Be it on the 'red eye' returning from an alumni event, or on a multi-city journey visiting SYA schools in Europe or Asia, President Jack Creeden journals his thoughts while accumulating skymiles. Check in regularly to catch up on SYA news and the president's views, from 30,000 feet.
June 1, 2013
Welcome Home, Class of 2013
Although the curriculum, faculty, language and culture are different in each of our schools, the common denominator for the last 48 years has been the undeniably intellectual and social-emotional growth SYA students experience. It simply cannot be matched by staying home.
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May 15, 2013
Be Prepared for the Unexpected
So once again SYA students and faculty demonstrate why this is no ordinary year of study. Language fluency and cultural proficiency are to be expected. But with the Independent Learning Project, our students are asked to complete a research project unlike any other academic requirement they have faced before and, frankly, one that is significantly different and more challenging than any assignment they will face at their schools back home.
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April 15, 2013
Alongside the River Ebro
In the last decade all of us in education have learned that technology can enhance learning, but that it never replaces the knowledge, experience and wisdom of classroom teachers. But the master teachers I know have adopted technology to make their very good teaching even better.
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March 14, 2013
Much More Than Providing a Hot Meal, Host Families are the Heart of SYA
Host families are the primary conduits through which SYA students are immersed in the local culture. Alumni repeatedly testify to the high quality of the classroom teaching. But they are quick to tell me that they learned the most about the culture because they lived for nine months as part of a local family. It’s the purest form of experiential learning, and the best.
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February 27, 2013
Curious Students Seeking Self-Discovery: The SYA Common Denominator
We are confident that the value-added components, for which there are no College Board tests but that last a lifetime, will remain at the core of our curriculum. Read more
January 24, 2013
Beyond Standardized Test Scores
I’m on United 120 headed to Spain from Newark. This is my first trip overseas this academic year. I only traveled in the States this fall because I was working on the strategic plan with our trustees, alumni, Resident Directors and senior staff. Now that the plan is done, my task is to join with faculty and students at our schools to discuss how best to implement the initiatives the plan describes. Look for more information on the complete plan shortly. Read more
December 11, 2012
Success Through Failure
I'm on United 1578 headed to Boston. I've been in Texas this week meeting with alumni and visiting schools in Dallas, San Antonio and Houston. It's been a busy few days, but the feedback I collect from alumni and from heads of sending schools is a reality check for us as we plan for the future.
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November 16, 2012
Students and the Presidential Election
I was on Jet Blue 690 - Washington to Boston - the weekend after the national election. I was in town to visit Member Schools and meet with alumni. To tell the truth, I admit to being just a bit excited having been in our nation's capital while we were electing our next President. Yes, I still believe in the political system and all its possibilities.
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October 17, 2012
The Journey Begins for SYA Class of 2013
“The script is not yet written” for the text that will describe the academic and personal journeys our students will undertake this year. In many ways that’s the ultimate promise of an SYA education, that we will provide an opportunity for a student to truly write his or her own history for the next nine months.
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September 14, 2012
The Promise of Unexpected Possibilities
The Monday before Labor Day we started the departure process with our SYA China students, who left from San Francisco. Over the course of the next two weeks, SYA students headed to Italy and Spain. Now with the France departure, we know that the Class of 2013 is launched on what our more than 7,000 alumni tell us will be a life changing experience.
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May 17, 2012
APs or Study Abroad? SYA Students Do Both
SYA students, like their peers back home, sit for APs and do well, especially in mathematics and as one would expect world languages. SYA students who are juniors naturally include their AP scores in their college applications. And as the SYA College Profile demonstrates our students are admitted to many of the most selective colleges and universities in the country.
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April 6, 2012
Cycles
There’s certain symmetry to what we do at School Year Abroad, and although we’re just a one-year program, we operate like all schools do according to a fairly predictable cycle. Students arrive unsure of themselves, their living arrangements for a year and, most anxiety producing, their ability to communicate. Nine months later they are completely different individuals, confident that they can function and prosper outside their own culture with individuals they have only recently met.
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March 16, 2012
March Madness
One of the most enjoyable responsibilities I have as President is to travel across the United States and the world to meet SYA graduates. When I was in Beijing in October, we held a marvelous reception for 25 former students. On April 3 we will once again have the good fortune to host a reception in Paris at the residence of the American Ambassador to France, the Honorable Charles H. Rivkin FR’79. Last fall and this winter I’ve met alumni in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland. I’ll be in Washington, D.C., Richmond and Chicago later this spring. I always learn something new about SYA when I am on the road meeting our graduates.
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January 29, 2012
Language, Politics, Poetry and a Home-Cooked Meal
It’s late Friday afternoon, January 27th and I’m sitting at Dulles Airport in Washington. I just got off a flight from Paris after spending the last 10 days at our schools in Rennes and Viterbo. I’m pleased to report that students and faculty are hard at work at both schools. Language proficiency is increasing at a rapid speed at this point in the year. Host families and our students have settled into a very familiar routine and it seems quite normal now for our students to refer to their residence in Italy or France as “home.” I had dinner with students and their host families in both cities and the mutual warmth and affection were obvious. All that has characterized SYA for the last 48 years is in place. We remain the leader in providing an outstanding academic and experiential learning opportunity for high school students overseas.
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January 9, 2012
Arrivederci and Au Revoir!
It’s Monday afternoon and I’m at Newark Airport on the way to visit our schools in France and Italy. Across the globe SYA is back in session and faculty and students alike have returned to classes with energy and enthusiasm that accompanies the New Year. Some behaviors cut across geographic and cultural boundaries! It’s often at this time of the year that students begin to fully appreciate the benefits of the SYA immersion experience. Their very real and frustrating struggles during the first few months in country are forgotten. Instead, there is increased fluency, and a confident capability to express oneself in class, at home and throughout the country.
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December 3, 2011
Back from Zaragoza
I’ve sat in on dozens of high school politics courses, but it was not until this week that I heard American high school students discussing Rousseau’s 18th-century political philosophy of sovereignty, civil society and government completely in Spanish. I’ve observed art history courses that review the Islamic influence on architecture in southern Europe, but last week I listened as SYA students described in Spanish the chief characteristics of that style and period. And most students in the U.S. who take European history are familiar with the circumstances in Spain that defined the Franco regime at the outset of World War II, but I have never heard American students debate the relative merits of those issues in fluent Spanish.
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October 18, 2011
Through Challenge Comes Growth
This is the point at all schools when students must adjust to the reality that hard work and persistence will be required for success both within and outside the classroom. The casual and carefree orientation programs are finished. Now there are tasks to be completed and lessons to be learned.
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September 17, 2011
Reflections on September 11, 2001
As an educator, I believe I have a responsibility to help our society move forward from September 11. I do that by encouraging students not just to study differences among people and traditions, a form of cognitive cultural immersion, but also to experience firsthand what those differences may be.
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September 5, 2011
Integration of Past with Present to Secure the Future
I’m writing this letter on the way to San Francisco to assist with the departure of our students headed to China for the year. Last week we successfully launched our students who will study in Vietnam. And we had incredibly good fortune a few weeks ago to have SYA Italy students depart from Boston just hours before Hurricane Irene hammered New England and shut down the airport for several days. Good planning accompanied by a healthy dose of luck is a hard combination to beat.
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