Complexity for school, and life
When I came to compose this speech, I found myself drawn back to the entry that I had recently written for this year’s Yearbook.
I realise that, at the moment, my thinking is being dominated by the significance of complexity for school and, indeed, for life in general.… Read more
Student Agency and Self-Empowerment
I must have blinked. Surely it was only a moment ago that we were gathered here, to wish last year’s graduates the best of luck and bon voyage. They say it’s a function of getting older that time speeds up and years flash by.… Read more
The project of ICHK, in a nutshell.
Cambridge Strategies, a research body associated with Cambridge University, recently included us in their Innovation 800 project, which celebrates 800 years of academic excellence at Cambridge and which identifies global leaders in the field of educational change, in schools, universities and business.… Read more
Wisdom and Schooling
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
From “The Rock” by TS Eliot
Reflect for a moment on this entry from Wikipedia: “Homo sapiens (Latin: “wise man”) is the binomial nomenclature (also known as the scientific name) for the only extant human species.… Read more
The Human Technologies Test
Those familiar with ICHK know that Human Technologies is a programme of study that we have developed over the past five years and which students from Year 7 to 10 follow each week.
The course teaches that what makes humans so effective and powerful a presence on the planet is not just our native intelligence, but also our ability to share in and benefit from the thinking of others.… Read more
Why and how we promote sport at ICHK
One of the advantages of being a small school is that all our students have a real opportunity to take part in the full range of sporting activities that a school has to offer. A good number of our students will have been on teams ranging from Football and Volleyball, from Touch to Bouldering. … Read more
Second Annual Science Fair – Head of School’s Address
Thank you parents, students and staff for attending our second annual Science Fair.
My intention over the next five minutes or so is to explain briefly why I believe that this evening’s event is such a significant one in our school’s calendar.… Read more
The world of work changes. And schools?
In a recent bulletin I linked to an article in Magenta, with the suggestion that:
… Read moreThose interested in understanding how our world is changing with the development of more sophisticated and pervasive digital technologies might find this article an enjoyable insight.
The Non-Mystery of Examination Inflation
Coming from the UK and working in secondary education, I have grown accustomed to the annual media storm that centers on the release of the IGCSE and A Level results in the late summer. It’s a perennial British pantomime of which, happily, we get only a mild version in Hong Kong.… Read more
Escaping The Factory School
There are a number of well-established, even taken-for granted, features of school structure and organisation that seriously hold back education, particularly at secondary level. In each case, they are quite clearly inadequate, even damaging of learning, and yet in each case they linger on in the mainstream.… Read more