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Courtesy of Kari Ostrem ’97
‘You focus on human dignity and finding common ground’
Last month, when ethnic cleansing claimed hundreds of lives in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, Kari Ostrem ’97 was 400 miles to the south, in the town of Debre Birhan.
Former Academic Dean of Lawrenceville School and co-founder, along with Marc Sternberg ’95, of Bronx Lab School, Ostrem moved to Ethiopia last year to become founding principal of Haile-Manas Academy (HMA), a new high school boarding school. in the center of the country. The recent conflict, he says, underscored the need for a school that promotes diversity and inclusion. No other high school in Ethiopia attracts students from different regional states, which are divided along ethnolinguistic lines; however, HMA will recruit out of 10.
“Children accept and appreciate diversity and then learn to live together,” Ostrem said. “You focus on human dignity and finding common ground.”
The school was founded by Rebecca Haile, a former Ethiopian refugee who was 11 years old when her family fled to the United States in 1976. Her father had been shot and then exiled during the Ethiopian Civil War. Returning several years ago, Haile saw the need for better and more inclusive educational opportunities.
“The linguistic and ethnic divide is a problem for Ethiopia,” Haile said. He wants students to learn to address differences in small groups, so they can use those skills later as leaders.
Haile and Ostrem also focus on creating economic opportunity. The average age in Ethiopia, the second most populous country in Africa, with 115 million people, is 18 years. In the next few years, tens of millions of Ethiopian youth will enter the workforce.
Academic buildings at the Haile-Manas Academy.
Courtesy of Kari Ostrem ’97
“The 13 to 21 age group is really restless,” Ostrem said. “They have not had an education that leads them to start a multinational company or even an Ethiopian company. Where will the jobs come from? ”
With foreign investment pouring into Ethiopia, Haile and her husband, Jean Manas ’87, founded HMA in hopes of preparing leaders who can engineer Ethiopian solutions to Ethiopian problems. Unlike the country’s international schools, which tend to cater to the children of diplomats and elites, HMA will offer blind admissions and invite all top-scoring students in government schools to take their placement test. Ostrem plans to select civic-minded candidates and encourage community involvement through outreach programs. It will not accept applications from international students or from the Ethiopian diaspora.
“I really think this will be a school where students want to stay in Ethiopia, look around and say, ‘What can we do to make this world a better place?’” Says Ostrem. “Everything we teach is about looking around us and saying, ‘That could be better and I can do better. Let’s do it! ‘”
Read more about Tigers of the week
At the core of the academy’s mission is human-centered problem solving, an approach Ostrem learned in his first engineering course at Princeton. He anticipated solving engineering problems with purely objective solutions. Instead, his teacher, the late David P. Billington ’50, taught him to understand the human context first. Only after considering social, economic and aesthetic constraints should the design process begin.
“The correct answer is not [just] that the bridge is standing, ”Ostrem recalls that Billington explained the first day. “It is that you have designed your structure for the context that each particular situation presents. After all, everything you design is for people. “
As a newcomer to Ethiopia, Ostrem is determined to partner with the locals at all levels of the school administration. He also plans to include students in decision-making about everything from the school’s curriculum to its physical structures. For example, the first cohort of ninth graders will design the schoolyard in physics class.
A meeting of teachers from the Haile-Manas Academy
Courtesy of Kari Ostrem ’97
“It’s about listening more than talking, which should be teaching anyway,” Ostrem said. “Instead of saying, ‘This is what history education looks like,’ we are guided by what is working well here.. “
Ostrem had planned to welcome the first class of 100 ninth-grade students to campus this fall, but the pandemic hampered recruitment and testing, internet shortages across much of Ethiopia impeded online classes, and conflict in Tigray it further delayed the start of school. Now, Haile-Manas plans to welcome 38 students on December 13. Despite the abbreviated curriculum and small class sizes, Ostrem sees new opportunities to include incoming students in the design of the school.
“The decisions they make become HMAs for the future,” he says. “I am very excited. Our faculty is very excited.”
The Haile-Manas Academy campus in Ethiopia.
Courtesy of Kari Ostrem ’97
