After six years circling the world as THINK Global School's Head of School, Jamie Steckart intends to return to his native Wisconsin for the foreseeable future. He plans on spending that time with his wife Angie and their three children: Charlotte, Finn, and Piper. "My family has been living abroad for over eight years now, and it's been nine years for myself. In that time, I have made many new...
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I'm writing this post this late afternoon from the State of Quintana Roo, Mexico. It's not a place that one usually associates with working as, truth told, I'm spending part of each day relaxing on a stunning beach with my kids. But, it's a really busy time for us at TGS and given that a good chunk of what we do every day we do virtually, as long as I...
Read MoreYep - checking in again from 12,000 metres above, well, where am I at the moment...above the North Pole, I believe. I just woke up from the most peaceful nap and while this may not be earth-shaking news to our blog readership, it was by far the best sleep I've had in the past month. When I woke up I was flooded with memories of this trip. As Johnny Cash...
Read MoreJust as the bridges of Stockholm link together the people of its 14 islands, so does technology represent the thread that connects all of us on this planet. When I was in high school, I hardly knew how to send an email and the only room in the school that had computers was the computer lab - a stuffy, dusty room in the basement filled with humming machines that were...
Read MoreI heard some expatriate kids the other day say that they should "bounce." I mention that I wasn't on US or Canadian soil as I'm not sure that "bounce" is a perfectly current term, though it very well may be. I don't seem to bounce terribly high or long in the world of contemporary teenage slang, refusing to lose the thread of the right term long past its expiry date....
Read MoreIn the past seven days I've flown from New York to Toronto to Tokyo to Seoul to Singapore to Kuala Lumpur to Singapore to Frankfurt to Berlin. Total travel time, including airport waiting and transit from airport to cities was 71 hours and 25 minutes. I kep track because, well, there are really a limited number of things one can do on a 71 hour journey. Counting it precisely is...
Read MoreAs I so often do, I'm blogging from a plane. This one is a very big bird that's taking me 14 hours from North America to Tokyo. Remember that awesome 80s song "Turning Japanese?" I loved that song when I was in high school. It had this ridiculous infectious beat and was sung with this almost off-putting cadence and intonation that always grabbed you. It was, simply, ridiculously catchy. I...
Read MoreFor years I believed that we were all united by commonalities. That the fact the we all endeavoured to eat three times a day and have certain nice things and basic necessities were uniting factors (and that, as a consequence, we could latch on to these things and be brought together). But I soon realized that what drew me to people as I have traveled the world over the years...
Read MoreWhen you’re involved in a new venture of any kind, one of the most important elements of your work is to “spread the word”. Those of us closely involved in transforming THINK Global School from the vision of its founder, Joann McPike, to a fully-realized school have, therefore, been very diligent in sharing information about TGS in a variety of ways: website; meetings with educational, technological, and service organizations; newspaper...
Read MoreOne of my happiest reflections since we launched THINK Global School, is that both great schools and great ideas are fuelled by great coffee. I have been a fan of amazing coffee (and have stayed away from bad coffee) for as long as I can remember. I'm actually 6'9". It's only a thirty year love affair with coffee that has stunted my growth to a modest 5'10" and ended my...
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