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Global Connections Seminar 2007
Robert H. ("Skip") Mattoon, Jr. and Malcolm McKenzie announce the dates and theme for 10th Global Connections Seminar From Skip Mattoon: Welcome to the Global Connections community. This community had its inception over ten years ago when Peter Pelham convened his first seminar for school heads from around the world. Like all good ideas, Peter's was both simple and powerful: he believed that by fostering engagement amongst a diverse group of international school leaders, good things would happen. This indeed proved to be the case, and in the succeeding years Peter and his wife, Isobel, hosted seminars in South Africa, Australia, Kenya, China, and in Europe and the Americas. I began attending these summer gatherings eight years ago, and they became my most important professional development activity. Participants learned from one another, established student and faculty exchanges, undertook research projects, and built lasting friendships. For all of these reasons, it seemed essential that Peter’s vision carry forward after his death. The Hotchkiss School has been given this charge, and we will host the tenth Global Connections, "Global Connections 2007," in Lakeville, Connecticut. The dates are July 10-15, and the Seminar theme will be "Connecting Global Learning Communities." Although the seminar itself will be limited to 80-100 on-site participants, anyone may participate via the web on our Global Connections blog: www.nlcommunities.com/communities/globalconnections We’ve posted some questions to start the conversation, but please feel free to use this tool as another means of connecting our learning communities throughout the world. It is our hope the Global Connections blog will help us stay connected whether or not we are actually together in one location. In the years since Global Connections I, the interest in "globalization" and "internationalism" has grown exponentially, and so the Seminar theme of connectivity, using every means possible to build connections and to learn from each other, is timely. We invite your thoughts and ideas on this topic. - Robert H. ("Skip") Mattoon, Jr. The Hotchkiss School From Malcolm McKenzie: When Global Connections started I was Principal of Maru a Pula. I remember vividly taking Peter Pelham and some others to the bush campus for environmental education that I had established on the banks of the Limpopo River. That was a time. And we have had so many fabled and productive meetings since then, all over the world. Now we are coming back to the United States, to a corner of New England that Peter loved, very close to his undergraduate college, Williams. Hotchkiss will make a wonderful venue for a new launch of the old Global Connections that has given us so much. Please come. You simply must be there. What will we do in Connecticut? Continue to connect our global learning communities, of course. We build bridges where they have not existed before. Our annual seminar of school leaders from around the world does this in a special way. As a consortium of mainly national schools all determined to take advantage of the positive aspects of globalisation, we seek to make ourselves more global in outlook and in what we offer our students. Our graduates must enter their careers with understandings and experiences that are born of international exposure through sharing and exchanges. It is up to us to show them ways in which more affluent schools can assist partners in less advantaged contexts and how these better-endowed places can also learn a lesson or two about life through such connections. We are cousins to other progressive schools and associations that recognise that education worth its salt lasts for life and equips people to make a difference in their communities. All of this and more will inform our Hotchkiss gathering. What a real additional pleasure it will be for me to welcome you as the 12th head of Hotchkiss. I take up my appointment at the start of July. Please come and help me celebrate that, as well. - Malcolm McKenzie |
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Global
Connections Foundation
c/o The Hotchkiss School Center for Global Understanding and Independent Thinking P.O. Box 800, Lakeville, CT 06039 USA Contact information: Dr. Manjula B. Salomon Assistant Head of School, Director of Global Initiatives msalomon *at* hotchkiss *dot* org / + 1 (860) 435-3154 or Diana M. Jones, Administrative Assistant djones1 *at* hotchkiss *dot* org / +1 (860) 435-4474 © 2009 Global Connections Foundation |
