Grow Into Your Best Self With a Career at Keystone

There are so many things to take into account when looking for a job. How much is the salary? How long is the commute? But one thing we often forget to consider is: do they offer support for professional development? 

Professional development is especially significant for teachers. When you’re helping young minds to learn and grow, it’s important that you’re learning along with them. But at many schools, this often falls by the wayside in pursuit of hard numbers like exam results. 

For the teachers at Keystone Academy, learning and development is never a second thought. The Dean of Faculty, Paulina Aguilera, and her team of associate deans are always thinking of innovative ways to provide personal development opportunities for the faculty. Before the students returned for the 2021-22 academic year, teachers were treated to a series of personal growth sessions and deep-dive workshops with the theme of ‘we grow as we learn’ as part of their orientation. In fact, as Associate Dean of Curriculum Andrew Scott tells the Beijinger, “there are opportunities everywhere [at Keystone].” For example, learning support specialist Marianne Kenny mentions how collecting International Baccalaureate evaluation evidence — what could have been a very boring task — became an engaging cross-departmental learning experience. 

Learning and development at Keystone is about creating a community and empowering teachers to support each other

Even during the pandemic, Keystone put staff development front and center, helping to knit together a community that had been unraveled and scattered around the world by Covid-19 restrictions. For Marianne, who spent the first year of her job at Keystone stuck overseas, being brought into a series of trainings and workshops, even virtually, was key to finding her feet at the school. “Every professional growth activity I’ve been in, even every meeting I’ve been in has been relevant… Keystone really thinks about what we need [and] what we’ll enjoy.” The pandemic has even facilitated professional growth opportunities to a certain extent, with Keystone offering support for teachers to take part in the many international seminars that have moved online for the first time. Professional growth should not only be relevant but also collaborative; after all, to lean into a gardening metaphor, if you let a lone tree grow too tall, then there will be nothing to support it. Collaboration takes on extra meaning at a world school like Keystone, where both the staff and the student body come from diverse cultural backgrounds. During Keystone’s annual Education Summit (part of new teacher orientation), guest speaker J.D. Whitney, Cultural Solutions Director of Asia Growth Solutions, an enterprise specializing in multinational cross-cultural consulting, was invited to give a talk on recognizing cultural biases and building global competencies, which many teachers have said was their favorite session. 

Grade 5 homeroom teacher Katie Herring also emphasizes how the Chinese and international teachers are always learning from each other, which also helps international teachers to understand the mindset of their predominantly Chinese students. “We all share the same goal of enriching the educational experience of the students,” Andrew adds.

Chinese and international teachers working together and learning from each other

While teachers often seek learning and development opportunities in order to better respond to the needs of their students, the learning pipeline can go the other way, too. For example, Keystone students teach Chinese lessons for international teachers as part of the creativity, activity, service (CAS) part of their IB Diploma. 

According to a Chinese proverb, “It takes up to 10 years for a tree to grow, but it takes 100 years to cultivate a person.” For Keystone, growth and development activities are never a one-off thing; rather, they are about building a culture of lifelong learning that benefits both staff and students. “Personally, I feel like Keystone really respects and invests in our teachers, and we have a strong learning community here,” Andrew concludes.

Be part of a growing community at Keystone Academy. Visit the Keystone Academy website or contact [e-mail] for more information.

This is a sponsored post paid by Keystone

Images courtesy of Keystone Academy

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