FIFA and Fires - What the Summer’s Big Stories Can Teach Us
(And 2 Offerings for Schools)

August 4, 2026. No. 200 (Read online)
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As the whole world (even Americans) embraced the beautiful game of football (soccer) this summer, we witnessed a dramatic culmination: The most decorated individual talent of a generation stepped onto the biggest stage there is, and lost – to a team that, on paper, had no business winning. Coach Luis de la Fuente's Spain soared through the World Cup on performances that embodied "there is no 'I' in team," fielding a squad built around no single superstar. De la Fuente credited a team-first mentality and, in his words, people with “solidarity and values.”

On the other side, Messi — arguably still the greatest player alive — failed to clinch a consecutive World Cup title, showing how talent on its own wasn't enough.

Meanwhile, amidst FIFA-fueled celebrations, dangerous wildfires have led to catastrophe across the planet, with particular fury in Europe. Temperatures passed 40°C (104°F), even in Germany, Poland and Austria, with wildfire smoke over half the continent, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their homes in Spain and France alone. While France has already broken its own national record for land burned.

The joy of the win. The devastation of the fires. Neither story hinges on a single day or event. They're about everything invisible that happened, or didn't happen, long before the moment.

What a Trophy and a Wildfire Season Have in Common - and What It Means to School Leaders Now

De la Fuente didn't just win in the final. He won across a decade in Spain's youth system, coaching Pedri, Gavi, and Lamine Yamal years before the world knew their names — building trust and a shared language of play long before there was the world stage pressure to perform.

Perhaps the catastrophic heat is exposing the same pattern, but in reverse. International school leader Conrad Hughes wrote a timely piece identifying that greening the curriculum with nature walks and carbon-footprint lessons is good, but not enough. Students must grasp the full complexity of how climate, economics, politics, and power are entangled with each other, even as policy makers avoid this.

Across the schools we work with, we've gathered some “bread crumbs” to identify what relevant, futures-oriented learning for students must include:
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To think in systems, not silos. To value relationships and interrelationships, adaptability, inquiry, and creativity - even when it’s inconvenient or uncomfortable.
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​Education’s role is no longer about solving for one correct, fixed, predetermined answer, but to equip learners to interrogate the structures they've inherited, adjust to the unexpected, and co-create solutions together.​
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​What Students Need, Leaders Do Too

As we consider these global developments and the implications for student work, my colleagues and I have been asking: how many school leadership structures and governance approaches actually model that kind of creative, systems thinking?
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How many Boards are still governing in silos — where fiduciary roles consume the agenda, mission is featured on a poster but is not part of deliberations, and generative questions remain in a “parking lot” because they seem too complicated, uncomfortable, or not urgent enough? Meanwhile, are these decision-makers expecting the opposite from their students - to be change-makers, global citizens, and leaders for a brighter future, but not pointing the mirror back on themselves?

This contradiction doesn’t go unnoticed. Student anxiety, low motivation, a growing sense of education’s irrelevance, increased polarization across various stakeholders and perspectives, and rapid leadership turnover are all symptoms of a weak system, weak collaboration, and tension at the top.

We see how schools put enormous faith in a visionary Head or Superintendent, the one person who's supposed to hold it all together — and then wonder why the whole system feels so fragile when that person is tired, distracted, or gone. Head turnover, as one recent piece put it plainly, isn't really a pipeline problem or a preparation problem. It's often a burnout problem, and it's rarely named honestly. That's the cost of building a school around a single hero instead of a resilient, shared system.

We can't ask our schools to shift if leadership doesn't shift first.

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Enter VISTA

This is precisely the gap VISTA was built to close.

VISTA is our answer to the hero-leader trap — a leadership protocol Kathleen Naglee and I built for Heads of School and their Executive Boards who want what Spanish football had this summer: a team where the whole is genuinely greater than the sum of its parts. Not a framework that leans on one visionary to carry the mission alone, and not another compliance checklist layered on top of an already-brittle system, but a practice for leaders who want to build the systems thinking, adaptability, and interconnected awareness they're asking of their students. Structured coaching, a midpoint check-in, a progress-tracking app, and a workbook — all built to help a Board and Head hold complexity together, reorganize under pressure, and lead without a fixed roadmap.

Because the schools that thrive over the long run, like the teams that win it all, are rarely the ones with the flashiest star. They're the ones who've built something durable, together, before they needed it.

We know that these news stories are already fading to the rearview mirror as new headlines continuously stream in, many to our horror, and this offering doesn’t solve the world’s problems, but our hope is that it can help you as a leader confront what comes your way with greater clarity, confidence, and context. We’ve created the infrastructure and a clear process for leaders and their Boards to start this process right away, in hopes that it truly will support you. Learn more here and reach out to our new project coordinator, Kyra: kyra@bigquestions.institute with questions or interest.

So I’ll leave you with one big question we have been grappling with:
​If leaders need to manage volatility and uncertainty with clarity and confidence, how can this emerge in their relationships with their Board and other colleagues?

For those starting a new academic year, wishing you moments of joy!

Homa

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​Announcing Two Important New Offerings From the Big Questions Institute

We are continuously striving to update offerings to meet the challenges of the moment and we believe these two provide precisely that.

1. Leading Community-Based Change - Where School Teams Join a Global Cohort

Transcend and Big Questions Institute (BQI), in collaboration with AAIE and AISH, are excited to invite international school teams to join a new global cohort focused on leading change with their communities, not just for them.
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This six-month experience will bring together a small group of international school teams to advance a real priority already in motion at their school. Teams will have the opportunity to work together on questions like:
• What do our students actually experience day to day, and what needs to shift in how we design learning?
• What does our community most need from school in a world shaped by AI and rapid change?
• How do we move from a compelling vision to designing real changes in learners' daily experiences?
• How do we build the conditions and coalitions needed to make meaningful change stick?
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Along the way, teams will engage with tools and methods such as:
• Validated student voice surveys to understand the current state of learner experience
• Community listening and engagement processes to build shared understanding and coalition
• Sample Models from schools that have redesigned learning environments in powerful ways
• Conditions assessments to identify what is ready and what needs strengthening
• Collaborative supports to design and test improvements to learner experience
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The cohort will include virtual monthly sessions, guided team work between sessions, and coaching.
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In the spirit of our community-based approach to design, we are shaping the final cohort experience in partnership with the schools who join. We are hosting interest calls to share more and hear from prospective participants. Reach out to Holly at holly@transcendeducation.org to learn more, share about your context and goals, or hold a spot in the cohort for your school.

2. Robust and Relevant Goal-Setting, Evaluation, and Collaboration for Heads of School and Boards (esp Board Chairs) - VISTA

Registration is open now, and we are limiting it to the first TEN independent or international schools that sign up.

We have seasoned coaches (former Heads of School) ready to work with VISTA partner schools, a brand-new guide, and even a proprietary collaboration app. All of this is designed to equip leadership teams with structured tools and reflective practices to:
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🌱 Align around shared values and language
🌱 Amplify the strengths already present in their communities
🌱 Build the systemic agility to co-create meaningful goals for Heads and Boards

This isn't another compliance checklist. It's a framework for transformational leadership rooted in dignity, purpose, and collective flourishing.
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Find out more about the VISTA program and how it can support your school, here👇
​https://bigquestions.institute/vista-partnership-commitment/​
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Questions? Reach out to kyra@bigquestions.institute for support on this or any other question you have for BQI.

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