Becoming Stronger
As the inaugural year of the Haile-Manas Academy drew to a close, my shoulders relaxed. The school was finally open and we’d made it through that crucial first year. Then, at a board meeting, a member with experience said, “The second year of any new school is harder than the first.” What?!? How could it possibly get any tougher? As I absorbed this new reality, and readjusted my expectations, I reminded myself that as you forge a steel blade, you pound it to make it more durable. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” goes the saying and it occurred to me, that was a fitting saying for what we’d been through since inception.
The journey to opening the doors of HMA has not been an easy one. We started with a muddy barley field. Executive Director Rebecca Haile had persuaded the government of her vision for a residential independent high school open to all Ethiopian nationals, regardless of ability to pay, teaching students in a completely different way, with an experiential-based curriculum where learning is the residue of active engagement with materials, not the end-product of rote memorization. Revolutionary ideas don’t usually gain quick traction, but this did because it was clear to decision makers this was the path forward. Then, we had the challenge of constructing a state-of-the-art school in a developing country where every step posed a fresh challenge. Even bringing electricity to campus, a matter of course in the west, was a major achievement in Ethiopia. And we did it. Phew.
Next came the fun part: finding talented students! In a country of 112 million where half were under 19, and we were offering scholarships, we should have the pick of the country, right? In early 2020, Head of School Kari Ostrem and Deputy Head of School, Tesfaye Kifle began barnstorming the country to eager groups of students and parents, hungry for this new school. Midway through the tour, in April 2020, COVID-19 cut it short, right before they were to present in Addis Ababa, the region with the highest likelihood of tuition paying students, a critical part of the funding model. Faced with this reality, we pivoted and adjusted course. Instead of 100 students, we recruited a pioneering class of 35, and instead of 50% tuition paying students, we were blessed with 100% scholarship students. We learned to make lemonade out of the lemons: the lower number of students meant a smaller strain on the budget and the small size allowed Kari and Tesfaye to create a tight cohesive school unit.
The September 2020 school opening was delayed because of COVID-19, and shortly after this, in November, the country plunged into civil war. We all tensed for what would happen next.
In the face of these daunting challenges, we were gifted gratifying success: over 90% of the accepted students came to Debre Birhan to enroll in January 2021 and the school opened its doors. These students rose to the challenges of living away from home, during a pandemic and civil war, and embraced an inquiry-based model of learning. Within a few months of the school’s opening, the students presented independent study projects in a two-day Celebration of Learning. I was overjoyed (and a bit relieved!) when Rebecca emailed me they hit it out of the ballpark. I was anxious to know if they could excel at something very different than the memorization-based learning of their former schools. Our theory of a school held: they can and did exceed expectations with the HMA framework that will prepare them to lead and problem solve in the world they’ve inherited. As a board member, I felt like we’d passed the test: our school was working.
But the pandemic wasn’t done with us yet. In February, COVID-19 quickly took Rebecca’s uncle, Engineer Tadesse Haile Selassie, co-founder of Berta Construction Company, and one of her chief inspirations for Ethiopia Education Initiatives and the Haile-Manas Academy. This was an unexpected blow. As Rebecca’s close friend, I knew how important her uncle was to her and how many of his values she cherished. On a practical level, we’re a small, start-up school, and Rebecca wears about six major hats to keep the organization running. How could she do this while absorbing the blow of this unexpected loss? I tensed, but she had no choice but to soldier on, and soon after that, COVID-19 crept inside HMA’s walls. After an emergency meeting, where the prime consideration was the safety and health of the entire HMA family: students, staff and faculty—we made the devastating decision to close the physical campus and send the students home. I was stunned. Was it all for naught?
It was not. Faculty and students quickly pivoted to remote learning for the remainder of the semester. But with internet and WiFi in Ethiopia being essentially non-existent, the American mode of remote learning—Zoom—was unthinkable. And so teachers and students alike completed the semester of remote learning on mobile phones. I was incredulous when I learned this: If students were expected to take class, write papers and conduct school all through a mobile phone in America at a private school, parents would be in full revolt. By contrast, at HMA, the students and staff took it in stride and finished up the year successfully.
So many challenges: the country was in a painful civil war, a pandemic was ravaging the world (and stripping and gapping the supply chain for vital materials for construction of the remaining stages of the school), Rebecca and Ethiopia had lost a major force for positive change in the person of Engineer Tadesse, the students were learning remotely on their phones, and teachers were packing up their apartments to head home while conducting classes online. In the middle of this, in June, Rebecca’s revered father, Professor Getatchew Haile, the world’s foremost scholar of the Ge’ez language, tireless advocate for Ethiopia, and one of the country’s most beloved sons, passed away. My heart ached for Rebecca. There is only so much a small, start-up organization can take.
But with each blow, faculty, students, staff, and leadership somehow found a way forward. Our Head of School faced an outbreak of COVID-19 and made the devastating decision to ask the Board to shut the school, into which she’d poured her expertise, creativity and energy for the last two years. Rebecca and I have been working ceaselessly behind the scenes, throughout two personal tragedies for Rebecca (and everything else) to keep fundraising efforts moving forward with Zoom calls, e-blasts, solicitations, and donor cultivation: if the money stops, the school stops, so the pipeline of funding must not halt. Faculty members scrambled to pivot to remote learning and get the students safely home in the middle of a pandemic and civil strife. Everyone did their part. Everyone kept various parts of the school moving forward. We were down, but in no way out.
It’s been worth it. On October 10, 38 extraordinary students joined last year’s class and we’re forging ahead. Indeed, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, as you learn what you can bear, and still take the next step, and the next step, and the next step forward. I hope you’ll join us on this journey.