Sandcastle mentors working with Paul:

• Michelle Blanchet (Switzerland) - Change consultant, teacher, author, trainer

• Christian Orlic (Spain) - Administrator, teacher, IB trained

• Kunali Sanghvi (India) - Administrator, entrepreneur, PhD candidate

• Shaker Lashuel (Qatar) - Director of professional development

Based on my experience over the last decade supporting teachers at LAS, I've developed with my colleagues a manner through which to support teachers who are working on what really matters to them because we start with what each individual teacher wants to do. Then we support it. That’s it. It sounds too simple, we know. (We have experience talking with folks at schools and organizations who dismiss the idea because it is so simple. We say to that: Simple is GOOD.)

We have identified an initial cohort of 15 teachers who will support each other virtually during the Fall 2024 semester. We'll get together from time to time online, we'll support each other by listening and encouraging, by sharing resources and connections, by making suggestions. We may write blogs, present to each other, present to others. We have projects ranging from an instructional approaches in a single classroom to the early steps of opening a new school.

Why the name Sandcastle? Because when you build a sandcastle, you can test out various designs, quickly, and you pull down the parts of the design you don’t like. This is the iterative work of figuring things out when leading learning. Sandcastle also invokes a sandbox, or playing in the sandbox. We experiment in iterations, building, reshaping, rebuilding ...

We think Sandcastle is a big deal because it is made to be a movement, not just a one time event. We mentor a cohort of teachers, then ask them to contribute later, if they would like, by becoming a leader for a cohort themselves. In this way, our sandbox becomes a beach, filled with sandcastles, built by teachers around the world.

Our next cohort will start in January 2025. Express your interest below.