While I have played witness to conflicts throughout my lifetime both at home and around the globe, the last 10 years working and living in Iraq, Turkey and Spain have challenged my worldviews significantly. As an international educator, I feel compelled to dig into concepts related to interculturalism, global citizenship and sustainability. We all experience the world differently given our own schema - funds of knowledge and identities. It is an ongoing endeavor to train my brain to listen for understanding as an open-minded observer: to understand other ways of seeing, hearing and doing as well as to accept these differences while looking for the commonalities. Then, it is our common humanity - human dignity that surfaces to the forefront for me. I can build cultural bridges for constructive relationship that work from a place of care and wisdom.  

My time in Iraq was impactful as I arrived during the war with DAESH. My students were daughters and sons of parents who had experienced the Baathist party's war on diversity, free speech and thought. This experience drove me to focus two of my research papers for the University of Bath doctoral program on Iraq so I could better understand the region, the constant turmoil that leads to waves of conflict and the history of my husband's Kurdish family. What I uncovered through touring the Kurdish north, teaching Kurdish children for 3 years during the ISIS war and then through my research is reflected in the image below.

To read more explore...

• https://halabjamemorial.org/ 
• https://www.newtactics.org/perspectives/amna-suraka-unexpected-place-healing/ 
  

In 2023, we immigrated to Spain for two years. My first trip to the Reina Sofia Art Museum, I got to spend time observing Picasso's work, Guernica (which I have now seen on 3 different occasions). I have to admit, at that time, I was ignorant about the Spanish history behind the painting entirely. The painting itself is massive with so much symbolism and I found it difficult to understand as I lacked the background knowledge. I knew quite a lot about World War II and had visited many memorials across Europe back in the 80's and later the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. I had read books and taken World History and Geography at the university. However, I had yet to understand the role of Spain, Franco and Spanish fascism during that time period as well as the history behind the Spanish Civil War. I had seen movies (in Spanish) that impacted me like Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) and Butterfly's Tongue (La Lengua de las Mariposas). So like I have done in other countries I have immigrated to, I began to educate myself more about Spanish history by traveling and visiting museums to learn my host country's stories, perspectives and challenges.

 The Guernica Peace Museum [Museo de la Paz de Gernika], Spain
The trip to Gernika (Guernica) did not start as an inquiry into peace for me. It unfolded throughout the visit to the museum itself. It is a powerful museum that confronts the visitor with the concept of peace through an epistemological lens. Additionally, I made connections to my prior research that I did for my coursework at University of Bath as well as life experiences while living abroad.

​I spent a lot of time that morning slowly reading the various case studies highlight in the museum. These activists over the years who have fought for peace by advocating for freedom of speech (economic status, race, gender), equal representation (economic status, race, gender), an invitation to participate equitably in the legislative process and the access to equal rights for all. Provocative questions ran throughout the exhibition...

• What is peace? 
• At what cost do we (society) achieve peace? 
• Who pays the price for another groups’ peace?
• When peace is obtained at any cost, is it peace?
• What is the relationship between peace, participation,  representation and marginalization?

Then to experience the museum itself learning about the bombing experience, reading the stories of survival and loss. It provoked me in a good way. Since visiting this museum, I see the headlines and daily streams of news differently. I connect back to peace and then the macro-concepts of my research studies.

While there, I purchased this book by William Smallwood (pictured above) who was the first reporter to arrive and document the events from primary source survivors.

Hopes for a Sustainable World
As an international educator now for over 22 years, I have internalized a more global perspective that seeks to understand other cultures, countries and peoples rather than to categorize, label and de-value them through "othering" or by using a deficits-based lens. Over time, I have felt increasingly connected to the cultures and countries who have welcomed me to contribute to their society through residency. Now, I see the world increasingly intertwined, as interdependent sectors who can support and benefit from one another for a sustainable global future. I find myself fully aligned with the ideals of the United Nations as stated in these documents below:

​Universal Declaration of Human Rights
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)

Secondly, I recognize that I stand on the shoulders of so many women who came before me to fight for equal rights - the right to citizenship independent of a man, the right to vote, to own property, to have a bank account, to drive a vehicle, to travel independently, to determine a career path... it is a long list for certain.

Current global events challenge the very fabric of what I have taken for granted - the norms of honor, integrity, respect and global collaboration ever since the formation of NATO and the end of World War II. If we all have human rights, why do governments exclude demographics and excuse themselves from obligations to honor those rights with distinct people groups? Look at the following timeline:

• February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. I was in Turkey at the time and we received many displaced families. to our school. This war continues... and who knows what the outcome will be or when it will end. This war has put to test relationships within and between the EU, the USA and the NATO alliance in general at times. 
• October 2023, Israel went to war with Hamas, decimating the Palestinians of Gaza. This also continues with ongoing calls for humanitarian aid. It is heartbreaking to watch the suffering that is happening there.
• The USA by a sweeping majority, re-elected President Trump who took office once more in January 2025. Since taking office, there has been increasing polarization, threats, revenge tactics and a break-down in the democratic processes. I find the videos of ICE at work disturbing and upsetting.
• A glimpse of hope for the future of the USA in the election of a new mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He is an immigrant, a muslim, so intelligent, kind and a visionary reformer! He is showing the USA what democratic socialism looks like - when the government serves the people for the common good to make life easier. 
• There are widespread protests in Iran taking place that are resulting in many deaths.
• Now, January 2026, the rights of minorities in Syria including the Kurds (near and dear to my heart because of my husband), the Druze, Alawites and Christians. 

Global norms are shifting, cracking and begin to break down. The world as we know it may be changing beyond what Artificial Intelligence is changing. As an expat, it is hard to believe and accept. I am unable to accept the increasing rhetoric of hate as well as the ostracizing tactics that I hear coming from politicians in the country of my birth, the USA.

​What does one do in the face of polarizing political rhetoric?  Or the dehumanizing actions by government officials who we expect to protect us? Or the outright aggression that results in wars?​

The nagging in the back of my brain returns to the concept of peace. And the ways we can guide our students to be inquirers into the concept of peace. We cannot hide our students from what is happening in the world. One action international educators can take is to use the current events as points for an inquiry into peace. ​

The Formation of Strategy Teams: Curious, Persistent, Creative
We divided up into small working groups to take ownership for driving the documentation of our philosophical and pedagogical approach: best practice research, content, strategies, skills for clear scope and sequence documents. As a completely new program, we had to ensure alignment across the grades. This would also ensure that our practices reflected the sales pitch our parents heard. 

What documents needed articulation?

• Collaboration in the Lower School: This document encompassed all of our Essential Agreements for interactions, ongoing meetings (a wide variety of types of meetings), homeroom/specialist responsibilities for tier 1 instruction, steps to collaborate with learning support for tier 2 or 3 support, approaches to behavior issues, playground agreements, etc. Over two years, this document expanded to articulate all expectations clearly.
• Assessment Handbook: This document encompassed our approach to assessment elaborating our cycles of reporting through conferences or formal student reports. It also elaborated ways to conduct assessment, to triangulate data and how to use assessment to make decisions about teaching and learning.
• Language & Literacy Scope and Sequence: This document encompassed our beliefs about language development and literacy instruction. We strove to align to the Science of Reading through Structured Literacy and the application of a functional approach using Systemic Functional Linguistics. It explained the strands that must be included in the homeroom practices each week for holistic literacy instruction. It also elaborated the AERO standards and UK Birth to 5 Matters for the Early Years. This document also included our host country, the Spanish Language for homeroom teachers to be informed.
• Philosophy of Play: This document opened the discussion to our Early Years team and how we would approach learning and teaching in Kinder 1, 2, 3 and into grade 1. We had to learn a holistic, developmental program that made space for play with a team who had not been exposed to play-based learning yet. In the document, we defined play and playful guided by Harvard Project Zero's newest publication. Then we began to unpack over the next two year, through ongoing training, what continuous provisions implies; how we can invite, nudge and provoke interest; the role of the teacher and the role of the student. Over time, we wanted to have the resources and spaces for play-based learning to always be available to all ages on campus. 
• Mathematics Essential Strategies: This supporting document encompassed our approach to reasoning by developing skills for problem-solving through strategies that build and extend upon one another. This aligned to NZ Mathematics and Pam Harris' resources for problem strings as well as her top models and strategies document. Our school chose to participate in the CBI Mathematics Project Pilot which would take time for us to fully understand and internalize the phases and understandings. So, it remained important to us to map out our strategies and models sequentially.
• Documents launched after school start:
  • Technology Usage / Digital Citizenship / Scope and Sequence
  • Social and Emotional Learning / Safeguarding and Child Protection

The Design of our Initial Program of Concept-Based Inquiry

As a CBCI consultant, I took the team through the introduction to teaching for conceptual understanding. We reviewed the Structure of Knowledge, the role of facts and concepts, the ways to identify a concept. Then we reviewed the purpose of learning to scaffolding the thinking by assessing generalizations. It is important to understand why we generalize and how we assess those generalizations - statements of understanding. Then we reviewed the the types of questions we can pose.

Additionally, every teacher was provided a copy of Concept-Based Inquiry in Action which became our guide for a book study throughout the school year. Also, we frequently referred to it during collaborative planning meetings when thinking about strategies to use at each stage of the cycle. To further support this process, our team also joined the CBI Mathematics Project which organizes units aligned to the same cycle for inquiry leading to generalizations as a form of assessment.
​
Using the Standards that we had agreed upon, we began to identify the concepts that we could use to build a program of inquiry. It was a messy process with lots of sticky notes and moving concepts around. We began with science and then added social studies until we could identify the conceptual lens that would be the driver of the unit. This would allow for authentic connections by specialist teachers. This was an initial attempt with almost all teachers new to inquiry-based learning except two. There was great enthusiasm as we brainstormed in small teams the units of inquiry for the upcoming launch. As small groups began to present their units of inquiry, they share their reasoning for the units and how they drew upon the standards. Others across the team provided feedback for further revision or adaptations. I chose to take a supportive stance even when I saw some units as potentially challenging for one reason or the other so that teachers could thoroughly experience the process of creating a unit, rolling it out and then later reflecting and revising based on their own experiences with the units of inquiry. 

Time and ongoing support would be the strategies that we would rely upon to build strategies and tools for full implementation. Our team as well as our brand new incoming cohorts of students faced a sharp learning curve. The majority of our students transferred because of a learning challenge and they had never been exposed to inquiry-based learning. It would take time!

In June 2024, we conducted a vertical and horizontal review of our Program of Concept-Based Inquiry to improve our units of inquiry as transdisciplinary learning opportunities. Our review process intentionally uses processes to provide participation that is authentic and agentic. I want to see teachers in reflective conversation about practice and content. This yields meaningful changes for improvements. Taking the time to make it interactive always pays off. Teachers are active, on their feet, observing, discussing and making notes. This brings the level of energy up, engagement increases and participation is more meaningful.

Ongoing professional development on restorative practices conducted by one of our team members. This was supported by further development of our handbook on learning support as well as identifying a curriculum framework to include in our program - Second Step with Safeguarding and SEL Curriculum Standards and Benchmarks by ICMEC and CASEL.

I facilitated ongoing professional development on Systemic Functional Linguistics after school to make SFL relevant and accessible. These lessons were organized for a grade 2 classroom level; however, the lesson lab experience opens doors to ideas for ways to make adjustments for different levels of challenge.

End of Year Professional Growth Reflection
In June of 2025, our Lower School team dedicated time to reflect once more. This time, I organized a reflection that focussed on a continuum of personal growth and development through the lens of our pedagogy. If you click through the images below, you will see examples of the continuum (beginner to world class). Based on feedback from our NEASC visitor, we had focussed our program on 4 pedagogical anchors as follows: 

• Concept-based Inquiry
• Approaches to Learning
• Inclusion and Differentiation
• Progress Monitoring and Reflection

I asked our team members (including myself) to honestly consider personal strengths and potential areas for growth. Areas for growth can be seen as opportunities to explore and extend on what we know now. They do not have to be seen as a weakness. The objective was to end the school having given thought to goals for development and making those reflections visible to our community. This information would inform the faculty meetings calendar for PD as well as the identification of resources for supporting PD.

This image above highlighted by Julie Stern on LinkedIn was helpful for guiding our conversations with a trusted colleague. I encouraged everyone to partner up with a trusted colleague to discuss how they were growing and what personal goals he/she might be considering to move their learning journey forward. Everyone on our team participated, including myself. The energy in the room was engaging. Teachers were reflecting, writing reflections and sharing honestly with one another. Exit tickets were used by each individual to identify personal strengths and areas for growth.

UPDATE:
Unfortunately, I was unable to see this endeavor through due to sudden layoffs over the summer of July 2025. It is terribly sad when one invests so heavily in an organization (knowledge, skills, schema and passion) and cannot see the results or impact of the vision-casting and investment - all the hours dedicated (evenings, weekends, vacations), the intellectual knowledge and the energy. The school's value of caring (integral to the guiding statements) did not manifest in the financial management or strategic planning of the institution. 

When I launched the program with our team, we spoke of taking 5-6 years to develop our team's collective capacity to facilitate concept-based inquiry using an embedded language approach. We believed that all teachers are language teachers so developing our capacity to use strategies that support that was a significant aim that would require ongoing sustainable support. Our homeroom teachers were learning to provide critical structured literacy lessons. Secondly, we wanted to develop our ability to facilitate reasoning by integrating the Problem Strings recently published by Pam Harris and Math-is-Figureoutable with the CBI Mathematics project. These goals were no small endeavor whatsoever; however, I bid the school farewell. I look forward to the next learning community in whom I will have the opportunity to inspire and pour my energy into; a community with belonging, care and financial sustainability.

After our first week of Distance Learning (DL), I felt proud of our school's professionalism, commitment to learning and especially to the general wellbeing of our entire community (students, teachers, leaders and parents). Our team pulled together and worked hard to find solutions. The Learner Profile came alive in our staff. No-one on our team had previous experience with conducting DL sessions for primary students. Many of us have experienced DL as learners through the various professional development courses offered (i.e. online masters courses, IBO courses, etc.) but facilitating it is another issue entirely. Everyone demonstrated commitment, open-mindedness and risk-taking while relying on colleagues to support them along the way. Fortunately for our learning community, we were able to provide every student with a Macbook or iPad from school which helped us to avoid many potential issues with technology connections and software.

As COVID-19 began to spread slowly from China, our school took steps to begin preparations for launching a balanced DL program aligned not only to our mission and vision but also to 3 core values we identified as a team: continuity of learning, keep us connected as a learning community and make sure it both sustainable manageable for community wellbeing. After the first week of DL, we made adjustments for sustainability to our DL program expectations. Above all, this is one of the biggest take aways for me, the need for flexibility, growth mindset and the ability to think creatively and strategically about best practice teaching in the digital environment.

​Our learners are at the heart of the triangle; we seek to facilitate the learning and teaching so that our learners are successful in this new environment. This meant all hands on deck working to create content, learning new platforms and introducing students to an entirely different system for learning. Besides being involved in multiple meetings and joining grade level morning meetings on Google Hangouts, I made myself busy creating digital read aloud videos aligned to the current units of inquiry or to the approaches to learning, key concepts and learner profile of the IB PYP. Now I feel like a pro on iMovie. I've also learned how to ScreenCast. Next, I will be learning how to conduct a math group session on Google Hangouts while sharing my screen. So much to try and so much to learn, but I'm determined to figure it out and be successful so our students feel successful. 

Areas to consider for your program:

• Child protection - ways to stay connected safely, limiting how we expose little ones to social media, digital citizenship
• ​Wellbeing - providing creative ways to learn without screen-time (play-based learning, tinkering and maker ideas, forest school approaches; fostering the joy of reading); providing staff with time to unplug, rest and see to their wellbeing; getting the counselor involved with checking in on isolated international teachers
• Community - sustain the sense of community through department and grade level check-in meetings with leadership; communicate consistently through morning messages from leadership; respond to emails as quickly as possible to ease anxiety and stress; schedule a staff get together in the virtual realm each week (happy hour)
• Share the load - Encourage teaching teams to split up the disciplines/content; one takes mathematics/number, one take unit of inquiry and one takes literacy/language. Encourage Teaching assistants to get involved with giving feedback and monitoring student posts on Seesaw. Encourage staff to maximize their capacity to collaborate for their own wellbeing.
• Consolidate learning over new material - perhaps focus on consolidating learning from past lessons at this time rather than introducing new material; focus on conceptual understandings and deepening them in mathematics, language and extending on inquiry skills;
• Routines - supporting students in establishing a routine at home and a place to learn with all their materials easily accessible to them.
• Schedule - a balance between synchronous and asynchronous learning engagements, a balance between school programming and allowing for flexibility at home to meet the demands of the family. 
• Resources - provide key or strategic resources to staff for immediate launch (login list for paid sites, quick training sessions to up-skill, specific platforms to begin using first; tools for staff collaboration and communication); encourage learning support staff to support differentiation needs; prevent teachers from being flooded with resources that lead to lost time following rabbit holes
• Framing the lessons - do not forget about the ways children learn (make the goal clear, access prior knowledge and provide context, provide new information, provide a means of application, and review the goal). I have always used Jane Pollack's approach to planning a lesson mentally in my mind; it is worthwhile considering her GANAG model as you facilitate digital lessons. See the lesson plan template below for reference.