Interview by Carol Gipson, Managing Director

 

Carol: Dominic, lately we’ve heard a lot about the integration of expats into the local Swiss community. The children and their families are very well taken care of in the international schools here. It sometimes seems that because their needs are being met so well, it’s not necessary for these expats to venture outside of the school. After living here for awhile, do the ISZL families start to get curious about other organizations in the area, and start thinking about getting to know the local Swiss community? What does ISZL do to promote integration in Swiss society?

Dominic: As a high quality international school, you try to provide a good quality of life for everyone in the community, kids and parents included. But there is only so far you can go. I think for those who are traditionally here for only two to three years, that’s as much as you need to provide. The families may be going off to Rio, or Johannesburg, or somewhere else afterwards. But for those who are here longer - we’ve got to find ways of helping them integrate. My own kids played football in local football teams, which was their way of integrating - and we encouraged them to do that. As a school, we have got to help our families reach out and be part of the community.

Carol: I recently spoke to a long-term expat who said she felt that her child - who was playing football in the local team - felt excluded from the group. She even felt that she, as a parent, had been excluded from the parents’ group who were connected to the local team.

Dominic: I don’t know why that is. That was the experience in all of the teams my kids played for as well. I don’t know if that’s because of the demographics of Switzerland: 25% of the local Swiss community are expats. Perhaps it makes the Swiss more conscious of preserving their own identity and cultural values. Not that they view foreigners with suspicion or animosity, but they are viewed within a certain context, which is a threatening context to some extent. They are already a fairly formal society: wonderful people with wonderful cultural traditions, but I think they may see a threat to that society – a gradual erosion of traditions. Not just with the affluent expat society, but with the increasing refugee community.

Carol:  Perhaps some cultural training has to take place.

Dominic: Yes, you need to change the lens with which your view your part in the Swiss culture. And we have to take the rough with the smooth. All the wonderful things about being in this country – the outdoor lifestyle, the safety and security, the centrality in Europe – the nice lifestyle you’re afforded while you’re here - you can’t expect to have your cake and eat it too! You can’t expect to bring British or American culture with you too, and expect all of the same social norms to apply.

Carol: Do you provide any cross-cultural training to your expat families?

Dominic: It’s hard enough to provide education for the kids, much less cross-cultural training for the parents at the same time, although I would love to. Maybe three or four years from now when we have our parents’ education program off the ground, we could help people focus on that. We have to ask ourselves how much we can be expected to do. We provide education to the kids, and that’s the primary reason we’re here. We provide kids with a place where they can feel comfortable, adjusted, and socialized. In order to make those adjustments, they need to become part of the international community and make their friends. Kids are better adjusted when they have friends. We’re beginning this year to provide an enrichment program for parents after school. So for example, after school, we’ll be offering German, English, art, photography, and so forth for parents.

Carol: I’ve personally been part of several international clubs and I’ve been surprised at how rarely these groups cross paths – with each other and with Swiss locals. Many Swiss are really interested in knowing international people, and they’ve got incredible resources to offer.  That’s a responsibility for our international organizations too – to start educating and reaching out more.

Dominic: We’ve had so many wonderful people in our community who can offer so much to each other, particularly those who have been here slightly longer who can help them acclimatize, adjust and integrate if possible. You will always have a significant proportion of the expat community who don’t want to be here! Or who want this to be America, but with mountains and lakes, or Thailand with mountains and lakes. And that’s one of the difficult jobs we have as an international school. By default, we have over 50 different nationalities in the school. So that’s 50 different perceptions of what constitutes a high-quality education from different national standpoints – private, public, religiously-based – in all of those contexts. So we’re never going to please people all the time. And that’s just the way of things.

Carol: I spoke with Michaela Seeger, your Development Director, about the school’s expansion plans and the fundraising that goes along with that. What is your vision now, for this merged school – and how does it fit into the local community? What do you see changing in the Zug and Luzern area?

Dominic:  The short answer is that we want to be one of, if not THE best international school in the world. And to provide the parents, who are justifiably ambitious for their children, with the kind of education for the students that they deserve if they are going to go on to become global leaders for the future. We’ve really had to craft a vision for what we want to achieve in a community that is expanding and growing. The predictions for growth in terms of economic capacity over the next few years in Zug alone are significant. One of the major things to focus on is hiring and maintaining excellence. And when parents are asked, “What makes the biggest difference to the child’s education?” they will say, “The teacher.”

Carol: Yes, if you think about your own childhood, there were always a few teachers who really stood out and had a huge influence on you.

Dominic: Without a shadow of a doubt. My board agrees, so I spend a good part of the year recruiting teachers who I think will make a significant contribution towards the school. I think hiring and training outstanding teachers who have a track record of excellence, good experience, who are committed to kids – it’s important to hire teachers who don’t just come to teach art, to teach English, to teach a curriculum, but who come to teach KIDS – there is a subtle but important difference.

Everything comes with a context. In the context of our international environment we need to provide kids with a caring and supportive instruction environment in which they feel comfortable and nurtured. As they move through our system, we cater to their needs on a social and emotional level as well as on an academic level. They form relationships with us and each other, and when they’re comfortable with their relationships they’re going to be more at ease with their learning and with themselves. So the programs we provide in a curricular and after-school sense are important, and certainly facilities have to be considered. But frankly, you could have the best teachers in the world in a cardboard box, and they could do a fantastic job, and you could have the worst teachers in the world in the best facilities in the world, and they would do a poor job. So the teachers have to come first. But if we have fantastic teachers in a fantastic facility – we have the best of all worlds.

We do focus on the people who are in the building, but we also must focus on the programs that the buildings hold, and of course on the facility itself. Obviously, resources are something we have to improve and work on, as we move into a more technological age. We need to provide opportunities to use computers and the internet, electronic whiteboards, to have laptop programs for the kids, so that they can communicate as effectively as possible. We have to really evaluate our curriculum too, to consider what an appropriate learning experience will be for kids as they move into the twenty-first century. Is it the traditional biology, physics, maths and English that have been taught for the last 200 years? Or do we really need to re-define education in this context? Do we need to engage students in the process of education, teamwork, all of those things?

Carol: What do you think is important locally, and for international education in general?

Dominic: I think the same things apply locally and internationally. We’re an increasingly small world and I think that the major issues for our planet are global issues in terms of economy. The kids in international school are decreasingly subject to the bias of national prejudice, which they’ve been subject to in other countries…and so we’re well-placed to provide kids with an opportunity for intercultural dialogue. For example, how to look at a variety of different situations in different ways, and to give them research skills so that they can ask the questions and then find the answers and interpret people’s opinions appropriately.

I think that’s the basis for the “skills-based” curriculum that we concentrate on. And that’s just as valid for a local experience in Zug national schools as for an international school. Regardless of where kids are going to school, the traditional disciplines are perhaps not the best vehicle for delivering an effective education in the future, but one which has served very well until now. I’m not saying that we should throw the baby out with the bath water, either, but I’m saying that we should re-evaluate, look at what we’re doing and see how we can combine the best of the past, with what is necessary for the future, in order to give our kids here the most well-informed way of approaching a global partnership.

Carol: So it’s not really avoiding a content-focus as much as trying to embrace a critical thinking skills approach, in any discipline…to train young people to think analytically.

Dominic: Yes, and that has to take place within the context of a set of things that you know and understand: we’re not going to throw knowledge out the window. You still have to learn and know and understand what goes on in the world around you. We’re not throwing biology out the window, we’re not saying you don’t need to study history…  I think there are issues that are relevant to discuss, for example, the relevance of the birth of the United Nations as an organization, how we have resolved conflict in the past and how we can do so in the future. We can draw on elements of history and geography in order to do that. Look at the map of Africa and how it was created: a bunch of British geographers drew a straight line to define where Libya and Chad would be, and rode completely roughshod over cultural differences and tribal inequities.  So to define how we view the world outside of the context of history is dangerous, at best...

We want to provide our students with the opportunity to think about the future within the context of the past, internationally: the way it’s been shaped economically, historically, geographically. We want to introduce kids to the range of styles in inference and communication… For example, understanding that in the Chinese language there are six ways of saying “yes” – each of which has a different context. We need to be aware of that – those cultural differences are important.

We still need to take into account the disciplines. Disciplines were created to offer discrete areas which would refine learning and allow us to specialize... There is no way someone will become a biochemist without studying biochemistry, and the same for physics and mathematics. These subjects exist for a reason – and will continue, but how can we modify and refine and add to what they’re doing, in order to give kids a broader perspective and an historical understanding? But do we all need to be studying Shakespeare? Sure, we need some exposure to Shakespeare, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of literature in education! There is wonderful literature that comes out of Southeast Asia, Africa, South America. That exposure to global cultural perspectives is something we are uniquely pursuing in international schools, and something that should and will also filter into national education systems.

Carol: I’ve heard several different perspectives on the local economy.  One is that we haven’t yet seen the effects of the recession, because we’re insulated in Switzerland - for a number of reasons. The other perspective is that the Zug/Central Switzerland area just won’t ever be as affected by the downturn, because we’re not tied here to the banking industry. Do you think that your expansion plans for the next few years will have to be modified because we haven’t hit the real recession yet?

Dominic: There’s a really easy answer to that: No. I absolutely don’t think so at all, and I think my board is behind me on this. I think we should be cautiously optimistic, I think that’s the approach the school will be taking, over the coming two to three years. I’ve prepared a budget this year based on zero growth, or potentially some decline in student numbers, but we’ve grown by over two percent in terms of student numbers this year.

Carol: How does that translate into the number of families who will be coming in to ISZL this year?

Dominic: We have a thousand students in the school, so we have 20 new kids, so potentially that means 10 to 15 families. There are actually more people coming, so the predictions of gloom and doom that were proffered this time last year haven’t come to pass. I think that Switzerland is insulated to some extent; in times of hardship people invest in areas that are traditionally stable and secure, and Switzerland has a reputation for security and stability.

We have here in Zug a unique situation even in Switzerland, in regards not only to the tax and infrastructure but also an extremely supportive and proactive economic promotion and development department who are wonderful people to work with. So Zug, on a political level, is doing exactly the right things. I see no decline in student population. We see only potential expansion of the school and our biggest problem is to decide as a school, “How big is too big?” At what stage do we cease to be a school and become an institution? That’s something we don’t want to happen.

Carol: I spoke to Dr. Hans Marti of Zug Economic Promotion – and I think he said essentially the same thing. He didn’t see a big potential drop in the number of employers in the area. Perhaps not as many arriving as in the past few years, but he foresaw a stable pattern for the next couple of years.

Dominic:  I absolutely agree. I would even go so far as to say that’s conservative. One of the other advantages of being here in Switzerland is that we have the infrastructure and tax structure that’s not evident elsewhere. People may choose to relocate here because of that security, so we may actually see an increase in employees here. You look at Britain, right now for example, in terms of its highly paid hedge fund managers…they’re now taxing people to the extent that people are saying, “We’re moving, and we’re going to Switzerland.”

Carol: I spoke to someone recently at the Expat Expo in Zurich who told me, “In London, I’m about to be taxed at 60 percent – and I’m here because I’m thinking about bringing my business to Zug.”

Dominic:  Absolutely, and the tax reforms in the U.S. with Obama reaching out to look for more sources of revenues – how is that going to affect people who are registered in the Bahamas and places like that? They may consider relocating to Zug. Who knows where people are going to come from or why, but they’re coming! And not to mention the ones who are already here. The majority of companies are invested in petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, biological engineering – they’re not doing badly and they’re actually expanding their operations.

Carol: Dominic, what else would you like people to know about ISZL and what’s happening in the coming year?

Dominic: We are here to serve the international community; we’re here so expat families can come across, so working parents can continue to do an excellent job with the companies where they’re working, and don’t have to split up - they can keep families together. Because we’re aiming to fulfill our mission of serving the international community, we have to find more space. In order to do that, we’re going through building projects. We’re a not-for-profit organization, we have no huge reserves of capital to put into these building projects. So community support at a personal level in terms of volunteers, and on the financial level in terms of helping to raise the capital for these facility improvements and developments, is absolutely critical for us to achieve our mission and serve the community.

We’re not building a school for me, or for the board, we’re building the school for our community and our kids, and it’s a great infrastructure and human resources investment for everyone concerned. If we want to achieve our ambitions for creating an international school which is a model of excellence the world over, to provide the kids here with suitable opportunities to become leaders of the future, we need “buy-in” from the corporations and the people who send kids to the school in order to help us achieve that mission.

Carol: In the best of all worlds, when people have been informed and educated about the community goals, people will come to you and offer their partnership.

Dominic: We don’t have a product that we’re trying to sell, this is a shared aim that we’re trying to achieve, and it’s very difficult for companies sometimes to see that - they’re seeing the bottom line. And they’re absolutely right, but our ambition and our challenge is to have people join us in that vision.

Carol: Now, on another topic – how can children who don’t have the resources of a company behind them pay for tuition to attend the school? Do you ever offer scholarships?

Dominic: We do and we will – this is a rather sensitive issue and a gray area. Generally speaking, we don’t provide scholarships for parents who might approach the school and say, “I can’t afford it but I want my child to attend your school” - unless it’s an exceptional circumstance. However, of course we are familiar with the fact that parents can lose jobs, or are suddenly forced into different financial circumstances than they were in a month before, and we’re not going to throw kids out of the school simply because that happens. We would like to avoid it, and so we have a fund so that parents can apply for financial aid. By the same token, we have to be very careful about how much of that we do, because the school is then supporting kids from its operational budget and we do have to run a fairly tight budget. The funds that we get have to be adequate to provide a top quality education.

Carol: I remember when I went to the University of Michigan, there were some scholarships for  local students who couldn’t afford the tuition. The school wanted some diversity and representation from the local population.

Dominic: We don’t have that issue to that extent, because we’re not here for local kids; we’re a school for the expat population, and generally speaking, people who come here have a reasonable salary package that supports their children’s education. But not all of our parents have a huge amount of money. and we have parents from lot of different categories in terms of what they earn. We have to be careful to send the message, though, that we are not a school for the Swiss. On a political level and in so many different ways, the Swiss have an outstanding public and private educational system. We’re no threat to it. We certainly don’t want the local community to feel that we’re a high quality, very expensive school for the rich, and then cream off the top echelons of Swiss community to come to our school.

We exist for the international expatriate community who are mobile, transient, and we do have some Swiss in our school. It may be a Swiss family who has lived in Tokyo for six years, and it’s not realistic for the kids to come back and re-integrate. Or perhaps mom’s Swiss, dad’s an American and they’ve chosen an international school for their kids. We do have some representation of Swiss in the school, but that’s another thing that we have to communicate clearly to the community here.

A lot of people in the community here envisage the school as an expatriate island of foreign kids, and to some extent we are, but we are here for a group of kids who are “third culture kids” – you’ve heard the term before. If you ask our kids in the corridors where they’re from, they say, “I don’t know - what do you mean? Where my dad is from? Where my passport is from? Where I was born?” They have no sense of national identity in the same sense other people might have, so we exist for those kids and that’s the reason why we’re here. These kids frequently rotate from country to country, from international school to international school, and their parents have three-year contracts and go from here to Beijing, to Rio, to Tokyo, and then to Washington, and then to Africa. They will find an international school in all of those places. They feel they’re going “home” to another school that offers a similar curriculum, a similar experience, shared values and that’s trying to achieve a similar mission in terms of its ambitions for its kids.

So our existence also supports the economic development of this region in that we are providing a system which the current cantonal and gemeinde facilities cannot – in order to serve a transient business community. And not only are we doing that, but we’re doing that at our own expense largely - at the expense of the companies who have fee-paying parents - and saving the cantons and gemeinde up to 15 million francs every year through our simple existence. That’s what it would cost for the kids to be educated in the local community, and don’t forget, the parents are paying tax, which theoretically in part would have gone to their education.

Carol: Dominic, I’ve learned a lot today. I hadn’t heard these issues so clearly articulated before. I think this will be very useful information for our community, and I thank you for the opportunity to communicate your vision of ISZL to the community in this issue of “Envisioning Zug”.