are unsure if this is true.

Students withdrawing from ISY:

Students who are withdrawing from ISY are obviously no longer our responsibility from their date of withdrawal. These students will no longer be attending Zoom classes and teachers will no longer be providing feedback on their learning. These students will be removed from Powerschool.

However, given the extraordinary circumstances under which these families are leaving, we will keep them enrolled in our Seesaw and Google Classroom platforms until the end of the year. We will also keep them on other platforms such as RazKids. This will allow them to access learning should they wish to. This work is not for teachers to give feedback on and assess. We are unable to disable the chat and messaging functions of Seesaw and Google Classroom for individual students. We hope that this is not a distraction and if this becomes an issue with a withdrawn student, please let me know and I will reach out to the parents. 

These students will be asked to return their Chromebook or iPads and library books before they leave Yangon.