My name is Michael Peach. To everyone on the web I am also known as the_giant_peach. I am an educator and aspiring educational leader who is currently an elementary school teacher with the Saudi Aramco Expatriate Schools, at the Dhahran Hills School, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

I have recently concluded my second decade as an international educator having spent the last nine years in Thailand working as an elementary and middle school teacher at the International School Bangkok.  In 1994, I began my journey at the American School of Tampico, in Tampico, Mexico.  After two years, I moved north to Monterrey, Mexico, where I taught 5th grade at the American School Foundation of Monterrey.  To mark the change of the millennium, I moved to Asia and started work at the Mont’Kiara International School in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  From KL, it was a short move north to Bangkok, which until recently, I’ve been fortunate enough to call my home.

I began blogging about education in 2008 using Edublogs.  My purpose was to experiment with blogging and its use in the classroom. I am still using the blog ( thegiantpeach ) as a communication and learning tool in my classroom.  But it’s time to spread my wings, so I’ve created “Better”, a professional blog that reflects my interest in education, leadership, change, and learning.  I believe that schools are already great places, filled with great people, and great learning. But they have a responsibility of becoming “better”.  The world as we know it is expanding possibilities and shrinking our planet.  The world is changing.  Learners are changing. Education and our understanding of learning must embrace this change in order to prepare our students and ourselves for success and leadership in the future.

Michael Schmoker helped shape my belief that education can learn a lot from the field of medicine.  BETTER, by Dr. Atul Gawande solidified it.   He has been inspirational and influential in my thinking, learning, and now blogging.  This blog is a result of how his thoughts and words helped me think and reflect about my own professional practice as a teacher, leader, and aspiring administrator.