William Joseph Tolley
Bill Tolley — IBDP History & MYP Individuals and Societies
Similar to the world-renowned cook and television personality Anthony Bourdain, Bill was plucked from the bosom of New York City at an early age to be raised in exile in the suburbs of New Jersey. The early stages of his escape plan involved four years as a US Army paratrooper starting at age 19. During this time he jumped out of airplanes, witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall and gained admission to Rutgers University—which meant he had to return, once again, to New Jersey. Despite the location, after four years he received a Dual-Major BA in History and Middle-Eastern Studies.
Bill’s military experience created competing passions for public service and international life, and over the next 20 years he alternatively taught abroad in South Korea, Thailand and India, finished an MA in the Teaching of Social Studies at Columbia University, worked at a public high school in East Harlem, New York, and finally moved back abroad to serve in a variety of roles at the International School of Curitiba in Brazil and, most recently, at the International School of Beijing. Between all of this, he somehow completed a Certificate of School Supervision and Leadership through Johns Hopkins, luckily, without the need to return to New Jersey.
Bill has a wide array of professional interests, including: innovative learning strategies, future-building, redefining learning space and time, social justice education, world history, teacher-coaching, cosmopolitan ethics and social aesthetics. Politically, his world view can be described as “Wildmind Satyagraha Bright Green Cosmopolitan Civic Communitarian,” —but that sounds remarkably pretentious, so replace it with “leans left.”
He remains torn in his Premier League loyalties between Liverpool and Everton, but never has time to watch matches anyway, so the conflict is moot. His personal interests include: traveling; hiking; walking; photography; role-playing games; comparative literature and religions; humanism; international activism; bright green environmentalism; cosmopolitanism; writing; blogging; social networking; tinkering with languages; eclectic assortments of music; Seon (Korean Zen) Buddhist philosophy; and the Wildmind of Gary Snyder.