At the AAIE conference in February I was approached by a former teacher from the American Community School of Athens who wanted to thank me for hosting her and two colleagues at my former school, International College (Beirut). The visit had taken place 20 years ago (!), and she described their experience as “transformational.”
Back story: When I served as President of International College, we had a large (400-plus) faculty and could not afford to send all our teachers to conferences. I decided to stop sending teachers to conferences because of the high-cost, low return nature of this form of professional development and, instead, contacted other Heads of School with the simple proposition, “I’ll host one or two of your teachers if you’ll host one or two of mine.” For much less than the cost of sending a teacher to a conference, a teacher exchange was more beneficial to classroom teaching and learning. After a year or two, we were sending or receiving about a dozen teachers a year. We found that teachers who participated in such exchanges were excited about what they had learned and eager to apply new skills in the classroom. And teachers who met with our visitors were eager to exchange ideas about best classroom practices.
The conversation at AAIE reminded me that these exchanges had been very beneficial. And I thought, why not get a larger group of schools participating in such exchanges?
Starting in March, I reached out to Heads of School around the world with the idea of short-term (three to five-day) visits – similar to accreditation team visits but without the stress of report-writing. And so, the International Teacher Exchange Consortium (ITEC) was born. My goal was to get 30-40 schools involved. As of this writing, 112 schools serving over 98,000 students in 63 countries have registered for the ITEC. There is no charge to join or participate in the program. Participating schools fill out a spreadsheet with relevant data: name of school / location / grade range / number of students / website address / contact person / email address / curricular platform / school’s particular strengths.
In essence, participating schools agree to send teachers to other schools in the consortium and receive teachers from other schools in the consortium. Costs are minimal: the sending school pays only for their teachers’ travel; the receiving school would do airport pick-up, house, feed and provide cultural opportunities for the visiting teachers. The timing for the visits can also vary according to the respective schools’ calendars. The process is organic. After entering data in the ITEC registry, schools decide how much of their professional development budget they want to dedicate to these exchanges and what they want to focus on. From there, it’s a bit like the “Dating Game” – schools contact one another to work out dates for visits. Visits will vary according to the participating schools. It may be that School A sends teachers to school B, but School B sends to School C, and School X sends teachers to School A. The only “rule” is that a school must be willing to receive as many teachers as it sends.
Exchanges need not be limited to teachers – division principals, directors of teaching and learning, human resource managers, International Baccalaureate coordinators, business managers, etc. Not everyone on your staff will be interested. A visit to another school may require some “couch-surfing” for a few nights. Or an educator who is sent to another school may be asked to host a visiting educator. Educators who visit other schools should be required to report back to their colleagues what they have learned.
If your professional budget cannot accommodate travel for your teachers, you can probably afford to host some visiting teachers. Or how about “exchanges” via Zoom? In general, these exchanges will vary from school to school in terms of length of visits, times that work for both schools.
Benefits are Multiple:
The good news is that there are more than 110 schools around the world that like this idea for professional development. The more schools, the more choices! Thanks for giving this idea for building bridges between schools some thought. I hope you will agree that this is a low-cost, high-return professional development opportunity. If you have any questions about ITEC, feel free to contact me at [email protected] or via LinkedIn. I’m happy to hop on a Zoom call to discuss or answer any questions you may have.
Art Charles is a lifelong educator, having worked in five international schools and as Head of School of three. For last 16 years, he has been recruiting senior administrators.
