Kaizen

Throughout my life, I have grown in my understanding of what it means to have a mentality of constant improvement. The term “Kaizen” is a Japanese philosophy which means constant improvement (Kaizen Institute, 2022). Kaizen was taught to me in high school by Mr. Zach Vanthournout. He used the term as a mantra for our volleyball team, which was made up of athletes who were new to the sport. As a young man I embodied Kaizen related to volleyball and especially to my true passion, basketball. I worked on my basketball shooting and dribbling skills daily which led to playing for the UNB Varsity Reds team. Playing basketball at that level was a dream come true, and a product of my desire to constantly improve. 

As an adult, I transferred my mentality of constant improvement to my career as a teacher. During my first year teaching, while at the Fredericton Christian Academy, school leaders taught me that as a teacher there are two paths to take: 1) the common path, where the same classes and lessons are repeated year after year. Or 2) the path less traveled, where professional learning takes place, lessons are improved, and reflection is a common practice. There was never a question which path that I was built for #builtdifferent. I’m not sure if hashtags are still acceptable in 2022, but I digress. 

Career Goal Reorganization

In July 2021, I spent a few weeks visiting my family in Canada. During which, I reflected on my career and considered my future career goals. At that point I was a physical education teacher with a Masters degree who loved what I did everyday. I was accomplished and loving life. While also understanding that I wasn’t done yet. The goal in getting my masters was always to become a school administrator and eventually a head of schools. During my meditation and conversations with my family, I realized that I wanted to have a career path beyond being a head of schools. Based on my skills and leadership learning, I was interested in becoming a school consultant, and potentially a university professor. After researching the qualifications of instructors at Canadian universities along with a personal prediction that a doctorate degree will be essential to being an international head of schools in the future, it became clear that I should pursue a doctorate degree. That is exactly what I became determined to do. 

Creating a Doctoral Database

In an equal parts inconvenient & convenient twist of fate. I realized that I should pursue a doctorate degree a few days prior to returning to Hong Kong, where I was subjected to 2 weeks of quarantine. Needless to say, this gave me plenty of opportunity to work on researching doctoral programs. I had a few criteria that guided my search: I was looking for either PhD (Doctorate of Philosophy) or EdD (Doctorate of Education) programs from Canadian universities which could be taken online while working full-time. My rationale for these criteria is as follows. a) PhDs are entirely academic where EdDs are focused on professional applications, they are both highly regarded doctorate degrees. b) Canadian universities are accredited and hold clout internationally. c) The program needed to be online because I was working in Hong Kong. d) I enjoy my work and wanted to be able to support my family while also working toward a doctorate. 

Distilling Doctorates

During my systematic programmatic research I found that the following five doctoral programs met my criteria: 1) Joint PhD – Lakehead, Windsor, and Brock Universities. 2) Doctorate in International Educational Leadership & Policy – University of Toronto. 3) Doctorate of Education in Senior Leadership in K-12 Education – University of Calgary. 4) Doctorate of Educational Leadership – Western University. 5) Doctorate of Educational Leadership – University of Saskatchewan. The attached pdf is a distilled summary that took dozens of hours of scouring the doctoral program information and communicating with program coordinators for most of the universities in Canada.

Deciphering Doctoral Direction

After a lengthy application process, I was fortunate to be accepted into a few of the programs on my list. After much deliberation, I decided to enrol in the University of Toronto’s EdD in International Educational Leadership & Policy program. I chose this program because it aligns with my reorganized goals. That and the fact that the University of Toronto is consistently ranked among the top 20 universities in the world (National Taiwan University, 2022; University of Toronto, 2022; US News, 2022). I couldn’t be more excited to have the opportunity to practice Kaizen by setting out on this new doctoral direction. 

In my next article I will include my research proposal for the doctoral applications. 

References

Kaizen Institute. (2022). What is Kaizen? Kaizen Institute. https://www.kaizen.com/what-is-kaizen 

National Taiwan University. (2022). World University Rankings. NTU Ranking. http://nturanking.csti.tw/ranking/OverallRanking/

University of Toronto. (2022). International Rankings. University of Toronto. https://data.utoronto.ca/international-rankings/

US News. (2022). 2022 Best Global University Rankings. US News. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings 

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. It was a pleasure spending time with you today.

Peace & Blessings, 

– Josiah