Masterclass With Fearless Educator

Victor Ekwueme is a visually impaired Information technology (IT) professional. He holds a Computer Science Bachelor's degree from the University of Lagos and two Masters degrees. One from the University of Nottingham, UK and the other from The University of Dundee, UK where he studied MSc IT and MSc Intelligent Computational Systems respectively. On returning to Nigeria from the UK, his eyesight deteriorated severely due to a rare disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP). Victor had to learn new skills to cope with everyday life especially in his career as an IT Consultant. He learnt some braille and also other skills using his mind such as memorisation techniques and mental calculations.  Victor has spoken in several conferences about overcoming his struggles and appeared on several online platforms i.e newspapers and digital magazines. He further started an academy (called MetaProgramming Academy) to teach people how to learn metacognition skills through computer programming. He teaches the Python programming language and uses metacognitive skills to teach such skills. His vision is to disseminate this knowledge to eager people willing to learn not just computer programming but mental tools and techniques that will guide them in learning the language.  These techniques could be adapted to other subjects if the student is creative. Victor works with Super Digital Highways (Nig.) Ltd. as a Technical Consultant with the Odoo Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. He has over 15 years working experience in IT ranging from Software Development, Networking, and more recently, Data Science. He does not let his vision weigh him down but rather, uses it to galvanise and inspire people to want to better themselves.

From a very young age, deeply interested in education, I have been guided by life and by the call of my heart in this adventure that is life. Father of two daughters, together with my partner Marién, we are involved in the creation in 1999 of “ojo de agua”, an radical initiative of educational innovación based on sustainability, selfdirected learning, respect for others (human or not-human) and democracy. After more than 20 years at the forefront of the education transformation movement at the end of the 20th century, we see clearly that the next natural step is to transform the way we insert ourselves as adults in society. With “Ojo de Sol” (an Alternative Program for a Conscious Leadership), we intend to contribute to a new culture of caring for the earth and all the beings that compound it, compatible with a sacred economy and with the achievement of the personal fulfillment of the “bionautas”. In addition, I have a degree in Pedagogy and Educational Sciences, studies in Psychopedagogy, Expert in Business Management and Human Resources. Certificate in Design in Permaculture and Transition Towns. Our fundamental thesis is that "emotional health is a key element in the development of awareness of our interdependence with the ecosystem and, therefore, a key factor to eliminate the ecocide that humans are currently perpetrating."

Kru Daiju has been involved in education for over 18 years. He holds Bachelor and master’s degree in Business Administration. Kru Daiju has taught Social Studies Business and Management, Economics and Theory of Knowledge. In the last eighteen years, he has been fortunate enough to have worked at some of the leading schools in China, India, Japan, and the Philippines. He is also a member of the IB Educator Network as a workshop leader and examiner for Business and Management and Extended Essays. He has been involved with and chaired several committees throughout his career. He has served in various coordinator roles, including IB Coordination, technology initiatives, school improvement programs, and has played a critical role in many aspects of educational professional development.

Fiona McKenzie is a teacher who quickly realised that a conventional school environment was not going to allow her to achieve her vision of generating positive change in the world. It was partly the ‘what’ of the curriculum, but mostly the ‘how’ of the schools she worked in. Sensing that the ‘how’ could not be changed without a new approach to school structure and program design, Fiona established a primary school based on a model that addressed these systemic problems, for 6-12 year old children in a rural area, 150km south of Melbourne, Australia - Koonwarra Village School opened in 2012 with 26 students.  Following requests from parents in another community nearby, a second primary school opened on Phillip Island four years later, and in 2020, the opening of a high school (Village High School) became a natural progression as students and parents wanted to maintain their engagement with self-directed learning into the senior years of schooling. Fiona is currently the Principal of the two youngest schools and remains on the Board of the third.

Nathan Swenson has been an educational leader for over 20 years and has had experiences in 4 different countries before moving to Vietnam. Nathan attended Carleton College, Gustavus Adolphus College, and Saint Mary's University to earn a BS in Education, a Master's in Curriculum and Instruction, and a certificate in Educational Leadership. He has been a principal in the USA, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Brazil and he is extremely excited to be the Head of School at ISHCMC-American Academy for the 2020-2021 school year.  Nathan is passionate about helping children learn and grow as they prepare for the rest of their lives. At ISHCMC-AA he is focused on a positive, caring, and engaging environment and Nathan embraces this moto in all that he does. He spends time getting to know each student and helps meet their individual needs. He has high expectations for the school and students and encourages everyone to reach their fullest potential. Nathan enjoys meeting with families and encourages parents to be involved in their child's development. He will be speaking about how to use the design process and research to make sure that you are meeting the needs of your student population and the school community.

Architect / President of Tezuka Architects / Professor of Tokyo City University

1964 Born in Tokyo, Japan

1987 B. Arch., Musashi Institute of Technology

1990 M. Arch., University of Pennsylvania

1990-1994 Richard Rogers Partnership Ltd.

1994 Founded Tezuka Architects with Yui Tezuka

1996-2008 Associate Professor, Musahi Institute of Technology

2009- Professor, Tokyo City University

The Best of All, OECD/CELE 4th Compendium of Exemplary Educational Facilities (2011, Fuji Kindergarten)

Prize of Architectural Institute of Japan for Design (2008, Fuji Kindergarten)

Japan Institute of Architects Award (2008, Fuji Kindergarten) (2015, Sora no Mori Clinic)

AR Award 2004, the Architectural Review (Echigo-matsunoyama Museum of Natural Science)

Good Design Gold Prize (1997, Soejima Hospital) (2013, Asahi Kindergarten)

Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2017, UNESCO

Moriyama RAIC International Prize 2017 (Fuji Kindergarten), Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC)

BCS Prize (2018, Sora no Mori Clinic), Japan Federation of Construction Contractors

World Architecture Festival 2018, School Completed Buildings Winner (Muku Nursery School)

2004 Venice Biennale of Architecture

2013 Carnegie International

2018 Venice Biennale of Architecture “Freespace”

Publications

Takaharu + Yui Tezuka Architecture Catalogue 1-3. TOTO Publishing 

Takaharu + Yui Tezuka NOSTALGIC FUTURE ERINNERTE ZUKUNFT, Jovis, 2009.

Tezuka Architects: The Yellow Book, Edited by Thomas Sherman & Greg Logan, Jovis, 2016

TED.com “The best kindergarten you've ever seen” by Takaharu Tezuka

https://www.ted.com/talks/takaharu_tezuka_the_best_kindergarten_you_ve_ever_seen

Kapono Ciotti is passionate about the science of teaching and learning and has put this practice to work as Director / Head of School at The American International School in Egypt. Kapono is an international trainer and professional development coach, teacher, and a culture and place-based curriculum writer, focusing on culturally appropriate pedagogy. With the Pacific American foundation, he has written for the Kai E’e, Malama Kaho’olawe and Aloha ‘Aina curriculums and facilitated numerous trainings for Department of Education, Charter, Independent and International Schools. He has over 12 years of classroom teaching before moving into senior administration in non-profit, high school and elementary school. He now leads one of the region’s most influential K-12 institutions, AISE. Kapono spent 15 years as a facilitator for the National Association of Independent Schools specializing in issues of diversity in education, and a contributor to national movements in project-based, and 21st century learning.

Kapono Ciotti earned a PhD in International education in 2018 from Northcentral University, holds a Masters degree in Social Change and Development from the University of Newcastle, Australia and a Bachelors in Language and Cultural Studies from The Evergreen State College, Washington.

Jerry Mintz has been a leading voice in the alternative school movement for over 30 years. In addition to his seventeen years as a public and independent alternative school principal and teacher, he has also helped found more than one hundred public and private alternative schools and organizations. He has lectured and consulted in more than twenty-five countries around the world.

In 1989, he founded the Alternative Education Resource Organization and since then has served as it’s Director. Jerry was the first executive director of the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools (NCACS), and was a founding member of the International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC).

In addition to several appearances on national radio and TV shows, Jerry’s essays, commentaries, and reviews have appeared in numerous newspapers, journals, and magazines including The New York Times, Newsday, Paths of Learning, Green Money Journal, Communities, Saturday Review, Holistic Education Review as well as the anthology Creating Learning Communities (Foundation for Educational Renewal, 2000).

Jerry was Editor-in-Chief for the Handbook of Alternative Education (Macmillan, 1994), and the Almanac of Education Choices (Macmillan/Simon & Schuster, 1995). He is the author of School’s Over: How to Have Freedom and Democracy in Education (AERO, 2017) and is editor of Turning Points: 35 Visionaries in Education Tell Their Own Story (AERO, 2010).

A dedicated and passionate advocator of Early Childhood Education (ECE), play pedagogy focusing on emotional development who started her journey in the education industry upon returning from her 7 years of studies in the United Kingdom, in 2012. She first designed and produced an interactive courseware for children during her degree years in Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP). This led her to pursue MA Development in Global Societies in Leeds Beckett University and continued her doctorate journey in Cognitive Science, Sussex University.

Seeing too much focused on academic learning as young as 4, she decided to resign as a lecturer, left the academia to venture into the industry to understand the issues in ECE. Challenged by her husband after series of talks, to prove what was said on the importance of ECE, she designed her own Play Based Learning Kindergarten Model called KinderKaizen in 2014. A model that fits the culture, and evidence based research, she was called to run one, to walk the talk. Advocating through KinderKaizen, she managed to convince around 40 interested followers to run the centres in 40 different locations within 3 years. This was indeed a success.

The journey continues with the needs of a school. Her children are growing and again, she struggles with fitting in the existing education system. She tried alternative schoolings and homeschooled for a while, but she was consistently thinking and trying to find a solution. Sri Aria, a Self-Directed Education school came to mind as the most acceptable system that may fit into the objective of why she thinks the country needs one. Started one in 2018, Sri Aria has 4 campuses today, with a total of 140 students and growing. Adding to this, she too created a childcare centre, KinderBebe to champion the campaign of ‘Start Right’ for 0-4s. This is following the needs of supporting parents to make it right from the start.

A job creator she is from the very beginning, to date, she has created PlayLeaders, PlayCarers, PlayWorkers, Mediators, Play Companions and Learning Facilitators. She designed a Play Conference to educate the nation. She initiated the StoryMaker Apprentices, to train undergraduates and inspire them by being her apprentices. She designed books, train apprentices to produce children’s books and publish them. She appears on televisions, radios, newspapers and magazines to advocate and now slowly shifting towards becoming a Child-Parent Mediator to support emotional development.

She definitely has so much on her plate, and she has now her own blueprint of a whole school system, a revolution in education. Understanding the busy schedule, she is now creating champions to lead her work.

In a career of forty years, Andy Homden has worked in some of the most prominent international schools in the world both as a teacher and leader. Having graduated with a degree in Modern History from Oxford, where he also trained as a teacher, he taught in the UK before starting his international career at Island School in Hong Kong. Leadership appointments followed at the British School in Jakarta where he was Head of Secondary and then as Director of Schools at the Alice Smith School in Kuala Lumpur. Headships followed at Enka Schools in Istanbul, Bangkok Patana School and then in Dubai with Taaleem LLC, as Principal of Dubai British School and founding Principal of Jumeira Baccalaureate School. He is the founder and CEO of Consilium Education, a specialist group of consultants advising emerging international school.  Andy is currently the international education consultant to the DPS-STS school in Dhaka, Bangladesh, assisting the Board and Senior Leadership Team with the development of the Cambridge International and Early Years Foundation Stage curricula, teacher and leadership training, online learning, policy development and strategic planning.  Andy took his Master’s degree in Education at the University of Western Australia, specialising in curriculum design and the leadership of change. In 2016, he was awarded the Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing by the Digital Marketing Institute. Recent assignments with Consilium Education have included studies for new projects in Japan, Russia, Latvia and China.