Over the last several years I have stopped adding to my blog for two reasons. First, because I have no idea if it is helpful or read by anyone since I rarely get feedback . Second, I have been busy working and writing for the new international school that I helped open as the Academic Principal of in August of 2017.
However, with a lot of free time at home, and very tired of watching the news, I have been writing documents for my school to share with parents and faculty. After some thought, I felt like they are worth sharing on my blog as well. When you read the documents, you might see content that sounds like it is for Chinese and International teachers and parents. Yes, that is true, but if you read without that consideration, you might find that the content will help American teachers and parents as well. I hope so.
A little history might be of interest to some of you. This started after I retired from my second job working with UNITE-LA, a foundation tied closely to the LA Chamber of Commerce, which was working with schools helping them to implement close working relationships with the business community. When funding was cut for me to work inside of the schools, I recommended that they find someone to replace me who had more experience working with the business community than I had.
I was ready now on my second attempt to retire to stop work and act retired. However, a good young friend at this time was asked to work with Chinese graduate students in education from Beijing several times during the year when they were visiting Los Angeles. My friend asked if I could help him with these infrequent Saturday sessions. Doing what we were doing was interesting and great fun. It was so successful that my friend and I were invited to come to Beijing and speak with teachers and administrators about US educational philosophy and instructional practices. I went on two of these Chinese excursions and was suddenly offered a position to help open a new school as the Academic Principal in Dongguan, China.
After saying no for many reasons to the offer, my family became excited when a new offer came and they pushed me to do something that they knew that I would love. So off to China I went living in an apartment for a good part of the year and figuring out how to live outside of Los Angeles. I had never lived away from Los Angeles for more than eight weeks in my life. I spent six weeks in basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, and hated every minute of it. I lived for eight weeks one summer on the east coasts as a resident counselor and with family. Other than two experiences, other than going to vacations, I had always lived in Los Angeles. So, going off to China was a scary experience for me. At this point, I am no longer a scared traveler. When I go, I enjoy everything except the 12-14 hour plane flight from LAX to Guangzhou.
At the close of the last school year, I decided it was time to spend more family time so I asked the school to hire a new principal to replace me. I was then awarded by the school in a tearful meeting the position of Principal Emeritus of Tsinglan School. This was a great honor and I have appreciated it very much. We had agreed that I still had an important role with the school, so for this year, I have become more like a consultant with the plan that I would help from home when I could, and I would work at the school for one month at a time, twice per year. My last school visit was the month of November 2019. I left China just before the beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak there. I was fortunate but the school had to close its doors and begin online teaching. My plan was to return in March of 2020, but that obviously did not happen.
At this point I do not know when it will be safe for me to return and assist. I hope that I do get the opportunity to return many more times as this school is my "baby" and care deeply about the school, the kids, the staff and parents of Tsinglan School very much.
I hope that by reading the documents that I have been providing to the school might help others to provoke their own thinking and planning over the next years to come. Please enjoy and please comment on my entries. I welcome comments on the new and the older entries on this blog.
Thank you,
Larry
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