Barry Dequanne

The Precious Gift of Time

The following are my opening words at ISZL’s 2024 Graduation Ceremony.

Grüezi mitenand. Good Afternoon. To our honoured attendees: ISZL’s Board of Trustees, Teachers and Staff, Families and Friends, and all those watching from around the world via live stream video, welcome to our commencement ceremony.

It is my utmost privilege to present ISZL’s Class of 2024. Today, we gather to celebrate you, our students, in a myriad of ways by a community that not only admires but also deeply cares for you. Congratulations, students, your accomplishments have filled us with pride.

I stand before you with immense gratitude, deeply honoured to serve this exceptional community. Living in Switzerland and being part of ISZL is a privilege I cherish each day. One of the daily delights I appreciate is my evening stroll by the lake with our dogs.

This week, I noticed some of our seniors on a park bench, leisurely enjoying the evening together. We recognised each other, but I did not want to interrupt their special moment. I imagined their joy, having finished exams and savouring the last days of high school.

At this week’s Senior Seminar, I spoke with one of the students I had seen the previous evening. He shared how he suddenly had an abundance of free time and felt uncertain about how to fill it. I immediately responded, “Free time, what a gift!”.

Graduates, as you sit here on the brink of a new journey, I want to share a profound truth: Time is a non-renewable resource. Once passed, time cannot be reclaimed. It is a precious gift, and how you choose to spend it will shape the course of your life.

A life journey is one of self-discovery through exploration and learning from mistakes. Each experience, whether a triumph or a misstep, shapes our understanding of ourselves and the world. Time, as an irreplaceable resource, underscores the importance of deliberate action and reflection.

As adults, we gain wisdom and good judgment beyond that of our children by having had the time to make more mistakes and to learn from them. In other words, “Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from learning from bad judgment.” While parents naturally want to shield their children from errors, some lessons can only be learned through personal experience. Knowing ourselves is the beginning of all wisdom, and how we spend our time pursuing knowledge, adventure, and growth defines the richness of our life’s journey.

To put the value of time into perspective, consider this: As a Canadian male, my average life expectancy is about 82 years. While I hope to live well beyond that, this means I may only have 26 more summers to enjoy, 26 more trips around the sun to read those books on my wishlist, explore new destinations, run that special marathon, complete an advanced degree, and savour a moonlit night sitting on a park bench with dear friends.

…I may only have 26 more occasions to celebrate my children’s birthdays.

We all experience the unrelenting march of time, a profound reminder of our humanity, emphasising the finite nature of our existence. This awareness imbues our lives with meaning, as we recognise that each beautiful moment is unique and unrepeatable. It is this finiteness that compels us to make the most of our time, while treasuring our tapestry of memories graced by family and friends who cherish us and bring joy to our lives. The poet Mary Oliver famously asked, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

As you transition today from ISZL students to alumni, we hope you continue to use your time to embody ISZL’s vision to turn your learning into action, stretch yourself further and achieve more than you ever thought possible. Each moment of time is invaluable to be carefully managed and fiercely protected, whether it is preparing for exams, relishing today’s ceremony with your family and friends, working towards personal and professional goals, or simply sharing an evening on a park bench by the lake with friends.

In closing, remember that time is fleeting, but its impact is enduring. May you continue to use your time to create, inspire, and make a difference. The world needs your brilliance, your compassion, and your courage. Congratulations, Class of 2024. I wish you all the best as you brighten the world with your light, fulfilling ISZL’s mission to make the world, or your corner of it, a better, kinder place. Thank you.

Barry Dequanne

Photo: Family hike with friends in Höhenweg Hoch Ybrig, Illgau, Switzerland (Ladybug Trail)

A Better, Kinder Place in 2024

The breaks in our school calendar offer us the privilege to pause, reflect, and consolidate learning at individual and institutional levels. Then, with renewed zeal, we return to classes, embracing our ISZL journey, steered by our commitment to learning, community building, and fostering belonging in a world that can sometimes feel chaotic.

In this context, Margaret Wheatley’s “Islands of Sanity in a chaotic world” concept (Wheatley, 2023) resonates with our efforts at ISZL to ensure an inclusive environment where everyone is valued and encouraged to contribute their best. Her focus on generosity, creativity, and kindness echoes our mission to cultivate these traits in our students and ourselves as adults.

Wheatley encourages us to believe in the inherent goodness and potential of people, a belief mirrored daily at ISZL through our students’ curiosity, our staff’s dedication, and our community’s united efforts. These experiences have enriched our learning, strengthened our connections, and underscored the transformative power of education.

The ability to turn learning into action was exemplified yesterday as our High School students hosted a parent Youth Forum Switzerland (YFS) Climate and Sustainability evening featuring exceptional local and international speakers. It was an inspiring event, reinforcing how the Islands of Sanity we have created through common purpose, interconnectedness, and hard work have resulted in impactful learning experiences and outcomes, as evidenced, for example, by our students’ Himalayas Climate Action Expedition video.

This was a precursor to tomorrow’s Youth Forum Switzerland event when more than 1,000 students and adults from ISZL and worldwide will converge at our High School campus. The day, designed by ISZL students, for students, ensures that young people’s voices are amplified and heard on the issues that will impact their future. You can watch the event live on the YFS Website.

Looking ahead to 2024, ISZL aims to continue serving as an ‘Island of Sanity’ – a nurturing space for personal development, creativity, and diversity. At a time when there are so many global challenges and crises, our unwavering commitment is to a path forward of continued collective growth, embracing generosity, creativity, and empathy.

Reference:

Wheatley, M. (2023). The work of sane leadership. Leader to Leader. https://doi.org/10.1002/ltl.20781

Better Together

Reflecting on the state of world affairs and the challenges we have been facing, from a worldwide pandemic to historical political events to social injustice, among other critical issues, it would be easy to understand the impulse to have consigned 2020 to the local Ökihof (Swiss recycling centre) for recycling and become a distant memory. However, as difficult as the past year has been, and without diminishing in any way the immeasurable losses experienced by so many of our community members, 2020 has also taught us many lessons and forced us to learn more about ourselves, our work, and our communities. As 2021 is continuing to unfold, and many of the same challenges remain, I am hopeful that the experiences from both 2020 and 2021 to date will serve to provide a constructive and insightful pathway forward for our time ahead.

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, The Fellowship of the Ring (a personal favourite), there is a lament from the main character wishing the challenges they were facing did not happen during their time. Gandalf replies, “So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us”.

What our community of international schools has done with this time has led to so many inspiring stories about innovation, reinvention, and the learning of new skills. The importance of community, relationships, health, and well-being, and our ability to be present have all come to the forefront. We have been moved and buoyed by the kindness, compassion, and empathy extended by friends and strangers alike. There is no longer any doubt (if there ever was any) that learning is a social endeavour, and through our need to connect, we are reminded that our diversity and differences are among our greatest strengths.

Perhaps the most enduring response during these challenging times has been the collective bolstering of our international community’s esprit de corps, from which we have emerged more aligned and unified. Borrowing from the wisdom young children often convey to adults, my three-year-old’s recent declaration may best summarise what has buoyed us: “We are better together”. I feel a profound sense of gratitude to be part of our International School of Zug and Luzern (ISZL) community and our larger collection of international schools and organizations as we work through challenges, seek positives, and embrace the new opportunities that have emerged from these difficult times.

These are not pollyannish declarations; the pandemic has reminded us of how central schools can be towards uniting communities, achieving more together, supporting our collective well-being, and realizing our potential. It is also during these times when our schools’ missions are perhaps most relevant. In our context here at ISZL, I am grateful to be serving at a school with a mission in which we are committed to being a “community of learners determined to make the world – or our corner of it – a better, kinder place.” And, similar to schools around the globe, it is this very commitment that leads to the realization of our vision to help every student turn their learning into action, creating opportunities to stretch themselves further and achieve more than they believe possible.

Featured Photo Credit: ISZL Communications Team

Photo Below: Me, a cellphone, and a fortunate moment

Our three-year-old reminding me that we are all “better together”

Journeys and Transitions

While the very nature of an international community is one of transience, it is important not to diminish the challenges and opportunities associated with the transitions themselves. As the departure of valued colleagues and dear friends are accompanied by the arrival of new families and the promise of new friendships, we also find ourselves managing pandemic-induced vicissitudes. But, with every challenge, we also seek to learn from our experience and embrace new opportunities.

Could anyone have imagined last semester that campuses around the world would be closed from one day to the next, that over one billion students would spend several months learning from home and connecting with teachers online? As we know, this is exactly what happened. It was remarkable to see how quickly our community transitioned to a new reality and incorporated creative, and, in several cases, better ways of doing things. It was also affirming to witness what can be accomplished when real or perceived barriers are removed.

Our life journeys will include the need to face adversity, when our character and values are tested, when we are transformed for the better. We know that real growth comes from overcoming setbacks and challenges. We tend to learn much more from our failures than our successes. We face our crucibles, learn from those experiences, and emerge transformed in a fundamental way, though transitioning through these stages is not always easy. The author, William Bridges, makes a key distinction between the impact of change and transition on our lives:

“…change is situational. Transition, on the other hand, is psychological. It is not those events, but rather the inner reorientation and self-redefinition that you have to go through in order to incorporate any of those changes into your life. Without a transition, a change is just a rearrangement of the furniture. Unless transition happens, the change won’t work, because it doesn’t ‘take’”.

The pandemic has challenged us in ways we could not have previously imagined. And, while it has not always been easy, our families, teachers, and staff have all inspired and emboldened us. Our students have been heroic throughout this journey, showing us how to flourish with grace, class, and good humour during a time of uncertainty and change.

Looking ahead, we will continue to prepare and plan for a school year using design principles that are adaptable and flexible in nature. We are committed to embracing transitions, learning from our experiences, incorporating new opportunities, and advancing a learning programme designed to help every student turn their learning into action, and stretch themselves further and achieve more than they believe possible [ISZL Vision].

Photo Credit: Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

From One Parent to Another…

This letter to parents has been written by an ISZL Parent/Teacher:

Dear Parents,
I have been thinking about you a lot lately. Like you, I’ve just finished attempting to motivate my Primary School aged son to organise his day. He begins with eagerness but his attention is limited, and to be honest, working from home has shown me that mine can be too. It is hard to sit in front of a computer all day, without the energy and enthusiasm that comes from working in a school, especially one like ISZL. It is a challenge for teachers as much as for students. We miss working directly with children, being able to have meaningful discussions about their learning and engage in the process together.

I have been thinking about you as I try to find space in my apartment to take a Google Hangout call with my team. Every other member of my family has a virtual meeting scheduled at exactly the same time. In the end, I carve out space on the balcony, thankful for the sunshine and view. I have been thinking about you as I try to manage the never-ending requests for snacks and food from my family, while I try to find documents in Google folders of students. It can sometimes feel like they may have designed an extra special challenge for their teacher. Know that I am thinking about you as I struggle to find balance in being a teacher, parent, spouse, friend and colleague.

But know this, I am also thinking about your child. I know this situation can feel overwhelming, for you and for them. It is easy to focus on and worry about the work they are, or are not, doing. But, I also know that if we keep talking with our children and reminding them that all will be well, they have an unprecedented opportunity to learn things that cannot be taught if not without these extraordinary circumstances. As I think about my own children and my students, I am hoping they will learn to have balance, resilience and motivation to help guide their learning. If they do, this will have been time well spent. They are learning to adapt, to identify support that they need, and to think about ways to get help when a task feels hard. They may even have the time to find something new that they love. Better yet, there is time. Time to have a more relaxed start to the day.

My son has learned to make pancakes which I see as an essential life skill. Time to extend our dinners well into the evening laughing about the craziness of the situation or something funny someone saw on YouTube. Time to see our children as students, what they excel at and where they may need more support. My daughter has been coaching my son on writing a plan for the day to help organize his work, I am hopeful she is more successful at keeping him on track than I have been. I am thinking about you, my students and my family and am hopeful that we can all learn what is most important. That through all of this we were all here to support each other. This, in the end, is the most important thing we can teach them.

Yours sincerely, Parent, Teacher, Colleague and Friend.

Link: At-Home Learning

Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash

Learning Into Action

What is your mission or purpose in life? What is your vision for your personal future?

While we may not ask ourselves these questions very often, the ensuing reflections are often helpful in clarifying our values, articulating what is important to us, guiding our decisions, and determining how we focus our energy and time. As these questions are also of paramount importance to any organisation, ISZL has recently undergone an extensive community-wide process to re-articulate our school’s guiding statements.

OUR MISSION
We are a community of learners determined to make the world – or our corner of it – a better, kinder place. We reflect our values in everything we do so that we make the most of the opportunities and challenges in a spirit of enthusiastic inquiry.

The mission statement is about our school’s purpose with a focus on today and what we do to realise these aims. The words, “we are a community of learners” signify that ISZL is not just a school, but rather a community working together to positively impact the lives of others.

During Professor Yong Zhao’s recent visit to our school, his words further emphasised this key facet of our mission: We don’t just learn from others, we learn for others as well. ISZL students embody these ideals every day through our many service programmes and the recent Youth Forum Switzerland event, for example. By creating something of value, there is purpose in learning, which enhances passion, creativity, and the development of an entrepreneurial mindset.

OUR VISION
We help every student turn their learning into action, creating the opportunity to stretch themselves further and achieve more than they believe possible.

A vision is designed to be bold and aspirational. It is a belief and an ethos that drives us forward to realise the school we want to become. The mission represents a constant purpose that transcends time. In contrast, the vision is what we seek for our future selves. When we begin to actually achieve our vision, then it will be time to set a new and bolder aspiration for our future.

While our mission is about what we collectively do as a community, the vision is exclusively focused on our students and how we help every student turn their learning into action, stretching themselves further and achieving more than they believe possible. This vision can only be fully achieved through the aligned efforts of all community members.

The next step in this journey is to map out how we will advance our mission and vision to achieve our goals. The critical work to establish an articulated strategy and associated projects is currently in process and will be shared out in an upcoming edition of the ISZL Bulletin.

In the meantime, I would like to again thank you for your feedback and ideas during this journey. Your contributions, particularly from the Design Lab process, have played a critical role, not only in the development of ISZL’s guiding statements, but also towards the development of strategic priorities.

Photo Credit: ISZL Communications and Public Relations Team

New Year, New Beginnings

As we embark on the new year and decade ahead, and in the spirit of new beginnings, it is with a sense of excitement, pride, and honour that we launch ISZL’s new guiding statements.

We would like to extend our deep levels of appreciation for our community’s involvement in the development of our new mission, vision, and values. The year-long process that led to this moment involved embracing a design principles approach. We engaged with hundreds of community members to explore the existential questions associated with our school’s purpose and direction.

The outcome of this work is a mission that commits not only students, but all adults in our community, to a culture of learning and a determination to make a positive difference. The new vision, in turn, speaks to our paramount focus on ensuring students realise their full potential and are able to turn their learning into action.

Our community-wide process also resulted in the adoption of ISZL’s past mission-related words – respect, motivate, and achieve – as our school’s values. They have been transformed into action statements to further hold us accountable to realising these ideals. These values serve to celebrate ISZL’s history and recognise the efforts of those past community members, whose ‘shoulders we are now standing on’, who are enabling us to envisage the next steps for our school’s future.

We hope you take some time to engage with the complete set of new ISZL Guiding Statements. The statements include a reference to the school’s identity in addition to a newly introduced and critically important set of learning principles designed to guide teaching and learning at ISZL.

To that end, it is with great excitement and belief in our future that we share ISZL’s new mission, vision, and value statements:

OUR MISSION
We are a community of learners determined to make the world – or our corner of it – a better, kinder place. We reflect our values in everything we do so that we make the most of the opportunities and challenges in a spirit of enthusiastic inquiry.

OUR VISION
We help every student turn learning into action, creating opportunities for students to stretch themselves further and achieve more than they believe possible.

OUR VALUES

We respect. We show empathy and are inclusive and thoughtful in our interactions with others. Every person is valued and valuable.
We motivate. We inspire each other and grow by building on everyone’s individual and collective passions.
We achieve. We create an exceptional learning environment focused on academic achievement and holistic development.

Looking ahead, these new statements must be much more than simply ‘words on paper’. Our collective commitment is to turn these ideals into action and to ensure our guiding statements come alive every day to guide our work, decisions, and strategy. Over the next year, we will bring you stories of how our statements guide the advancement of our culture, school development, and approaches to teaching and learning. We encourage you to follow ISZL on social media to stay up-to-date with our progress: ISZL Facebook, ISZL Instagram, ISZL Twitter and ISZL Linkedin.

In terms of next steps, we are currently working through the thousands of feedback data points submitted by our community during the design process. This will assist us in establishing a strategic framework and corresponding objectives to realise ISZL’s new mission and vision. We expect this work to be completed in the next few months.

It is thrilling to start the year with a renewed sense of clarity about who we are and who we want to become. We are thankful to be on this journey with you and look forward to everything our community can achieve together in 2020 and beyond!

Barry Dequanne (twitter: @dequanne)

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

A Sense of Wonder

In 1974, a young boy named Harold Whittles is about to experience his world in a new and astounding way. For the first five years of his life preceding this moment, Harold has not heard the sounds around him as he has been deaf since birth. This is about to change as technological advances have led to Harold’s meeting with a doctor to be fitted with a hearing aid.

The remarkable picture below captured the moment when Harold heard for the first time and was transported from a world of silence to one filled with seemingly countless different sounds emanating around him. Harold’s eyes are wide with astonishment and wonder.

It is this sense of wonder, conveyed in an emotional and extraordinary manner through Jack Bradley’s photo, that serves as a reminder of our role to nurture the natural curiosity in our students and their exploration to understand the world around them. Our students also remind us each day that we adults should never lose a child’s sense of awe and wonder.

As we prepare for our annual community Thanksgiving celebration, I was drawn back to Harold’s story and the importance of both gratitude and wonder. In the spirit of giving thanks, I would like to convey my deep levels of gratitude to be a member of a community dedicated to ensuring a learning environment that regularly leaves students and adults in a state of wonderment.

P.S. Thank you to our talented science teacher, Stephen Boyd, for introducing me to Harold’s story.

Photo by Kristine Weilert on Unsplash: Sunrise breaking into the forest.

Civic Responsibilities

One of the many things I appreciate and admire about Switzerland is the collective commitment to civic responsibility. The pragmatic Swiss approach to the establishment of community norms in combination with both an individual and societal belief in supporting and adhering to these agreements have resulted in a country that runs incredibly well.

ISZL‘s commitment to these ideals was evident during last week’s road safety training. Our Kindergarten students had the opportunity to learn from a local police officer about traffic rules and, more precisely, how to navigate pedestrian crossings. The fact that young children in Switzerland take public transportation and make their way to school unaccompanied by an adult does not happen by accident. The effectiveness with which the local police partner with schools to educate young children about their civic responsibilities is clearly by design.

The police officer who met with our students demonstrated the highest levels of professionalism and impressive pedagogical skills. The traffic safety lesson, conducted in partnership with ISZL’s teachers, involved differentiated and personalised instruction, focused on building relationships, and provided students with an opportunity to develop their German language skills.

The resulting demonstration of learning involved each student individually stopping traffic with a hand wave, looking both ways to ensure their safety, and then crossing the street at the designated crosswalk. Of course, the students were also encouraged to give a wave of thanks as they passed in front of the cars. For those students who were initially reluctant to cross the road, the police officer and teachers gently helped them to develop the understanding, skills, and confidence needed. It was exemplary teaching at every level!

ISZL’s vision is to help every student turn learning into action, creating opportunities for students to stretch themselves further and achieve more than they believe possible. The realisation of this vision will look different at every level of the school. At the Kindergarten level, our students were able to turn their learning into something they may not have thought possible – to cross a busy street alone.

Thank you to ISZL’s teachers and the Zuger Polizei for their important work to ensure our students continue to learn about their civic responsibilities and turn their learning into responsible action.

Featured Image by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash

Transformative Competencies

The Future of Education and Skills 2030, published by the OECD, identifies three “transformative competencies” that students need to contribute to and thrive in our world. The first competency is about creating new value and our commitment to innovate and “think outside the box” to shape better lives. This focus integrates a sense of purpose with critical thinking and creativity. The second competency considers our ability to be comfortable with complexity and ambiguity in an interdependent world, while also developing a high degree of empathy and respect. The third competency refers to the commitment to take responsibility for our actions as our students are guided by a strong moral compass that considers personal, ethical, and societal goals.

There is certainly alignment when considering ISZL’s vision in the context of the OECD’s aspirational goals. Our vision at ISZL is to help every student turn their learning into action – an approach that is designed to support every student in realising how much they’re capable of and to go on to make the most of who they are. In support of both ISZL and the OECD’s vision for learning are our school’s Personal Development Week (PDW) experiences that offer students exceptional learning environments and meaningful and relevant growth opportunities.

During last week’s PDW experiences, more than 1,000 of our students were engaged in experiential learning opportunities ranging from locations in Zug and Switzerland to Europe, and around the world, including destinations such as Iceland, Ghana, and the Himalayas, among others Throughout the week, our students were actively developing the OECD’s three transformative competencies in meaningful and active ways. The long-term impact of the PDW trips was highlighted at a recent ISZL alumni barbecue when several former students shared how the PDW experience was transformative to their learning experience and a highlight of their time at ISZL.

One of ISZL’s longstanding PDW trips is related to our school’s involvement with the NAG program in Nepal, which is a charity in Kathmandu that provides critical and essential support for young children. To advance this important work, ISZL will be holding its annual NAG Charity Run later this month to raise awareness and financial support. All community members are encouraged to join this special event.

A heartfelt thank you to all of the teachers and staff members who coordinate and lead these unique learning experiences, in addition to travelling and supporting our students during the trips. Without the dedication and commitment of teachers and staff, these trips would not be possible.

Photo Credit: Diego Jimenez on Unsplash