EDITORIAL: January 2025
Bamboo scaffolding
When I arrived to take up my first international teaching job in Hong Kong, like almost all new arrivals, I was astonished by the use of bamboo scaffolding to build some of the tallest buildings in the world. Cheap, light and resilient, bamboo is now also considered to be a green alternative to steel or aluminium.
One of the great things about living in a different culture is the way it challenges some very basic ideas you have assumed to be ‘true’ or ‘sensible’. In a new culture, these assumptions have to stand up to more rigorous questioning if they are going to retain their role as a lens through which to see the world.
The deep structures of a school
It’s the same with the way in which we perceive the needs of our schools.
Good schools are held together by deep and resilient structures such as values, policies, curriculum, communication systems and standard operating procedures which provide the scaffolding that help us achieve our goals and vision.
The danger comes when we neglect to question the deep structures of a school as the world changes around us. While not advocating changes in the overall direction of a school if it has been thoughtfully charted, the time will come when some of a school’s deepest structures designed to support it along the way will need a more complete reset.
Such a point is not lost on old Hong Kong hand, Mark Coggins. In his article, Darkest before dawn he suggests that schools in the UK independent sector have some deep structural thinking to do if they are going to prosper in an environment that is changing rapidly. Andrew Dalton and Ultan Bannon suggest that assumptions about recruitment and professional development in international schools should also be questioned, while Holly Warren recommends that now is the time to abandon the idea of ‘lifelong learning’ in favour of ‘lifelong playing’. Some of these ideas will undoubtedly find their way into the deep structures of many good schools. Some will not, but one thing is certain: if we wish our schools to flourish, we must be open-minded about what will strengthen them.
The future of bamboo scaffolding
Which brings us back to the Hong Kong skyline. While bamboo scaffolding is still widely used, its future may be in doubt, despite its more recently appreciated green credentials. It seems that fewer workers in Hong Kong are choosing to become scaffolders and their numbers are dwindling. A structural reset is going to be needed in the construction industry – either to phase out bamboo scaffolding or to incentivise more people to become scaffolders. Either way, a significant change is in the offing. Few things – even those that have met with real success – go on forever.
Wishing you a very Happy New Year.
