Headmaster: New Year to Be Challenging, Rewarding
I hope that you all had a wonderful break and are refreshed and revitalized for the start of 2007. My thanks go to the literally hundreds of people who supported the school last year in a myriad of capacities; 2007 will, I am sure, be just as stimulating, demanding and rewarding.
Last year saw the completion of the five-year Strategic Plan, the conceptualization of the Campus Master Plan and the evolution of the vision of AIS. The Master Plan has been discussed at length with our Garden Hills neighbors and I appreciate the help that many parents have given to support these plans at local meetings. These discussions have been energetic, to say the least, but the surrounding community is as keen as we are for the school to consolidate its position and continue to be a positive force within this area of Buckhead.
Steve Huyghe, chair of the Building and Grounds Committee, and Gerry Hull, chair of the Board of Trustees, have worked tirelessly to see our expansion plans meet reality; I will keep you posted as this process unfolds. There will be another opportunity for parents to hear these plans at the next Parent Organization meeting.
However, whilst a great deal of my time is spent on the Campus Master Plan and associated issues, the challenge before us is to ensure that our educational aspirations are clearly articulated and defined. There have been a plethora of articles recently debating the future needs of students and how schools need to change to meet these requirements. Some of the more notable articles over the past weeks have been in Time magazine ("How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century" by Claudia Wallis and Sonja Steptoe, Dec. 9) and the New York Times ("Learning to Keep Learning" by Thomas Friedman, Dec. 13, and "What It Takes To Make a Student" by Paul Tough, Nov. 26).
The focus of these articles follows the theme that schools are too slow in making changes to their curricula to make certain that students succeed and thrive in the new global economy. This is a problem, I would suggest, that is not just limited to this generation. Students need to know more about the world, think differently about solutions to problematic issues, process volumes of information with greater sophistication and understand how to interact with others from many walks of life (the much lauded 'emotional intelligence'). I could not have scripted such articles better to support the IB curriculum and our philosophical aspirations of an international education. It is fitting, therefore, that at the start of the year we remind ourselves of our mission:
Our new century needs and will be shaped by extraordinary individuals. Meeting the challenges and opportunities of an interdependent world will require versatile intellectual competence and uncompromising commitment. Those who thrive in and contribute to this world will have a solid sense of who they are and respect for who others are, as individuals, as members of a group, as citizens of their nation, and as members of a global community. They will have a rigorous academic preparation and a passion to become the best they can be and to help others achieve their best. The mission of Atlanta International School is to develop such individuals.
This must, and will be, the focus of all our decisions; be they related to our admissions policies, our curriculum initiatives, staffing, or other matters that directly influence the education of the students in our care. I am certain that a culture of change and the establishment of processes to institutionalize policies and procedures will guide us through our next stages of development. I wish everyone—parents, the Board, administration, teachers and staff—great success in our mutual endeavors and a wonderful new year. Our children's hopes, aspirations and triumphs depend upon it.