What does the term "followership" mean to you? Our guest, Claire Gaul, joined us to delve into what it means to be a follower in international schools. She wrote a blog post for our learning hub that really got Audrey and me thinking about how being a follower connects to leadership in international schools—a theme that runs through many of our shows.

Claire describes the interaction of followership and leadership as a type of dance. I think this description makes a lot of sense. Claire provides a 360-degree view of it in our discussion.

Claire Gaul teaches MYP Individuals and Societies at an international school in China. She is an avid runner and reader. Her favorite authors include Joan Didion and Elif Shafak. She has lived all over the world as both a student and a teacher. Claire has 11 year old twins (Luke and Leia), a husband, and a hamster who needs to be rehomed before Claire moves to India in July with her family.

Our guiding question for this show was, "What is followership in our schools, and how does it go hand in hand with leadership?"

Claire shares her thoughts and wisdom, with the following being a few of her main points:

• Her impetus for writing the blog post
• A definition of followership that includes constructive followership
• How to lean into being constructive
• The possible personal and professional costs of not having healthy boundaries regarding followership
• Suggestions to help our listeners gain perspective on themselves and their interactions with others
• Her recent recruiting experience

Resources mentioned in the episode:

Profiling Schools, Cities and Countries blog post

Claire’s blog post on our website.

Claire's Contact Information:  LinkedIn

This episode was recorded on March 15th, 2025.

Categories: Wellness | Leadership | School Life | Recruiting 

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Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.

Change. It can be exciting. It can also be tough. And it happens a lot in international schools. At first, new ideas and the buzz around implementing them can feel electrifying. But here’s the catch: often, the people involved, the processes, and the long-term sustainability of these ideas—whether they’re initiatives or programs—don’t quite make it past the starting line.

So, why does this happen? And how do we successfully navigate the twists and turns of the change process? 

Audrey and David have been through countless new initiatives in schools over the years, and we have often wondered what makes some changes "stick" while others fall flat. That curiosity led us to Dr. Jim Reese. Many of you may know Jim, either as the previous facilitator of the Harvard Project Zero Summer Institutes or as a trusted consultant in your own school.

Jim lives in Washington, DC. After a long career teaching in international and U.S.  schools, he now works as a consultant with schools, museums, and educational organizations. Jim has a long-term affiliation with Project Zero, a research group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

In 2004, along with Dr. David Perkins from Harvard, Jim co-authored an article about managing change in a school to help it last. The article was called "When Change Has Legs: Four key factors help determine whether change efforts will be sustained over time." Each "leg" refers to one aspect of the change; all 4 are required for the change to last.

Our guiding question for the episode was, “What are proven ways to bring about sustainable change in international schools?”

The Four Legs of Sustainable Change are:

• Frameworks — Structures that guide and support learning
• Leaders — People who champion and drive the process
• Community — Collective buy-in and engagement from everyone involved
• Institutionalization — Embedding change so it becomes part of the school’s DNA

Resources cited in the episode: 

When Change Has Legs

Harvard Project Zero

Edtech Co-Op Podcast interview with Jim (2015) 

Professional Development Collaborative at Washington International School 

Jim's Contact Information: LinkedIn

Categories: PD | Leadership | School Change 

This episode was recorded on April 14th, 2025.

Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!

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Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.

Let’s be honest. Teaching and learning have changed somewhat over the years, but schools as institutions can still “feel” very similar to how they did when my grandfather was a school superintendent back in the 1940s. So what are some ways we can reimagine school? It takes a real visionary to think outside of this rigid box, wouldn’t you say? Our guest on this episode, educator and author Paul Halford, is one such visionary. Paul guides us through his perspective on reimagining schools.

Paul Halford has worked in education for over 50 years including 35 in management. His diverse career included Catholic, Jewish, Anglican, Islamic, government, international and alternative schools. He has twice been nominated for National Excellence Awards. In 2004 and in 2006 his schools received National Awards for Excellence and Improvement. He has led International schools in Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Malaysia.  

Our guiding question for this episode was: “How do educators and schools go about reimagining themselves?”

In this show, Paul covers several topics, including:

• Paul’s reasons for writing his book, My Educated Life: Lessons from Leading and Reimagining Schools
• Schools’ search for legitimacy
• Paul’s early career working at a parent-designed alternative school in Australia
• The importance of trust, care, and hope in schools, as modeled by school leaders
• Leadership tools to promote trust, care, and hope
• Connections to the work of school change pioneer Michael Fullan
• The process of reimagining schools moving forward

Resources mentioned in the episode:

My Educated Life: Lessons from leading and reimagining schools by Paul Halford

Michael Fullan The New Meaning of Educational Change

This episode was recorded on March 20, 2025.
Categories: School Life | Leadership | Change 

Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!

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Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.

Where do new schools come from? Our research and guest insights reveal that new schools are regularly emerging, with many others planned for construction in the near future. What does this mean for you as you seek to be an informed international educator while navigating the recruiting process?

What are some “under the hood” aspects of startup schools you should be examining? What are the advantages and potential disadvantages of working at a newly-established school?

With these questions in mind, we reached out to Greg Parry, an expert in starting schools. Greg leads Global Services in Education (GSE), a company he founded that collaborates with investors, developers, and school management providers to design, build, and manage new schools.

Greg is a visionary leader, educator, and acclaimed author with an exceptional track record in the field of international education. From his home country of Australia to the United States, India, Africa, Myanmar, China, South America, South Korea, Japan and the Middle East, Greg's insights have transformed education systems and elevated learning outcomes. He has trained teachers and principals worldwide, focusing on critical thinking, language development, and leadership. Greg's expertise in school start-up projects, curriculum development, and effective leadership strategies has solidified his authority in the field.

For this episode, we focused on a few guiding questions:

1. What do international educators need to know about the rapid growth of new international schools? 
2. Who are some of the major players, and what criteria should educators consider when evaluating these schools?
3. What are some current trends in international education?

Resources mentioned in the episode:

Global Services in Education (GSE)

Global Services in Education Blog

Greg’s TEDx Talk 

Steps to Setting Up a New School

Five Trends That Will Redefine International Schools in 2025

Educators Going Global: Profiling Schools, Cities and Countries

Greg's Contact Information: 

LinkedIn

 This episode was recorded on April 9th, 2025.
Categories: Recruiting | Leadership | School Life | New Schools 

Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!

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Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.

How can schools integrate Social-Emotional Learning, Belonging, Global Citizenship and Creative Expression in one beautiful package? By prioritizing a crucial aspect of schooling: The Arts. And yet The Arts are often relegated to “encore” status, underfunded or even dispensed with duiring budget crunches.

For this show, we assembled a talented panel of guests who represented years of experience and an array of artistic disciplines: Film, Theater, Art and Music.

David Gran has developed and taught film programs for 20 years  in the U.S., Shanghai, and Chile. He was a co-founder of SAS’s Innovation Institute and Nido’s Changemakers program, the Shanghai Student Film Festival and the InThinking site for IB Film. David is also a former columnist for School Arts Magazine.

Tina Casey is the HS Theater Teacher and the Performing Arts Director at ISKL. She has been working overseas for over 30 years, including 15 years in Malaysia. This year marks Tina’s final year at ISKL, after which she will return home with her husband to Northern Ontario for a "nap year" before deciding on next steps.

Nick Stonehouse is an art and design educator currently working in HCMC, Vietnam. He has taught in multiple curricula at a range of ages, from Early Childhood to Secondary. At present, Nick is thoroughly enjoying teaching grades 2 and 3 art. Nick is also an avid photographer, artist, art enthusiast, and world traveler.

Scott Rogal has taught in Canada, Hong Kong and Vietnam. Currently, he teaches Band at the American School of Bahrain and conducts the Jazz Orchestra of Bahrain, a semi-professional ensemble featuring many of Bahrain’s top musicians. He is also an active composer who writes and publishes through ApRo Music in Canada. 

Our guiding question for the show was “What are some characteristics that describe international school arts programs?”

Our panelists shared many insights around implementing an arts program while also sharing specifics about their individual domains of music, theater, film and art. 

Here are a few of the topics covered: 

• What a standard K-12 arts program from a holistic perspective can look like
• Unpacking the components of an arts program including mission/vision, infrastructure, curricular outcomes, etc. 
• Painting the picture of what music, theater, film and art look like in ES, MS and HS

This was a rich discussion with each participant chiming in with their takes while sharing experiences from their careers. We has so many questions that plans are already being made for a follow-up recording!

This episode was recorded on March 29, 2025.

Categories: The Arts | SEL | Life Skills

Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!

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Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.

We enjoyed our first interview with Dave McMaster so much that we spoke with him a second time! If you missed the first interview on what it is like to start an international school, definitely check it out – it’s Episode 74. Dave also recorded two Going Global Stories for us. Head to our information hub to enjoy those. 

Dave has 35 years of K-12 education experience, primarily in leadership roles in Canada, Hong Kong, and Bahrain. He joined the Esol organization in Bahrain in September 2018, and led the founding team in establishing the American School of Bahrain, which opened its doors to just over 100 students amid the COVID-19 Pandemic and has grown to nearly 800 students in its first five years of operation.

Prior to this role, Dave served as Principal and Head of School at the Canadian International School of Hong Kong. During his tenure, he spearheaded the authorization process for the full slate of International Baccalaureate (IB) programs. Within six years, CDNIS DP students ranked in the top 10% of IB schools worldwide, and CDNIS was recognized as the top international school in Hong Kong for seven consecutive years. Dave has founded three schools, including the American School of Bahrain.

Dave’s authenticity as an educational leader motivates the entire school community to continually improve, ensuring excellence in educational provision. He strongly believes that cultivating a school culture based on mutual respect, happiness, and high yet realistic expectations will lead to a fruitful educational experience for students. He emphasizes the "smile index" as a key barometer for assessing a school's success. Dave also has extensive experience in recruiting, hiring, and retaining top educators, which he considers crucial to the success of founding ASB.

Dave holds a Bachelor of Education from Queen's University. He also earned a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership from San Diego State University.

Our Guiding Question was, “What is it like teaching and living in the Middle East?”

Here are a few of the topics covered in this episode:

• What teachers can experience teaching in a fairly typical Middle Eastern international school
• Some advantages of and expectations for living in the Middle East as expats, particularly in Bahrain

Resources mentioned in the episode:

American School of Bahrain

Dave's Contact Information: 

LinkedIn

Instagram

The show was recorded on February 16, 2025.

Categories: School Life | Travel | Recruiting | Bahrain

Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!

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Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.

As international educators, like so many others, in a sense, we tend to write chapters to our life stories. These stories can be organized by countries, schools, travel, and, of course, the regular categories of relationships, family, children, aging, and so on.

We were fortunate to catch our guest, Mark Lewis, just as he was reflecting about the chapters of his international experiences, with his retirement coming up in a couple of months.

Mark is a seasoned international educator with experience at the International School Manila, American International School Riyadh, Concordia International School Shanghai, Bodwell International School, International School Ho Chi Minh City-American Academy, and BASIS Park Lane Harbour. He is currently a principal and teacher in the public school system in Canada.

One of Mark’s core beliefs is that many of the world's future leaders will emerge from students educated in international schools. These students are often multilingual, have received top-tier education, networked with ambitious peers, come from families of means, and almost always pursue higher education degrees—traits that are well-suited to leadership roles. This leadership may manifest in local communities, small business ventures, significant corporate positions, or even public office. It is crucial that international schools continue preparing their students for leadership roles by fostering a skill set that goes beyond academic excellence.

We asked "soon-to-be-retired" Mark the guiding question: “What are some of your lessons learned from the various roles you experienced during your years of going global?”

With such a long career in international schooling, Mark had a lot of gems to share with us:

• Commonalities of international schools in Asia
• Characteristics of international schools specifically in China
• Clarifications between legacy international schools, bilingual schools, and local-student-majority schools
• A look at for-profit schools and the various forms they can take
• Working with school boards
• “Leaky boundaries” in international schools
• Repatriating to one’s home country
• A rapid-fire sharing of lessons learned from Mark’s career overseas

Resources mentioned in the episode:

EARCOS East Asia Regional Council of Schools

NESA - Near East/South Asia Council of Overseas Schools

Mark’s Contact Information: 

LinkedIn

This episode was recorded on March 23, 2025. 
Categories: Leadership | Change | School Life | School Types

Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!

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Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.

Where does your school stand in terms of designing, implementing and measuring the effectiveness of its whole-school wellness program? Several of our thought-leader guests have told us that wellness is at the top of the to do list for many international schools. 

Along with Wellness, another recurring topic in our episodes is change management, especially around the development of new programs. We hear stories about initiative fatigue and the dropping of programs when their champions leave the school. 

With so much talk around wellness and change management we decided to invite Alison Leathwood on the show to share an overview of how to design and implement a schoolwide wellness program that is sustainable. 

Alison is an international school physical education teacher who is passionate about wellness. She is dedicated to equipping students with the tools they need for both physical and emotional wellbeing. She extends this passion beyond the classroom, having served in various leadership roles including HS Advisory Curriculum Coordinator, EC-12 Personal Development Coordinator, Wellness Committee Chair and currently serving as the Head of Department for PE. Through these leadership roles, Alison strives to create a lasting positive impact on the social-emotional well-being of the entire school community. 

Our guiding question for this show was, “How might international school leaders approach the development of a school- and community-wide wellness program based on Positive Psychology?”

Alison offered such a detailed framework along with so many practical strategies that it is futile to try and summarize them here. So I will share just a handful of the topics to whet your appetite for designing an effective wellness program at your school!

Here they are:

• Using a Positive Psychology approach to wellness
• Leveraging Character Strengths and the PERMAH pillars
• The who, what, when, where, why and how of implementing a wellness program
• Other factors that will affect the success of your wellness program

Resources mentioned in the episode:

Alison's Resource folder

David’s Wellness@ES site for integrating Pos Psych into the elementary school

Alison’s Contact Information: 

LinkedIn

X: @peleathwood

This episode was recorded on February 24, 2025.

Categories: Wellness | Leadership | Change 

Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!

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Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.

If you’ve ever visited the International Schools Services website, you may have noticed at some stage that they added a button at the top that said “start a school”. The button has now moved to the bottom of the page, but it’s still there. For us, it always felt like that line from the movies, “I wonder what happens if I press this button?” Well, Dave McMaster is a brave soul who has “pushed the button” on starting a school, not once, but three times. We think it’s fair to say that Dave knows what happens! 

Dave has 35 years of K-12 education experience, primarily in leadership roles across Canada, Hong Kong, and Bahrain. He joined the Esol organization in Bahrain in September 2018, and led the founding team in establishing the American School of Bahrain, which opened its doors in September 2020. The school began with just over 100 students amid the COVID-19 pandemic and has grown to nearly 800 students in its first five years of operation.

Prior to this role, Dave served as Principal and Head of School at the Canadian International School of Hong Kong (CDNIS) from 2002 to 2014. During his tenure,  CDNIS was recognized as the top international school in Hong Kong for seven consecutive years. Dave has founded three schools, with the most recent being the American School of Bahrain.

Dave’s authenticity as an educational leader is a recognized force that motivates students, parents, staff, and management to continually advance the status quo, ensuring excellence in educational provision and learning. He emphasizes what he calls the "smile index" as a key barometer for assessing a school's success. Dave also possesses extensive experience in recruiting and retaining top international educators, which he considers crucial to the success of founding ASB.

Dave holds a Bachelor of Education from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He also earned a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership from San Diego State University.

Our Guiding Question was, “How does one start an international school?”

Here are a few of the topics covered in this episode:

• Reasons why new international schools are being built
• Who are some of the parties behind the new schools
• Some of the various “buckets” or categories of work that you needed to plan for and start a new international school
• Some of the headaches and some of the heartfelt moments in starting his current school
• Advice for any person or organization thinking about starting an international school

Resources mentioned in the episode:

American School of Bahrain

Dave McMaster on LinkedIn

Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!

Email us with comments or suggestions at [email protected]

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Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.

How do international schools get their start- in particular the original ones from so many years ago? Many of them had very humble beginnings, with a handful of students, a few parents (usually spouses of diplomats or business people who had moved overseas) and a large house or a few rooms where lessons could be held. 

At 71 years of age, The Lincoln School in Kathmandu, Nepal is one such school. In this “case study-style” interview, we were lucky enough to be able to speak with Barbara Butterworth, who was head of the school from 1998 - 2005. 

Barbara is an educator whose career originally took her to Nepal as a Peace Corps Volunteer, where she taught math and science. She also taught science education at two different colleges and served as a principal/director at four different schools: a private elementary school, a public elementary school, an international school, and a noted Nepali high school. From 1998 to 2005, she was the director of the Lincoln School, the American international school in Nepal. A graduate of Wellesley College, Cornell University, and Stanford University, Barbara’s career in education has also included leading a major USAID teacher training project in Cambodia.

Our Guiding Questions were, “At 71 years of age, Lincoln School is one of the “OG” international schools. How did the Lincoln School get its start and what makes the Lincoln School community a special place to be?”

Here are a few of the topics covered in this episode:

• Lived values and characteristics of Lincoln School and its community
• Origin story of the school comparing to similar early international schools
• How the Lincoln School and community deal with struggles and difficult times
• How some international schools celebrate their milestone anniversaries
• Recruiting during pre-internet times

Resources mentioned in the episode:

Lincoln School 

The show was recorded on February 10, 2025.

Categories: School Life | Crisis Management | School Missions | Recruiting

Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!

Email us with comments or suggestions at [email protected]

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Listen on your favorite podcast app: connect from our share page.

Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.