OUR MISSION I a MODERN VISION II a NEW VIEW of EDUCATION III OUR TEAM and PARTNERS Our Hopes Are High, and by Them We Are Bound Together

the makingofamodernschool

OUR MISSION I A MODERN VISION II A NEW VIEW OF EDUCATION III OUR TEAM AND PARTNERS Our hopes are high, and by them we are bound together. We aim to create an extraordinary and unique school, the ﬁrst truly modern institution serving children from ages three to 18 and the ﬁrst global one. We want to change for the better the lives of those students who attend and, beyond our own campuses, contribute to the cause of education on every continent. We measure our merit not through the narrowness of exclusivity but through the breadth of our impact.

Favoring our work is an emerging canon of best practices pioneered by educators

who have come before us. They have taught us that a modern school knows how one learns will outlast what one learns; will end lock-step, one-size-ﬁts-all education; understands that the emotional development of its students must also be given time; sees that an ingenious facility is an ongoing lesson in design; believes that a global system of schools will surpass a single, local one; harnesses the power of our new digital age; and reconceptualizes the school day and year, recognizing that learning happens everywhere and anytime.

Our graduates will stand out. Grounded by rigor and knowledge, they will be undaunted, creative, and bold, ready to lead or help in the wholly transformed and challenging world of their future. Each will shine in at least one loved, purposeful pursuit in which he or she will achieve excellence and a resulting lifelong conﬁdence. All will speak other languages and study in other cultures yet remain deeply connected to their homeland. Surrounded by an expansive and diverse collective intelligence, they will forever be members of it. And through carefully carving their own character they will help goodness prevail.

Our faculty will be learners too, side by side with our students and other teachers.

We’ll choose them because they want to guide children and have distinction whittle school in their academic discipline. They’ll choose us because our global scale brings them unequaled professional development; our growth provides them growth; and our rewards for them are more commensurate with the great good education brings to society.

We thank those who have generously supported us, and we look forward to sharing our work with all who aspire to reimagine education.

Our school will become a beacon students in discovering and fostering

Imagine the first global school, created by an international & consortium of educators, architects, artists, technologists, for modern education and their own particular passion; giving will graduate students well versed their education depth as well as studios and experts in law, real estate, recruitment, and more. in core academic skills, but also breadth; and cultivating emotional Imagine one school with many campuses—in the world’s with proficiency in multiple intelligence, self-motivation, global top cities—connected by a single faculty and a common languages and firsthand experience awareness, confidence, and optimism. curriculum operating with a collective intelligence. of many cultures. We will assist our Our time has come. THE MAKING OF A Modern School

I A MODERN VISION II A N E W V I E W OF EDUCATION III OUR TEAM AND PARTNERS

1 1 SECTION I A Modern Vision

FOREWORD

BY JEAN LIU AND BENNO SCHMIDT 5 THE NEED FOR CHANGE 6 THE BIG IDEA 10 OUR MISSION 17

COVER AND THIS PAGE: VIOLETA LÓ PIZ

2 3 FOREWORD The two of us live on different sides of our planet, in Beijing and New York. We are of different generations and genders. Our fields of work are as different as our cultural upbringings. Yet each of us was blessed with exceptional educational opportunities, and we have agreed to co-chair the Global Advisory Board of Whittle School & Studios in the hopes of expanding such possibilities to families and children worldwide. We believe our world is in need of pioneering thought in the field of education. Our schools can always be better—and schools everywhere can learn from one another. We believe that education, like trade and scientific, technological, and artistic innovation, draws us together and supports peace and prosperity. We believe the team and resources assembled here have a unique opportunity to achieve something extraordinary, a truly modern school that connects cultures worldwide. And we believe Chris Whittle, the author of this book, provides the leadership and the inspiration needed for such an ambitious endeavor. We know you will enjoy reading his thoughts.

JEAN LIU BENNO SCHMIDT President Former president Didi Chuxing Yale University Graduate of RDFZ, 1996 Graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, 1959 B.S., Peking University, 2000 B.S., Yale College, 1963 M.S., Harvard University, 2002 LL.D., Yale Law School, 1966

VIOLETA LÓ PIZ

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The Need for Change

At the heart of our work is the belief that schooling everywhere is stuck in the past and that a dramatic modernization is long overdue. In the last 100 years, nearly every sector of life (health, transportation, communications, agriculture, shipping) has changed radically. Propeller planes have become jets; clunky, tethered-by-wire phones are now on our wrists; organs can be replaced like spare tires; and packages that once took months to deliver ﬁnd their way to the most remote villages in less than 48 hours. Mind-bogglingly complex institutions, unimaginable just decades ago, have been created from scratch. Apple. Alibaba. Amazon. FedEx. Google.

VIOLETA LÓ PIZ

6 7 whittle school & studios a modern vision

Schools take what they believe we should learn and Finally, Old School remains because inventing dropped out of school at 16 to start a magazine divide it neatly into different subjects, which often the next generation of schooling is a colossal and then built an airline empire. Chinese billionaire get taught in formulaic and outmoded procedures. undertaking, one requiring enormous amounts of entrepreneur Zhou Qunfei, French fashion mogul While few would disagree that we learn best by hands- time, money, talent, and coordination among such François Pinault, and Indian business magnate on doing, most schools instruct didactically—and diverse fields as education, psychology, architecture, Gautam Adani were all dropouts, too. often by rote. While students are highly motivated technology, marketing, finance, law, real estate, and The immutability of schooling does not come when they choose learning activities, most schools management—to say nothing of the risks involved from a lack of awareness, concern, or effort. In 1899, favor requirements. While we all learn at different in working with children. Safety prevails. Innovation philosopher John Dewey urged numerous changes, rates—an eight-year-old, for instance, may be ready flags. Children tune out and fall behind. advocating for an educational progressiveness that to tackle the same math as a 10-year-old—teachers In comparison, America’s interstate system and still resonates with reformers today. The U.S., in are stuck in the group mind-set of “let’s all turn to China’s high-speed rail network were small and fact, now has an entire industry of school reform; for page 15.” While education is supposed to raise us up, easy developments. K–12 education is humanity’s decades, governments have issued reports on school students are often beaten down with grades that have second-largest endeavor (surpassed only by health ineffectiveness; media pundits criticize flat-line results no bearing on their interests or their capacity for hard care); there are over 2 billion children on earth, despite immense increases in school spending; parents work. And while unstructured time is so often the more than the entire population of China; education from Boston to Beijing express their discontent, moment when flashes of insight occur, school bells employs nearly 100 million teachers, more than all often uprooting and dividing their families to seek crush children throughout their childhood. Why does the world’s standing armies; schools cost $6 trillion better alternatives elsewhere; and students, on the rare the Old School formula persist? Surely not because it a year to operate, more than the annual GDP of all occasions they are asked, express a boredom that is works so well. How many millions of students have but two countries, America and China. The real- now viewed as an inevitable condition of education. studied a language for years and can hardly read a estate infrastructure for schools is so large that it is What we do know is that a modern school is one menu? What percentage of high-school graduates can unreported. Our researchers estimate there are about that thinks as much about learning as teaching and write compellingly? How many students have a real 2 million different facilities with perhaps 200 billion knows that how one learns will outlast what one sense of, or even really care about, the history of their square feet of space. The cost to replace it all would learns. It hopes to bring about the end of lockstep, species? How many have felt that their education was equal the entire infrastructure spending of China one-size-fits-all education and understands that the a means of connection to others in their town, city, for 30 years. emotional development of its students is crucial to or country—let alone to the rest of the world? How Up against the immensity learning. It intuits that the physical design of a facility many remember even a small percentage of the dates is integral to learning and believes that a well-designed, and minutiae that were crammed into their tests and of this colossal endeavor interconnected system of schools is better than a textbooks? If offered a choice, how many students of coordinated ingenuity, single one. It harnesses the horses of our new digital would relive their school days? almost every isolated age and appreciates that education can no longer Old School prevails because it seems good enough. attempt to change be local or national in its outlook. And it strives Old School stays with us because it is protected. schooling seems tiny and to make social responsibility much more than its Well-intentioned regulations inhibit educational scholarship program. innovation. Old School has a massive alumni fan club, insignificant—like shooting Bringing these new truths into the day-to-day reality Schooling, however, populated by parents who feel comfortable with what an arrow at Saturn. of a school need not take decades. That only very old, remains largely unchanged. feels familiar. Having yet to see a fully realized, highly Our schools are part of a past world, a quaint tried-and-true schools are good is a shibboleth whose It is as if more than polished “New School,” they don’t want their children artifact, a museum piece from another time. As this time has passed. The first flight of a new jet carrying a century ago someone to be guinea pigs in some wild experiment. Old School gap between modern life and Old School widens, it is passengers must be safe and successful in every regard. persists because of a global failure of imagination to telling that some of the world’s most productive and The same can be true for the modern school if ample invented “school” see what New School could and should be. Collectively innovative individuals are choosing not to complete resources of time, talent, and money are well deployed. and the formula was we doubt a new design can be forged, so much so that their “institutional” education. Of the five most Education pioneers around the globe are beginning universally adopted, we invest next to nothing in the attempt to replace the valuable companies in the world, three were founded to invent new solutions at the pace of better funded and since then it has been old formulas. A single Fortune 500 company spends by people who quit college. Mark Zuckerberg and and managed industries. We are leading the way largely unchallenged. more on R&D than all the world’s schools combined. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to found, in advancing the most child-friendly and exciting In 2016, Apple invested billions to make sure the respectively, Facebook and Microsoft. Steve Jobs left education thinking of our time. Variety provides quality of your selfie improved. America’s federal Reed College to build Apple. Each made a decision choices for parents and students, and competition government invested a mere $600 million that year that Old School could not compete with what they raises the bar. We aim to be one of the leading to change our schools. learned from the New School of life. Richard Branson choices of the future.

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1. One School with 9. Many Campuses… And Graduating 2. Students with a Highly In the world’s Evolved Global View Leading 30 Cities sought after by (6 cities are the second universities worldwide... campus in a city...) 8. 3. Creating an organization With a Diverse The linked with a new Student Body “Collective Intelligence” of more than 90,000 full-time unlike any “local” students and hundreds single-site institution… IMAGINE of thousands of part-time students… 7. Supported 4. by a unique With a Single Faculty Global of over 10,000… 6. Headquarters… 5. All Working Tied Together Big Collaboratively by a Common face-to-face Curriculum through constant adapted to local exchanges and laws and needs… online activities…

10 Idea 11 whittle school & studios a modern vision

Backed by nearly $700 million of operating and real-estate-related capital, we have gathered a global consortium of hundreds of educators, architects, artists, technologists, NEW YORK SINGAPORE MEXICO CITY VANCOUVER and other experts. By the time our 10-Year Plan 2 first campuses open, we will have collectively planned every aspect of (illustrative) our school—five years in advance. SAN SHANGHAI SYDNEY FRANKFURT Such forward thinking is unheard of in FRANCISCO 2 the annals of Old School history. Our Here is the blueprint for Whittle School & Studios. BEIJING In the fall of 2019, our first two LONDON LOS ANGELES MIAMI DELHI DOHA campuses will open, in Shenzhen 2 China, and Washington, D.C. By 2026, we plan to expand to a system

of 36 major campuses in the world’s SHENZHEN NEW YORK HONG KONG TOKYO PARIS SEOUL leading cities. Designed by Renzo 2 Piano Building Workshop of Genoa, hopes Italy, each campus will have 600,000 square feet and serve approximately LOS 2,500 students, ages three to 18, with SHENZHEN HANGZHOU BEIJING MUMBAI GUANGZHOU CHENGDU SÃO PAULO ANGELES about 160 students per grade. Roughly 2 60 percent will be day students, and the remaining 40 percent will be WASHINGTON SILICON LONDON weekly and full boarders. At capacity, NANJING SHANGHAI CHONGQING DUBAI ABU DHABI Whittle School & Studios will be D.C. VALLEY 2 are a highly integrated global learning community with a faculty of more than 10,000 serving more than 90,000 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 full-time, on-campus students as well as hundreds of thousands of other students joining us part-time, either virtually or on campus.

Whittle School & Studios high. plans on creating 36 campuses in 15 countries over 10 years with an enrollment capacity of 90,000 students.

12 13 whittle school & studios a modern vision A Whittle campus is not your typical school. Snapshot of We call our education program “School & Studios” for a reason: We want to convey that the learning a Campus: that happens all the time in our schools goes well beyond the norm one has come to expect. Each campus is best described as a “learning hub” Each campus will be made up largely of with myriad educational oﬀerings within a thoroughly students who are citizens of the country modern, beautifully designed setting, as productive where that school is located. Although we as a beehive and with the connectivity and will accept expatriate students and have technological prowess of a global news channel. hundreds of students from across the world on exchange programs from other A Whittle campus will Whittle campuses, our main mission is A to provide a global education for locally provide six key educational based students. A typical campus will have a full-time, services, including: largely bilingual faculty of roughly 300 members, representing a nine-to-one

FULL-TIME EDUCATION student-to-faculty ratio. Typical class sizes will be 15 to 20 students. We will 1. Full Day School For Local Students strive to have a roughly equal mix of local Modern 2. Five-Day Boarding School For Local and Regional Students and foreign teachers. 3. Full Boarding For National and Global Students Tuition will typically match that of the top-tier private schools in that PART-TIME EDUCATION particular city. About 10 to 15 percent of 4. After-School and Weekend Programs For Any Student our students will receive some form of 5. Summer School Programs For Any Student ﬁnancial aid, ranging from quarter-ride to 6. Online Programs For Any Student full-ride scholarships. Learning Each Renzo Piano-designed campus will be approximately 600,000 square Each of our campuses feet, of which typically 400,000 square will serve 2,500 full-time feet will be dedicated to the educational program and 200,000 square feet to students ages three to 18 student dormitories and faculty housing. All campuses will have in common a in four schools organized, distinct and recognizable design. The Hub facility will include everything that would roughly, as follows: be expected of a top-tier school—and much more. While gyms and theaters will

TYPE OF STUDENTS be familiar to visitors (if better designed), what will be surprising are the on-campus 1. PK, K Students 360 Students (120 Per Grade) 2. LS Students (Grades 1–4) 576 Students (144 Per Grade) accelerators, amenities for parents 3. MS Students (Grades 5–8) 720 Students (180 Per Grade) (such as cafés), and spaces for dozens of 4. HS Students (Grades 9–12) 864 Students (216 Per Grade) specialized, optional educational oﬀerings ranging from private music lessons to TOTAL ENROLLMENT 2,520 STUDENTS advanced sports to robotics and coding.

14 15 whittle school & studios a modern vision

OUR MISSION

Our hopes are high, and by them we are bound together. We aim to create an extraordinary and unique school, the first truly modern institution serving children from ages three to 18 and the first global one. We want to change for the better the lives of those students who attend and, beyond our own campuses, contribute to the cause of education on every continent. We measure our merit not through the narrowness of exclusivity but through the breadth of our impact. Favoring our work is an emerging canon of best practices pioneered by educators who have come before us. They have taught us that a modern school knows how one learns will outlast what one learns; will end lock-step, one-size-fits-all education; understands that the emotional development of its students must also be given time; sees that an ingenious facility is an ongoing lesson in design; believes that a global system of schools will surpass a single, local one; harnesses the power of our new digital age; and reconceptualizes the school day and year, recognizing that learning happens everywhere and anytime.

Our faculty will be learners too, side by side with our students and other teachers. We’ll choose them because they want to guide children and have distinction in their academic discipline. They’ll choose us because our global scale brings them unequaled professional development; our growth provides them growth; and our rewards for them are more commensurate with the great good education brings to society.

We thank those who have generously supported us, and we look forward to sharing our work with all who aspire to reimagine education.

VIOLETA LÓ PIZ

16 17 whittle school & studios a new view of education

SECTION II A New View of Education WHAT IS A SCHOOL? 20 THE H I S T O R Y O F O U R EDUCATION DESIGN EFFORT 22 PROFILE OF OUR GRADUATE PREPARING OUR STUDENTS FOR THE FUTURE 25 K E Y T H E M E S I N O U R EDUCATIONAL MODEL HOW WE ACHIEVE OUR EDUCATIONAL GOALS 31 BUILDING A WORLD-CLASS EDUCATION OUR CURRICULUM 52 E D U C A T I O N B E Y O N D THE CORE CURRICULUM 62 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY FOSTERING A GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT 66 DESIGN FOR LEARNING RENZO PIANO BUILDING WORKSHOP CREATES A MODERN CAMPUS 70 VIOLETA LÓ PIZ

18 19 whittle school & studios a new view of education

line of courses and grades. Such schools aim to graduate students who perform well on the U.S. SAT, the Chinese Gaokao, the Brazilian Vestibular, and other national and global exams. There is an important place in the schooling experience for content and for exams. We will embrace this and actively curate our content, as any fine school should. In addition to key basic skills—like reading, writing, and performing certain math functions— there are lots of facts that students need to know to function well and efficiently in life. One should not have to use Google to know the general location What is of Indonesia or understand that its population ranks well into the top 10 countries of the world. But a modern school must be about more than content. It needs to consider deeply who it wants its graduates to be. It must identify the skills, ideas, talents, and capacities students will need to face the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Then it must design understood, is crucial to your child’s A modern school being affected positively or negatively the major themes that guide its everyday We see schooling as operations, aware of how they affect growth as a learner. How your daughter must be about by it. Her world is school—and she everything students is greeted as she boards a school bus learns as much by what her school does every moment of a student’s experience. a School?or as she enters her classroom affects more than to protect and ignite her learning time Our planning team has been thinking experience during her mood for the day. Indifference is content. It needs as by what her teacher or her books say. deeply about and researching these topics each moment of a lesson. A bark to sit down or to be to consider deeply In other words, the curriculum of for years, both in our roles with leading quiet is another. So, too, is how she is who it wants its a school is everything that transpires schools and in the global education- their time with us, introduced to her teacher and whether graduates to be. there—everything our students see, reform movement. We began with a she and that teacher spend focused one- hear, and feel; every interaction with a strong point of view on the direction that and we believe that on-one time together. How she is seated It must identify peer or adult. should be taken to make our school a lessons are learned in a class; how she is treated by other the skills, ideas, The worst Old Schools—and there beacon for modern education. students; the explanation of the dress talents, and are still hundreds of thousands of In the following summary (and in in every one of code; whether her teacher is capable, capacities students these around the world—focus almost information presented on our websites), prepared, and enthusiastic; how the will need to face entirely on one element of the school our thoughts address three primary those moments. purpose of a course is explained experience: course work and course themes: (1) what we hope for our About 25,000 to 30,000 hours of a to her; whether a schedule rushes her the challenges and content (often called curriculum). graduates, (2) key processes that will child’s life are devoted to school if mindlessly from one class to another; opportunities of Their view of education is long help us achieve our goals, and (3) some one includes time at school, homework, how she is treated when she makes a the 21st century. outdated: school as the systematic signature educational features we would and getting back and forth from home. mistake; whether she is sitting in a hot, pouring of a bucket of facts and like to highlight, including our approach A modern school values that most cold, or poorly designed classroom— concepts into the head of an to social responsibility and the care cherished of educational resources: your daughter is absorbing all of this, unmotivated student by all-knowing we have taken to design the splendid time. Each moment, properly processing it, deriving meaning from it, teachers in a factory-like production facilities that house our modern school.

20 21 whittle school & studios a new view of education

OUR EDUCATION DESIGN PROCESS All totaled, our initial design effort will take four-and-a-half years and will The History continue after the opening of our first two campuses in the fall of 2019. Why so long? It is crucial that the leadership of our schools, and the faculty it recruits, partake in creating our of Our overarching design. And we don’t see collaborative design as a process that ends. There will be versions 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and so forth. Otherwise, we would find Design Effort ourselves in the ossified situation we now confront in the Old School model. We are engineered to be adaptive. Talent acquisition has been key to our design process from the start. We have been fortunate that leading thinkers, educators, and institutions On opening day of our first two campuses, in Generally, the production of course VIOLETA LÓ PIZ has devolved into expensive forms have helped shape our vision. In early 2019, we will leap from architecture to engineering, content, particularly within public of test preparation. This is particularly 2016, we hosted our first Education school systems, has been left to true of many developing countries, Summit, in London, bringing together from vision to operations. Planning ahead, education companies like Pearson, but any parent who has been through an international panel of experts we have invested in a multiyear education design McGraw-Hill, and others. Some leading, the U.S. college-application process from inside and outside the world process that began with an assessment of the progressive, independent schools and knows that the test prep industry of education to explore five themes state of education design, highlighted here, charter school networks have escaped thrives in America. important to the design of our to provide important context for our launch. this paradigm, but they are exceptions. As the component parts of the school: the 21st-Century Graduate, For too long, the core pedagogical education-design process have become Personalized Education, a 21st- EDUCATION DESIGN TODAY methodology has remained largely It is crucial isolated, sequenced, and optimized for Century Faculty, Global Education in Schools and school systems have unchanged, since the “teaching as that the quantitative testing, we are left with Culturally Diverse Locations, and Social devoted far too few resources to the transmittal of information model” is a model that undermines the primary Responsibility and Impact. design of their educational programs. the easiest delivery system for mass- leadership goal of education: the development And this was just the beginning. Individual schools (typically private produced course materials and generic of our schools, of a child’s mental, emotional, social, For the past two years we have been ones) lack the scale to conduct content. Good for big education and the faculty and intellectual capacity—the molding engaged in an intensive research-and- meaningful R&D, and school systems companies and for sages on the stage. it recruits, of a an ethical person who actively design phase unmatched in the world (almost always governmental in Bad for the way most children learn. partake in shapes the world. The linear and of PreK–12 education. We embarked nature) are pressed to devote their The net effect of this conventional isolated nature of our current system on listening tours that took us across financial capabilities to more immediate approach has been to narrow the scope creating our is engineered for glacial incremental the globe—investigating best practices operating matters. The little forward- of the education mission and, therefore, overarching change. Over the past decades, school and programs at top educational thinking design that does happen of a student’s education. The outcome design. reformers introduced the idea of whole- institutions from all sectors, from early typically equates the educational favors the broadly deliverable at the school reform as a means of shaking learning centers to charter networks to program with curriculum: expense of genuine innovation and up a failing system. We join forces with innovative high schools and institutions a collection and sequence of courses responsiveness to new discoveries in these change agents, and we understand of higher education. We interviewed and assessments, each defined by its learning theory, emotional and moral the difficulty of the path before us. professors and admissions teams at top content and delivered in a particular development, technology, and pedagogy. We have studied and learned from the colleges—Stanford, Harvard, Tsinghua, way, en masse in classrooms, with a Educators have turned to standardized history of education stagnation in the and more—about what they looked teacher lecturing in front of students. testing to assess student performance, United States and around the world, for in prospective students. We met and for many the classroom experience and we have planned ahead accordingly. with government officials who work on

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identifying the skills necessary Team continues to engineer a for success and fulfillment in the Whittle School & Studios education. 21st-century. We spoke with students Described in more detail in the Our Graduates: about the most meaningful moments following pages, our model is the result of their education journeys—and, of thousands of hours of development— above all, we listened. shaped by the input of thought leaders, Our core team at headquarters learning scientists, educators, parents, (HQ) has led the program design efforts and students. Preparing Our so far, supplemented by the founding To begin, we planned backwards leadership and faculty of each campus from a clear picture of our graduate. that have joined our team over With that profile as a starting place, the past year. Though the education we constructed an education function at our HQ will have the that cultivates the skills, knowledge, primary responsibility for overarching and behavior distinctive to a Students design, it will continue to work Whittle graduate. with members from all parts of our In the old days, the result would organization, including architects, have largely been a syllabus and technology specialists, human- a schedule. Our work is more resources professionals, marketers, complex, with much attention given for the Future A modern school begins with a clear understanding of We believe and our financial team. To help support to the integration of technology, “best in this integration, we host biannual architecture, professional development, what its graduates should know and what personal class” means company-wide retreats, where teams organizational design, and finance. qualities they should take with them into life. In the world drawing on have the opportunity to engage in deep Unlike the relatively simple design of planners, these are called “desired outcomes,” and here excellence professional growth sessions on every of a single-site school, our plan must we divide them into three categories: the world of knowledge, facet of our operation. also account for the relationships the world of self, and the world of humanity. Our objectives across many This interdisciplinary approach was between our campuses and HQ as well areas of the core of our first major design as the inter-relationships among the are ambitious—and they should be. Families will invest expertise. work, in the fall of 2016. Teams campuses themselves. substantially with us over 15 years to prepare their children composed of full-time staff and outside Design does not end on opening day. for the future. Our responsibility is to deliver, and our experts came together to advance the Just as technology companies issue goal will be to exceed even our own expectations. development of the nine core principles upgrades and fixes to their operating Whittle School & Studios • Fostering individual growth and of our educational program. The systems, so will Whittle School & a sense of agency. composition of these working groups, Studios. Hundreds of operational is developing the leaders of • Developing intrepid and rigorous in which leading educational thinkers tweaks will be ongoing. That said, it is tomorrow with the necessary scholars who embrace critical thinking. were paired with experts from outside important to let a design take skill sets to change the world. • Producing students who are the field, is central not only to our hold before introducing major new We define student-centered successful in their contributions to design process but to our organizational versions. Just as Apple introduces a new learning through a graduate the school and larger community. structure as well. We believe “best in version of the iPhone every few years, • Shaping leaders who are armed class” means drawing on excellence so will Whittle School & Studios update profile, one that envisions the with the knowledge, skills, and ability across many areas of expertise. The its program. Leadership of this ongoing holistic development of each to deliver solutions to local and result of this intensive design initiative? R&D will reside in the education child and maximizes their global challenges. Nearly 100 distinct programs and function of our HQ, but our design passion for lifelong learning by hundreds of pages of research, analysis, process creates a constant back providing access to educational and models. and forth between the HQ team and Drawing on decades of collective our campuses. experiences across our global expertise—and supported by two network. We focus on the of the world’s leading educational following four areas of student consultancies—our Education Design development:

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most difficult design challenges, but we KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS begin with a commitment to achieving Core Academic Skills this paired mission. Our Graduate Profile To ensure strong student ties to their Literacy and numeracy are largely Old home culture, each of our campuses will School subjects, but that makes them operate as a dual-language institution: no less appropriate and required. Core the home language and English. (Third WORLD OF academic subjects include reading, languages, as noted below, will be added all forms of communication (writing, HUMANITY as special subjects in later grades.) speaking, presenting), and basic math The national history of the country skills. In each of these areas, our in which the campus is located will graduates need to perform well—on be a required course of study. Finally, average in the ninety-fifth percentile on the school will function as a part of internationally normed assessments. its local community, learning from Core Academic Knowledge it and contributing to it. Similarly, Every graduate will have an overall global capabilities will be gained by a grasp of world history. Using resources three-pronged strategy consisting of such as Bill Gates’s “Big History” knowledge of other cultures, proficiency project, students will have a sweeping in multiple languages, and empathy view of the story of earth and the gained only by real on-the-ground human race. We will also provide experience. At a minimum, students with the in-depth history PROFICIENCY IN LANGUAGES of particular places and the story of all students will At a minimum, all students will science and geography (defined broadly graduate with graduate with a level of written and as it is in the U.K.). Some new subjects a level of spoken fluency in a second language will be added on the practical end of that will allow them to work and study written and the spectrum. For example, most of in another culture. (In cultures where spoken fluency a student’s future life will be spent bilingual capability is the norm, for in organizations, often companies. in a second example Singapore or Germany, we will Typically, schools don’t give serious language that strive for proficiency in a third language attention to how companies (or other will allow in later grades.) The only reliable route organizations) really work or focus on to bilingual proficiency is through an them to work career possibilities. This gap in career immersion program, which will be and study in preparation will be addressed. another culture. utilized at all our campuses. Outside of Global Capabilities Paired with English-speaking countries, English will Deep Local Roots be the required second language for all We want students to be able to function students. In English-speaking countries, globally while being authentic and Chinese and Spanish will be the most engaged members of their own culture. frequently offered second-language At most expat-oriented international choices. Additional languages will be schools, families must choose between offered depending upon the campus their desire for an internationally location. WORLD WORLD OF focused education and an often equal SOCIAL STUDIES interest in deepening their children’s Our social studies programs (including OF SELF KNOWLEDGE home language and ties to their culture. history, political science, geography) Finding this balance will be one of our will go well beyond the national and regional study seen in most schools.

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INTERNATIONAL STUDY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT Our students will be strongly encouraged to study for four periods Emotionally Intelligent of time at other Whittle campuses We care about the emotional around the world during their school development of our students—and we experience. To achieve this, students believe this cannot be left to chance. and parents will be offered three All our courses will be characterized different options. The “minimum by their commitment to exploring a program” will be four different two- range of values and principles governing month summer programs during upper the relationships between students, school. The “moderate program” will be teachers, and all the “citizens” of four different trimesters abroad during each school. upper school, one trimester each year at a student’s home school and another Creative abroad. The “maximum program” will There is artistry in all fields. A banker be for upper school students to spend can be just as creative as a sculptor, and each of their four years of upper school an engineer can be just as expressive as at a different campus. Imagine a student a film star. Problem-solving is a creative going to a full boarding school—but exercise, and there are problems to at four different locations, each in a be solved in every walk of life. Unlike different region of the world. Within motivation, creativity can be learned. There is artistry the above options, we will encourage at In virtually all of our classes, problem- in all fields. least one program period in both China solving will be a pedagogical device, and A banker can and the U.S. We hope that our students creative students will be the result. be just as will have studied in five different cultures—their home campus and four Self-Motivated, creative as a others—by the time they graduate. This Entrepreneurial & Resilient Almost by definition, motivation is sculptor, and feature of our program will change and something that cannot be taught. It an engineer can deepen our students’ view of the world can surely be killed, though, and even for their entire lives. be as expressive the best efforts to motivate are often as a film star. extremely counterproductive. So how Problem-solving does a modern school foster this trait? is a creative It presents options for students to exercise. pursue. It listens and watches for what a child naturally wants to do. It waits until the child demonstrates excitement about something, and then it knows when to get of the way. There may be some coaching—but not too much. Whatever excites students must be owned by them, not by the school and, particularly, not by its curriculum.

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Confident & Optimistic extends their learning goals. Indeed, A deep belief in the workability of things optimal college placement is one of comes only when one has experienced the expected outcomes when parents Key Themes success, however small, and then built make a significant investment in their upon it. One of our most important children’s education. While there missions is to help all students succeed are more than 20,000 universities in Our at something and then build from there. worldwide, we expect the majority of And while ambition in this era is often our graduates each year will be accepted equated with ruthlessness and greed, we by the world’s top 100. Our high expectations for Whittle Educational aim to graduate students with expansive goals for themselves and the world. graduates necessitate careful planning— and in some cases special, additional Socially Responsible educational programs at our campuses. Model: All our students will have experienced Like that of many exceptional private considerable good fortune in their lives. schools, most of our curriculum will be We want They will have been born into a family designed from scratch, by educational If it is essential for a every student that can afford to send them to an experts who will integrate best practices to learn to extraordinary private school or they will from schools across the globe. For school to understand have won a Whittle School & Studios example, our primary-school math be a steward scholarship. Either way, fate will have program may come from Singapore, what it wants to help of the world smiled on our students. We hope to while our upper-school math may be How its students achieve, during his nurture their understanding of this and adopted from Phillips Exeter. Our or her time convert such awareness into ongoing curriculum choices will be determined it is equally with us. humility. Humility is a lifelong vaccine by what best achieves the objectives against the arrogance that sometimes for a modern school, with careful important for a accompanies privilege; equally consideration for what is required by important, humility is foundational the education codes of the countries in school to know how to the desire to contribute, to return which we operate. something to the world for all that it We it can deliver those In addition, we will modify our has brought one’s way. All of us are curriculum from campus to campus so results. the lucky beneficiaries of our beautiful that it both achieves the overarching ecosystem, and part of being socially objectives of our school design and The operating responsible is caretaking for future covers topics found on the national generations. We want every student college-entrance exams of the particular model Whittle to learn to be a steward of the world nation where the school is located. If during hir or her time with us. the compromises required to achieve AchieveSchool & Studios has Readiness for the World’s this are either operationally impossible built is based on the Leading Universities & or overly burdensome for our students Colleges and faculty—we will work to provide tenets described in supplemental programs designed Although we view the 15 years of early, to prepare students for particular primary, and secondary education the following pages. national entrance exams. These could as having a much broader and more range from several targeted after- Our Carefully executing important objective than securing a school tutoring sessions to as much as seat in a highly selective college or a full “gap” or “prep” year following on these themes university of a student’s choice, one graduation. We will support our of our key goals is making sure that students every step of the way. will result in our our graduates’ tertiary education desired outcomes. 30 Goals 31 a new view of education

A PERSONALIZED EDUCATION The “one-size-fits-all” model of the Industrial era is insufficient in the Innovation Age. We believe each individual has magnificent potential, so we have designed our educational model and our mastery-based assessment systems to help cultivate every student’s unique talents and purpose. We believe in student-driven, hands-on learning guided by talented educators, global experts, and an advisory system that addresses the specific needs and passions of each student. Whittle students are encouraged to explore the world— its challenges and its opportunities— to identify, and begin to hone, their distinct contributions. The old Hotels are organized around world of individual guests, and hospitals are schooling is organized around individual patients. Hotel guests are checked in and built almost out and served individually. They arrive entirely on at different times, stay for different educating lengths, eat different food and groups of at different times, choose to use the children. gym or not, and select different types of rooms. Similarly, in hospitals every patient has a particular issue and is treated accordingly. The old world of schooling is built almost entirely on educating groups of children. It is a world of classes and grades, with groups of children proceeding through their course of study at the same pace. In the U.S., those groups average about 22 students per class, while in China it is about 45 (and can be as many as 70). One practice frequently used is symbolic: 15 to 25 very young children are literally tied together by rope for safety when they head outside their school to the park. No one can get away from the group! A description of how we arrived

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at this state of affairs would take too It helps our case to have statistical Advisory guide their school, study abroad, and much time to detail fully here, but here support of the group model’s decline, If you were to estimate how much time extracurricular activities—and to help are a few examples. but plain logic provides equally good a typical student truly spends one- advisees plan for college and their Originally, the group approach must reasons that we should pursue a more on-one with a teacher in his or her 15 careers. Our students will be known have been thought to be a more efficient personalized model. Do we really years of school, what would you guess? well and receive thoughtful guidance method. If it were ever true, it can believe children learn at the same rate Our estimate: Of the 25,000 hours a in their growth and development to certainly be called into question today. or in the same way? Do we really believe child goes to school, we doubt more ensure academic success and personal The daily cost for a single child in a top- they all like the same things? As an than 100 are spent one-on-one with a growth. Our advisory model leverages tier school has reached roughly $300, adult, could you possibly tolerate sitting teacher. Truth be told, it is probably our network-designed curriculum, similar to the room rate for a luxury again for 15 years in classrooms? Do we a lot less. How could it be otherwise? global resources, and community hotel! Another reason for our addiction look back fondly on our educational How many school calendars set aside partnerships as drivers for success. to group education is that dogma experience and believe that it was ideal? frequent one-on-one time? We’ve found Supported by a sophisticated advising did not encourage differentiation. In Don’t we all remember how tuned just one so far that would meet our platform made up of a Learner Profile, their early days, most schools were out we were so much of the time in standard. (And if you know of more, Digital Portfolio, and Progress Tracker, connected to religious institutions class? Have we not seen the enormous please correct us, because we want to students, advisers, teachers, and (often physically). “We are teaching progress that can be made by one-on- learn from that school!) If we are going parents will shape learning journeys a belief system,” you can almost hear one tutoring and coaching? And in our to succeed in personalized education, a that begin the moment a student the parish priest saying. “What’s to own workplace, haven’t we learned so crucial early step is knowing every child enters the school and continue all the personalize?” Also, many Old Worlders much more by working shoulder to well. That happens only when frequent way through to the college-application viewed children as lowly creatures no shoulder with mentors and colleagues one-on-one time between faculty process and graduation. more capable of independent work on real problems? And how many times and students is built into the school In early learning, and lower school, The only way than cattle, needing to be fenced in and have all of us said, “Get me out of this schedule. This may sound trivial and Student-centered the homeroom teachers will take on to personalize supervised constantly. The only way meeting”—another kind of group and easy to do. Far from it. All educators learning empowers the advising role. Beginning in middle a school is to to do that efficiently is in groups. That another kind of classroom—“so I can know that filling in the “time” column students to be school, each of our advisers will serve truly know Mozart wrote his first symphony quite get some real work done”? on the school calendar is an annual and agents of their 10 to 12 students through a three-year on his own at age eight and that Picasso Whittle School & Studios understands hotly contested fight, far harder than academic and cycle that starts in seventh grade, each student. was painting complex works at age 15 that significant group interaction musical chairs. There are hundreds of with an in-depth transition for ninth- are inconvenient facts. Whatever the within a school is both needed and priorities that must be balanced. To social development. graders as students join their upper reason for the group model, its global important. Learning to work on a team give you a sense, imagine you decide school advisory teams. In many ways prevalence is undisputed. and collaborate are skills that all our that each student will meet individually the multiage advisory group functions But does it work? What we know students need to acquire—and we will with a faculty member for 20 minutes like a family, highlighting shared for sure is that the group approach is help them do so. But mass, lockstep every two weeks. Sounds like no big learning successes and areas needed not improving and that it is actually instruction is something we frown deal, right? But that decision commits for support as students progress. Think declining in terms of return on upon, and we plan to do something 4.2 percent of a school’s total teaching of it as a guidance sounding board investment. Globally, public spending about it. We are going to introduce a resources to that single idea. We think it composed of students and staff with on education has increased from level of effective personalized education is worth it, and we have baked advisory individualized and shared outcomes. 3.9 percent of GDP in 2000 to 4.9 for students currently unavailable in time into our school schedules as sacred We will select our faculty based on percent of GDP in 2012. While small in top-tier schools around the world. Here time with students. both their ability to advise and their terms of percentage points, that tiny are the core features of our personalized The only way to personalize a subject-matter expertise—and we increase is massive in the absolute and school design: school is to truly know each student. will provide frequent professional represents a dramatic 25 percent rise Caring, connected advisers will development on the advisory program. in the resources the world allocates to support our students at all stages of education. It is notable that this was their development. They will guide accomplished during the time of the students to create personal pathways financial crisis. Nevertheless, an analysis to growth and help them navigate the of global educational-performance opportunities within their local campus assessments across the same period and the global network. Students indicates only a 1 percent rise in results. will work closely with an adviser to

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Passion & Purpose For personalized education to last moment before application The good news is there are some There is only so much time in a school succeed, a school must believe its time. Discerning universities know examples of best practice in this regard. day. If you want more personalized students can work independently. the difference. Many are charter schools in the U.S. education, some “group education” has This doesn’t mean that students Our older students’ pursuit of born during the “No Child Left Behind” to go. It is simple math. Particularly are completely unleashed, with no excellence will culminate in the period, which stressed, perhaps to an in higher grades at Whittle School & monitoring or no teaching in the old creation of several portfolio projects extreme, agreeing upon and tracking Studios, students will spend less time sense of the word. What it means is in our Centers of Excellence, which clear national metrics for assessing in conventional class settings and more that students, on their own or in small are housed in each of our schools. student progress. The breakthrough time on independent project-based groups based on affinity or capability, There, students will dive deeply achieved by these schools is their work and one-on-one with teachers. are studying different things at different into advanced study in a particular realization that high-stakes, end-of-the- Student-centered learning empowers rates and in different spaces. If faculty area of interest rooted in the history year exams did not do enough to inform students to be agents of their academic can be freed from time-consuming and specific attributes of a host the day-to-day instruction of teachers. and social development. Students will administrative tasks, they will be city. Projects created in each of our The information revealed by these have an increasing choice of projects more likely to engage one-on-one Centers of Excellence will draw from exams is available only after the school and courses as they mature and the with students. Technology can assist the knowledge of experts in each of year is over. The new school of thought opportunity to demonstrate their in personalization and help cut our host cities across the network. says that assessment needs to be capabilities at each level through the time teachers spend on such Our upper-school students will travel frequent, easy to implement, accessible diverse assessments. tasks as enrolling, tracking, and to different Whittle campuses for in real time, paperless, and nonpunitive As all parents know, each student has assessing students. unparalleled study-abroad experiences so that it helps a student and teacher individual interests and his or her own Students’ lives are changed for the that will often be grounded in (and parents) see progress—or the way of learning. The most profound better by pursuing in great depth their work in a particular Center lack thereof—and adapt their work and Students’ lives learning occurs when a teacher, a class, something they love; achieving a level of Excellence. methods accordingly while there is still If a school does are changed for of excellence in anything introduces time to address crucial learning gaps. not measure the or a project engages all of a student’s Data-Driven Accountability senses, emotions, intentions, and prior them to a number of lessons far beyond An interesting example: Entrance the better by Compare and contrast the desk of a progress of every knowledge. Students are encouraged the subject matter itself. How to exams of many popular university pursuing in great teacher to the new era of multiscreen child in multiple to pursue their passions—it could be persevere when an obstacle appears, graduate programs give the test taker an depth something glass cockpits for modern pilots. areas and in real playing a musical instrument, painting, how to reach out to mentors for immediate score, allowing him or her The pilot has multiple flat screens they love. writing prose or a play, exploring a guidance, how to build relationships the option of submitting the score or time, then its that display every conceivable bit of particular technology, or pursuing an with people who share one’s passion, continuing to study to achieve a higher mission statement information—altitude, speed, weather, entrepreneurial idea—and with the how to research something in depth, one. That is assessment that informs coordinates, communications, and is nothing more help of their advisers and teachers, how to write and present what one is further study, and student progress airplane systems—while teachers than pretty words. they will develop good habits of self- doing—all these traits come from work and agency. have, at best, computers that are not organization, self-motivation, critical that extends far beyond the confines particularly well linked to limited thinking, and problem-solving. Pursuing of the pursuit itself. information about their students. their passions will foster creativity, Particularly in the middle- and If a school does not measure the personal growth, independence, and a upper-school years, as part of the progress of every child in multiple sense of responsibility—and offer a lens regular school-day experience, we will areas and in real time, then its mission through which other subjects can be provide significant time for students to statement is nothing more than pretty learned. It will give them a central role pursue their passions as well as receive words. For objectives to mean anything, in creating their own knowledge, and support from appropriate mentors and they must be relentlessly and reliably the confidence to succeed—in school organizations. Our goal is not to force tracked. The file of a Whittle School & and in life. premature career choices but rather to Studios student and the related teacher help students gain confidence, which “dashboard” will be impressive— is best achieved from doing something consistently updated and holistic. The well. Universities pay particular template for this file and dashboard will attention to applicants who have real be a principal element of intellectual passions that have been developed over property within our design work. many years and not fabricated at the

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that college-level learning will be taught A G L O B A L E D U C A T I O N WITH LOCAL ROOTS in a language other than English. No matter where they study, our students The challenges and opportunities will reach advanced proficiency in at of modern life demand a global least one language other than their perspective—one that exposes students native one. This will allow our students to the world and provides them the to study at different campuses in our language and social skills to navigate network and to function professionally multiple cultures. in a second language later in life. Study Abroad Experiential Learning We want our students to study in Our campuses are located in some multiple cultures by the time they of the world’s most vibrant cities. At graduate. This will deepen our students’ Whittle, both the core learning and global perspective and contribute to the global experience of our students their independence, empathy, and will be rooted in local engagement: sense of self. We will present students sending students out to study their city and families with different options, and other cities in our network, and including summer programs, trimesters rooting their learning in meaningful abroad, and full years abroad. In all of interactions in the world beyond these options, students will be studying the classroom. We believe that deep in a highly diverse environment and learning requires students to take what We believe that making lifelong friends on different they learn in the classroom and apply it deep learning continents. In addition, we will work to relevant questions in the real world. to assemble groups of students to requires students Cognitive science and pedagogical experience these programs together, to take what research show that learning becomes across a period of years, thus ensuring they learn in the deeper and more permanent—better— students are not discouraged when information is connected to classroom and from participating for fear of leaving multiple experiences. Seeing geometry apply it to relevant friends behind. questions in the in the design of a bridge, testing Language Immersion sustainability through river-water real world. Language is not just a utility but a analysis, understanding culture through means of understanding and developing eating and cooking local cuisine, empathy for a new culture and world. tracing history through student-led Our objective is that every Whittle walking tours—these narratives give student will graduate with a high level facts multiple and personal meanings. of proficiency in a second language, At Whittle, we call this “stickiness”— with an opportunity to learn a third the internalization of facts, ideas, and during their upper-school experience. skills through application, experience, Language immersion will typically and reflection to become deep and begin in PreK and continue through a meaningful knowledge. student’s primary years, but language Our pedagogy and curriculum strategies will vary by campus and are designed to integrate the ideas, country. In Shenzhen, for instance, people, infrastructure, and culture that our students need to be prepared for make each of our host cities unique colleges where instruction is routinely and exemplary. The City Core and taught in English. At the campus in Global Exchange programs, which Washington, D.C., there’s less concern include rigorous deep study through VIOLETA LÓ PIZ

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our Centers of Excellence, will build (streets, parks, home) to begin to Residential Life Our boarders’ advisers will live complex understandings of how orient them in their city. In lower We at Whittle know that a diverse in the dorms, providing continuous communities work. We believe our school, students begin urban skill- student body makes for a more contact and guidance to student host cities are among our greatest building (numeracy, interviewing, interesting, exceptional, and truly dorm life. This ensures that the adult education resources, and we will build mapping, making observations) through worldly school. Our global campus with whom students and parents in meaningful time to use our cities architecture tours, transportation network, where students can spend a communicate most often will be the for extending learning beyond our studies, urban storytelling, summer, a trimester, a year, or all of same person who has deep knowledge classrooms. neighborhood research, interviews upper school at one of our international of all aspects of the students’ lives. with residents, and in-class urban Each of our trained advisers will be CITY CORE campuses, adds a level of richness to simulations. Middle school students the equivalent of a wilderness guide The City Core program integrates the school life, and especially to boarding expand their tool kit (archival research, (albeit in a dorm setting), helping student’s schoolwork with real-life life, that no single school could hope to policy memos, urban orienteering, students to navigate academic and applications and civic engagement, attain on its own. environmental analysis) by exploring personal issues throughout their time allowing students to pursue their All the things that make Whittle physics through bridge design or with us. And just as some of the best interests and passions while School & Studios a rich source of car-velocity analyses, by studying student conversations take place at contributing to their community. In our learning reverberate throughout urban planning and design through unpredictable moments in the dorm, City Core program, students deepen residential life, giving students that building construction, and by taking so too can great student-teacher what they learn in school by exploring many more opportunities to connect walking tours and scavenger hunts as interactions occur outside of the the city as an extended classroom. With with their friends from around the The City Core a means of cultural exploration. Upper routine moments of check-in. the support of a City Core coordinator, globe. Our residential program offers schoolers become active agents in the Some of the richest aspects of program all core teachers in a Whittle School a wide variety of choices: from full- city, applying all they have learned to boarding life occur serendipitously, applies all of a campus will organize their curricula time boarders who hail from other cultivating knowledge in various areas: when students from different parts of student’s skills around fieldwork experiences that areas of the state or country in which leadership and civic engagement, the country and the world share their take classroom learning out into the that campus is situated, to full-time and knowledge urban design and resilience planning, experiences and interact outside of the city on our experiential Expedition boarders from anywhere in the world, to the task of social entrepreneurship, community classroom. So we have designed ample, days. Fieldwork will vary according to local full-time boarders, to weekday outreach, and collaboration. comfortable public spaces, including understanding to the discipline and the students’ boarders who live close enough to communal living rooms, to enhance how we live developmental stage, but will include CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE spend weekends at home. meaningful connections throughout together, how we on-site research, environmental- In each of our schools’ Centers of Another tremendous advantage of the day, the week, the weekend, and the and social-data collection, citizen Excellence students will work with our boarding program is the myriad solve problems school year. collectively, how interviews, urban orienteering, photo a world-class scholar and an array of offerings that are available to students analysis, cognitive mapping and mentors. Students will pursue advanced after school and on the weekends. we affect our social geography, and meetings with study, based on the history in a At a typical prep school, boarding landscape, and experts, entrepreneurs, activists, particular area and research that draws students can find themselves left to how it affects us. and policymakers. on the knowledge of experts from each their own devices in the evenings The City Core program applies all city across the network. and on weekends. At Whittle, our of a student’s skills and knowledge studios are always open, offering to the task of understanding how diverse extracurricular activities that we live together, how we solve run the gamut from language courses problems collectively, how we affect and tutoring to Centers of Excellence our landscape, and how it affects us. and City Core programming, arts As students mature, they address and cultural endeavors, outstanding increasingly complex topics and begin athletic training, social-responsibility to engage in design, problem-solving, engagement, internships, and individual and collaborative service work in guided research projects. the city. In early learning, City Core activities might include building maps of a student’s home, class, and school and identifying parts of a neighborhood

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candidates from that group, or one in EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY 130,000. To use a stellar law firm as a Every modern institution of scale now metaphor, these 36 individuals will all runs on a highly reliable technology be “senior partners” of the educational infrastructure—except schools. In “firm” we are building. Indeed, and particular, private schools that operate more literally, each will own an outside of school systems lag far behind. economically meaningful percentage of A report by Boston Consulting Group Whittle School & Studios. says schools invest in technology at We will look to these 36 individuals one-third the rate of other knowledge- first and foremost as educational intensive sectors (only 1.6 percent of leaders. The U.K. convention of calling their budgets). Not so at Whittle School them “head teachers” has real merit. & Studios. They are the head educators. Every Our technology infrastructure will head of school will have many years of rival that of any significant global experience in high-quality schooling, enterprise. Every campus will have usually at the K–12 level and, in some robust, fast, and redundant wireless cases, at leading universities. Virtually capability. All students (above a certain all will have led a top-tier school or been age) and teachers will have school- a high-ranking member of its leadership issued computers and tablets on short- team; some will come from important term leases so that they are frequently colleges or universities where they updated (and equipped with GPS served as deans. Virtually all will have trackers so they can be easily found either a master’s degree or a Ph.D. from when lost, often right in the school!). one of the world’s top universities. And These devices will be “curated” by virtually all will have been teachers— the school so that everyone shares and good ones—at some time in their apps, databases, and communications career. We know that one of the key systems. And every classroom will ingredients in attracting superb faculty have interactive video technology that is the opportunity to work with an links easily to students’ devices so that inspiring school head, one who can their work can be quickly displayed. TATSURO KIUCHI them to contribute to the thought OUR PEOPLE teach the art and science of schooling. Every campus will have a tech team leadership and to the very design of Only someone who has the credibility Most private schools stand apart from of 10 to 15 people. We will invest in many of our systems of communication of classroom experience can do that. any system and, in no small measure, the best learning managment systems and sharing best practices. While educational leadership will value their complete independence and and leading-edge ed tech applications be at the top of our list of criteria, our their entrenched sense of tradition. World-Class Heads of School including augmented reality and vitual heads of school must be good managers As detailed later, we plan to have the Anyone who has led a system of schools reality. These local teams will be as well. They must attend to the safety most supportive and sophisticated knows that no individual campus supported by a global tech team at of 2,500 students, 1,000 of whom global support system, based at our can achieve excellence or inspire a our HQ. are boarders, and interact with the headquarters, with an initial team of 80 lifelong love of learning without an Only with this kind of modern thousands of families involved. Though that will grow to 200 at maturity. HQ exceptional leader. To say it more technology system and support can a they will have around them a dozen will play a key role as an integrator of precisely, an excellent campus leader school be part of the digital age. And senior team members and, above them, the knowledge and skills found at each provides a chance for greatness at without these systems, the data-driven 200 people supporting them at global of our campuses, sharing the insights of that school, while the lack of one accountability noted above and the headquarters, they are, like captains each campus with colleagues at other ensures mediocrity. hybrid learning methods described later of ships at sea, far from land and very sites. For that to work best, we will There are roughly four million heads will not be possible. much in charge. have to earn the respect of the team of school on earth. Between now and members at each campus and encourage 2026, we must find 36 exceptional

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Our school leaders are appointed at An Exceptional Faculty least one year before each new campus Research shows that the quality of opens, so that they can carefully recruit faculty is the single most important their leadership team and faculty determinant in the quality of education and be an instrumental part in the a child receives. What could be more communications effort with parents and important? The same research shows students. that the effect of a poor teacher for We expect a long and distinguished even one year has a material effect line of candidates for these posts and on a child’s life. There are 70 million are working with the best educational teachers on the planet. In the next search firms in the world to find top decade, we need to find 10,000 talent. We have already made several exceptional ones. key hires and are thrilled with the Whittle School & Studios has caliber of our core school leadership developed a system (both global and teams. The best educational leaders, localized) to attract, select, develop, the ones we will want, know that and retain its faculty. Before we address schooling needs to change and that each of these functions below, there existing institutions have had to be are two pre-conditions in the building dragged kicking and screaming into of a world-class faculty. The first is even the last century. Most will jump at developing a clear and compelling the chance to change education for the vision that is worthy of their time. The good—and in such a meaningful and second is, as noted above, providing our well supported way. faculty with exceptional school leaders. Finally, though we will choose our leaders carefully, we want them to SELECTING FACULTY Parents would be shocked if they grow during their long careers with knew the faculty-selection process us. The best education leaders are of many schools. For example, many lifelong learners, and we want to international schools hire teachers after provide boundless opportunities for brief, one-time interviews at job fairs. everyone in our schools. One of the Our faculty members are being chosen advantages of a system of campuses is through a rigorous selection method that it can support a robust leadership- similar to what one would expect at any development program. Ours will be led world-class institution today, including by what we call our “head of heads.” (a) multiple in-depth interviews Based at our HQ, he or she will lead our with different members of our team, “community of school heads” and, more including someone who is able to than anything, act as a facilitator of assess the applicant’s content expertise, discussion between our school heads on (b) various quantitative assessments best practices. In our early days, a team to gauge an applicant’s language of a dozen or so great heads of school fluency, writing ability, and technology will be sharing their experiences and capabilities, (c) recommendation learning from one another. And many letters, (d) reference checks, (e) of them will also be learning something background checks, and (f) either in- else: a second language. We believe it is person observation of their teaching or important that our entire organization videos of such. “walks the walk.”

VIOLETA LÓ PIZ

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DEVELOPING FACULTY calls of the science teachers in our most important focus, but as a teacher supervise our newer faculty—and thus As with an airplane, every part of a learning community, each will know becomes more senior and begins to lead are crucial to sustaining our culture. school has to work, and so it is difficult the others better. departments, grades, etc., we will assist Over the course of the next decade, we to label any single part the most Each school year will kick off with a in the development of core leadership will need to fill 540 of these roles (36 important. That said, the professional Faculty Week for new members of our skills: managing teams, having the campuses with 15 grade heads each). development of our faculty is one of schools. In year two, all new faculty crucial conversations, mentoring, Our primary source for doing so will be our most crucial systemic functions. It members at campuses three and four basic financial skills, and cross-cultural teachers from current Whittle School & creates the school. Broadly speaking, will attend, plus new faculty members communication. Studios campuses. In addition, we will such professional development falls who have joined campuses at the Overall, we plan for nothing short fill 144 division-head roles (36 campuses into two parts: the on-boarding original two schools due to growth of the world’s best professional with four division heads each). In process and the ongoing development (and turnover). Total attendance in our development program for our faculty. total, for our first decade, we have 684 programs. Here again are functions that second faculty week will be over 700. Faculty will be drawn to our schools education-management roles to fill benefit hugely from the scale provided Every three years, a faculty member will because of our reputation for investing at the campus level—an unparalleled by a system of campuses. return to Faculty Week in order to stay in teacher growth. And we will promotion opportunity for our faculty Most schools have an on-boarding up-to-date with the global team and be protect our investment in our people members. For a faculty member who or orientation process of two to five re-inspired by our mission. accordingly. This leads to our next wants to be part of a school leadership days. Ours will be five weeks. It will Exciting as this is, Faculty Week will topic: our talent retention program. team one day, there will simply be no begin with something that will become be just 20 percent of the on-boarding better organization in the world to join. a tradition at our institution: an annual, process. The other four weeks will RETAINING FACULTY global “Faculty Week,” attended by take place at the campus being opened Retention of faculty is largely Parent Engagement While our student community will all faculty members who are joining (requiring, by the way, delivery of dependent upon three factors: (1) represent the lifeblood of our school, Whittle School & Studios. fully operational campuses at least Most schools satisfaction with work environment, our parent community will be vital The first Faculty Week (scheduled one month before school begins— will have an (2) compensation, and (3) career- to our broader school ecosystem. in the summer of 2019, several weeks something built into our construction growth potential. The first has been on-boarding Parent involvement will help shape the prior to the opening of our Shenzhen and installation schedules). These covered elsewhere in this document, process of two learning experience of our students and D.C. campuses) will bring together four weeks will be more tactical in but the other two factors deserve and the relationship our schools have about 400 team members, including orientation, and will include course-by- to five days. comment here. to their local communities. We have the 300 first-year faculty and leadership course training programs (often with Ours will be As for career-growth opportunities, identified three primary ways to engage team members from the two initial expert outside providers assisting), five weeks. we will offer virtually unheard-of parents in the education of their campuses and some 100 members technology training, communication possibilities for faculty members. In a students and our school community. of our HQ team. This event will also and compliance protocols, safety single-site school, growth opportunities include the founding leadership and drills, discipline systems, orientation are severely limited. The institution PARENT COMMUNICATION faculty team members from campuses of the host city, and various required is typically not growing, and thus A parent’s involvement in his or three and four, which will open in city protocols. Ongoing professional promotion happens only when someone her child’s development promotes 2020. The purpose of this event is to development will be supervised largely up the ladder leaves his or her post. a positive learning environment for fully orient all faculty members on the by the education department at HQ, At Whittle School & Studios, we will students. To foster this, we will host an vision, systems, expectations, and plans led by the chancellor. constantly be opening new campuses, annual parents’ weekend, during which for Whittle School & Studios—and Every campus will have sophisticated and, as a result, will want a small we will engage parents in an immersive to build an optimistic sense of joint videoconferencing technology, which group of current teachers to form overview of their student’s educational purpose and camaraderie. They will also will be used extensively in professional the vanguard at new sites in order to experience. We will also use technology get acquainted with their support teams development. For example, the firmly establish our culture. This would to provide parents with frequent at HQ and their counterparts at other system-wide dean of mathematics particularly be the case for a position information on students’ coursework campuses. For instance, all science will conduct a monthly conference known as “Heads of Grade,” effectively and performance. Finally, considerable teachers in the system will meet each call with all math teachers to discuss the first step up the career ladder for attention will be given to quarterly other at this conference, and special new techniques, updates to our math our teachers and a major step toward parent-teacher conferences, where we meetings will be led by our global program, exemplary student work, becoming a department or division head will present data-based assessments of science dean. Thus, in the subsequent and fixes that need to be made in our (head of early learning, lower, middle, student progress and discuss student monthly video or audio conference pedagogy. Teaching skills will be the or upper school). Heads of grade project-based learning work.

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PARENTS AS COMMUNITY LEADERS A NEW TYPE OF CAMPUS Our schools will be fully integrated into the local communities, with our parents A school for the Innovation Age helping to lead and strengthen this requires a new architecture. Everything integration. Many of our parents will in a school is a lesson, and the building be leaders in the community already itself is perhaps the most enduring and through their places of employment influential one. Designed by renowned and additional organizations where they architect Renzo Piano, our campuses spend their time. We will look to our support our educational mission parents to serve as the school’s primary and welcome in the surrounding liaison with local organizations and host community. They are inspiring companies, creating opportunities for environments for creating, making, our students in the form of internships, sharing, and growing, places where volunteer work, and side projects. This students can pursue their passions and will help our students connect with, and achieve their highest potential. The give back to, their communities. unique architecture of our campuses— which is described in great depth later PARENTS AS MENTORS in this book—features key ingredients Parents can be an important resource that set Whittle School & Studios apart. not only for their own children but also for other students. We will Open and Connected encourage parents to serve as mentors We engage with the communities that for students, capitalizing on parental host us as a means of understanding expertise and success in their respective the world at large. Our campuses are fields (e.g., business, arts, music, dance, designed to welcome in the city—for science). We will also ask parents parent visits, continuing education, to participate occasionally in career community events, and the exhibition pathway discussions, to serve as role of student and faculty work. models for students and to help educate students about a broad spectrum of A Space for Creativity We have invested in creating world- careers that they can consider pursuing. class workshop facilities at each campus Finally, when it comes time for our build in order to foster students’ students to apply to colleges, we will capacity for design thinking and for ask the entire parent community to realizing their ideas through an iterative get involved. The parent of a fourth- process of prototyping and presenting. grader may well be able to assist a 12th- grader—and one day another parent Built for Learning may return that favor. We believe that in a modern school, all spaces are extensions of the classroom. Our flexible learning designs support the transition between different modes and scales of learning, teaching, and doing, from individual work to collaborative projects to seminar discussions. For a personalized learning approach to be successful, a school must be flexible enough to accommodate large-group learning, VIOLETA LÓ PIZ

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one-on-one instruction, and everything 23,000. The admission rate dropped proof of ongoing and deepening student Outreach to Top Universities in between. That is why our classrooms in just one decade from 16 percent to work will be reflected in the quality There are 100 highly competitive are designed to grow and contract 9 percent. Each year it gets worse. As of our students’ culminating portfolio universities and colleges around depending on learning needs, with the populations of emerging economies projects, which will be of great value the world, as well as hundreds upon plenty of communal space for students enter the middle and upper classes, to admissions deans at highly selective hundreds of fine departments and and teachers to interact. And the applications to the world’s leading colleges and universities—and they programs within other colleges ingenious architecture of our glass- universities will continue to surge. will speak volumes about the mind and and universities. It is economically clad, light-filled buildings ensures a Why? A leading university takes decades character of our students. impossible for a single school to know transparent, open, and bright setting. to build—and very little new supply them all, keep up with developments of seats is coming on line. Our college- Expert Advisers on Each Campus in each, and maintain contacts in placement function will not be able to each. Similarly, a single school does THE BEST COLLEGE- Though our college advisers on each solve the supply/demand gap, but what not have the resources to maintain its PLACEMENT SYSTEM campus will be selected, coordinated, it can do is give our students the best own outreach to all these institutions The leadership team at Whittle School and developed by our global college- possible chance for success in this ever to let them know why they should be & Studios has attended, taught at, placement department, there is no more competitive situation. And we will watching for its applicants. or led 80 percent of the world’s top substitute for an on-campus individual be uniquely positioned to do that. Our global HQ will, by contrast, 20 universities. By the time our full adviser who both knows the students Our college-placement function conduct continuing research on, faculty is recruited, that number will and their families well and works will use a combination of global and and outreach to, leading universities increase to 100 percent, giving us closely with them and, in many cases, local resources, something a single-site and colleges. Many members of our firsthand knowledge of, and meaningful has “looped” with the students through school simply cannot match. Here HQ team have worked in leadership connections to, all of the top 20 several grades. It is particularly critical are the three key ways we will offer the positions in higher education, and universities. That statement alone that we staff these positions adequately best college advising to our students our global researchers will feed this demonstrates one of the great values to ensure that the relationships between and parents. information to our local advisers. Our of a “system of schools” versus a advisers, students, and families begin global team will meet and correspond “stand-alone” one. This provides great An Education That Appeals to three to four years before graduation. with admissions teams at leading institutional understanding of what Top Universities Five years in advance of our first universities to ensure that they are universities desire in their students Though a good placement department graduating class, we will have already aware of what it means to be a graduate and the process they conduct to can enhance a student’s chances of recruited an admissions expert from an of Whittle School & Studios. recruit them. admission, there is no substitute for Ivy League university to begin planning Indeed, we have already begun this The college-placement staff of a the 15 years of study prior to college. this function. Why? To get ahead of process by recruiting our faculty from typical, one-campus school is tasked Every university expects certain basics student weaknesses early and address the same universities where we will be with a difficult and usually thankless from all its applicants. Think of this them early and to identify strengths placing our students. We are committed mission. On the one hand, it is up as “breadth.” Our rigorous program that can be built upon—and to forge to building and cultivating a “multi- against very high expectations from will provide such breadth, but it is not meaningful relationships over time tiered” relationship with the best parents, who, understandably, want enough. Admissions teams are looking with college and university admissions universities in the world. their children admitted to excellent for students who excel in a particular deans. Another major ingredient universities after all the years of area and who will add that particular is an adviser who builds a partner investment in private-school tuition. excellence to their college. Think of this relationship with parents. Many schools On the other hand, college-placement as “depth.” Through its individualized try to minimize parental involvement professionals know that it is getting approach to education, Whittle School in the college-application process to the harder and harder to get their graduates & Studios is engineered to graduate point of lowering their expectations. into top universities. The number of students who have both these qualities. We believe parents play a pivotal role applicants to the Ivy League’s class of Note that this “depth” cannot be by working with their children and 2007 was 137,000, of which 22,000, faked by cramming in the last year of activating their robust contacts within or 16 percent, were accepted. Just 10 school. It must be genuine, an interest universities during the application years later, applications had increased a student has pursued over years with process, which begins when students by 80 percent, to 247,000, while those attentive mentorship and something enter upper school. accepted increased by a mere 1,000, to a student truly cares about. The best

50 51 a new view of education Building a World-Class Education: Our Curriculum Progressive pedagogy is a staple at any excellent school, with most top-tier institutions having adopted such methods years ago. Discussion- based classes around a central seminar table (known to many as the Harkness method), project-based learning, experiential learning, and the maker movement are all examples of progressive approaches to learning—and all will be common practice at Whittle School & Studios from day one. All of these methods will incorporate a technique rarely seen in education: a description of why the course of study might be helpful and relevant to the lives of students. A good course begins with ﬁrst engaging students with why they might care. Why might calculus actually be helpful one day? VIOLETA LÓ PIZ

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Personalized, project-based, Our competency-based learning Skills mastery and interdisciplinary immersive, and experiential approach establishes a set of skills, work set the stage for applied and knowledge, behaviors, and dispositions experiential learning through the education leads to true that students master at their own pace Whittle signature experiences and mastery. By placing learning in and in their own way; students move co-curricular activities. Expeditionary a meaningful context, students forward through their competencies learning deepens skill and knowledge drive their education and based on “stage,” not “age.” acquisition by tying learning to personal experience, community engagement, develop their passions and Interdisciplinary and global relevance. The directors of Project-Based Learning: interests. This constellation of the campus’s Centers of Excellence The next step from mastery of progressive approaches permits and City Core programs will help A Whittle student will learn fundamental skills and content is the Expeditionary students to find meaning in Whittle teachers and students design application of knowledge. through three interconnected expeditionary and community-minded learning deepens a world where information is This application will often take the form modes during their school activities that require more time skill and knowledge overwhelmingly available but of a deep exploration of a significant day, week, and year. First, than typical school schedule permits. acquisition by question or problem that cuts across where deep understanding and Student work and curiosity will often focused content strands, disciplines and culminates in a project- tying learning purposeful application of that extend well beyond the walls of the grounded in innovative, based learning presentation to share to personal knowledge is harder to achieve. school. The Expedition Day, described with the Whittle learning community. personalized techniques, will in more detail later in this chapter, experience, Our core interdisciplinary academic provide fundamental skills offers a weekly opportunity to pursue community experiences rigorously connect mastery and content mastery. Second, important questions (personal, engagement, and to inquiry- and problem-based project How: school-wide, city-wide, or global) interdisciplinary courses will work. Through individual and group global relevance. that will cement, deepen, and extend reinforce those skills through projects, our core courses connect Our Core classroom learning. project-based learning and knowledge to problem-solving, connections across subject Academic presentation, and performance, making Choice and Voice: matter. Third, experiential learning “sticky,” or more permanent. Giving students choice and voice is Model Our core interdisciplinary courses are the glue connecting all the parts of our learning, on our weekly Deep Skill and Content Mastery: Science, Technology, Engineering, approach to learning. Putting students Expedition Day and in our Our academic model is rooted in and Math (STEM), plus Humanities, at the center of their learning builds Centers of Excellence, will deep mastery of foundational skills and Creative Arts and Design. independence, confidence, motivation, and content expertise, coupled with and leadership ability. When students make skills and knowledge Experiential Learning: support in developing a growth mind- are encouraged to turn passion into meaningful through research Our ideal graduate is an independent set that builds stamina, confidence, expertise, they develop a sense of thinker and a compassionate, lifelong in, and application to, the and resilience over time. We have ownership that fuels their drive to grow learner. Our emphasis on project- world of the city. developed a competency-based model as learners. A personalized education and place-based learning encourages for student advancement that is aligned empowers students as partners in their students to weave connections among with international learning standards. learning, resulting in deep mastery and the academic, social, and emotional Our student learning targets, badges, continued growth. threads of their learning. Through hands- certificates, and diplomas are aligned on, immersive experiences, our students with our graduate profile and test the relevance of their knowledge post-secondary learning opportunities. and skills, and extend the opportunities to investigate and explore their subject matter. This approach ensures that student learning is authentic, engaging, and helpful in addressing complex questions and in posing solutions to meaningful problems.

54 55 whittle school & studios a new view of education How: Our Expedition Days Schedule

In our weekly schedule, • An eighth-grade STEM class experiential learning programs are goes to their city’s wholesale offered on our Expedition Day. market to understand regional Curated by the faculty, this day is food networks, the science The schedule is a diagram reserved for work that cannot be behind environmental impacts, of our mission and contained by the regular schedule and the math behind statistics of graduate-profile model, or even within the walls of the consumption and waste. On the school. Expedition Day alternates Workshop floor, they create a with time clearly devoted between an “inward” day, which scale model of a redesigned and to developing the worlds focuses on personal growth and sustainable food-delivery system, the school community, and in their Humanities block they of the self, knowledge, and an “outward” day, which analyze the politics and economics and humanity; periods sends students out into the city of food in their city through are dedicated to personal on fieldwork. cultural history, social geography, With each developmental stage interviews of restaurant owners, growth, academic comes more complex questions, and historical fiction.

more student agency, ambitious skills and content, and • A 10th-grade civic-engagement explorations, and independent class goes to a community garden connections to community research. Students are primed to work with local partners to form and to the city. to make connections between a food co-op. With their STEM classroom content and their teachers, they plant vegetables and THE WORLD OF KNOWLEDGE host-city neighborhood. Here are study the chemistry of the soil and Light-Blue Bands: Traditional bands examples of what you might see on how to improve vegetable growth. grounded in practice and memorization, our Expedition Days:

e.g., Math, Language, Acceleration. • The Environmental Club, led • A kindergarten class observes by 11th-graders, designs an all- aquatic habitats by visiting the school Assembly and Awareness Dark-Blue Blocks: Longer interdisciplinary, neighborhood pond, where Day to discuss and debate the project-based blocks for STEM, Humanities, they use new vocabulary and Paris climate accord, with invited and Creative Arts and Design. observational, storytelling, and experts, colloquiums, and STEM craft skills to describe their labs on carbon-footprint analysis. experience and draw conclusions.

THE WORLD OF THE SELF • Twelfth-grade students explore • A second-grade class explores Green Bands: Holistic programs, e.g., a Center of Excellence topic how communities work through Advisory, Health, Mindfulness, Physical that speaks to their interests interviews with local shopkeepers Education, Conference, and Lunch. and passions. They design and neighbors, building a mini- and implement a community- city in their classrooms, and THE WORLD OF HUMANITY conversation lunch around the developing their own monetary Orange Mega-Blocks: Experiential oﬀ- topic. Following the lunch, they and political systems. campus ﬁeldwork, labs, City Core, Centers write an article together and send of Excellence, Community Days, Assembly. it to the local media.

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Whittle Global The mastery bands are shorter The World of Curriculum in duration and are focused on the L A N G U A G E MATH MASTERY H U M A N I T I E S Knowledge: development of specific skills and MAINTENANCE Our curriculum curates and AND MASTERY • Four-day-a-week bands • Grounded in specific knowledge to set students up to employ dedicated to expanding history and literature of Interdisciplinary combines the best curricula from these skills in any relevant domain. • Four-day-a-week bands proficiency. each host city’s culture. Blocks around the world. dedicated to expanding • Supplementary work • Connected to the In Math, this means an experience Work in interdisciplinary courses is For early learning, our curriculum is proficiency. in Studios. larger Whittle network rooted in problem sets, practice, and grounded in project-based work that inspired by the Reggio Emilia model, • Supplementary work • Practice and proficiency and the world through repetition, where students achieve in Studios in second or work in Acceleration Band. Advanced Placement (A.P.) combine areas of content knowledge from Italy, grounded in student benchmarks and competency in third language. • Integration with STEM components, core research, to explore big questions and solve autonomy and discovery of the world. • Practice and proficiency block deepens mastery and communication skills, problem-solving methodologies relevant problems. We highlight many aspects of the work in Acceleration Band. and motivation through and also through the World (individually and in groups). Chinese national curriculum, to align • Integration with intellectual relevance. Cultures and Geography THE BEST OF OLD AND NEW In World Languages, this deepens Humanities block deepens curriculum. with principles from best practices Based on what we know about how mastery and motivation • Combining history, vocabulary acquisition and creates students learn, our program mixes around the world, including Singapore through intellectual ACCELERATION literature, and literacy, opportunities for conversation and Exeter math and the National relevance. deep reading and research coverage of traditional disciplines • Four days a week by and writing in ways that promote skills, and written and with interdisciplinary teaching Research Council’s Next Generation choice. linguistic and cultural proficiency. oral communication, Science Standards. • One-on-one work with approaches, and blends classroom L A N G U A G E including the integration Skills and content learning are further teachers, study groups, study with fieldwork. In the past, In upper school, our model takes IMMERSION of language study. enhanced in our Acceleration Bands. interactive multimedia inspiration from the traditional middle schools and upper schools SHENZHEN activities, “academic In these periods, students can work were organized strictly according American Independent School • PreK–K: Heavy yet flexible playlist” of online to move faster than the pace of their STEM curriculum, bolstered by some of the English immersion. worksheets. to traditional disciplines—history, current grade level. This covers best traditions from the British tutorial • Years 1–9: Balanced • Coordinated among • Drawn from China’s literature, math, foreign language, both tradition remedial work and English and Chinese the student, the student’s science-and-math standards, system: Our selection of curricula science, and art—and instruction instruction. adviser, and the subject the best international advanced work that a student might was predominantly conducted is deeply informed by research in • Years 10–12: Heavy teachers. standards, with grounding choose to undertake because there is learning science and the best of the English immersion, plus in standards used in the in a classroom where teachers a project he or she wants to prepare Chinese approach to education. Our additional language choices. top American Independent lectured large groups of students. for. Acceleration periods will provide C R E A T I V E A R T S A N D School curriculum. faculty has been encouraged to rethink WASHINGTON, D.C. At Whittle, we have retained DESIGN THINKING • Integrated Science, students with a variety of tools to • PreK–2: Heavy Chinese the classic disciplines in World and redeliver the future of education, Technology, Engineering, achieve mastery, including one-on- immersion. • A curriculum in which combining the best of traditional and Math. Languages and Math, as these • Years 3–6: Chinese students experience deep one work with teachers, interactive • Next-Generation Science- subjects benefit from short classes practices with respect for local cultures. and/or Spanish choice in participation in making multimedia activities, and an “academic Standards Framework. classroom or Studios. and performing art and that emphasize repetition and focus • Singapore Math in lower playlist” of online work sheets. A ALL CAMPUSES learn design-thinking on highly specific skills, but we The World of school, Exeter Math in student’s acceleration work will be • Years 7–12: Immersive skills, supporting individual middle school. have organized the other knowledge Knowledge: Mastery mini-semesters and self-expression, coordinated among the student, the • Real-world numeracy. areas into interdisciplinary courses. summer courses. collaborative work, and Bands student’s adviser, and the subject • Supported by Math and presentation skills. Our mastery-based learning approach Acceleration Bands and teachers—another manifestation of • Deploys all of establishes a set of skills, knowledge, by regular work on the personalized experience. the resources of the Workshop floor. behaviors, and dispositions that Workshop floors. students master at their own pace • Lab-based, project-based and in their own way. Students learn learning approach. • Reviews, portfolios, core skills in Math and Language in exhibitions, and 50-minute mastery bands, cement presentation skills. knowledge in longer interdisciplinary • Connection and blocks, and can go deeper in opportunity to dive deeper in Studios acceleration bands.

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The World of the Self: COLLABORATION AND The World of Humanity: COMMUNICATION Advisory and Holistic Humans learn the most through Experiential Programs Skills mastery and interdisciplinary Learning thoughtful and caring relationships with work set the stage for applied and other people. Our lives acquire meaning SERVING THE WHOLE CHILD experiential learning through the Individuals develop along multiple through friendship, empathy, kindness, following Whittle signature experiences interconnected pathways: emotional, honesty, and clear communication. offered as co-curricular activities intellectual, physical, ethical, and social. Whittle School & Studios promotes throughout the school week and We view students holistically and seek mental, physical, social, and emotional after school. to foster their whole development. health through supportive, strong The educational program at Whittle relationships among students and CITY CORE PROGRAM School & Studios is built on the adults within the network. A sense of City Core curriculum integrates STEM, premise that each person finds identity, community depends on collaboration Humanities, Arts, and Language meaning, and purpose in life through and trust among all members of the education with the life of the city and connections to others, the natural learning community. community service. world, and shared human values. OUR ADVISORY PROGRAM CITY EXPERIENCE AND We integrate social and emotional Through our advisory program, STUDY ABROAD learning instruction and comprehensive students will develop long-term caring City Experience is our interdisciplinary, health and wellness programs within relationships with adults who will help trimester-long city-immersion program our tailored curriculum. Mindfulness them navigate among the opportunities for both day and boarding students, and activities, robust arts instruction, and complexities of global citizenship is the anchor of our global-travel and enrichment, expeditionary learning, in the following ways: boarding program. and rigorous scholarship are all part of • Daily check-ins and group meetings, CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AND SERVICE our well-rounded education, both in larger weekly community meetings Students partner with local schools, and out of the classroom. Emotional • Integration of mentoring groups, nonprofits, and city agencies to engage competencies and adaptive behavior connecting older and younger students and collaborate with their neighbors are inextricably linked, and must • Routine meetings of teachers in in their host city in service work and be learned—not by chance but upper and lower grades to discuss a social-justice activities. Students travel with the guidance of caring and student’s multiyear progress to other campuses to engage in service supportive adults. • User-friendly artificial intelligence work around the world. Our health and wellness program to help advisers guide portfolio considers in equal measure how development, connecting students and CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE Students dive deeply into advanced people learn as well as how people teachers on each campus and across study based on the history and specific develop, and gives our students tools the network attributes of our host cities, drawing on for managing their health. • College counseling seamlessly the knowledge of experts from each city integrating students’ personal and across the network. academic narratives, creating a holistic picture of an entire Whittle School STUDIOS & Studios journey and leading to Our Studios are more than admission to a college that is the best extracurricular courses—they are fit for each student the building blocks of our education. Studios allow our students to achieve mastery and develop their passions through engaging, meaningful experiences.

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60 61 a new view of education Education Beyond the Core Curriculum Whittle Studios and our Centers of Excellence

Our educational opportunities These extra curricular programs are do not cease at the end of of great interest to parents and students, and provide major the formal school day. conveniences for our communities. Nor are they suspended on Two of our more developed weekends or during supplemental programs are our Studios the summer. We envision offerings and our Centers of Excellence. an educational program Whittle Studios of offerings that span from In many leading cities of the world, the classroom to the virtual parents are spending more than $1 world, from full-time to billion per year on after-school and part-time for our boarders, summer-school programs, which range from private music lessons to our day students—and for summer coding camps to specialized students beyond our schools sports not offered at school. We will who enroll in our joint- offer an outstanding array of services venture programs off-site to all of our families and students. Our and online. campuses will provide extra-curricular programs seven days a week. In the summer, we plan 100 percent utilization of our academic and boarding capacity. We will also offer supplemental Studios programs in our off-site joint-venture locations throughout China. The educational impact of such programs is substantial. First, many Studios offerings will integrate with our full-

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time program, enabling students to go assessments are progress-based, easy deeper into an area of interest—or to to interpret, and designed to measure experiment with a new area of curiosity. the growth of diverse competencies Our Plans for the Early Centers of Excellence* 2019 2020 2021 Second, we will use our supplemental such as creativity, design thinking, and WASHINGTON, D.C. BEIJING PARIS programs as laboratories to develop and teamwork. test innovative approaches that may ultimately become part of our full-time Centers of Excellence International Sustainable Fine Arts program. Studios offerings curriculum Each of our schools will have its own Cooperation and Growth in the and development will be overseen by our Center of Excellence (C.O.E.), based Diplomacy Economy Curation global education team. on a particular expertise unique to that city, region, or country. Students will SHENZHEN LONDON MILAN A modern school understands that learning is not confined to the typical interact with some of the world’s most school day. Whittle’s Studios program renowned experts and develop their Design and Architecture Fashion Design takes place beyond the boundaries of skills in, for example, international Engineering and Urban and Textile the school day—after regular classes, at relations and diplomacy at our Center Innovation Planning Production night, on weekends, and in summer— of Excellence in Washington, D.C., and robotics and engineering innovation NANJING SAN FRANCISCO NEW YORK 2 and that’s an incredible opportunity for our students to learn deeply and in Shenzhen. On the right is an explore widely. illustrative chart of our first 12 Centers Chinese Environmental Resilient In addition, our combined Studios of Excellence. Our global network of Language, Culture, Science and Food Cities offerings, on-site and eventually online, C.O.E.’s will grow as we expand into and History Sustainability will allow students to develop their new host cities. concentration, presentation skills, and Students will have the opportunity HANGZHOU NEW YORK 1 MUMBAI interdisciplinary cross-training agility. to hone their skills in a particular Working closely with Whittle advisers, area of expertise by observing and Chinese Media and Ancient students will build online portfolios of working alongside mentors who have Art Performance and Modern projects that showcase their learning built successful careers in those fields. and Design Studies Narrative as they progress through each Studio Guided by such experts (including pathway. Young Studios participants Whittle parents), our students will build *At the time of this publication will develop creative problem-solving portfolio projects that pose solutions appreciate the host city’s role as a global C.O.E. themes of inquiry are aligned skills. Older students will learn how to to some of the world’s most pressing leader in a particular field. with the United Nation’s Sustainable design, present, and digitally archive challenges and showcase their flair with Whittle students across our network Development Global Goals. In their their projects. A Studios portfolio design and presentation. will have access to all C.O.E. expertise portfolio projects, students will often will provide outstanding material for Our C.O.E.’s are located near through our digital platform. Advisers consider particular U.N. goals. C.O.E. applications to colleges, which are each school’s main entrance. They will connect students with specialists, course and fieldwork will encourage increasingly interested in rich examples stand at the threshold to mark our mentors, and digital resources at the students to make positive world change. of project-based portfolio work. commitment to connecting our school centers. Our older students will travel In developing strategic partnerships, Our Studios take a creative approach learning community with the culture with their peers for trimesters at other we will connect with organizations that to learning about the world. Students of excellence in our host cities. In this Whittle campuses, and summer C.O.E. are similarly aligned with the U.N.’s will build their knowledge of and facility sense, each C.O.E. is a portal navigating work will enrich their time abroad. global goals. with STEM and the humanities and will our schools’ dual global and local roles. Full-time students and off-site In the future, our C.O.E. partnerships benefit from the deep expertise of our At the local level, we offer students Studios participants will also have with local colleges and universities will Centers of Excellence. Our Studios will immersive learning experiences in a access to C.O.E. blog posts and digitally create pathways for older students to also offer intense language immersion particular area of concentration. Each archived portfolio projects by Whittle obtain college credit for their portfolio in English and Mandarin for younger C.O.E. will offer webinars and special students, directors, and adjunct faculty. project work and to conduct research students and, for older students, lectures and host community events. Most important, C.O.E. work will with professors. the best foreign-language study and We will develop a unique, culturally develop global leadership skills. Our tutoring available anywhere. Studios responsive curriculum designed to

64 65 a new view of education Social Responsibility: Fostering a Generosity of Spirit Whittle School & Studios will be a gathering of good fortune. Every student will experience an education available to few, and all faculty members will thrive in an environment that supports their professional and intellectual growth. It is our responsibility to share our good fortune—and we will do so. We are committed to preparing our children for a future where they will embrace opportunities and challenges. We believe that supporting our children to thrive in a complex, highly connected, increasingly diverse, and consistently changing world is perhaps one of the most fundamental obligations for any educational institution. At scale, Whittle School & Studios can become one of the most important and economically significant educational endeavors on earth, perhaps one of the largest private ones. Our social responsibility should befit our reach. Though money is only one measure of our commitment, it is a significant indicator, and we will invest our resources accordingly. The social-responsibility budget of most companies is about 1 percent of

their bottom line. Ours will be more VIOLETA LÓ PIZ

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than 15 times that, as we will dedicate 7.5 One-to-One Whittle Sharing Best Practices: the sustainability challenges of their percent of our top line to this budget. Sponsorship Program: Through our ongoing research and local community and the world at Our social responsibility programs fall This program is designed to increase development, we will be pioneering large. Students will receive financial, into three main categories: access to our programs for low-income and refining many educational technical, and material support to • Robust funding of innovative students from around the world. For techniques such as better language help them design and implement scholarship programs every full-tuition-paying student in immersion programs, advanced faculty their projects. The program combines • Sharing our best practices with each of our schools, we will pay the development systems, improved personalized learning objectives school-reform entities and with our cost of educating one child in his or college advising efforts, and innovative with civic engagement in order to host cities her local community. Our network facility design. We plan to share many broaden students’ perspectives; help • Cultivating a generosity of spirit in of partners in Africa, Asia, and South of these advances with our colleagues develop various social, emotional, and each Whittle School & Studios graduate America will select the eligible in the world of education via three leadership skills; and foster a deep recipients in each region. different methods: (a) school tours understanding of the challenges we all face in an increasingly dynamic and FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE AND for the faculty and leadership of other SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMS public and private schools, (b) frequent complex global society. SHARING BEST PRACTICES AND conferences for educators, and (c) a Our scholarship programs, outlined DISCOVERIES Graduating Students with special outreach part of our website below, will provide financial aid Generosity of Spirit: where we publish written material for for about 15 percent of our student Whittle Global Education While setting aside revenue for the educators and produce related videos. population. Grants will range from 25 Summit: programs mentioned above is definitely percent to 100 percent of total tuition, Our annual flagship event explores Community Partnerships: a good thing, we see our social- the world’s most pressing education board, and other costs. At a typical This program is designed to help responsibility efforts going beyond challenges and provides a platform Whittle campus, 200 to 300 students We will encourage build healthy, connected, and thriving that. If we are to get our students to for sharing innovations that have the will be on some form of financial aid. communities in our host cities. We become socially engaged citizens, potential to improve access, quality, and support Our goal will be to provide scholarships will collaborate and partner with local then that ethos needs to permeate our equality, and leadership excellence students as they to students who demonstrate school districts, civic organizations, classrooms and corridors. This happens in global education. The summit, exceptional capability and also financial conceive, develop, government agencies, and business by intentionally building student which will run concurrently with our need. The children of faculty will be and implement associations to foster a deep sense of culture from the very beginning of annual global Faculty Week, will have eligible for our financial-aid programs. their own ideas to shared commitment to community their time with us. Just as faculty will two key imperatives: Re-Imagine and We plan to field scholarship programs at involvement and action. Our students, have Faculty Week, our students will Re-Define. The Re-Imagine program address and solve both the local and the global level. staff, and faculty, as well as parents, will experience an on-boarding that is much addresses important issues concerning the sustainability organize and participate in community more about culture than it is about Founding Whittle the intersection of education and challenges of their initiatives that provide opportunities content. A key part of that orientation Scholars Program: other public and private sectors; local community not only for teaching and learning but will speak to social responsibility. Our signature program is a merit- and the Re-Define program focuses on and the world at also for addressing social issues and Second, we need to take sustainability need-based scholarship, designed to establishing, institutionalizing, and making a real difference. seriously and practice it within our support two kinds of students: those large. measuring the best teaching and school community. We are a village who demonstrate a record of academic learning practices within Whittle the size of many small towns. How we excellence and leadership potential; School & Studios’ professional CULTIVATING GENEROSITY manage our water, power, and waste is a and those who have exceptional talents OF SPIRIT community. We will partner daily lesson. Third, we have to be a part and abilities in an area of expertise. with educators, business leaders, of our community, not a walled city of The program will nurture creativity Student-Led Social- governments, nongovernmental privilege. Our classrooms need to use and academic excellence, and help Responsibility Program: organizations, multilateral institutions, the city as a campus—and share their recipients reach their full potential. This program is designed to prepare a innovators, entrepreneurs, resources with their host community. new generation of civic-minded citizens Scholars will be selected through a philanthropists, and policy makers and help them make a deep connection rigorous application process, with to inspire and create a new age to local and global issues. We will support from our network of local and of education. global partners. Recommendations by encourage and support students as our students, staff, and faculty will be they conceive, develop, and implement solicited and encouraged. their own ideas to address and solve

68 69 whittle school & studios a new view of education Design for Learning

The Renzo Piano Building Workshop Creates a Modern Campus

If there is a school on the planet that has received as much design attention as Whittle School & Studios, we don’t know of it. When our ﬁrst campuses open in 2019—in Shenzhen, China, and Washington, D.C.—more than four years of eﬀort will have been invested in the creation of these learning spaces. We began with a search for a world- renowned architect who would commit himself and his team to this endeavor for a decade. We wanted someone with his “head in the clouds and feet on the ground,” someone who is an artist yet has the experience, practicality, and capability to implement his vision globally. After meeting with many of the greats within architecture, we chose Renzo Piano and his team of 130 in Genoa and Paris. Born into a family of builders, Piano has created landmarks in the world’s leading cities, including the Whitney Museum (New York), Entry to the Whittle School & Studios Shenzhen Kansai International Airport (Osaka), Campus. Overhead bridges the Shard (London), and, with Richard are master-planned to

Rodgers, the Pompidou Center (Paris). connect to future phases ALL RENDERINGS AND MODELS COURTESY of the campus. RENZO PIANO BUILDING WORKSHOP 70 71 whittle school & studios a new view of education

“The design of our school is a square, and its center is inspired by an Italian piazza. The piazza is a magic place where people mix with each other and stay together, where differences disappear and are actually valued. It’s like a little town.” —Renzo Piano

The Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Genoa is itself an example of the studios we will create at Whittle School & Studios. From the beginning, the design process has been a close Inspired by traditional Italian collaboration between town planning, with a piazza architects, educators, located in the urban center, engineers, and Piano has created our school environmental specialists. concept as a gathering place within our cities.

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Our commitment to light-filled spaces and OUR CAMPUSES seamless connections HIGHLIGHT THE FOLLOWING BELIEFS to nature is woven OF WHITTLE SCHOOL & STUDIOS: throughout our campus designs. • Learning occurs beyond the four knowledge “stick” by connecting In Shenzhen, a tree- lined dining hall walls of a classroom—everything in a student’s education to immersive provides a campus a school is a lesson, and the campus experiences. quad for student life. should reflect that. • The old classroom model, with Educational floors are • While most private schools value rows of desks facing a teacher, is illuminated by a large their complete independence, we outdated. Flexible environments skylight that brings in have made a priority of connecting support a diverse learning experience daylight through the center of the building. and engaging with the surrounding and build student agency. communities at all of our campuses. • A network of campuses will always Our classrooms are designed to support • Our built spaces should support outperform a single campus. Our many modes of hands-on learning and collaboration. schools are hubs for connections teaching and learning, Learning by doing makes skills and between campuses and the world. including class discussions, small- group teams, and Though the architecture is designed Of greatest importance is a design project work. to be flexible—to accommodate that supports our educational mission. each particular site, climate, seismic And this design does so completely. conditions, and building codes—the Our prototype comprises approximately core fundamentals of every campus will 600,000 square feet: 400,000 for be the same. Why? By using a design academic purposes and 200,000 for again and again, we will achieve many residential. It provides a panoply of benefits. First, most schools build one spaces for modern learning, including campus every 40 years or so (if that), areas for project-based learning, online and thus learn little from one campus learning, labs, global communications, to the next. We are building campuses and common areas. Of the 400,000 feet every year and can apply the learning of academic space, only 20 percent or from one to another. By adhering so will be used for conventional to a fundamental approach, we can classroom purposes. Over 100,000 continuously improve. For example, a square feet alone will be provided for theater-in-the-round built again and performing arts, music, and athletics. again can be perfected, improving The plan breaks the campus into its functionality in every iteration. 15 “learning communities” of about Second, we want our physical design 175 students each. to support the educational model we Piano and our team believe a modern are developing. If every campus is school should be smart and modest, different, its impact on our educational part soaring, part cozy, creative spaces program will vary. Third, a common that foster creativity and imagination. design can achieve cost efficiencies via the purchase of certain materials and equipment in considerable volume. Furthermore, we will save by not doing a complete redesign in every city. Those savings can be applied to achieving the building quality we desire.

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The campus level in Shenzhen, located on the roof of the educational ﬂoors, provides a park-like setting for student activities. Before and after lunch, the dining hall is designed to transform into meeting spaces, large group rooms, presentation rooms, and outdoor classrooms.

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At the heart of the architectural design It is well designed and well constructed, scheme is the view that a school but unpretentious. should be like a village. Inspired by THE ROOF—OUR the small hilltop towns of Italy, Piano CONNECTION TO THE SKY and his team have worked to create So let’s not waste them on air- an educational village: a square that conditioning systems and elevator is roughly 100 meters on each side sheds! Make them gardens and labs and that surrounds a lower piazza and and playgrounds. upper campus, the former for the public and the students and the latter for the MATERIALS THAT WEAR WELL OR REPLACE EASILY students alone. For each campus, we Any parent knows what a child or developed a set of principles that guide two can do to a home in short order. our design. Imagine what 2,500 can do to a school LIGHT MATTERS building! We are choosing materials During the day, we want to bring that can co-exist with the natural daylight into almost every room, while energy of children—or that can be at night we hope the school becomes a replaced easily when the time comes. glowing “lantern” for its community. EVERY FACULTY MEMBER IS CEILING HEIGHTS THAT INSPIRE AN ARCHITECT TOO Cathedral builders knew a thing or two Part of our faculty-development about ceiling height—such as higher program is to recruit our teachers into ones cause us to think and reflect. We our design effort. Each piece of art must be practical, but we care about the pasted on a window reduces light— right volume in every room. and sends a different image to someone viewing the building from outside. WARMTH Where would be a better place to put A school building’s ambiance should that art? And how might the original embrace its students. Concrete, architect work to provide that space? glass, and steel alone will not do that. Most building design deteriorates from The soaring atriums at Through the use of wood and fabric, we day one by how the facility is used. our Washington, D.C., want school to feel like home. campus exemplify the We want to make faculty and students range of spaces for TRANSPARENCY “trustees” of the school design. socializing, relaxing, Consistent with trends in most modern and creating projects SUSTAINABILITY AND WELLNESS design, we want all that is happening that are a hallmark of How we build and what we build affects to be visible. A parent and student can our design. A series of our environment today and for decades five atriums provide “see through” the school. to come. With this in mind, we will an unprecedented amount of space for our A FOREST INSIDE AND OUT strive for high LEED ratings. New types faculty and students We want plantings to be plentiful and to of building ratings determine how well to think broadly about form a seamless connection to nature, a building treats its occupants’ health, project opportunities, so that it’s hard to discern what is inside from air and water quality to good interdisciplinary studies, and or outside. sound engineering. We’ll be on the presentations of forefront of design in this regard, HIGH-QUALITY BUT NOT FANCY their work. as well as participating in these new Piano likes to speak of this space as a rating systems. place where work is done, like the best of studios or kitchens or factories.

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A full range of spaces are performance and exhibition spaces thoughtfully designed The Campus: pride of place. On the ground floor, to engage the teaching A Place to Grow there are multiple opportunities for and learning process at A school, at its core, is a network Whittle School & Studios. students to display their work to their of individuals learning and growing On the Washington, D.C., peers, faculty, parents, and the local campus, kindergarten together. We understand that community. Through sharing their classrooms (above left) facilitating student learning requires work with a wider audience, students reinforce exploratory and not only expert instruction but also experiential learning with cultivate the skills of visual and spatial system-wide efforts in shaping a safe, places to display student communication and give and receive work and educational collaborative, positive teaching and constructive criticism. Perhaps most objects. The five atriums learning community. From inspiring important, publicly sharing your work (above right) that organize workspaces to nutritious meals to the campus are designed validates scholarship in much the programs that improve physical to support each academic same way that a varsity game does level with breakout spaces, and mental well-being, we will strive athleticism. This belief in performance social spaces, project to create a culture that celebrates the and public presentation as core spaces, and presentations. complexity and uniqueness of each Performance venues skills also comes to life throughout individual student. (left), located centrally the building in a wide variety of to the campus, provide Each Whittle campus is organized professional-level spaces, which range places for students to around the public presentation of from music halls and rehearsal rooms to engage in the performing student work and the collective arts as well as present and an end-stage amphitheater. expression of community, giving display their work.

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Supporting Our comfortable atmosphere for learning Learning Model and making. Whittle School & Studios is Our campuses are designed to bring committed to learning by doing— to life our project-based, hands- placing students in the center of on curriculum, build a culture their education by teaching through of collaboration, and help our active participation, project-based students develop academically and challenges, and hands-on learning. personally. Our schools are inspiring Our school buildings are spaces where environments for making, sharing, and students can discuss, debate, make, growing, places where students can and do. Classrooms are not traditional pursue their passions and achieve their discrete boxes, closed off from the highest potential. rest of the school, with desks pointing Natural light and transparency are at the teacher. Our flexible learning a priority throughout the design—the environments can be transformed into glass facade allows daylight to fill our Harkness-style seminar rooms and spaces as well as provide views of the hands-on workspaces, or combined surrounding cityscape. with other classrooms. Paired with this emphasis on Learning happens in many ways, light and transparency is a warm, planned and unplanned, and we support welcoming approach to the interiors. that idea with workspaces of different Walls are designed to double as pinup The central atrium in scales and degrees of privacy between spaces for students, where they can our Shenzhen campus, the classrooms and in the public space display and discuss their work. Glass above, doesn’t just of the school. The spaces are designed bring in light and open surfaces in classrooms and common to host different kinds of work, views; the stairs that spaces are made to be written on connect the piazza and from individual study to large group and invite group brainstorming. The campus showcase the exhibitions; the walls of every class and strategic use of color creates a lively, energy and activity of conference room around the central our community.

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atrium are designed to display student ABOUT THE SHENZHEN CAMPUS: work and share the accomplishments Located in Shenzhen, China’s of the students with their peers and innovation hub, our inaugural campus visitors. in Asia brings to life Renzo Piano Building Workshop’s prototypical The Workshops design for a Whittle campus. The clean- To support our students’ inquiry and lined eight-story building is situated the interdisciplinary work at the core in the heart of the vibrant, rapidly of the Whittle network, we have unique growing Qianhai district. Among the Workshop facilities. There, students building’s distinctive features is an build their capacity for design thinking, active glass facade, which is animated realizing their ideas through an iterative by screens that move throughout the process of ideation, prototyping, and day in response to the position of the presentation. Light-years beyond a sun. This maximizes the natural light typical “maker space,” the Workshops in our classrooms while also regulating are designed for projects that require glare. The campus is also home to our special tools and instruction, including most expansive Workshop Floor—over a wood and metal shop, photography 50,000 square feet! Whether a student’s and filmmaking studios, and graphic- project is 2- or 3-D, physical or digital, design labs. the Workshop Floor’s state-of-the-art Students will be able to explore facilities set the stage to see an idea their creativity in the arts as well through from concept to reality. as in science and engineering. The Workshops, which will be staffed by ABOUT THE WASHINGTON, D.C., CAMPUS: experts in each of these areas, will also For our first North American campus, support our community outreach and we have selected a singular site. Situated Studios programming. on 13.7 wooded acres in Northwest

Workshops (above) provide Washington, D.C., the campus creates five soaring glass-enclosed courtyards, significant space for students an impression of a “school in a will be transformed into vibrant to explore, iterate, prototype, produce, and present ideas. park,” despite its distinctively urban student-centered commons. These will Maker spaces—designed to context. Renzo Piano and his team are serve as the heart of the day-to-day connect processes around transforming the interior of an existing activities of the school, where students the hands and mind—support 20th-century building, designed by meet their friends for lunch, collaborate a full range of disciplines, including wood, metal, Australian architect John Andrews, on large projects, hold a club meeting, electronics, art, textiles, into a dynamic learning environment or even screen a film! design, digital photo and that welcomes in the surrounding videos, and sciences. Natural community through a bright public building materials throughout the school are high quality entry with sweeping views into three of but not fancy, enhancing the the school’s performance spaces. One performance of our functional of the building’s most striking features, and hardworking spaces.

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S E C T I O N I I I GLOBAL ADVISORY BOARD Our Team and Extended Family

Benno Schmidt is among the Apple C.E.O. Tim Cook wrote To achieve our vision, we knew BENNO SCHMIDT, JEAN LIU, CO-CHAIR world’s leading innovators CO-CHAIR • PRESIDENT OF DIDI about her, “Jean Liu is a in primary, secondary, and it would require a team that was • FORMER CHAIR OF THE CHUXING disrupter, and not only through tertiary education. He has BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF • FORMER MANAGING her ambitious effort to change served as president of Yale THE CITY UNIVERSITY DIRECTOR OF the way people in China more than just extraordinary. University, dean of Columbia OF NEW YORK (CUNY) GOLDMAN SACHS commute, travel, and connect University Law School, and It had to be global, diverse, and • FORMER PRESIDENT ASIA with one another. . . . [She] has OF YALE UNIVERSITY; C.E.O. and chairman of Edison built a transportation platform passionate about our mission. FORMER DEAN Schools (now EdisonLearning), Jean Liu currently serves as that offers convenience and OF COLUMBIA LAW a pioneer in the nation’s president of Didi Chuxing, the flexibility to tens of millions charter-school movement. world’s largest ride-sharing At the time of this writing, about 20 Approximately 75 percent hold a SCHOOL; FORMER of commuters.” More recently, he co-founded company. She joined the Prior to her career at Didi months before opening day at our master’s degree or higher (including CHAIRMAN OF EDISON SCHOOLS (NOW Avenues: The World School, company in 2014 as C.O.O. Chuxing, Jean obtained a Shenzhen and Washington campuses, seven Ph.D.’s), and nearly 60 percent EDISONLEARNING) in Manhattan. and led immense fundraising bachelor’s degree in computer Benno chaired the board of efforts to facilitate the merger science from Peking University the Whittle team consists of 60 full- speak at least two languages. “This network is unlike trustees of the City University between Didi Dache and Kuaidi in Beijing, and then received a time professionals as well as hundreds As our campus leaders, faculty, of New York, the largest urban Dache, creating Didi Chuxing. master’s degree in computer anything that has ever of supporting “extended family and staff arrive on each campus and as public university in the world. The fundraising included a science from Harvard. been developed in the He also chairs the board of $1 billion investment from Following graduation, she members” in institutions deeply we fill out our global HQ, our full- history of education. the nonprofit Council for Aid Apple. She raised $13 billion for joined Goldman Sachs and rose involved with us. Our full-time team time team will grow to over 400 staff At the start, with even to Education, a group that Didi Chuxing from investors to become one of the youngest is divided equally across an HQ group members in the two years ahead, with helps colleges and universities including Alibaba, Tencent, managing directors in the as few as four or five with accountability and Baidu, and Apple. In Time bank’s history. of about 30 in New York and “launch roughly 175 team members on each schools, it will have an academic planning. magazine’s “The 100 Most Among her many accolades, teams” of roughly 15 members each campus on opening day and an HQ intellectual capacity Early in his career, Benno Influential People” feature, Jean has been recognized as clerked for Chief Justice Earl already on the ground in Shenzhen group of over 60. with hundreds of one of the “50 Most Powerful Warren, of the United States Moms” by Working Mother. and Washington. We have managed to The depth and talent of our team teachers and thousands Supreme Court, and thereafter assemble a collection of exceptional drive the quality of our education, so of students to be an worked for two years in the innovative force in U.S. Department of Justice. individuals who, together, make up the we hope you’ll pay careful attention Benno recently received founding members of our community. to the following pages. We believe this education.” national recognition as the Together they have traveled to all group—and those who will be joining recipient of the sixth annual Philip Merrill Award of the seven continents. They have worked on them every week in the years ahead— American Council of Trustees presidential campaigns, been named represent the key reason that parents and Alumni (A.C.T.A.) for “National Superintendent of the Year,” will entrust their children with us. outstanding contributions to liberal-arts education. and gone mountaineering in Greenland.

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DAN VASELLA • DIRECTOR OF XBIOTECH • FORMER C.E.O. AND HONORARY ROBERT BIRGENEAU, CHAIRMAN OF PH.D. NOVARTIS, A FORTUNE • ARNOLD AND CLARISSA FARR GLOBAL 500 SWISS • EDUCATOR; FORMER BARBARA SILVERMAN PHARMACEUTICAL DISTINGUISHED HIGH MISTRESS OF ST PHEROZA GODREJ COMPANY PROFESSOR OF PAUL’S GIRLS’ SCHOOL • PHILANTHROPIST, PHYSICS, MATERIALS • FELLOW OF Dr. Daniel Vasella began his ENVIRONMENTALIST, Renzo was born in Genoa, RENZO PIANO SCIENCE AND WINCHESTER COLLEGE; career as a medical doctor CURATOR, AND AUTHOR Italy, into a family of builders, and has now become one of • WORLD-RENOWNED ENGINEERING, AND A GOVERNOR OF THE and England, and then studied • LEADING ART HISTORIAN and studied at the Politecnico the world’s most influential KWAME APPIAH, ARCHITECT; DESIGNING PUBLIC POLICY AT ROYAL BALLET SCHOOL; at Clare College, Cambridge IN INDIA of Milan University. He C.E.O.’s. Dan studied medicine PH.D. WHITTLE SCHOOL & UNIVERSITY OF ONE OF THE FOUNDING University, where he took • HONORARY SECRETARY went on to work for and at the University of Bern • PHILOSOPHER, STUDIOS CAMPUSES CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY MEMBERS OF THE both B.A. and Ph.D. degrees OF MUSEUM SOCIETY with prestigious architects, Medical School, where he later CULTURAL THEORIST, • RECEIVED THE • FORMER PRESIDENT BOARD OF THE AFRICAN in philosophy. His Cambridge OF BOMBAY; FOUNDER including Franco Albini, became the chief resident. He AND AUTHOR 1998 PRITZKER OF THE UNIVERSITY GIFTED FOUNDATION dissertation brought together AND DIRECTOR OF Richard Rogers, and Peter Rice. was named C.E.O. of Sandoz • PROFESSOR AT NEW ARCHITECTURE PRIZE OF TORONTO • TRUSTEE OF THE issues in the philosophy of CYMROZA ART GALLERY, In 1981, the Renzo Piano BRITISH MUSEUM Pharma in 1994 and helped YORK UNIVERSITY’S • AMONG HIS language and the philosophy of MUMBAI Building Workshop was Robert Birgeneau received engineer one of the largest DEPARTMENT OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS Clarissa Farr was high mistress mind, which led to two books: established, with 150 staff his Ph.D. in physics from Yale mergers in pharmaceutical PHILOSOPHY AND Pheroza Godrej is an art ARE THE WHITNEY of St Paul’s Girls’ School in Assertion and Conditionals (1985, and offices in Paris, Genoa, University in 1966. He was history, which placed him as N.Y.U.’S SCHOOL OF LAW historian, environmentalist, MUSEUM IN NEW London, one of the U.K.’s Cambridge University Press) and New York. Renzo has on the faculty of Yale for one C.E.O. of Novartis in 1996. • NAMED ONE OF and author, having written YORK, KANSAI leading secondary schools, and and For Truth in Semantics received numerous awards year and then spent one year Dan has been named FOREIGN POLICY books on history, travel, and INTERNATIONAL was previously principal of (1986, Basil Blackwell). and recognitions, including at the University of Oxford. by Time magazine as one MAGAZINE’S 2010 TOP painting, as well as studies AIRPORT IN OSAKA, Queenswood School. Following Cambridge, the Royal Gold Medal at He joined the technical staff at of the world’s “100 Most GLOBAL THINKERS of British artists in India. A AND THE SHARD She is currently a fellow of Kwame taught at Yale, the R.I.B.A. in London; the Bell Laboratories from 1968 to Influential People.” renowned curator, Pheroza is IN LONDON Cornell, Duke, and Harvard Kyoto Prize in Kyoto, Japan; Winchester College and a “I think it’s crucial the director of Cymroza Art 1975 and then taught physics universities. Prior to joining the Goodwill Ambassador of governor of the Royal Ballet that people with Gallery in Mumbai, which she “A global school is a at M.I.T. In 1988, he became N.Y.U., from 2002 to 2013, he UNESCO; and the Pritzker School, and was one of the founded in 1971. head of M.I.T.’s department of global perspectives was a member of the faculty at great idea—bringing Architecture Prize at the White founding members of the HAREB AL DARMAKI Publications which she physics and, in 1991, became should nevertheless Princeton University, where diverse people and House in Washington. Among board of the African Gifted Hareb Al Darmaki is the has co-written or co-edited dean of its School of Science. he had appointments in the his many accomplishments are Foundation. She is a trustee of co-founder and chairman of understand that they include Scenic Splendours: India cultures together, In 2000, Bob was named department of philosophy the Whitney Museum in New president of the University the British Museum. Clarissa is the board of Gulf Capital, come from somewhere. Through the Printed Image; learning and working and the University Center for York, Kansai International also a former president of the Under the Indian Sun, Bombay to of Toronto, and from 2004 a leading alternative asset They are a citizen of Human Values, as well as being together in harmony, Airport in Osaka, Japan, and Boarding Schools Association Mumbai: Changing Perspectives; to 2013, he served as U.C. management company. associated with the Center for with empathy and the Shard in London. and chairman of the Girls’ somewhere as well as a and A Zoroastrian Tapestry: Art, Berkeley’s chancellor. He has been with the Abu African American Studies, the In 2004, Renzo founded Schools’ Association. She read citizen of everywhere... Religion, and Culture. with the potential to Currently, he is the university’s Dhabi Investment Authority programs in African studies the Renzo Piano Foundation, English literature at university She is closely associated save the world. I can’t Arnold and Barbara Silverman (ADIA) since 1976, joining The fact is the world is and translation studies, and the a nonprofit organization and has taught in six schools: with the Museum Society of Distinguished Professor of open, more open than departments of comparative believe that no one has dedicated to the promotion of five in the U.K. and one in as the director of the Bond Bombay, the Dr. Bhau Daji Physics, Materials Science and literature and politics. the architectural profession Hong Kong. She received her & Equity Department. Mr. it’s ever been. I think Lad Museum, the National ever done this before.” Engineering, and Public Policy. In 2010, Kwame was through educational programs B.A. in English literature and Al Darmaki is currently the it’s the most important Gallery of Modern Art, the Renzo Piano is a world- He is a fellow of the U.S. named one of Foreign Policy and educational activities. M.S. in modern fiction and advisor—managing director’s Indian National Trust for Art renowned architect and the National Academy of Sciences. project in education in magazine’s top global thinkers. critical approaches from the office at ADIA. He holds a and Cultural Heritage, and chairman and founding partner Professor Birgeneau also the world.” He currently serves on the serves as a co-chair of the University of Exeter. bachelor’s degree in economics the Indian Council of Cultural of the Renzo Piano Building Kwame Appiah is a professor boards of Facing History Workshop, and he is designing Lincoln Project, an initiative of and political science from Relations. of philosophy and law at New and Ourselves, the New all the Whittle School & the American Academy of Arts Bristol University in the York University, where he York Public Library, the Studios campuses. and Sciences that advocates U.K. and a Master’s degree teaches in New York, Abu Public Theater, the American for the importance of public in international studies from Dhabi, and at other N.Y.U. Academy of Arts and Letters, colleges and universities and Johns Hopkins University. global centers. He was and the American Academy of devises strategies to increase educated at schools in Ghana Arts and Sciences. their funding.

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BENSON LU MIKE STAKIAS JOHN WANG YUAN BING BOARD MEMBERS Benson Lu is the co-founder Mike Stakias is the president John Wang is the managing Yuan Bing is a managing and managing director at and C.E.O. of Liberty director and CEO of WTT director of Hony Capital and XIHONG DENG THOMAS FRANCO I.C.B.C. International R.T. Partners, a New York–based Investment Ltd and Ming Tong a member of Hony Capital’s Ms. Xihong Deng is the Thomas Franco is a partner Capital, and is a member of private-equity firm investing Industrial. Prior to his current executive committee, managing director of Hony at the New York private- the firm’s investment and primarily in middle-market role, John was a managing responsible for its equity- Capital and is in charge equity firm Clayton, Dubilier management committee. At companies headquartered in director of Citigroup’s Private investment operations. Mr. of investor-relationship & Rice. He is responsible for I.C.B.C. International, he the U.S. Liberty has focused Banking where he managed Yuan joined Hony Capital in management and fundraising. managing relationships with led the establishment of on the education, specialty- over 100 bankers/staff April 2009 and has served She is a board member of critical external stakeholders, private-equity funds and also manufacturing, and business- members across Hong Kong, as a managing director of several U.S., Hong Kong, and including limited partners. He key portfolio management. services sectors. Mike has Singapore, and Taiwan. From private equity since January Chinese publicly listed and leads the fundraising team and Before joining I.C.B.C. previously chaired the board of 1996 to 2010, John was an 2010. Prior to joining Hony private companies such as is involved in related capital- International, Benson was an Edison Schools and co-chaired executive director of Goldman Capital, Mr. Yuan served as SolarFun, Chaowei Power, and access activities. He serves on executive director at Goldman the board of Avenues: The Sachs Group’s Investment a managing director of the Boloni. Ms. Deng has more the board of the Private Capital Sachs, and worked in the World School while both were Management Division, where direct-investment department than 10 years of management Research Institute, a not-for- investment-banking division Liberty portfolio companies. he had the responsibility for of Morgan Stanley Asia experience in Wall Street profit corporation focused on at Morgan Stanley. He holds He currently sits on the managing and overseeing Limited from 2006 to 2009. investment banks and more advancing the understanding an M.B.A. from People’s Bank boards of four companies: Goldman Sachs’ private wealth Before that, Mr. Yuan served than 15 years of experience of private capital’s role in the of China School of Finance, Concorde Career Colleges, management business for the as a managing director of the in investment and capital global economy, and Privcap, a Tsinghua University, and Henley-Putnam University, Taiwan market. In addition to investment-banking division markets. She has also built producer of online content for also a B.S. (with honors) STV Group, and Dorman his current role, John is also of Morgan Stanley Asia up a broad and high-level participants in private capital from U.C. Berkeley. Products. In addition, Mike sits the vice chairman and board Limited from 2004 to 2006. network in the worlds of markets. Previously, Thomas on the Foundation Board of member of Haixia Capital Mr. Yuan also served as a vice investment, art, and charity. served as chairman and C.E.O. the College of William & Mary Asset Management Company, president of Credit Suisse She is a council member of the of Broadgate Consultants, MICHAEL MOE Raymond A. Mason School of a joint venture between State First Boston Limited (Hong Hony Charity Foundation and an adviser to private-equity Michael Moe is the co-founder Business, where he serves on Development and Investment Kong) from 2001 to 2004. a member of the Shenzhen managers, which he founded in of G.S.V. Asset Management, she became chair of the I.O.C. the executive committee and Corporation, and Fujian During his investment-banking YANG YANG V&A Design Society Museum. 1987 in conjunction with U.K.- as well its C.E.O. and chief Evaluation Commission for the online-education steering Investment & Development career, Mr. Yuan has assisted • MEMBER OF THE She has been a major sponsor based securities firm Hoare investment officer. He has the 2020 Winter Youth committee. Prior to Liberty, Group, with assets under numerous prominent Chinese INTERNATIONAL for several influential art Govett. He has successfully also served as chairman of the Olympic Games. She is also Mike was a senior partner in management of over 30 billion state-owned enterprises and OLYMPIC events and solo or group launched a global publishing board and chief investment global ambassador for the law firm of Blank Rome, RMB. John graduated from private-sector companies COMMITTEE AND exhibitions. Ms. Deng received business, PEI Media, which officer of G.S.V. Capital Corp., Special Olympics. in Philadelphia, and a the University of California with their I.P.O.’s, as well THE INTERNATIONAL a master’s degree from the serves the alternative-asset and served as the company’s Prior to her distinguished senior attorney in the Division at Berkeley in 1988 with a as with corporate finance SKATING UNION State University of New York industry, and, earlier, practiced C.E.O. Michael is one of the career in sports administration, of Corporation Finance of the bachelor of arts degree in and M&A transactions. Mr. COUNCIL at Stony Brook and master’s corporate law. Thomas holds a world’s preeminent authorities Yang became China’s first U.S. Securities & Exchange economics. In 1996, Yuan received a bachelor of • VICE-CHAIR OF THE and bachelor’s degrees from J.D. from Fordham University on growth investing. His Winter Olympic champion Commission in Washington, John received his M.B.A. arts degree in English from CHINESE YOUTH Tsinghua University in Beijing and a B.A. from the University insights are routinely solicited when she won a gold medal D.C. Mike is a graduate of with honors from the Kellogg Nanjing University. He also FEDERATION in computer science. of Notre Dame. by everyone from CNBC to in the women’s 500-meter the New York University School of Management at obtained a master’s degree in • TWO-TIME OLYMPIC Barron’s to the U.S. Congress. short-track speed-skating School of Law (LL.M.), where Northwestern University. international relations and a CHAMPION AND SIX- Prior to starting G.S.V., event at the Salt Lake City he was a Securities Regulation juris doctorate degree from TIME OVERALL WORLD Michael co-founded and Winter Games in 2002. She Fellow; the Western Yale University. CHAMPION IN SHORT- served as chairman and C.E.O. DAVID YEUNG also won gold in the 1,000 Michigan University Thomas TRACK SPEED SKATING of ThinkEquity Partners, David Yeung is the managing meters and a silver medal in M. Cooley Law School (J.D.); the 3,000-meter relay. an asset-management and director at Starcrest Capital Yang Yang currently serves and the College of William & She is one of the most investment-banking firm and has more than a decade on the International Olympic Mary (B.A.). focusing on venture capital and of real-estate investing Committee and is the first decorated skaters in history, emerging-growth companies. experience in Asia. Prior to female member of the having won 32 international JANICE WANG founding Starcrest, David was International Skating Union titles in seven years and Previously, he held positions as Janice Wang is the executive involved in multiple company Council. She was appointed becoming the first speed head of global growth research director of the board of restructurings and pre-I.P.O. executive director of the skater to win six overall (and at Merrill Lynch and head of Golden Eagle Retail Group, private-equity investments Chinese National Olympic consecutive) short-track growth research and strategy of real-estate developers Committee in 2006 and vice- world championships, from at Montgomery Securities. where she focuses on strategic chair of the Chinese Youth 1997 to 2002. partnerships in addition to for Goldman Sachs’ special- Federation in 2010. In 2014, After the 2003 World managing international brand situation group. Championships, Yang relationships. She joined the David joined Goldman Sachs Yang took time off from firm in 2006 as part of the from Macquarie Global competition, but made a merchandising department Property Advisors, where he comeback in the 2004–05 before becoming general focused on the execution of season in the lead-up to manager of the group’s acquisitions and portfolio the 2006 Winter Games in Shanghai location and heading management for Asia (ex- Turin, Italy, where she won the merchandising center. Japan). He is a graduate of the bronze medal in the Previously, Janice specialized Ohio State University, 1,000-meter event. in trade finance at East West with an honors degree in Bank. She graduated with a business administration. B.A from the University of California, Los Angeles.

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GLOBAL EDUCATION DESIGN COMMITTEE

LAURA COLEMAN EDUCATION DESIGN GREG CARLSON TEAM, N.Y.C. HQ EDUCATION DESIGN Laura Coleman grew up in New TEAM, N.Y.C. HQ Haven, Connecticut, where she “The opportunity to studied dance and cultivated learn Mandarin helped a passion for the performing arts. She moved to New York me build empathy City to dance professionally and understanding of and study at N.Y.U.’s Gallatin an entirely different School of Individualized culture. I’ve seen Study, where she designed an interdisciplinary curriculum this kind of practice in psychology and the arts. transform students’ After graduating, she toured For the past 30 years, Dennis the country, dancing with the DENNIS BISGAARD lives, and I’m eager Bisgaard has worked at top U.S. Peggy Spina Dance Company HEAD OF SCHOOL, schools, most recently as head to bring these before returning to N.Y.U.’s D.C. CAMPUS of school at Kingswood Oxford. opportunities to • FORMER HEAD OF JULES L. COLEMAN, and Professor of Philosophy at Steinhardt School of Culture, Dennis served on the board KINGSWOOD OXFORD students around the PH.D., SENIOR Yale University, and nearly 15 Education, and Human of the National Association NICHOLAS DIRKS, PH.D. and sciences and dean of the SCHOOL world.” ACADEMIC ADVISER years as senior adviser to the Development, receiving an of Independent Schools and VICE CHAIRMAN/ faculty at Columbia University. • FORMER BOARD AND DIRECTOR OF president and provost at New M.A. in human development previously held positions at CHANCELLOR Prior to his appointment at MEMBER, NATIONAL Greg Carlson has led the RESEARCH, N.Y.C. HQ York University, including five and social intervention. Bryn Mawr College, Shady Nick Dirks was named the 10th Columbia, he was a professor ASSOCIATION OF design and implementation A Brooklyn native, Jules years as senior vice provost While there, she worked at Hill School, Collegiate, and chancellor of the University of history and anthropology INDEPENDENT of transformative learning Coleman earned a B.A., magna for academic planning. Jules the Mindful Education Lab at Vejlefjord Højere Skole. Born of California, Berkeley, in at the University of Michigan SCHOOLS experiences for students in cum laude, at Brooklyn College helped develop N.Y.U.’s the Metropolitan Center for in Germany, Dennis has also 2012. An internationally for 10 years, having previously • FLUENT IN DANISH AND K–12 schools in China and the of CUNY, a Ph.D. from the global network of campuses Research on Equity and the lived, studied, and worked in renowned historian and taught Asian history and GERMAN U.S. At Fudan International Rockefeller University, and a and joined Whittle School & Transformation of Schools, anthropologist, he is a leader civilization at the California Denmark and Canada. He holds School in Shanghai, Greg graduate degree in law from Studios to extend that idea to a researching psychological in higher education and well Institute of Technology. a candidatus magisterii degree served as deputy director the Yale Law School. The system of PreK-12 schools. and neurological effects known for his commitment to He received his B.A. from “It’s critically from Odense University and a and taught history. He author of a dozen books and of mindfulness on student and advocacy for accessible, Wesleyan University and important in this day master’s degree from Columbia subsequently headed more than 100 articles and learning, teacher effectiveness, high-quality undergraduate his M.A. and Ph.D. at the and age that students University. He speaks English, innovative American charter peer-reviewed essays, Jules and school climate. She has education. He has also University of Chicago. He Danish, and German, and has schools as assistant principal at spent nearly 30 years as the also worked at the Center for long been a champion of has published four major truly understand what studied French and Latin. Manara Academy and director Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld Arts Education in research the globalization of the books, edited three more, it means to be a part of of instruction at Codman Professor of Jurisprudence and advocacy and at the New- university and collaborative and written numerous essays, the global universe. It’s Academy. Greg earned a B.A. York Historical Society in the innovation across academic articles, and papers. not enough to simply in history from Yale University education department. disciplines. He has forged and his Ed.M. in school meaningful partnerships learn about other leadership from the Harvard between universities and places but to visit, to Graduate School of Education. outside entities. Before joining explore, to connect, Berkeley, he was the executive vice president for the arts and to collaborate across borders.”

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Li Jing has extensive senior JING LI leadership experience in MANUEL J. RIVERA, Manny Rivera earned both GLOBAL HEAD OF education, helping connect PH.D. GLOBAL HEAD OF his doctorate in education ENROLLMENT, schools in China and to those FACULTY RECRUITMENT, and his master’s degree in MARKETING, AND in the rest of the world. N.Y.C. HQ education from Harvard COMMUNICATIONS, Prior to joining Whittle, she University. He also holds a BEIJING & N.Y.C. HQ “I joined Whittle was secretary-general at B.A. in urban studies from • FORMER SECRETARY- YK Pao School, China’s top School & Studios to Brandeis University. Manny’s GENERAL AT independent school, where Jim Hawkins is currently Head realize my lifelong 40-year career in education SHANGHAI’S YK PAO JIM HAWKINS she headed external affairs, Master of Harrow School in as a teacher, principal, school SCHOOL GLOBAL HEAD OF dream of transforming enrollment, and strategic London, one of the world’s superintendent, C.E.O., and • ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL SCHOOL HEADS education globally.” development; before that, she great learning institutions senior policy adviser to two AT RDFZ, ONE OF • FORMER HEAD MASTER, served as assistant principal at with over four centuries of New York State governors has CHINA’S TOP SCHOOLS HARROW SCHOOL RDFZ, a top Chinese school, educational excellence. Jim been recognized nationally • MASTER’S DEGREE • FORMER HEAD MASTER, overseeing international After attending Phillips Exeter read Mathematics at Brasenose in the field of education. He IN INTERNATIONAL PETER MERRILL, NORWICH SCHOOL programs and curriculum. Academy, Peter earned B.A. College, Oxford University, was named the New York FINANCE, COLUMBIA PH.D. • A GOVERNOR OF THE In New York, she worked and M.A. degrees in Russian at where he also completed his State Superintendent of the UNIVERSITY CO-CHAIR OF THE FRANCIS HOLLAND in the president’s office at the University of Pennsylvania, teaching qualification. He Year in 2005, and a year later, EDUCATION DESIGN SCHOOLS TRUST AND Teachers College of Columbia and then an M.A. in linguistics then taught at Radley College he was named the National TEAM, N.Y.C. HQ OF AYSGARTH AND “The vision of Whittle University, focusing on and a Ph.D. in Slavic languages, before being appointed Head of Superintendent of the Year. • LANGUAGE SPECIALIST WELLESLEY HOUSE School & Studios is international advancement, both at U.C.L.A. He spent Mathematics at Forest School AT PHILLIPS ACADEMY PREP SCHOOLS and also conducted research nearly 30 years teaching and subsequently Deputy a great platform to AND PRESIDENT OF THE on accountability at Russian and German at Phillips Head of Chigwell School. He connect the highest- AMERICAN COUNCIL OF Columbia Law School. She Academy, Andover, where was appointed Head Master TEACHERS IN RUSSIAN caliber people from earned a master’s of public he led the division of world of Norwich School in 2002 • PH.D. IN SLAVIC administration in international languages and spearheaded and started as Head Master of different areas—from LANGUAGES, U.C.L.A. finance and economics from new initiatives in global Harrow in 2011. Jim has held education to industry Columbia University, as well programming in China, Brazil, several state and independent to policymaking. This as an M.A. and B.A. at Beijing “I was lured to India, and South Africa. He also school governorships and is team is investing Foreign Studies University. Whittle by the power served two terms as president Vice-President (Europe) of our most important of innovation in of the American Council of the International Boys’ Teachers of Russian. Schools Coalition. professional years to a global network.” make this amazing vision a reality.”

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MATTHEW POHL DIRECTOR OF ENROLLMENT STRATEGY/ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF COLLEGE COUNSELING, N.Y.C. HQ Matthew Pohl’s upbringing extended from Salem, Massachusetts, to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He earned his B.A. from Tufts University and his M.Ed. from the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently, he led global marketing and recruitment for Penn’s undergraduate schools as associate director of admissions. He lived brieﬂy in Israel after years of Hebrew and Arabic studies. He joined Whittle to be part of a pioneering venture that will upend conventional thinking in education.

VRITI SARAF DEPUTY HEAD, Andy Meyers is the proud CENTERS OF ANDREW MEYERS EXCELLENCE, Born in Washington, D.C., son of two prominent ELIZABETH (BETSEY) CO-CHAIR OF THE N.Y.C. HQ Betsey Hun Schmidt has lived psychoanalysts, the father HUN SCHMIDT, PH.D. EDUCATION DESIGN Born in India and raised in in New York for most of her of two amazing women, GLOBAL HEAD, TEAM, N.Y.C. HQ New York, Vriti Saref earned life and has taught at every and a native of the Bronx. CENTERS OF • FORMER LECTURER AT Born in Dallas, Lindsey Nelson her B.A. from Macaulay grade level from elementary He received his A.B. in LINDSEY NELSON EXCELLENCE, AND YALE AND COLUMBIA spent most of her childhood Honors College and went school through graduate architecture from Princeton, ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITIES AND in the South before moving on to serve as a Teach for school. She earned her B.A. his M.A. in architectural DIRECTOR STUDIOS, N.Y.C. HQ CONNECTICUT to Manhattan to attend New America corps member from Wesleyan University, and planning history from OF PRODUCT • TRUSTEE, WESLEYAN COLLEGE York University, where she in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where she now serves as a Yale, and his M.Phil. in DEVELOPMENT UNIVERSITY • MASTER’S DEGREES recieved a B.A. with honors at Ascend Public Charter trustee, and her Ph.D. in American urban history from • MASTER’S DEGREE • FORMER CHIEF FROM YALE AND in architecture and urban Schools. At Ascend, Vriti was a American literature from Columbia University. He IN LANDSCAPE CURRICULUM AND COLUMBIA design and environmental RICHARD PRATT founding teacher and dean of New York University. Most has taught at Connecticut ARCHITECTURE, INNOVATION OFFICER, • FORMER HISTORY science. Following three years EDUCATION DESIGN instruction while also earning recently, Betsey worked for College, Yale University, HARVARD UNIVERSITY ASCEND PUBLIC CHAIR, ETHICAL in the publishing industry, she TEAM, HANGZHOU, her M.A. in early-childhood seven years for Ascend Public Empire State College, and • BACHELOR’S DEGREE CHARTER SCHOOLS CULTURE FIELDSTON attended the Harvard Graduate CHINA education and teaching Charter Schools in Brooklyn, Columbia University. At the IN ARCHITECTURE AND • PH.D. IN AMERICAN SCHOOL School of Design, where she Richard Pratt hails from as an adjunct professor at which serves some of the Ethical Culture Fieldston URBAN DESIGN, N.Y.U. LITERATURE, NEW YORK obtained an M.L.A. Lindsey Huddersfield, England. He Relay Graduate School. lowest-income neighborhoods School, he taught history for UNIVERSITY “Leveraging the was drawn to Whittle by the studied as an undergraduate 23 years and held the roles “As an experience Most recently, she served as in New York. As chief power of a network holistic approach to education at the University of Oxford network director of talent curriculum and innovation of history-department chair, designer, creating a and has master’s degrees from “I leapt at the that allows students college counselor, director of design, where everything a development at Ascend, where officer at Ascend, she helped school from a student- student experiences has an University College, London, she created a professional opportunity to join the network scale from three to move between interdisciplinary studies and and the Open University of experiential education, and centered perspective impact on learning. learning infrastructure for Whittle Schools & schools to 10—educating campuses, develop the U.K., as well as teaching over 4,000 students—and founding director of the City that includes such 600 educators across its 10 Studios because it’s global awareness, and qualifications from the schools, and coached deans led the development of an Semester Program. He joined details as nutrition, University of Huddersfield and so unusual to start cultivate skills that Whittle because he wants on leadership and facilitation inquiry-based, liberal arts K-12 environments, and the University of Melbourne. of adult learning. Vriti also a whole education curriculum that helped Ascend will make it possible to create truly meaningful His teaching career includes learning experiences for even the furniture, is worked in the higher-education system from the close the racial achievement for them to solve stints at universities in China sector at Pearson Education gap in New York state. Betsey students with brilliant and an opportunity that I and independent schools in the ground up. I am excited the world’s greatest caring colleagues. as a product manager. She is speaks French and reads couldn’t pass up.” U.K., including 15 years at Eton fluent in Hindi. to work with such Italian, and at Whittle she challenges is our most College before he took the talented, visionary, leads the Centers of Excellence position of founding director important goal.” hard-working team.” initiative and works on both of the Hangzhou campus of the the Educational Design and the Chinese International School Studios teams. of Hong Kong. He speaks and reads Chinese.

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ARA BROWN, ED.D. HEAD OF UPPER SCHOOL, D.C. CAMPUS Over the past two decades, Ara Brown has held numerous leadership and teaching positions within K–12 and higher education, including his most recent role as Upper School Dean of Boys at Cranbrook Kingswood School, which he has held since 2010. SUSANNA STOSSEL Before joining Cranbrook HEAD OF LOWER Kingswood, Ada co-founded, SCHOOL, and developed the curriculum D.C. CAMPUS for, a summer Chinese with Stephen Wolfram’s MORGAN Susanna Stossel joins language program for children mathematics think tank in SILVER-GREENBERG Whittle School & Studios ages five to 12. He received Cambridge, Massachusetts. CHIEF PRODUCT from Beauvoir, the National his B.S. in psychology and He was a founding member DEVELOPMENT Cathedral Elementary School sociology from Ursinus College and managing director of the OFFICER, N.Y.C. HQ in Washington, D.C., where and an M.A. in organizational creative agency Doubleday & • FORMER DIRECTOR she taught both math and psychology and M.Ed. in Cartwright, and led a founding OF INNOVATION, science before taking on her counseling psychology from product team at the Los Born in Washington, D.C., CHENG (BRIAN) YANG, most recent role as director OMNICOM MEDIA REBECCA UPHAM Teachers College, Columbia Angeles start-up Scopely. He Rebecca Upham comes to PH.D., DIRECTOR of Early Childhood Teaching • FOUNDING MEMBER EXECUTIVE University. Additionally, he is an active member of the Whittle School & Studios OF CENTER OF and Learning. She received OF CREATIVE AGENCY CHAIRWOMAN, earned an Ed.D. in education World Economic Forum Global after leading Buckingham EXCELLENCE AND both her B.A. in child study DOUBLEDAY & D.C. CAMPUS leadership from the University Shaper Community, which Browne and Nichols School DIRECTOR OF and M.A. in teaching from CARTWRIGHT • FORMER HEAD of Pennsylvania. is tasked with infusing the for 17 years. She has also held ADMISSION, Tufts University. Prior to OF SCHOOL AT As chief product development organization with a senior leadership posts at the SHENZHEN CAMPUS joining Beauvoir, Susanna BUCKINGHAM BROWNE officer at Whittle School younger perspective. Ellis School and the Harvard- A native of Hunan, China, taught at Belmont Day School AND NICHOLS SCHOOL & Studios, Morgan Silver- Westlake School. In addition to Brian Yang received his and Arthur D. Healy School “I joined Whittle IN CAMBRIDGE, Greenberg is responsible for earning a B.A. from Middlebury bachelor’s degree from Peking in Massachusetts and has led MASSACHUSETTS developing an innovative School & Studios College and an M.A. from University and a Ph.D. from professional development for • MEMBER OF CUM and holistic experience because I think that Columbia University, Rebecca Yale University. Brian then educators in math curriculum LAUDE SOCIETY, for the students, teachers, has a background in molecular went on to work for McKinsey and pedagogy. She also co- the world doesn’t COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL and stakeholders of our biology, which led to a research & Co., first in Chicago and wrote Baby’s Wild Adventure, operate as well as it HEADS ASSOCIATION, network. His career spans stint at the University of later as the founding member a math unit guide and AND HEADMASTERS innovation and technology, should, that a lot of Edinburgh, Scotland. of McKinsey’s office in accompanying picture book for ASSOCIATION global branding, and product human potential sits She currently holds leadership Shenzhen. Having experienced kindergarten geometry that development. He was unlocked, and that a positions in various the best of what both China was published in 2015. previously the U.S. director of way of changing that professional organizations, and the U.S. have to offer in innovation at Omnicom Media, including the Cum Laude education, Brian is attracted where he worked closely would be in a school Society, Country Day School to Whittle by the vision of with G.E., Pepsi, Cigna, and that understands Heads Association, and a global school that leverages other Fortune 100 companies each individual Headmasters Association. She the best resources, talents, on global innovation. After has also traveled the world and capabilities from around graduating with honors from child and cultivates as a mountaineer and was the world. New York University’s Gallatin that potential.” a member on international School of Individualized Study expeditions to Greenland and with a degree in complex to Himanchal Pradesh, India. systems, Morgan worked

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EDUCATIONAL CINDY MI TODD ROSE, PH.D. PAVEL LUKSHA, PH.D. MELINA UNCAPHER, • FOUNDER AND C.E.O. • DIRECTOR OF THE • PROFESSOR OF PH.D. ADVISORY BOARD OF VIPKID MIND, BRAIN & PRACTICE AT • DIRECTOR OF • FORMER TEACHER AND EDUCATION PROGRAM MOSCOW SCHOOL EDUCATION PROGRAM CO-FOUNDER OF ABC AT HARVARD OF MANAGEMENT AT NEUROSCAPE ENGLISH • AUTHOR OF THE END SKOLKOVO • ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, OF AVERAGE • FOUNDER OF GLOBAL NEUROLOGY, UCSF Cindy Mi is the founder and EDUCATION FUTURES C.E.O. of VIPKID, an education Todd Rose is the director of Melina Uncapher is a technology company that the Mind, Brain & Education Pavel Luksha is a professor of neuroscientist with 15 years of connects students (aged four Program at the Harvard practice at the Moscow School experience at the forefront of to 12) in China with the world's Graduate School of Education, of Management SKOLKOVO learning and memory research. best teachers for real-time where he also leads the and manages educational She is currently an assistant online English immersion Laboratory for the Science programs for leaders in professor in the department learning. of the Individual. His work is innovation, future education, of neurology at the University Cindy considers herself a focused at the intersection of and R&D. Pavel earned of California, San Francisco teacher first; she is passionate the science of individuality and bachelor’s, master’s, and and director of the Education MAREK BECK, PH.D. about the power of education the practice of personalization doctorate degrees in economics Program at Neuroscape, which HEAD OF MIDDLE to transform and empower in education. He is also the from the Higher School of uses educational neuroscience SCHOOL, students, parents, and teachers. co-founder of the Center Economics in Moscow. He is to investigate how students D.C. CAMPUS Prior to founding VIPKID, she for Individual Opportunity fluent in English and speaks learn in the classroom. She Marek Beck has a 20-plus year was a classroom teacher and (C.I.O.), a nonprofit French and German. partners with educators career in education, working a co-founder of ABC English, organization that promotes the In addition to teaching, throughout the country to at some of the nation’s a tutoring company, where principles of individuality in Pavel is the founder of Global design, implement, and assess finest schools. He has taught she led business development work, school, and society. Education Futures and a co- education innovations that students and led faculty at the and campus expansion across Todd was born and raised founder of the Living Cities are grounded in the science of STEPHANIE FITZGERALD K–12 and college levels. Marek China. Cindy believes that in northern Utah. After movement in Russia. learning. HEAD OF EARLY holds five degrees including a and Imagination Foundation. all students are unique, and dropping out of high school, He is the author of Melina also leads a LEARNING CENTER, TOM VANDER ARK, Ph.D. from Fordham University Previously, he served as that the world is within their he obtained his G.E.D. and Global Education Futures multi-university Science of D.C. CAMPUS CHAIR and a master’s degree from the first executive director reach when connected with started attending night classes Agenda, a visionary book on Learning network, funded Stephanie Clark Fitzgerald • C.E.O. AND PARTNER OF Columbia University. He has of education for the Bill & great teachers capable of at a local college. He eventually the transformative role of by the National Science brings over 25 years of GETTING SMART 13 certifications and is among Melinda Gates Foundation, personalizing learning and received his doctorate in education technologies, and Foundation. This research experience in PreK–12 • FORMERLY THE FIRST the few educators worldwide as well as a public-school sparking curiosity. human development from the the Atlas of Emerging Jobs, program partners faculty education leadership to this EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR to be recognized as an Apple superintendent in In 2017, VIPKID and the Harvard Graduate School of one of the most detailed at Stanford, U.C. Berkeley, role. Beginning as a teacher OF EDUCATION FOR Distinguished Educator, Washington State. Jack Ma Foundation launched Education and completed a global compendiums of new and U.C.S.F. to investigate in Chicago, she founded and THE BILL & MELINDA Google Certified Innovator, Tom has spoken at a variety an English-language education postdoctoral fellowship at the and emerging jobs—both of how executive function/ led three schools including GATES FOUNDATION and Microsoft Certified of prestigious national and initiative for schools in rural Harvard-Smithsonian Center which have catalyzed systemic cognitive control contributes two early childhood programs. Innovator. Marek was raised international conferences, China with the goal of reaching for Astrophysics. innovations in the Russian to academic achievement in Most recently, she served Tom Vander Ark currently in New York and spent his including SXSWEdu, iNACOL’s 200 schools in rural China in Todd wrote The End of education system and across middle childhood. Additionally, as director of a nationally serves as C.E.O. of Getting career in Connecticut. Marek Blended & Online Learning two years. Cindy spearheaded Average, in which he argues emerging economies. Melina co-founded and is recognized project-based Smart, a learning design joined Whittle because he Symposium, and A.S.U./G.S.V., the partnership with the Jack that no one is “average” and C.E.O. of a science-for-good early childhood program in firm that amplifies thought- believes that it will lead to a and has published numerous Ma Foundation and actively promotes design paradigms nonprofit, the Institute for New Jersey. Previously, she leadership campaigns, complete transformation in white papers and books in the oversees the program as that accommodate individual Applied Neuroscience, that prepared principals through education initiatives, powerful education globally. field of education. it reaches more and more differences rather than arms educators and students New Leaders and was the learning experiences, and students in rural China. statistical averages. with practical tools based on founding president and C.E.O. forward-leaning strategies with “I think Whittle She serves on the advisory Todd’s research endeavors the science of learning. of Rodel Foundation Delaware. schools, school districts, and School & Studios is boards of the CKGSB Alumni have become widely renowned, She holds a B.A. from Harvard impact-oriented partners. Association and as an advisor and his talks have been University and M.A.’s from Tom graduated from the the most important to Teach for China. featured at SXSW, TedX, University of Illinois and the Colorado School of Mines, education project Cindy earned her M.B.A. Google, the Aspen Ideas University of Delaware. She where he was awarded the in the world. The from CKGSB, China’s leading Festival, and Apple. and her husband have four Distinguished Achievement Medal. He received his M.B.A. opportunity to private business school, and children who are excited to be studied at Cornell University’s among Whittle’s first students. in finance from the University construct a truly of Denver and continues his personalized learning Johnson Graduate School of education online. Management as part of an In addition to his role environment where M.B.A. exchange program. at Getting Smart, Tom is a every student can partner in Learn Capital, unlock their own an education venture- gifts alongside gifted capital firm investing in ed-tech startups. He is also teachers, as part of a a director for 4.0 Schools, global network… This Bloomboard, Charter Board has never been done.” Partners, Digital Learning Institute, eduInnovation,

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GLOBAL TEAM MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

IAN THOMAS, PH.D. and China. Prior to this, Ian VICE-CHAIRMAN/ served in the office of the PRESIDENT secretary of defense at the Pentagon. He holds an M.Phil. “I am intrigued and in international relations and inspired by the global a Ph.D. in history, both from scope and complexity the University of Cambridge, Architect Peter Brown CHRIS WHITTLE his alma mater. He began his PETER BROWN as well as a graduate diploma is a recognized expert in CHAIRMAN AND C.E.O career in publishing, building of Whittle School GLOBAL HEAD OF in social sciences from creating responsive learning a single college magazine into ARCHITECTURE AND “A great school makes & Studios. I love its Stockholm University. He environments. For over 20 Whittle Communications, one DESIGN, N.Y.C. HQ sure you have the entrepreneurial nature. received his bachelor’s degree years, Peter has worked with of America’s top 100 media • LEADING ARCHITECT (cum laude) in history from architects and educators— content you need businesses in the 1980s. At I am excited about its WITH CONSTRUCTION Amherst College and also often becoming a translator— but also the thinking the age of 32, his company capacity to improve NICHOLAS DIRKS, PH.D. PROJECTS IN SEVEN studied art history and Italian to transform educational and bought Esquire magazine, VICE CHAIRMAN/ COUNTRIES AND MORE and creative skills to current systems and in Florence, Italy. He was curricular ideas into thoughtful where he served as chairman CHANCELLOR THAN 25 STATES use that content to processes and ways of named a Young Leader of the concepts for learning spaces. and publisher for many years. BIO, PAGE 92 • FORMER DIRECTOR French-American Foundation His educational-focused advance change in the He founded Channel One, a educating children. I OF THE GLOBAL (2005) and a Companion of projects in over 25 states and world.” national in-school television love the mission. It has EDUCATION PRACTICE the Royal Aeronautical Society seven countries, including news program (first anchored AT PERKINS+WILL Chris Whittle is an by Anderson Cooper), which social meaning, value, (2006). He is a recipient many leading international entrepreneur with four decades reached eight million students and impact.” of the Defense Exceptional schools, have resulted in of leadership experience in Public Service Medal (2001) “At Whittle School & more than $1 billion worth daily in 12,000 schools. Ian Thomas was born in New the fields of education and and the Sir Charles Kingsford of construction projects for Channel One’s programming York City and raised in Texas. Studios, we believe media. He conceived of and Smith Medal (2013) for over 50,000 students. Prior has received a host of awards, He has 30 years of global that education is founded Edison Schools (now outstanding contributions to founding a design and including the Peabody Award, experience spanning four everything a student EdisonLearning) in 1992 to aviation. He has served as strategy practice in 2007, Peter one of television journalism’s continents, including 15 years with Benno Schmidt. Edison a director of the U.S. India encounters at school . . . was a principal and director highest accolades. with The Boeing Company, has been instrumental in Educational Foundation and of the global educational Chris has a B.A. in where he served in a variety of and for me that means establishing the charter-school of the Australian American practice with Chicago-based American studies from the leadership roles in Europe and the building. Daylight movement and has served Fulbright Commission. He is Perkins+Will. Peter received University of Tennessee. as C.E.O. in India, Australia, 450,000 students on the author of The Promise of and acoustics impact his bachelor’s of architecture three continents. Alliance: NATO and the Political learning, so we’re from Texas Tech University. Chris is the author of Crash Imagination. He joined Whittle looking at building Course: Imagining a Better School & Studios because he performance and Future for Public Education. was drawn to its meaningful He sits on the board of the mission and the extraordinary student performance Center for Education Reform team of innovators, educators, at the same time.” in Washington, D.C., and and business leaders who he has funded over 180 full have joined together to scholarships for students at build a global school for the the University of Tennessee, Innovation Age.

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JING LI TINO VAN DEN HEUVEL GLOBAL HEAD OF ELIZABETH (BETSEY) GENERAL COUNSEL, ENROLLMENT, HUN SCHMIDT, PH.D. N.Y.C. HQ MARKETING, AND GLOBAL HEAD, Tino Van Den Heuvel is COMMUNICATIONS, LAURA ESHBAUGH CENTERS OF Whittle’s general counsel. BEIJING & N.Y.C. HQ OFFICE OF THE C.E.O., EXCELLENCE, AND VICE Prior to that, he was a BIO, PAGE 95 KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE PRESIDENT, STUDIOS, member of the corporate- Laura Eshbaugh has worked N.Y.C. HQ development team and head with Chris Whittle on all BIO, PAGE 97 of global tax and structure at his communications and Patheon, where he played an education initiatives. She is a integral part in its I.P.O., debt Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the JIM HAWKINS funding, management of the University of Tennessee and RICHARD PRATT GLOBAL HEAD OF I.P./contract portfolio, and holds an M.A. in English from EDUCATION DESIGN SCHOOLS HEADS mergers and acquisitions. Prior the University of Florida. Prior TEAM, HANGZHOU, BIO, PAGE 94 to joining Hill Smith King & to joining the Whittle team, CHINA Wood, Tino was a tax partner she served as senior adviser BIO, PAGE 97 at an international law firm. and as chief administrative He also serves as an adjunct officer for Avenues: The professor of taxation in the World School. She worked for JOE KEENEY Joe Keeney has opened and graduate tax program at the EdisonLearning (earlier known CHIEF OPERATING operated over 100 schools in University of Utrecht and its as Edison Schools and, before OFFICER, N.Y.C. HQ his 20-plus years in the field of affiliated universities in the that, Edison Project) from its education. He is the founder PETER MERRILL, PH.D. U.S., and is a frequent lecturer inception (in 1992) to 2007 in “Global advances of 4th Sector Solutions, a CO-CHAIR OF THE at seminars for Bloomberg. capital formation and investor are fundamentally provider of charter-school EDUCATION DESIGN Tino received his LL.B. and relations. Her last position shared services, and was TEAM, N.Y.C. HQ LL.M., with honors, from changing the way the there was executive vice formerly president of Edison BIO, PAGE 95 the University of Utrecht & human race functions. president for communications MORGAN Charter Schools, where he led Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and corporate secretary. SILVER-GREENBERG The most sophisticated a national network of schools. including completion of a joint Before that, she was vice- CHIEF PRODUCT parents recognize Joe was also a divisional program with the University chairman of Whittle DEVELOPMENT president and the C.O.O. of California, Berkeley. He these trends and are Communications, where she OFFICER, N.Y.C. HQ of a Fortune 1000 global received his LL.M. in U.S. served for 24 years and, in MANUEL J. RIVERA, BIO, PAGE 98 demanding the best manufacturer, and he has taxation, cum laude, from various positions, managed PH.D. opportunities for their lived in London and Hong Washington School of law. He editorial operations, headed GLOBAL HEAD OF children to succeed Kong. He has a B.A. from has published various articles research and product FACULTY RECRUITMENT, Columbia College, an M.B.A. that focus on international in this world, while development, ran a sales- N.Y.C. HQ with high distinction (Baker taxation. He is a member of and-marketing division, BIO, PAGE 94 maintaining a strong Scholar) from Harvard the bar in New York handled public affairs for sense of values. I am Business School, and an Ed.M. and Amsterdam. the launch of Channel One thrilled about the in education leadership (Whittle’s in-school television opportunity to create from Teachers College of program), and managed Columbia University. major equity transactions. a new educational ANDREW MEYERS organization with the CO-CHAIR OF THE highest standards in EDUCATION DESIGN TEAM, N.Y.C. HQ the world.” BIO, PAGE 96

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GLOBAL LEADERSHIP AND STAFF

SAIBABA (SAI) TATA educational and health-care HEAD OF institutions. He worked as DEVELOPMENT, MIDDLE C.E.O. of Aga Khan Education EAST, INDIA, AND FAR Service (A.K.E.S.) in Kenya EAST, N.Y.C. HQ and also served as regional RYAN CHORAZY One of the earliest members coordinator for A.K.E.S. VICE PRESIDENT, ALAN SMITH Alan Smith has broad H.R. to come on board Whittle in Africa. An experienced BUSINESS GLOBAL HEAD OF experience from working at School & Studios, Sai Tata financial professional, Sai also DEVELOPMENT, HUMAN RESOURCES, such firms as Pfizer, Wyeth, brings more than three and served as finance manager for N.Y.C. HQ N.Y.C. HQ Aon Consulting, and John a half decades of corporate Coats in India. Sai received his Originally from Reston, Hancock. Prior to joining expertise and educational “Whittle Schools & bachelor’s degree in commerce Virginia, Ryan Chorazy has Whittle School & Studios, prowess to his position. Prior from Andhra University CHRISTINE Y. ZHAO Born in China, Christine Zhao lived in New York City for Studios is going to be Alan spent eight years with to joining the company, he was and his law degree from S.P. CHIEF FINANCIAL holds an M.B.A. from Harvard the last decade. He earned crucial to developing TE Connectivity, a $12 billion a founding member of GEMS University, both in India. OFFICER, N.Y.C. HQ Business School and a B.S. in his B.S. in commerce, with global industrial electronic- Education, the largest pre-K–12 the talent of the future “Having two school-age economics with distinction concentrations in finance and components manufacturer. company in the world. Sai because we will be able from Fudan University in management, at the University In his last role with the worked in several countries on children myself, I feel Shanghai. She comes to of Virginia. Ryan spent over to have students and company, Alan was based four continents, establishing the need to educate Whittle School & Studios with in Shanghai, leading the 10 years in private equity and teachers travel from students around the a wealth of experience in the investment banking at Liberty global H.R. function for the finance sector. She previously country to country communication-solutions world to become Partners and at Rothschild. with a common theme served in high-level positions While at Liberty Partners, he segment. Alan has a B.A from global citizens. Having at Bank of America Merrill of building global Wesleyan University and led the investment in Avenues: diverse experiences Lynch, J. P. Morgan, American The World School, where citizens.” an M.B.A. from Columbia Express, and Goldman Sachs. University. In addition to and appreciating he witnessed the power of a She served as group chief premier primary education. He extensive global business international financial officer of Best Inc. travel, Alan has lived in Boston, cultures will expand was drawn to Whittle School & She has worked in New York, Studios by the opportunity to Los Angeles, San Francisco, their horizons, London, Singapore, Hong and Shanghai. create a global school network both personally Kong, and China, and has and its potential to have a managed teams across four and, ultimately, transformational impact on its continents. She is fluent in students and the world. professionally.” Mandarin and Cantonese.

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CHARLES IANNUZZI DIRECTOR OF GLOBAL BOARDING, BEIJING Charlie Iannuzzi joined LINDSEY NELSON LAURA ESHBAUGH Whittle to extend his love for ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OFFICE OF THE C.E.O., global education development. A 2007 Duke University OF PRODUCT KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE FRED YASIN graduate, Charlie most recently DEVELOPMENT, BIO, PAGE 105 CORPORATE served as the Hotchkiss N.Y.C. HQ CONTROLLER, N.Y.C. HQ School’s first director of BIO, PAGE 96 Fred Yasin joined Whittle as international admission and the corporate controller in instructor in development October 2017. Prior to that, economics. Previously, he he was a finance executive for was dean of student affairs publicly traded companies. and dean of admission at From 2014 to 2017, he RONGRONG (RACHEL) Fudan International School in served as vice president ZHANG Shanghai; a William J. Clinton JAN LIPPERT and corporate controller at EXECUTIVE Fellow for the American FINANCE, KNOXVILLE, SIGA Technologies, where ADMINISTRATOR AND India Foundation at Ashram TENNESSEE MIKE STAKIAS he was responsible for S.E.C. OFFICE MANAGER, Paryavaran Vidhyalaya Jan Lippert has over 25 years DIRECTOR OF reporting, accounting, taxes, N.Y.C. HQ School in Uttarakhand, India; of experience working at MARKETING AND finance, and the execution Rongrong Zhang’s parents and taught and designed Whittle Communications, COMMUNICATIONS, of business strategies. Prior were teachers, which sparked curricula on Kaben, one of Edison Schools (now N.Y.C. HQ to joining SIGA, Fred was an her interest in education the Marshall Islands, through EdisonLearning), and Originally from the executive director at Estée from an early age. Before she INGO WorldTeach. He has Avenues: The World School. Philadelphia area, Mike Stakias Lauder. He also served 11 years joined Whittle, she worked substituted Mandarin for the Her responsibilities have joined Whittle School & as a senior manager at Ernst & in the education field for Marshallese, Garhwali, and included marketing, investor Studios in September 2015. Young, responsible for audits more than five years. She Kumaoni he used to speak. relations, capital formation, MATTHEW POHL He received a B.A. in political of Fortune 500 companies. developed an online education budgets, and finance, as well as DIRECTOR OF science from Hobart College Fred holds a B.S. in accounting platform, which had a focus on corporate events such as client ENROLLMENT and an M.B.A. from the Mason from Hunter College and is a bringing American education conferences and shareholder STRATEGY/ASSOCIATE School of Business at the certified public accountant. resources to the Chinese meetings. Jan is a native of DIRECTOR OF COLLEGE College of William and Mary. Fred was motivated to join market. More recently, she Knoxville, Tennessee, and COUNSELING, N.Y.C. HQ Mike spent nine years in Whittle to have a positive worked as the operation graduated from the University BIO, PAGE 97 Washington, D.C., in various impact on the lives of students director for a career-consulting of Tennessee with a B.S. in real legislative, political, and and improve education firm. Rongrong holds an estate and finance. She is an government-affairs capacities. globally. M.B.A. from the University avid sports fan and roots for Previously, he worked for of Illinois, Chicago, and a the University of Tennessee Senate majority leader Bill master’s degree in finance Volunteers. A music lover, Frist, served on Rudy Giuliani’s from the Illinois Institute of she plays the piano and enjoys presidential campaign, and Technology. Before coming the variety of music offered in advised sitting senators and to the U.S., she attended eastern Tennessee. political candidates throughout Beijing University of Posts the country. Mike joined and Telecommunications, Whittle School & Studios during which time she spent to be part of an unrivaled one year on an exchange opportunity to join leaders in program in Tokyo. Her native education and other industries language is Chinese, and she to create the first truly modern also speaks fluent English and school of the 21st century. conversational Japanese.

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SANDRA (SANDY) SHENZHEN LAUNCH TEAM SCHULTZ GLOBAL FACULTY PATRICK HOEY RECRUITMENT CHIEF OPERATING A Philadelphia native, Sandra OFFICER, SHENZHEN joins the Global Faculty CAMPUS Recruitment team with Patrick Hoey was previously extensive leadership and the Greater China president of operational experience in both Wycombe Abbey International education and the corporate Schools at BE Education, arenas. Sandra began her opening and managing career in education, as an holistic, hybrid-curriculum, English teacher. However, co-educational boarding during a corporate relocation schools that targeted affluent to Salt Lake City, she was Chinese families. He was HAISHENG (ERIC) LIN offered the opportunity also the managing director of VICE PRESIDENT, to utilize her education Dulwich College China, where BUSINESS XIUFANG (SUSAN) background in a corporate he established a network DEVELOPMENT, CHINA CHEN CHENG (BRIAN) YANG, setting, creating an employee of international schools for A former senior business ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR PH.D. training program for an expatriates. Patrick studied leader for Lafarge China and OF MARKETING AND DIRECTOR OF CENTER upstart healthcare agency Chinese at Fudan University G.E., Eric Lin held positions COMMUNICATIONS, OF EXCELLENCE servicing the entire state. This in Shanghai, holds a bachelor’s in strategy planning and SHENZHEN CAMPUS AND DIRECTOR OF position ultimately evolved degree in Chinese studies from business development, Originally from Guangdong, ADMISSION, SHENZHEN into overseeing and directing the State University of New sales, and marketing for China, Susan earned her CAMPUS the formation of its Human York at Albany, and received JIN (HILDA) HUANG over 20 years. Eric was an B.A. at Hubei University of Resources department. Sandra an M.B.A. from the University BIO, PAGE 99 FINANCE DIRECTOR, Experienced Commercial Technology in 2006, launching YAJING (KARA) GAO then served at the helm of Southern California. Patrick SHENZHEN CAMPUS Leadership Program member her 11-year career in the through a successful corporate is from New York, but he has Hilda Huang grew up in and Six Sigma black belt for ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR YUN WENDY ZHOU, hospitality business. Susan merger with a national lived in China for more than 20 Shanghai, Beijing, and Henan General Electric, and was OF ADMISSION, PH.D. was the founding member of healthcare corporation years and is fluent in Mandarin. provinces. She studied at also the China youth envoy SHENZHEN CAMPUS ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR two internationally known until her relocation back Chongqing University, to UNESCO and a member Kara Gao earned her B.A. OF PARTNERSHIPS AND hotels, where she specialized East, when she re-entered majoring in accounting. She of its Antarctica expedition in accounting at Tsinghua COMMUNICATIONS, in administration, sales, and the education arena. For is a member of Chartered (1997). He has extensive work University and an M.B.A. N.Y.C. HQ marketing. The idea of a the past 15 years, Sandra Institute of Management experience in China, Europe, in finance at the Chinese Wendy Zhou was born and different future for education has worked in both public Accountants and Chartered Africa, the U.S., and South University of Hong Kong. She raised in China. After earning drew her to Whittle School & and private PreK–2 sectors Global Management America. Born in Guangdong, has a background in sector- her B.S. at Tsinghua University, Studios. Susan is fluent utilizing her operational and Accountant, and has broad China, he holds an M.B.A. wide and company research, she moved to the U.S. to in Mandarin, Cantonese, entrepreneurial acumen, where experience in audits, internal from Glasgow University. developed while at Bosera pursue graduate education. and English. she has served as a Director/ controls, financial planning Eric was a guest professor at Asset Management Co., one She earned a master’s in public Head of School of two private and analysis, mergers and Sichuan International of the first fund-management administration at Columbia schools, and Principal of one acquisitions, and legal Studies University. companies established University and a doctorate in charter school in the NYC compliance in international in mainland China. After engineering at the University XI (ALLEN) ZHANG entering the education field, metro area. companies and major Chinese XIAOHENG (MELISSA) of California, Berkeley. She DIRECTOR OF she served as senior manager Sandra earned her B.A. in companies. Hilda was an WANG has 10 years of research and ENROLLMENT at a private kindergarten and English and B.S. in Education auditor at Arthur Anderson H.R. DIRECTOR, work experience in academia OPERATIONS, innovative public school and from Bloomsburg University, and PwC and finance director SHENZHEN CAMPUS as well as in the public and SHENZHEN CAMPUS established a wide outreach in addition to earning an M.A. of Intersport in the Asia-Pacific Melissa Wang has joined private sectors, focusing on Originally from Fujian, China, in the early-education sector in Organizational Management region. A Shenzhen resident, Whittle School & Studios as environmental and energy Allen Zhang, C.F.A., has lived in Shenzhen. She also served during her tenure in Salt Lake Hilda joined Whittle because the head of human resources policy and social-impact and worked in four countries: as a strategic consultant for City. She is excited to join she is impressed by the vision for the Shenzhen site. She is investments. She was a Stanton China, Romania, France, and several education funds and Whittle School & Studios, of innovation in education in a an outstanding H.R. leader Fellow at the Kennedy School Singapore. He earned his B.A. institutions. In 2015, she was sharing her passion for global network. with deep experience in both of Government at Harvard from Xiamen University and elected secretary-general of education reform, recruiting multinational corporations University and a policy adviser an M.B.A. from INSEAD. He the Alumni Association of like-minded educators to and Chinese companies. She in the New York City mayor’s spent seven years working in Shenzhen Tsinghua School of join us on the journey of the spent four years in the U.S. office. As a mom of two, she the financial sector: four years Economics and Management transformation of global with Emersion Electric and is particularly interested in at PwC and three at Huawei in charge of network building education. then returned to China to work personalized education to as financial manager in charge and event planning. for Oracle, serving for almost improve children’s learning of finance and accounting seven years as head of H.R. at experiences and performance. operations in the Europe- its Shenzhen center. Melissa region shared-services center. has her master’s degree in He joined Whittle because of labor and human resources its grand vision and the people from Ohio State University. on the team.

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W A S H I N G T O N , D . C . , LAUNCH TEAM

XIAOXIA (RACHEL) YONG GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE ASSOCIATE, SHENZHEN CAMPUS Rachel Yong was born in Lanzhou, China, in the Gansu REBECCA UPHAM VINCENT TRAVAGLIONE province, and moved to EXECUTIVE ENROLLMENT Shenzhen in 1992. She earned CHAIRWOMAN, MANAGEMENT her B.A. in international D.C. CAMPUS DIRECTOR, business economics from BIO, PAGE 98 D.C. CAMPUS the University of the West Vincent Travaglione, a native of England and an M.Sc. New Yorker, earned his B.A. CHANG LIU in economics, finance, and from Villanova University and COPYWRITER AND management from the his M.S.Ed. in higher-education ADMINISTRATION, MENGYA ZHANG University of Bristol. She is administration from the SHENZHEN CHINA ADMISSION ASSOCIATE, a native speaker of Mandarin YANAN (JANE) ZHANG University of Pennsylvania. Chang Liu earned her B.A. in SHENZHEN CAMPUS and Cantonese and is fluent ADMISSION ASSOCIATE, Vincent served for 13 years at English at Dalian Maritime Mengya Zhang holds a SUSANNA STOSSEL in English. She is drawn to SHENZHEN CAMPUS La Jolla Country Day School University in Dalian, China. As master’s degree in guidance HEAD OF LOWER Whittle School & Studios by Jane Zhang received her M.A. as director of college guidance, an undergraduate, she spent and rehabilitation from SCHOOL, its pioneering educational in cultural management from director of admission, and two years as an exchange Columbia University. She is D.C. CAMPUS philosophy. the Chinese University of enrollment consultant. student in Buffalo, New York, a trained behavior analyst in BIO, PAGE 99 Hong Kong. She is the founder More recently, he worked and earned her second B.A., DIMIAN (CONNIE) WU autism-spectrum disorders, of World Top School Exchange as the founding director of at Medaille College. In Buffalo ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR and also a founding member Education Consulting Services, admission at the International she served as a volunteer tutor OF ADMISSION, of the first national special- which helps students from Asia School of Asia, Karuizawa, for Literacy New York. She SHENZHEN CAMPUS education foundation in and their families to experience one of United World Colleges went on to study in the U.K. Originally from Shenzhen, China. After a career in top schools in the United campuses. Vincent has lived and graduated with a M.Sc. in Connie Wu has lived in Hong marketing, Mengya pursued States, Canada, Australia, and in Australia and briefly in business-technology consulting Kong for more than 14 years. her passion in developmental Japan. Previously, she worked Japan, and is proud to be part from the University of Reading. She earned her B.B.A. in psychology, which ultimately at Zuoyou Management DENNIS BISGAARD of Whittle School & Studios, She has also worked as a book accounting and finance, with led her to working with Consulting. HEAD OF SCHOOL, which he believes will inspire editor in Beijing. honors, at the Hong Kong families and children of D.C. CAMPUS and motivate all students University of Science and diverse backgrounds and BIO, PAGE 92 and recognizes the radically Technology and an M.Sc. in needs. After nine years spent changing world they will lead. psychology from Hong Kong in developmental psychology University. She also studied and childhood behavior finance and psychology at the intervention, she still enjoys ARA BROWN, ED.D. University of Pennsylvania. working with children of all HEAD OF UPPER Prior to taking her position at ages, and believes that every SCHOOL, Whittle School & Studios, she child thrives in his or her own D.C. CAMPUS served as executive director way, which is the reason she BIO, PAGE 99 of a hedge fund based in Hong was attracted to Whittle. Kong. She was attracted to Whittle by the global vision of the school, its commitments to innovation, and its community of talent.

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KEVIN BAIN ADMISSION ASSOCIATE, D.C. CAMPUS SARAH SCOTT Kevin Bain grew up in the ADMISSION ASSOCIATE, metro-Detroit area and MATTHEW DRAKE D.C. CAMPUS HARRISON HART attended the University of ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR Sarah Scott grew up in ADMISSION ASSOCIATE, Michigan, where he competed OF ADMISSION, Rockport, Maine, and attended D.C. CAMPUS on the men’s varsity swim D.C. CAMPUS Middlebury College, majoring A Baltimore native, Harrison team. He received his Matt Drake joined Whittle in international and global joins Whittle School & Studios bachelor’s in international School & Studios after 15 studies with a focus on East from Amerigo Education, a GREYSON MANN Asia and Chinese language. In finance at the Ross School of years of experience in the KATARINA SLOBODOVA STEPHANIE FITZGERALD leading boarding provider ADMISSION ASSOCIATE, her senior year, she was chosen Business, with a dual degree in independent-school world. ADMISSION ASSOCIATE, HEAD OF EARLY for international students D.C. CAMPUS to be a representative on the comparative literature focusing Upon graduating from the D.C. CAMPUS LEARNING CENTER, at U.S. high schools. As the Greyson Mann is a fifth- Middlebury College board of on German and Chinese Groton School, Matt earned Raised in Europe with an D.C. CAMPUS third employee at Amerigo, generation Washingtonian and trustees as an advocate for the cultures. After graduation, a B.A. from the University American education, Katarina BIO, PAGE 100 RON CORRADO Harrison established business- attended Wofford College, summer intensive-language Kevin pursued investment of Virginia. His career began Slobodova was able to enjoy DIRECTOR OF development and student- where he received a Princeton programs and the Middlebury banking at Citigroup in New at the Fessenden School in a trilingual upbringing CONSTRUCTION AND recruitment strategies and in Asia Fellowship to teach at schools abroad. She has lived York, followed by a stint at a Massachusetts, where he (Slovak, German, English), FACILITIES, oversaw the fit-out of the YK Pao School in Shanghai. and studied in Beijing and tech startup in San Francisco. served as a dorm parent, coach, which prompted her to D.C. CAMPUS three inaugural campuses. He previously served as a Qingdao, China. Sarah joined He has lived in Berlin, Beijing, and teacher. He also spent pursue a degree in linguistics Ron Corrado was born in He received his B.A. in presidential appointee in the Whittle in July 2017 and is and Shanghai and speaks three years at Greenwich and cognitive science at New York City and raised English from Dartmouth Department of Education’s excited about applying her German and Mandarin. Kevin Country Day School in Rice University. She went in Connecticut, where he College, where he received Center for Faith-based and knowledge of China and her joined Whittle School & Connecticut as a teacher, on to complete an M.A. in studied electrical engineering the Research, Writing, and Neighborhood Partnerships, work in global studies to Studios in December 2017 coach, and associate director international education at at Greater New Haven State Information Technology where he supported the support the Whittle network. to combine his international of alumni relations. Matt has Columbia University under Tech. Ron’s career experience Leadership Award for his development of a global business acumen with his dedicated the past 10-plus the Foreign Language and Area includes working with the oversight in hiring for the network of political, education, passion for education. years to school development Studies fellowship, focusing U.S. Department of State, writing center. He also and religious leaders. He as the director of annual giving on East Asia. After extensive after which he moved to managed a student-owned also worked with Digital at St. Anne’s-Belfield School Chinese-language study, she Herk-de-Stad, Belgium, furniture company and served Promise to develop a national in Charlottesville, Virginia, moved to China, where she to lead construction and as a core team member for network of forward-thinking and, most recently, as an facilitated student exchanges renovation projects in over Obama for America. He superintendents. He speaks alumni-programs and major- and cultural programming at 20 European countries and additionally draws on his Chinese and has lived in gifts officer at Episcopal High several nonprofit and for-profit the former Soviet Union. He experiences as a junior fellow Beijing and Shanghai. Greyson School in Alexandria, Virginia. educational institutions. She then spent three years on at King’s Academy in Jordan, joined Whittle to build an MAREK BECK, PH.D. joined Whittle to promote the Pentagon’s renovation- a volunteer in Mumbai, and a innovative global education for HEAD OF MIDDLE study-abroad programs among management and project- boarding student at Phillips PreK–12 students. SCHOOL, pre-college students. controls team and later worked Academy, Andover. Harrison D.C. CAMPUS in commercial construction. was drawn to Whittle by the BIO, PAGE 100 Ron has more than 20 years of promise of working with a experience managing design talented, passionate team and construction for K–12 to build the preeminent schools. He was the deputy education of the 21st century. chief operating officer for a 4,000-student, 12-campus charter school in D.C.

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WHITTLE ARUP Group Gael Towey & Company Parthenon-EY Inspire Arcadis Design and Consultancy SCHOOL & STUDIOS London New York India & Asia China Global EXTENDED FAMILY William Algaard Gael Towey Julius Chen Gordon Zhang Simon Kaye William Arnold Joe Tomcho Mark Chua Wang Wei Weibin Xu Renzo Piano David Barber Maria Juranic Matt Fish Building Workshop Alistair Guthrie Annique De Caestecker Prashant Garg Noblesse Ayers Saint Gross Genoa & Paris Matt Larson Ellen Jacobson-Clarke Rishikesh Gajendra China Washington, D.C. Hirotaka Ogihara Alexis Kaplan Nimish Goel Renzo Piano Jane Wang Joe McNamara Tom Rolls Brian Flood Ridhi Gupta Francesca Bianchi Chris Ho Stephen Wright Young Wong Joy Han Giulia Boller Tina Chen William Yan The Hearth Advisors Evelyn Luo Stefania Canta Ivy Peng China Merchants Shekou (Education Division) Daniela Cappuzzo Karan Khemka China CBRE Group, Inc. India and UK Abhinav Mital Chiara Casazza Winbranding Global Shashank Vira and teams Zhang Lin Fausto Cappellini Aakansha Sethi China Jitin Sethi Hu Yuong Mark Carroll David Maurer-Hollaender King & Wood Mallesons Claudia Wang Xiong Bo Zhong Ding Ningxin Cheng Joan Meixner China Qian Yanxi Li Hongyuan Stefano D’Atri Studio Giorgetta Wang Weigang Emanuele Donadel Dharam Consulting Bai Bing Milan Guantianxiang Culture Media Tang Fei Philippe Goubet New York Li Hefei China Ye Ying Giorgio Grandi Yao Hua Grazia Comai Andrew Smith Shunji Ishida Franco Giorgetta Meng Fanzhao Ryan Yu Turner Construction Lina Jaidi Heidrick & Struggles Simona Giorgetta Washington, D.C. Louis Jin Global Marketing Consultants Doyle Partners Simone Lafranconi China Joe Swanson New York Sally Beatty Transcend Education Dimitri Lange John Montemayor Jesse Bryan Chicago, New York, Atlanta Liu Yunyun Francesca Manfredi Stephen Doyle Dan Cullen Aylon Samouha Peng Kun Pratik Parmer David Bowman Alvisi Kirimoto Joe Haberman Anna Hall Juliet Stranga Royce Perez Staci MacKenzie Italy Lee Hanson Tyler Thigpen Daniele Piano Craig Mangum Maliha Jilani Technical Education Consultant Alessandro Pizzolato Rhoan O’Connell Olivia Liang Getting Smart San Francisco Reitano Design Group Stefano Russo Chuck Robertson Julia Salem Seattle Indianapolis Giuseppe Semprini Sam Reed Gabriella Levine Melissa Schmidt Francesco Terranova Ben Tousley Tom Vander Ark Cynthia Swanson Elisabetta Trezzani Rosemarie Turk Caroline Vander Ark CCDI Group Schuler Shook Cristiano Zaccaria and Adam Kulaas China Chicago Golden Eagle Retail Group Lu Bing China Jinghui Tian Callaway Arts & Entertainment Ji Soo Kim Work & Co. Social Responsibility New York Tatsuro Kiuchi Emma Gu New York Motherboard, Knowledge Huang Yi Violeta Lópiz Feng Zhuoming Nicholas Callaway Felipe Memoria Management Consultant Niu Yanqin Jeﬀ Scher San Francisco Steve Kuhn Ouyang Fang J.J. Sedelmaier ALINEA Consulting, L.L.P. Marta Nixon Lucky Gunasekara Yang Shu London Badrul Rupak Dominic Muntanga Myhra Mirza Richard Bates Sarah Mogin Special Advisor Steve Watts Tom O'Leary

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WRITTEN BY C H R I S W H I T T L E

IN COLLABORATION WITH

GREG CARLSON, LAURA COLEMAN, ELIZABETH HUN SCHMIDT,

PETER MERRILL, ANDREW MEYERS, LINDSEY NELSON, RICHARD PRATT,

VRITI SARAF, AND MORGAN SILVER-GREENBERG.

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