It’s August 10th.
At my school that’s our “Start of the New School Year Eve.” I guess, as the Superintendent of the American School of Bombay, it is appropriate—if not expected—for me to send a note to my faculty and staff tonight.. After all, our students arrive tomorrow, which means: We can actually begin to do our thing!
Writing the note is a no-brainer. However, “what to write” is the difficult question. I could tell them about enrollment growth and our wait-pool (as the only American School in the city we are the “school of choice” for a booming ex-pat and returning NRI population–we have a corner on the market, a monopoly on our clientel; this is a boon and a curse, a luxury and a massive responsibility– and a topic for a different blog some other time). Or I could give them a detailed update on where we are on the “facility expansion” front (we should have board approval for a new site within hours). Or I could share a few powerful anecdotes about our new families (three were evacuated from Libya, two are coming out of the Norwegian tragedy, and 7 have husbands/fathers in war-zones). Or I could write about the provocative insights from a few returning teacher who spent the vacation feeding the starving, cleaning up sewers, building roofs over families that had none, and taught reading to adults in Nepal.
Yes, I could write about many such things; but I won’t. Not tonight.
Tonight there’s something else I’d like to say to my people, and here it is: The only frontier truly worth exploring, in our business, is that which succeeds in elevating our students—and, in the process, our entire community; and thus, mankind—to a higher state of being; one on which a better world may perhaps, one day, be built.
I am convinced that in order to “get there” (to that final frontier–to Hamlet’s “Paragon of Animals”) we must restructure schools; and redefine this thing called “education.” I am convinced, beyond any doubt whosoever–and here is an analogy only a few of you will get–, that our spaghetti structures (the schools of today; which are in essence the schools of the 19th century) are no longer capable of holding up our precious marshmallows (the students we have been entrusted with).
In the end, no new physical structures, space or facilities; no decreased class size or co-teaching structures; no integrated-technology, or “things” or “stuff” no matter how spectacular–not even the holy grail of learning Mandarin–will make an iota of difference unless we unequivocally commit to, and succeed in, shattering our current educational paradigm for THE system this new century demands. The time for evolution is so very passed us by. Revolution is all that is left.
JFK once said “we are going to the moon.” The metaphor is blindingly appropriate today. We–us lucky few at the American School of Bombay–choose the moon–this revolution in education–not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because it is right, and because it is good.
Like I said: Tonight is the eve of a new school year. There is only one “first day of school” every year, and it is tomorrow. Our students will remember tomorrow forever. I hope we do something, here and at schools around the world, worth remembering.