Welcome Back! Transubstantiation and The Ox

The final weekend of summer break has come, so enjoy it while you can. On Tuesday morning at 9:15am we will all gather together (fingers crossed – with the Western, rather than the Vietnamese, meaning of that gesture) in the newly refurbished SSIS Auditorium for the start of the 2015-2016 school year. Our new faculty have been here since the third week of July, are all settled in to apartments in and around PMH, and the entire admin team is excited by the energy and expertise they bring to SSIS.

The Sylte family had only two short weeks away for the summer. Alex and Lea were busy with the first year of the Saigon South English Camp held at the Hiep Phuoc Middle School and weren’t free to leave until the beginning of July.

We flew to Paris and then took a train to Barcelona for an amazing eight days in that city before returning to Paris. Whilst in Barcelona, we visited the Picasso museum off the Carrer Montcada. It turned out to be a day of reflections on the work we do together.

The first came as we were standing in line and we ran into Martin Cockram and his family. Martin and I worked together at YCIS in Shanghai several years ago. The lesson here was that, while we live in a very big world, the things that tie us together will reunite us again and again. The passions and expertise we carry as educators follow along with us everywhere we go.

The second came on the contemplation of Picasso’s The First Communion (1986). When I think of Picasso, I think of his work from the Cubist movement and his deconstruction of a bull in the mid-20th century from its appearance to its essence.

The First Communion is from a much earlier period and a much younger Picasso. At the age of fourteen he depicted the first communion of his sister Lola. The academic realism is so very different from what we commonly associate with the older Picasso but made me reflect on our Core Values.

An education at SSIS is centered on Academic Excellence. We inculcate students with a “foundational knowledge” of the world, while teaching them “how to think, how to learn, to problem solve, and to work individually and in teams.”

As a young artist, Picasso learned all the “rules” of painting and his early work shows a clear understanding of the accepted art and craft of his day. However, the connection to the more mature artist in his sixties seems to me to be clear. Whether in math or science, history or literature, art, music, dance, languages and the like – you learn the rules to break the rules. You learn formulas to begin with, and then look for alternative ways to solve the same problems. You write somewhat formulaic essays at the beginning and then find your own voice. We want our students to find their own voices, their own styles, their own judgments and this begins by “knowing things.” Picasso learned mastery first, and then gave us something entirely new to see and feel.

One of our main focuses this year will be on the continued development and refinement of the Curriculum Framework and effective assessment practices. I’m excited to get started back to work and look forward to seeing you all soon.

Sincerely,

Mark