Interview
Q:
What should teachers expect of their experience
at Keystone? What training and professional
development opportunities will they receive before
and after they join Keystone?
A:
Teachers can expect very lively conversations. We will be
building a program together, so there are choices and
adjustments that will need to be made with respect to program,
content and approach. Teachers should expect to move beyond
the tension resulting from this building process into something
that is very creative. Teachers should expect to work hard, and
know that professional development is part and parcel of what
we do.
There will be three strands of professional development,
which include: 1) Professional development that our curricula
will demand of us. The International Baccalaureate (IB) and
International Primary Curriculum (IPC) organizations require
us to have a deepening knowledge of these curricula over time;
2) Practical training within the curriculum - there are a number
of school priorities where we would like our teachers to move
forward. In our bilingual immersion setting, for example, how is
it that we all become language teachers even if I am not teaching
in an English or a Chinese class? These types of trainings will be
incumbent on the school to design, and will require the school to
bring a number of people to campus to train our teachers; and 3)
Conversations between the school and individual teachers about
where they want to grow professionally. We all have ambitions
and areas for further growth. It may be gaining a second master’s
degree in a particular academic area. It might be learning how
to work with students with learning differences in the primary
school. There are a number of things that teachers will want to
do. And professional development will be funded very generously.
We will engage in profitable conversations about what the school
needs of its teachers and what the teachers want to develop in
their own professional lives
“We are a world school, meaning
that our ambition is to learn from
the world and to learn for the world.”
30
The Keystone Magazine
Q:
We know that a typical Chinese student’s
personality and learning approach is different
from that of a foreign student’s. Many of Keystone’s
teachers will be foreigners, some of who might not
have had previous experience working with Chinese
students. So these teachers will require an adjustment
period. How will Keystone provide support for these
teachers during this period?
A:
In my experience, the Chinese students that I have
taught in the United States have a way of listening,
taking in, considering, and then responding out of that
listening. That is a real strength of those kids. I would
love my American students, whose first response is often
to simply start talking, to take a page out of my Chinese
students’ book and really think about the role of listening
carefully, of reflection, and then moving forward. The id X\و