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Merit School of Music
I am grateful for lunch today with Charles Grode and Meredith Barber and for the chance to hear what’s ahead at Merit School of Music.
Merit’s mission is clear and urgently important: to transform the lives of Chicago-area youth by removing barriers to high-quality music education.
As a Merit alum and current board member, I’m proud to support and spotlight the school’s expanding reach and excellence across Chicagoland.
A few highlights worth celebrating and sharing:
Gala 2026 at the Four Seasons Hotel Chicago, Merit’s largest annual fundraiser, honoring Caroline and Charlie Huebner and D-Composed. The Huebners will receive the Alice S. Pfaelzer Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts, and D-Composed will receive the Merit School of Music Award for Citizen Artistry.
Congratulations to Merit students in the Phoenix String Quartet and Bone Rangers Trombone Quartet for major wins last weekend at both the MYA and Rembrandt chamber competitions.
An upcoming cello masterclass led by Klaus Mäkelä, CSO Zell Music Director Designate.
An open rehearsal with the Merit Philharmonic led by Enrique Mazzola, Music Director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, an extraordinary learning opportunity for young musicians.
I am proud of this work and of the students, faculty, families, and supporters who make it possible.
A Circle of Care
I’m grateful for the continued opportunity to collaborate with Sesame Workshop’s Rosemarie Truglio, PhD , most recently at the Hong Kong International School's Early Childhood Conference and again in Shanghai with Shanghai American School.
Across both engagements, we returned to a core idea we’ve built over years of shared work: belonging begins with dignity, and dignity is what allows play, curiosity, awe, inquiry, and collaboration to flourish. In our “Circle of Care” framing, the everyday moments across home, school, and community answer a child’s most important question: Do I matter here?
In Shanghai, we had the chance to work alongside parents as well as early childhood and lower school educators, exploring how belonging and well-being shape the way young children play, connect, and learn. Grounded in Sesame Street: Ready for School! and Sesame Workshop’s decades of research and learning design, our conversation translated evidence into practical, playful approaches that strengthen school readiness through ordinary routines: social-emotional skills, self-regulation, language, and early math.
Dr. Truglio and I first met nearly a decade ago when I delivered a keynote at the Wonderplay Conference at the 92nd Street Y. Since then, we’ve partnered through my work as Senior Content Advisor, helping shape content aligned to Sesame Workshop’s mission to help children everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder.
We look forward to continuing this work with international school communities around the world. If this resonates with the questions your community is holding, please feel free to reach out.
Inclusive Leadership Cohorts 2025-2026
We’ve concluded our final session for Cohorts 1 and 2 of the Inclusive Leadership Cohort, an applied, multi-year professional learning experience with educators and school leaders across Latin America.
Over three years (Cohort 1) and two years (Cohort 2), participants engaged in a structured sequence designed to strengthen inclusive leadership capacity and cultivate inclusive school communities grounded in dignity and respect.
At the core of the program were five interlocking components:
Intercultural introspection, including benchmarking and reflection using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI)
Anchor texts to establish shared conceptual frameworks and a common language for practice
PLC case study application to examine dilemmas of practice, surface assumptions, and test inclusive responses in context
Policy design and review to align values with institutional structures and decision-making
School-based action plans to translate learning into implementation through design, enactment, and iteration
Each year, our 2.5-day on-site sessions were hosted at International School of Panama, with deep appreciation to our gracious host, Dr. Audrey Menard, for her partnership and leadership. Throughout the year, participants convened their PLCs to review case studies in addition to attending virtual sessions.
To all participants: thank you for the graduate-course-level investment of time, intellectual engagement, and applied work, advancing from intention to the practices and policies that enable all students to thrive and flourish.
American School of Madrid
What does belonging actually look and feel like across a school community?
This question anchored my fourth visit to the American School of Madrid in January. I’m grateful to ASM for the continued partnership as we work toward an inclusive culture grounded in dignity and respect.
In one focused day, we refined strategic goals with the Belonging Task Force, listened through focus groups to understand varied ideals of belonging, and ended the day with a staff meeting where I shared an analysis from a year of data and our roadmap forward.
I am excited to return this spring!
Belonging and Intercultural Competency at Shanghai American School (Video)
I was delighted to return for my fourth visit to Shanghai American School to continue efforts to fostering inclusive school environments grounded in dignity and respect.
This short video highlights student assemblies with 4th, 7th, and 11th graders at the intersection of leadership and belonging, along with employee workshops on belonging. I also collaborated with Belonging Liaisons across both campuses and facilitated an Early Childhood/Lower School faculty session focused on practical strategies to strengthen belonging and kindness.
I’m looking forward to returning in April! Thanks to Renee Couturier, head of educational programs, and James Nelligan, head of school, for their support and leadership.
Shanghai American School
I loved working with the fourth graders at Shanghai American School this week. Thank you for confirming that the content aligned with their ongoing efforts to foster an inclusive school community grounded in dignity and respect, Amanda. Looking forward to returning in April!
Bangkok Post
I’m honored to be featured for the third time in Thai news media, most recently in the Bangkok Post.
In Thailand, and across many of my Asian school and business client contexts, an East–West dichotomy operates just beneath the surface of international work. It’s not always named, but it is frequently felt: in assumptions about communication, hierarchy, feedback, conflict, and what counts as “professional.” Without foundational training in intercultural competency, people can default to shorthand explanations (“that’s just Western/Asian”), which flattens complexity and makes misunderstanding more likely.
Intercultural competency offers a more rigorous alternative. It is a learnable skill set that helps individuals and institutions interpret difference with greater accuracy and respond with dignity and respect, without stereotyping, and without avoiding accountability.
Beyond this context, the implications are broader than any one country or region. In any international organization, if intercultural competency is not intentionally developed, it can inadvertently undermine belonging and outcomes.
In schools: the learning conditions that drive engagement, participation, and learning outcomes.
In businesses: collaboration, execution, retention, and ultimately ROI.
I am grateful to the 120+ participants from both Thai international schools and businesses, an uncommon cross-sector learning community and a rare opportunity to learn across education and industry, who participated.
With sincere thanks ISAT and Khun Usa Somboon for the support and partnership.
Early Childhood Conference at Hong Kong International School
I am thrilled to deliver the opening and closing keynotes with Rosemarie Truglio, PhD, Senior Vice President of Global Education at Sesame Workshop, at the HKIS Early Childhood Conference, alongside more than 250 early childhood educators.
In our keynotes, The Circle of Care: Where Belonging Begins, we ground the theme in a simple truth: belonging begins with dignity, and dignity is what allows play, curiosity, awe, inquiry, and collaboration to flourish. We focus on the small moments across home, school, and community that answer a child’s most important question: Do I matter here?
Dr. Truglio and I first met nearly a decade ago when I delivered a keynote at the Wonderplay Conference at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. Since then, we have partnered through my work as Senior Content Advisor at Sesame Workshop to help create content that supports Sesame Workshop’s mission to help children everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder.
I am grateful for this long collaboration and for every educator who widens the circle of care for young children, one interaction at a time.
American School of Barcelona
I am grateful for my collaboration with The American School of Barcelona as we continue deepening belonging and strengthening a culture of dignity and respect.
I was especially encouraged that capacity building included the full adult community across teaching and staff teams, and that we supported access through professional learning facilitated in both Spanish and English.
I also appreciated the opportunity to facilitate a full day retreat with the leadership team on inclusive leadership, leveraging the Intercultural Development Inventory as a practical tool for sustaining this commitment schoolwide.
I look forward to our ongoing work during year three of our partnership.
2025 in Review: Operationalizing Intercultural Competency and Change Management
This year reinforced a hard truth: awareness and good intentions are not enough. Without the capacity, strategy, and implementation discipline to operationalize the insights, belonging goals remain aspirational rather than realized.
I am grateful and humbled by the opportunity to partner with organizations committed to deepening intercultural competency, strengthening belonging, and cultivating inclusive communities grounded in dignity and respect.
In 2025, the work included:
Engaging 60,000+ participants
Spending 101 days onsite in consultation
Partnering with 48 businesses and schools
Working across 25 cities (and at least 20 countries)
Delivering learning in 4 languages: English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish
Contributing to 9 events and conferences and leading five executive leadership cohorts
Thank you to every organization that trusted my leadership and partnership and chose to move beyond intention into sustained practice.
I look forward to building on this momentum in 2026 and I welcome conversations with leaders who are ready to invest in the strategy, capacity, and follow through that make belonging measurable and sustainable.