Happy New Years!
Every autumn we ask teachers, most of whom are not from the local area, whether they intend to stay on at ISA or leave. It helps us know what to look for when we go recruiting during winter to fill all our needs for the following August.
One autumn a parent heard that a teacher was leaving and asked me about it. I assured her that it was not until the end of the year. Soon after I heard a rumour that the teacher was leaving at Christmas. I really couldn’t work out where this came from. It took a while for the penny to drop that I had, inadvertently, started the rumour.
In my mind, ‘the end of the year’ could only have meant ‘the end of the school year’ - which is in the summer; for those that don’t work in schools the end of the year is the end of the calendar year - which it would have been for me in another context. The parent had interpreted my words quite correctly, but entirely mistakenly.
When we talk about ‘other cultures’ it is often other countries that come to mind. But there can be cultures within communities - for example teachers and parents. In many things we share the same assumptions, but sometimes we don’t because sub-groups have developed a particular way of talking about something. In my example, about something quite fundamental - time.
Being culturally aware isn’t simply a matter of being aware of other cultures; it is about being aware of the assumptions in your own. That can be a challenge both intellectually (identifying what your assumptions are) and emotionally (feeling that fundamental fixed points in your life are being questioned).
Yesterday, we hosted Lion Dancers to celebrate Lunar New Year. By itself, this is just a curious spectacle - a glimpse of how countries far from us mark the passages of time. But at ISA it is part of something bigger - developing aptitudes of self awareness and reflection. After the winter holidays, Morio Kajiwara, the Elementary Principal, used his assembly to welcome students to 2023 before reminding them that for over a billion people it is still 1444. He then showed how in each month, a new year starts for a community somewhere.
These are not isolated events, leading nowhere. In the core of the IB Diploma, students will have to write essays in which they are expected to explicitly state their assumptions and to consider a range of perspectives. This is the kind of flexibility of mind that helps IB students thrive at university. Most importantly, it sets up students with essential skills for navigating a world in which we cannot help but bump into people who are culturally different.
So next time you talk about your plans for next year, make sure you are clear about which year you are talking about!
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