Josh Blue ’01

As he worked to adjust his everyday life to the new realities created by COVID-19, Josh Blue ’01 faced one of the tougher challenges posed by the pandemic: how to ensure young students continue to learn amid drastically altered learning environments. And for an added layer of difficulty, he did it in a city that has no shortage of educational expectations.

“Hong Kong is fast-paced and highly driven, and expectations are incredibly high,” Blue says. “Trying to find a system that would work for us, that was manageable, and that would appease parents was the real challenge.”

Blue, head of primary at Discovery College Hong Kong, says international schools in Hong Kong operate much like U.S. schools, and the language of instruction is English. A major difference comes in the diversity of the student body in Hong Kong, with many students’ families coming from abroad, creating a greater mix of language backgrounds.

“I definitely think that Grinnell helped encourage a global mindset,” he says, “and instilled the importance of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice — the heart of being international-minded

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