6. The IB Curriculum, Belonging & What Truly Matters with Barry Dequanne

FIND MY SWISS SCHOOL PLUS+ Podcast

The IB Curriculum, Belonging & What Truly Matters  — A Conversation with Barry Dequanne, Director of ISZL

In this enlightening episode of FIND MY SWISS SCHOOL PLUS+, co-hosts Sandra Hueskes and Pascale Baumgartner sit down with Barry Dequanne, Director of the International School of Zug and Luzern (ISZL), for a deeply thoughtful conversation about what it means to lead a school community with purpose, integrity, heart and the value of kindness.

Barry shares his love of learning and curiosity, why trust and belonging are the foundation of any great school, the value of an IB Curriculum, and how ISZL is rethinking what student success really means in a changing world.

📌 Highlights from Barry Dequanne:

• Why kindness lies at the center of ISZL’s mission — and how a sense of safety enables students to thrive
• Why encouraging curiosity, engagement and resilience are fundamental to learning and growth
• How education is a shared endeavor between parents, teachers, students and community
• How self-awareness and being accountable for your learning is a gift that keeps on giving
• How ISZL and the IB Diploma fosters global citizenship, personal development and skills beyond academics
• How schools can nurture both academic achievement and student well-being
• Barry’s reflections on community, character, and the power of nature

Barry’s wisdom, humility, and clarity of purpose make this a powerful episode for parents, educators, and anyone passionate about education done thoughtfully and well.

🎧 About learning: “The classroom is not just in the school building, it's everywhere.”

🎧 About AI: “We have to have the courage to ask questions. We have to think about the future... We cannot lose our humanity in this process. We have technology to support our humanity, not replace us, not diminish us."

Barry’s Recommended Resources, Readings & Inspirations

• Barry's Blog
• The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Johnathan Haidt
• Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

Follow ISZL

🌐 Website
📷 Instagram
💼 LinkedIn
📘 Facebook
▶️ YouTube

About Us:
We’re Sandra Hueskes and Pascale Baumgartner, education consultants at FIND MY SWISS SCHOOL, Switzerland’s leading school consultancy. We support families in choosing the right public, private, international, or boarding school across the country. From workshops and one-to-one support to corporate partnerships, we’re here to help families make informed and confident decisions about schooling in Switzerland.

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Transcript

A Conversation with Barry Dequanne

 [00:00:00] 

Sandra: Hi everyone.

I'm Sandra Hueskes with Find My Swiss School, and today we have a very exciting episode of our podcast, Find My Swiss School Plus. I'm your co-host with...

Pascale: Pascale Baumgartner, the co-founder of Find My Swiss School.

Sandra: Today we're here with Barry Dequanne. 

Very nice to meet you Barry.

Barry: Lovely to be here with you. 

Sandra: Barry, is the director of ISZL, the International School of Zug and Luzern .

So Barry, Tell us a little bit about who you are.

Barry: Well I would start with, probably my most important role as a father. So we have two young children. We have a daughter that's eight. A son that's gonna turn five soon and they bring so much joy to me every day.

And I have loved the journey of seeing the world through their eyes and learning anew. So many things. Originally I'm from Canada. I grew up there in Northern Ontario. I studied to be in actuary. Moved to mathematical physics, computer science.

I [00:01:00] ended up going overseas with the Canadian government when I was quite young, and I was in Swaziland in Southern Africa, and I was working in education for a couple years. Loved it. And that was back in 1993, and I haven't returned. So I've been working in international education ever since.

Sandra: Yeah, I did look up your bio, of course. And see that you've been all over the world. You're in Brazil, Argentina, where else have you been?

Barry: Swaziland, lots of travel and of course Switzerland now.

Sandra: And how long have you been in Switzerland now? In total?

Barry: This is my ninth year at the school, so eight and a half years living in Switzerland.

Sandra: Wow, that's amazing. And you're also, I know, involved with some other organizations. There's the Swiss International School Association and the Association of the Advancement of International Education. So would you mind talking a little bit about what those are and your involvement there?

Barry: Yeah, I feel part of my role as a school leader is, in service. And I think it's important for me also to volunteer in different organizations, where we have aligned values with our school of my own. [00:02:00] And so both the organizations I'm working with currently, the Swiss group of international schools, we're about 53 international schools.

We're just trying to bring everyone together, foster, international learning, international education in this region. And then AAIE is a more global organization. We're about 500 member schools and I'm serving as the president of that board right now. It's really interesting to be on the other side of governance.

Working with an executive director. So I'm learning a lot and I'm working with some really great people, but also feel like, it's an opportunity for me to give back in more of an international setting beyond my own school. And then hopefully I bring back my own learning and to better support our own programs here.

Sandra: So you wear a lot of hats. In the world of education,

Barry: yeah, I do.

Sandra: It's very impressive.

Barry: I do. 

Sandra: Could you tell us a little bit about, the values and mission of ISZL, the International School of Zug and Luzern for the people who don't know?

Barry: So when we have our new family orientation, I put up our mission on the screen, and I ask, the families and the students there to pick out a phrase or word that really resonates with them.

And over the [00:03:00] years, it has continued to focus on one phrase to be a better kinder place to make the world a better kinder place or our corner of it. And we're really proud of that part of our mission. Education is really important and the vision that we have for our school is for students to take that learning and turn it into action and stretch themselves further than they thought possible in that whole process.

Our mission talks about us being a community of learners, not just the students, but all the adults too. So we run a lot of workshops at the school, to fulfill that part of our mission. That's part of the IB philosophy too. But it is ours as a community.

So we believe that, we can only best serve our students when we work in partnership with our parents. So we want our parents closely connected to the school. We want them on campus. We want them coming to our workshops. We want them partnering with our teachers. And so our mission really talks about that all of us working together as a community of learners to make the world or our corner of it a better kind of place.

Sandra: I did notice that it stood out to me when I was reviewing your [00:04:00] mission, actually, and I thought it quite powerful, especially today in the world we live in. One question I have for you, and because of course Pascale and I visit a lot of different schools, and I noticed that there's quite a strong parent community.

So what are some other endeavors that you do to build the community around the school? Because you are an international school here in Switzerland, which can be viewed sometimes as a bubble. So how do you bridge that connection a bit deeper into the Swiss community?

Barry: Yeah, it's a really important question. We don't want to be a bubble.

We've worked with the cantonal government and Cantonal schools very closely. To connect with them to make sure we're part of the community. We want to be the best international school we can be, but deeply integrated in local community.

And we do that in many different ways. Lots of our academic programs we're partnering with other schools. It could be through the arts. We had our students participating in several, music shows and working with other schools has been really incredible for our students and our parents have come and they've been able to connect with local communities through that process, through sports, of course.

[00:05:00] And in other areas such as, just trying to live our best life in the Swiss environment. So what does that mean?

We're out in nature a lot. We have a really strong outdoor learning program. And in that we see some feedback from the Swiss that they appreciate, that they see, that we're trying to make an effort to learn German and connect, through different programs.

So it's been really exciting. It's not an easy process. But it's something that we're being intentional about and we're getting a little bit better every day. The Canton even came back recently and said, we've noticed the difference and we appreciate it. And that was really nice feedback for us.

Sandra: Oh, that's fantastic. How many Swiss families do you have percentage wise here? I'm married to a Swiss man, so I'm sure there's many families like me who are straddling both worlds. But what, do you know what the percentage is off the director top of your head?

Barry: It's a bit tricky because of how they declare their passports.

Sandra: Mm-hmm.

Barry: But we, people declare their first passport of Swiss, we're probably seven, 8% right now. Taking another categories probably 12, 14%. It's been going up a little bit every year we've noticed, [00:06:00] interestingly.

And I think we're getting more families coming over around middle school where they don't want to get, put into a track too early.

And I'm not saying the Swiss system is better or worse, it's just different. And I admire the Swiss system. It's excellent. But some families, they want a bit of a different pathway for middle school and high school.

Sandra: We see that too, right Pascale?

Pascale: Yeah. The learning at an international school, you mentioned it, you learn in order to make a difference and as a team, so the teachers, the staff, the student and the family are one team, and that's a different culture that you might find in Swiss schools.

It's not better it's just a different kind of mindset in terms of learning. So what is an IB all about and, what are the criteria or the core values of an IB?

Barry: So we're an IB school all the way through .

Pascale: Yep.

Barry: Primary years program is called Middle Years Program. And then the, IB diploma program. The IB philosophy just talks about us, being curious, going forward with [00:07:00] values and ethics, being sensitive to the environment, being sensitive to other cultures, intercultural competencies, but really pursuing this idea of inquiry.

Asking questions, thinking deeply about concepts rather than trying to memorize. Facts are important. Information is important. Skills are important.

Pascale: Mm-hmm.

Barry: But the IB also really promotes this idea of inquiry, understanding concepts, interconnecting the different disciplines, and seeing the complexity of the complex systems of the world and how they all work together.

And I really appreciate that about the IB.

I find our students that come back to us after they've gone to university, they feel like they're extremely well prepared. Because there's independent research, there's lots of presentation skills that are involved.

And I'll digress for a moment.

We hosted, an international AI conference a couple weekends ago at the school. It wasn't focused on the kids. We had speakers come from all over the world. 300 people were here. It was incredible. We had 40 well-known AI experts on panels.

In [00:08:00] every one of the panels we had students. Middle school and high school students participating in these panels. And everyone was, incredibly impressed by how articulate our students were, how thoughtful, how well they spoke in public.

And the next day on Monday, I came back to school and I went to watch middle school students doing a theatrical production for an audience of students and parents, and then we saw the primary school students running an assembly.

And it, that's not by accident. It's intentional all the way through our school that we have students, presenting their learning, speaking in public, not being afraid to engage with others, to ask questions, and when I see them stand on a stage with AI experts, as a grade nine or 10 students, it just makes me really proud.

And I come back to the IB now. It's not only about studying a subject, it's actually able to engage in deep reflective processes and apply it in different ways in different areas. So that's how I would answer that question.

Sandra: I love that you held that panel. That's been a topic that's been [00:09:00] hot in the education world. I'm curious, what were some key takeaways from the, AI discussion in terms of, I guess probably career, what we're preparing students for, how to integrate it into education. I think those are hot topics.

Barry: So imagine a panel of, there's eight internationally recognized AI experts from researchers, entrepreneurs on the stage. And we have two of our students. And one of the students asked, the whole group said, I'm about to graduate. I'm worried that AI's gonna take my job. I'm not gonna have employment opportunities.

There was an uncomfortable silence on the stage.

Pascale: Mm-hmm.

Barry: And then the moderator, I thought it was a brilliant thing he said.

We have to have the courage to ask these questions. We have to think about the future in this context. We can't just go forward accepting this and becoming lazy and cognitive offloading with AI.

We cannot lose our humanity in this process. We have technology to support our humanity, not replace us, not diminish us. That was the big [00:10:00] takeaway from the conference. We need to have technology and AI augment and support us to be better humans not take away our critical thinking in particular.

Pascale: Coming back to the IB talking about skills and developing personalities, even AI will have an impact on how to study, how to educate students. And, school is one thing, but universities will have to think about how to change their way of teaching, also of testing with AI or writing papers.

That's a very interesting development because, you have to move away from learning by heart, reproducing, and changing your mindset and asking the questions and use that resource to deliver a content in a different way.

Barry: We're really fortunate.

We have a internationally renowned, AI researcher in our community. Dr. Michael Gerlich done some work with us as a staff around cognitive offloading. It's the biggest risk to us. I see just becoming lazy, especially with the younger children, if they're not thinking, constructing their critical thinking

in an appropriate way. [00:11:00] They're actually not developing those skills and actually those brain connections. So it is a worry. It is a tool that's really important. We need to learn how to use it properly. And my learning in this journey, I'm still learning as I have a lot to learn, but I'll give an example actually, this is the best way to do it.

There was a study done, where the question was, is democracy good or bad?

And there was a group of people that just did that without any resources of technology. It was a good response.

Then AI just did a response alone. It wasn't much different from what people did without technology.

But then the third group, they constructed and scaffolded the different types of questions to guide and think deeply in a direction.

Pull it back, reconstruct, challenge the thinking, debated. So the technology actually resulted with a much better response, and there was the power in it. Think about how you're gonna construct a thinking around this. Use AI to challenge and push us to think more deeply and we'll have a more, powerful, more impactful response.

Pascale: And that's about critical thinking.[00:12:00] 

Barry: It's all about critical thinking.

Sandra: Do you think the Swiss system teaches critical thinking in that way?

Pascale: They try to put it into the national curriculum, but it's a Swiss approach. It's all in there. But the responsibility to implement it lies with the teachers as it does all over the world. And I think some teachers are better at it than others, but in general, it's not really fostering skills. My son was at an international school. They were not only talking about academics, but about developing skills. And that's why we put our son into an international school, into an IB school. And about 10 years later, the Swiss curriculum discovered skills and started to implement it. They try hard, but not where I personally would prefer them to be.

Sandra: I think the IB does it very well.

Barry, I noticed that you wrote a really lovely blog post, about a trip that your students took to the Himalayas. Would you mind talking about that?

I thought it was a wonderful, story that you told, and I will post the link in with this as well. It [00:13:00] was a personal development project week. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Barry: Well, first of all, thanks for reading it. You just built up my ego. I'm getting pretty good right now.

Again, this goes with the idea of experiential learning, right? The classroom is not just in the school building, it's everywhere. And we should embrace that, especially in Switzerland, we have so many opportunities. So we run, personal development weeks, we call them.

This year I think we had about 600 students traveling at the same time. Middle school and high school, all over Europe and different parts of the world. I had the privilege of accompanying a group of students to the Himalayas. We have a strong connection up there. It's not a trip for everyone.

We had 19 students there. It was, some altitude adjustment, I'll say. Some food challenges perhaps. And then we camped at 4,000 meters in the middle of nowhere. There was no, cell phone access, nothing. And it was such a magical moment with those students, you see them in a different context, but you also see their own development and resilience in those moments.

At the beginning of the trip they were talking about, that we're here to help the local communities [00:14:00] and they were quite clear to state. We're actually here to empower each other. We have technologies around solar power, about rocket stoves. We're going to go into communities, we're gonna learn more than you can imagine from them.

And we're hopefully gonna be able to support them too in getting these up and running. And that's exactly what it was. It was such a deep learning experience for all of us. It was profound for me at how unforgiving the mountains were. And at the same time how kind everyone was. The kindness of the people.

It was striking. And when I wrote in the blog, it felt like there was a relationship between the harder the climate, the more the kind of people are. And that was one of our big takeaways, and that went right back to our mission to make the world a better kinder place. To put ourselves in those challenging, uncomfortable situations is where a lot of learning happens.

Sandra: I thought that was really profound when I read that about the learning outside the classroom. So thank you for sharing that.

We were talking Pascale, about some of the shifts in Swiss universities in terms of diplomas.

Pascale: We get a [00:15:00] lot of questions from parents when they look at different diploma tracks of what's happening after school. Would that kind of diploma get my child into X, Y, Z universities?

So the IB in connection or in relation to the Swiss universities, can students with an IB study at Swiss universities and what are the criteria and how popular is it?

Barry: Yeah. An important question. And I'm glad you're bringing this up. We've noticed a clear shift with us. So if I look at our top five destinations for university, number one's the UK right now, number two's in Netherlands, number three, Switzerland.

Number five is the United States. Number four might surprise you. Gap year.

We've seen more and more students take gap years, and I'll tell you what I love about this. They're not taking gap years just to go surfing. They're taking gap years because from the IB or from their personal development week, or from their sustainability projects or whatever they're leading, they want to continue that work or partnership with our local corporates or the government. We're seeing them continue this for a [00:16:00] year.

We had a student, doing a sustainability project. He was accepted into Harvard and deferred for a year. He started this not-for-profit company, with some advisors from the PDW trips from the World Economic Forum 'cause we have this big event at the School Youth Forum, Switzerland, and they all came together to support him on this.

And now he's at Harvard and this continues to be a high priority for him. So he's aligned to studies with that. So we're seeing a lot of those things happen and I appreciate how kids are growing from those experiences, not just taking a year off to do nothing.

They're really intentional about it.

For the Swiss specifically to your question, some programs that require German. That's just a fact. And we have students going to ETH. Other places that require German.

A lot of universities don't require German, and IB is a really strong program for them to get accepted. German is the key factor. But in general, our kids are getting into, really good universities in Switzerland and being really successful.

Pascale: That's good to hear because we also are getting a lot of requests from parents because they are worried about the tuition they have to pay for [00:17:00] private, international universities.

That seems to be a rising concern with parents and Swiss universities are in a clear, advantageous position 'cause they have low tuition . Some of the universities are really, top notch.

Sandra: And there's also a safety, element I hear from a lot of our international clients, that Switzerland is becoming very appealing because of safety.

Pascale: It starts with the toddlers or the kindergarten kids walking to school and having these independence as well and parents not to worry about. Although I have to say Swiss universities don't really have this campus feeling you find with international universities. 

We learned that, that you explicitly decided to run a monolingual program.

Barry: Mm-hmm.

Pascale: Multilingual programs are the thing in Switzerland because it's a country of four different languages.

Three are compulsory at school in Switzerland. So I'm wondering what were the criteria or 

the idea behind you deciding we are monolingual.

Barry: Well, we really value languages. And so we have 25 mother tongue [00:18:00] after school programs to support mother tongue language learning. Of course we also have our German program that goes all the way through the school to learn German and other languages too in French and Spanish, et cetera. But, we also look at the role we play in Canton Zug, and we've talked to the government about this and what their needs are.

We're a not-for-profit school. We don't have an owner. We're here to serve Canton Zug and surrounding cantons. And the best way we can serve them is to make sure that we're being the best school we can for a certain profile of families. Most of those families are looking for, an IB international education, and we really focus on our program and do it exceptionally well. That's the intent.

We could offer a bilingual program, never ruling that out in the future, but right now we don't feel the need. There's not a demand for it. The Swiss educational program in Canton, Zug is excellent and we have some international families that choose that pathway.

They want German as the fundamental language in their schooling. They want to be more integrated in the community, and [00:19:00] that's a good choice for them.

And other families they want English as a language of instruction, international profile of a school and that's what we're offering to them.

So I guess the short answer is we just want to keep things simple and be the best we can at that.

Sandra: There are a lot of other programs switching to a bilingual early year program and you see parents looking for one thing and I think it's very clear what you are.

What's your big challenges and opportunities as an education leader for the school, in the bigger picture for the next five, 10 years?

What do you see as some of those challenges and opportunities?

Barry: Yeah, I would say one in the same, the challenges and opportunities. I see the world really, shifting, right now. I see a lot of conflict. We all do. When I asked families to identify a phrase or word in our mission, the first time I seen it this year, we had 150 people in the theater, and several people stood up and said Kindness, and the second person was gonna identify something different.

They said, Barry, I'm gonna go with kindness again. And five or six people in a row, that was the only word [00:20:00] they picked out kindness, I thought, huh?

So I think we have an obligation as an organization to ensure that we're offering the best educational program we can. Grades are important. We need to make sure doors are open for kids to go where they need to go, but we also want them to be really good people, good citizens.

Again, going back to our mission to make the world a better kinder place. Part of that journey is knowing themselves well. You cannot have deep empathy for others if you don't know yourself well. We recognize that as not an easy task. But from the early years, there's a lot of exploration of where we come from, who we are, and understanding our journeys.

And then also, the intercultural, competency of understanding others and other cultures and having that empathy. I think that's, something that's really important for me. Related to that, I'm really concerned around technology, social media influence of young children in particular? I was listening to a podcast the other day around, when something is introduced and there's a lag time before realizing that it's not good [00:21:00] for society.

So smoking was about a 20, 25 year period, and there's been other things similar to that. Cell phones. We're at about a 20 year period right now, and I've seen a significant shift from just a few years ago where everyone says, more technology. Now we're seeing a push of no cell phones in school, and I think we're recognizing that young kids shouldn't be exposed to that kind of manipulation .

So I really worry about that and people developing the social emotional skills, reading body language, able to resolve conflict, have honest conversations, know thyself in the process. We're leaning a lot into the social emotional aspects of school.

We're about to hire an elevated position at the school leadership role for social emotional student support services.

Sandra: That's fantastic.

Barry: And we have a couple positions actually. 'cause we just, if students don't feel safe if they're not healthy physically, social, emotionally, spiritually learning is difficult.

Pascale: That's what we hear from a lot of schools, that the students suffering from anxiety is rising. That's probably also related to technology [00:22:00] and social media. We see the shift also talking about Swiss schools. They were not technology driven at all. Then all of a sudden they were, and now they are black and white, no cell phones, no nothing. Back to the more conservative classical approach learning.

Sandra: I mean, I think Jonathan Haidt book has-.

Barry: Anxious about generation,

Sandra: Anxious Generation.

It's fantastic. Great book.

And, I think Switzerland has not put forward any laws yet to ban social media.

Pascale: They are reluctant. Switzerland is very liberal.

And it's the mentality, it takes a long time before they really block something because, I give you an example. The Swiss way of thinking is, instead of putting a law, we try to explain to people what's best for them, and then count on their responsibility.

Helmet on a bike, everyone, or almost everyone wears a helmet, riding a bike. There is no law that you have to wear a helmet. So it's voluntary. People see, yeah, it's doing good. I do it. And then the acceptance rate is much higher.[00:23:00] 

And that connecting to whether we should have strict laws like Australia. We try to educate and are reluctant to put clear legal boundaries. But they are talking it, about it. It's in progress. We are always connected to the EU, so we are always looking, what is the you doing?

Sandra: But there's also a movement I see, with, young adults and older teenagers teaching people why they should take a responsibility for your own mental health against these platforms.

I think it's really exciting what's happening,

Pascale: Also looking at my son and his generation, there are a couple of friends, they are not on social media. They feel like we don't want to be exposed there. And very kind of awareness and they really live it. And they say, you need to call me if you want to reach me.

And they're socially, fully integrated. And that speaks for the young generation being a critical thinker. And I liked what you said, it's great at the international school is this not only skill development, but you develop personalities.

You look at student as a whole. [00:24:00] It's who do you want to be and what are your strentghs and where can we help you to develop further?

I think that leads to a certain kind of leadership, especially the coming generation, we really need to have, because they have to deal with a lot of issues.

Barry: To find purpose. And once students have purpose.

Then the learning happens naturally. And then they're excited to make a difference. I will also add, this piece about anxiety. We've talked about, Anxious G eneration. We have an outdoor learning program that I'm incredibly proud of.

Our kids are outside all the time. And in the forest, just experiencing nature. And that's part of our classroom experience for students. I look at my own children, if we watch a bit of tv. Their disposition's a bit different than when we go for a walk with my dog and we're out in nature and they start telling me about what they've learned.

They're identifying plants. They see a bit of rubbish that's, they're upset about that, who's polluting the area, and they're just carefree and they're connecting with each other. I think is really important. Just getting out in [00:25:00] nature and experiencing.

Pascale: And Switzerland is an outdoor nation. You drive outside of Zurich for 10 minutes and you hit on the first cow whether you want or not.

Sandra: For listeners who don't know, you have two campuses.

Do you wanna tell everyone a little bit about how they're located? Because I think if I look out the window here, it's just beautiful.

Barry: So we actually have three campuses.

Sandra: Oh yes, you do. You have your, you have That's right. Your outdoor, I forgot about that.

Barry: We're tucked away in this forest.

It's an old building. It's been about 300 years. It's beautiful. A farm around us. So cows walk up to our kids literally, and goats are around it is unusual because we're a school, 1200 students. Quite a big school, but we're right in the middle of farm area.

I think that is so wonderful.

There are other campus are high schools in, Hünenberg near the lake. It's a bit more industrial, but it's also connected to a big farm field and a forest right next to us. We're surrounded by beauty in the mountains, and we have an outdoor learning center up in the mountains. Our kids use it all the time with our teachers and we use it for, workshops. We have a nurses' training center there, for example, but our [00:26:00] kids go up there for a music retreat for three days. And they practice up there, but everyone just comes back refreshed and different.

'Cause there's no car access up there, only by train. It's just a magical place.

Sandra: I wanna go.

I would love to ask if you have any thoughts you would like to leave as an educator or as a parent? 

Barry: I do have, three things that are really, important to me.

First and foremost, learning is relational and, it's a social endeavor at the end of the day.

We need the parents as partners, teachers working together and students and everyone learning together. It's one of our priorities in terms of our strategic objectives. Accountability for learning. We're all accountable for our own learning and everyone else is learning on campus. And that's a culture that I really appreciate.

Second, I think with the world changing, it's more and more important that, children have a high level of curiosity, engagement with the world around them. Want to make a difference, and resilience in built into that. I think it's really important, for them to fight for what they want and what they believe in, and to give them the skills and the tools to do [00:27:00] that.

 And again, it comes back to know yourself, what you value and what you're willing to stand up for.

I'll end with the idea that education is a shared endeavor. Schools do not do this work alone. We would not be nearly as effective if we didn't partner with our parents and our local community.

It really enhances the learning experience for everyone and not just in Switzerland, but around the world. And that's why I do serve on boards and try to get involved as much as I can in organizations that go beyond our local areas.

Sandra: Well thank you for that. And of course if you have any, books that you like to recommend, feel free, to let us know and we can put them on a resource list if people would like to check them out.

Pascale, any closing thoughts to add?

Pascale: No, I see myself smiling. I'm very happy to talk to you and really feel confirmed in what my understanding of an international education and an IB program, it makes a difference. 

Barry: And I know maybe I'll end on that. I think this idea of curiosity, inquiry. That is fundamental to everything, we need to be curious about the world, but we also need to be curious about others.[00:28:00] 

And that really leads us to, helping make the world a better kinder place.

I'll end on that note.

Sandra: That's a beautiful ending.

Thank you, Barry.

Thank you very much for your time today.

It's been a real pleasure to chat with you, on this beautiful sunny winters day out there. So, thank you for your time.

Barry: Thank you. It's been fun.

It was a pleasure.