From the Head of School

The Importance of Connection Most of us, if asked to close our eyes and asked to imagine a scientist, would conjure up an image of a lone genius: Dr Fankenstein in a remote castle laboratory, Newton sitting wistfully under an apple tree, or Einstein in a study manically working through his latest thought experiment. The reality is that we don’t work so well alone. Remote working is greatly appealing - it cuts out the time and expense of a commute, which for young people is no small thing; yet research from the Centre for Cities found that London’s 18-24 were 25% more likely to come into work than their older colleagues, and were much more likely to say they preferred working in the office than home. The need to connect isn’t something new: Newton published his famous laws of motion, not in his native English, but in Latin, so he could share his ideas with a pan-European scientific community; Einstein learned English, now the global language, to discuss his ideas with fellow academics in international conferences; and Frankenstein is a fiction. Schools must do more than prepare students for academic excellence, they must enable them to collaborate with others, which is a skill far beyond the ‘agreeing to disagree’ of cooperation. It requires active listening, a willingness to engage with other perspectives and an awareness of one’s own assumptions. The IB is committed to encouraging “students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.” Part of the core of the diploma programme is the extended essay (EE) - a 4000 word independent enquiry into an academic topic of a student’s own choosing. At ISA, one set of students has completed their essays, as another, in Grade 11, begin the process. Every year, I supervise an extended essay student in their passionate interest. I have learnt about Irish independence, the Russia-Ukraine war and the Polish democracy movement of the 1980s. In a way, it is very much not collaborative: students work independently developing their self management skills (which UK and US universities explicitly acknowledge). But the EE encourages a willingness to question your own assumptions and to engage with a range of perspectives. In the last couple of years, I have had the privilege of working with bilingual students able to draw on a broad range of academic research from several cultures. The EE is an opportunity, through research, to reach out to a broad range of ideas: not just the ones presented to them by the people around them. It provokes thought and helps students reflect deeply on the values they hold. ISA is working hard to give students all kinds of real-world collaborative experiences: our peer mediation programme, the language and cultural advocates, regular community time open houses. These are important experiences in themselves but they are good preparations for their intellectual development. Connectivity is an amplifier to success: being open to ideas from a broad range of sources, engaging your thoughts with many perspectives. Newton and Einstein went to special efforts not just to develop their scientific ideas, but to engage with the widest possible world. An international education connects.