4 president's message Dear Friends and Colleagues, I am writing this just about one month after our wonderful 52nd Conference and Expo in New York City. Once again I would like to thank Yolanda, the AAIE Team, our Conference Advisory Committee and the AAIE Board of Trustees for their passionate engagement, planning and expertise in making the 52nd Conference such a wonderful collaborative learning event for all of us. I would also like to thank all of our many sponsors and vendors for their loyal engagement with in- ternational education and an especial thank you to those who came in with us for the rst time this year. A nal thank you, of course to all of our AAIE speakers, attend- ees, and strand leaders. is was a di erent conference this year, a di erent format and we wanted to engage in real work at the conference. e idea be- ing is that this work will continue in some of the strands this year and inform our planning for the 53rd Conference in San Francisco in February 2019. The theme of this year’s con- ference was Leaders United: Transforming our World Together. ank you for completing your conference feedback survey. We use this feedback to improve our services and conference for next year. Your feedback over the last two years led us to a new model for our 52nd Conference in NYC. Let us know what you thought of it! In NYC at the UN and on Times Square we talked about shifting the old fashioned paradigm of education from teacher led to student driven, thus providing our students with real world opportunities to create, col- laborate, innovate and solve the issues and problems that they care about. is idea of learning for action and impact—a way of learning, a mindset and way of being in the world that our students will carry forward to their colleges, workplaces and future lives. We talked about building the systems and cultures of practice in our schools to get at this. ere was much talk about the two hundred year-old systems of education we have inherited that were designed for a post-World War II industrialized society that really no longer exists. We talked about the single biggest challenge being the shift in mindset and practice of ourselves, our teachers and our parent communities as our mindsets and ways of being in the world were, indeed, shaped by those last century systems. ere was one strand that focused on the human side of these systemic changes we need to make. at we need to seek those vocational educators for whom this great work is their way of life and way of being. We discussed the need to value our grow our educators professionally, that we value them and that they need to see their career progression as a clear path in our schools. e way in which we recruit and onboard our professionals to get at this creative, col- laborative, innovative mindset—one which AAIE is the place where we can come together to creatively collaborate, collide and discuss the work that matters most to us all. puts the students and the students’ choices, questions and explorations at the forefront of their pedagogical practice was much debated. e conclusion: if we can do this with our professional educators, our ability to not only recruit and grow our profes- sionals, but also retain them, will be mark- edly enhanced. e systemic changes we are talking about lead to learning for action and impact be- coming central to our schools, our schools becoming schools of purpose where our faculty model lives of purpose and it be- comes our students’ way of being in the world. We shared exemplars and ideas for student driven social activism, social en- trepreneurship and seeking the win-win for the community from both the societal and economic standpoints. Making the business case. If we could do this we would then truly articulate the real value add of what our schools bring to the table for our students and families and that we, collec- tively, are making a positive di erence in the world. We talked about en- suring our professional learning for our adults is based on best practice and research and mod- els the type of learning activities we would be engaging in with our students. e idea of adult learners being coaches and being coached—just the way a truly great teacher does with a class or team of students. We talked about the power of Executive Coaching that would allow us as leaders, and our leadership teams to become the highest performing leadership teams we can grow and engender in our schools. We also talked about the role for AAIE in helping us, as leaders, our teams and our communities transform our practice to be- come the most impactful collection of in- ternational schools and educators on earth. AAIE is the place where we can come to- gether to creatively collaborate, collide and discuss the work that matters most to us all. It is the place where we can bring the best and brightest of vendors, products and sup- port services and organizations together to engage in this work with us. It is where we come together to honor and celebrate colleagues and their contribution to our industry. It is the place where we remem- ber and honor those giants upon whose shoulders we stand. It is the place where we renew old friendships and connect with, network and welcome new friends. It is our extended family. I am delighted to be able to, once again, formally welcome Mark Ulfers as our next Executive Director. Mark will be taking over the reins in August 1 of this school year. I am also honored to be able to thank, once again, our outgoing Executive Director Yolanda Murphy-Barrena, for her three years of tireless service on our behalf. ank you Yolanda! Best regards for the rest of the semester and thank you for your work for our inter- national school students, families, faculties and communities. Together we can trans- form our world. Kevin Glass is President, AAIE Board of Trustees and Headmaster of Atlanta International School, [email protected] spring 2018 intered