Though he is one of the newest faces on our campus, principal John Muldoon has already connected with the SAS community through his TED talk on “mind over matter,” where he shared the struggles he faced in his youth. Fortunately, his positivity and resilience allowed him to overcome the obstacles, eventually leading him to a career in education.
Yet, our new principal didn’t actually always have an education career in mind. Rather, after growing up in New Hampshire—a small state in the New England region of the United States—Mr. Muldoon received a degree in Economics and began working for Marriott Hotels in accounting and finance. It didn’t take long, however, for him to realize a career change was needed.
“It became clear to me after not a very long period of time, that as much as I like economics and math, doing it for a career was not going to be fulfilling for me,” Mr. Muldoon said. “So I started thinking about different things I was passionate about.”
After he realized that his passion for being part of a strong community with an element of service made education an ideal fit, Mr. Muldoon applied for a job as a history teacher at a public school in Massachusetts three days before the school year was set to begin and left the interview with a job as a math teacher.
“The principal gave me an Algebra problem to solve. I thought maybe there had been a mistake, but it turns out he had hired someone before me to teach history. He needed a math teacher and saw that I had a background in economics. Since nobody that he had interviewed yet was able to solve the problem, I solved it, and that’s how I got my first job,” Mr. Muldoon said.
Before coming to SAS, Mr. Muldoon spent ten years working as a teacher and administrator in Massachusetts—where he taught Social Studies and Special Education, coached many sport teams, and served as both a Middle School and High School Assistant Principal. He is currently working on his Doctor of Education degree at Northeastern University.
Mr. Muldoon and his wife had decided they would like to live abroad again and were going to look for a position at an international school in Asia once he had completed the coursework for his doctorate, however, fate brought forward their plan. After he was strongly encouraged by several friends and former colleagues to consider applying to the open Principal position at SAS even though the timing wasn’t what he had in mind, Mr. Muldoon began doing some research, and found himself unable to curtail his interest.
“Everything that I read about this school just really made me interested. In particular what I read about the Innovation Institute and the work teachers and students were doing there,” he explained. In addition, some of the unique elements of SAS’s mission statement immediately drew Mr. Muldoon in, particularly the school’s mission to “inspire students to act with a commitment to integrity and compassion.”
“That was the first thing that jumped out to me that SAS would be a really special place,” said Mr. Muldoon. He saw this sentiment reflected in all the students and teachers he encountered when he first visited SAS. “It became very clear that kindness was a core part of this community and kindness is my core value. I felt very connected almost immediately.” He added that he was “just blown away by the fact that SAS really represents so much of what I value. I felt it was a natural match.”
Bringing such high expectations going into the position, Mr. Muldoon has been pleased to see that SAS has “lived up to, and in some cases, exceeded [his] expectations.” He explained that many schools, just like products we see advertised on TV that don’t live up to the hype, and often hold large promises that they fail to deliver on, but that hasn’t been the case with SAS. In particular, he was curious to see if the Innovation Institute was as impressive as everyone said, and found himself “blown away that not only does it live up to it, but it exceeds what people thought or what I was led to believe. There have been so many surprising things,” he said.
One other surprise for the Muldoon family has been the ease of adapting to life in Shanghai. Muldoon and his wife did a lot of reading on what to expect but found that so much of even the most current materials were incorrect. For example, they had been warned that it would be difficult to find antiperspirant in the city and packed a large amount of it, but it turns out they find it for sale everywhere. Mr. Muldoon also expressed surprise at how easily he adapted to living in such close proximity to his place of work, which is a new experience for him. “When I wake up in the morning and am riding my bike, I see two dozen people that are either students or teachers here. So living in this type of very close community is really great, but is really different for me,” he said.
When asked about his hopes and dreams for SAS, Mr. Muldoon explained that he doesn’t believe the principal’s personal goals are the most important to consider. He said, “one of the things that people do by mistake is focus too much on the hopes and dreams of the principal. I think that a good principal really needs to help the students, parents, and faculty voice their dreams and to find a way to make them happen.”
He does, however, have some plans in store for SAS, including an effort to help teachers, students, and their families better navigate the many programs and options available during high school and how those options play out across the four years. Mr. Muldoon says that by creating a visual map of all the programs that outline the potential pathways that would occur with each decision made will help students make better decisions and allow school administrators to eliminate or reduce problems. “For example, you would be able to see what happens if you do Innovation Institute and what your options are as a result of taking it,” he said.
Mr. Muldoon also said that he hopes to guide students as they navigate the competitive college acceptance process by helping them realize that colleges are seeking students who are “chasing their passion and becoming really interesting and dynamic people,” rather than just taking the hardest classes and getting the highest grades. He gave the example of a former student who had good grades and “pretty average” test scores but was “exceptionally passionate” about clean water because of his family ties to Africa. The student read an article by an MIT professor about non-powered water filtration and was inspired to design and patent his own gravity-fed water filter, which led to a full scholarship at MIT. Mr. Muldoon said that “the future for high schools is that we do more than just provide a good education, we facilitate journeys and passions and doing things that are interesting and authentic to you.”
In what little free time he has, Mr. Muldoon enjoys reading, being outdoors, and spending time with his wife and their two “goofball dogs.” He is also a self-described lover of bad movies, and has a serious fear of horses, which is rather ironic given that his wife’s family owns a horse farm. He said his friends would say he is “a study in contrast. I can be both very serious and very fun, with very little transition time in between. I think they would tell you I’m dedicated to the pursuit of kindness, that I am very excitable.”
Mr. Muldoon shared some advice for SAS students hoping to meet with success in the future. He believes that “the world is an amazing place and people with really authentic traits will have no problem finding a place. My advice around traits is to figure out which ones are yours and then own them, instead of trying to be something you are not.” He also encouraged students to fully engage rather than merely being present. Mr. Muldoon ended with “the difference between a really rewarding experience to me, whether it is a high school experience, a college experience, or a career experience, is to really engage, focus, and contribute.”
Alexander Lin
 |
| Courtesy of John Muldoon |
Yet, our new principal didn’t actually always have an education career in mind. Rather, after growing up in New Hampshire—a small state in the New England region of the United States—Mr. Muldoon received a degree in Economics and began working for Marriott Hotels in accounting and finance. It didn’t take long, however, for him to realize a career change was needed.
“It became clear to me after not a very long period of time, that as much as I like economics and math, doing it for a career was not going to be fulfilling for me,” Mr. Muldoon said. “So I started thinking about different things I was passionate about.”
After he realized that his passion for being part of a strong community with an element of service made education an ideal fit, Mr. Muldoon applied for a job as a history teacher at a public school in Massachusetts three days before the school year was set to begin and left the interview with a job as a math teacher.
“The principal gave me an Algebra problem to solve. I thought maybe there had been a mistake, but it turns out he had hired someone before me to teach history. He needed a math teacher and saw that I had a background in economics. Since nobody that he had interviewed yet was able to solve the problem, I solved it, and that’s how I got my first job,” Mr. Muldoon said.
Before coming to SAS, Mr. Muldoon spent ten years working as a teacher and administrator in Massachusetts—where he taught Social Studies and Special Education, coached many sport teams, and served as both a Middle School and High School Assistant Principal. He is currently working on his Doctor of Education degree at Northeastern University.
Mr. Muldoon and his wife had decided they would like to live abroad again and were going to look for a position at an international school in Asia once he had completed the coursework for his doctorate, however, fate brought forward their plan. After he was strongly encouraged by several friends and former colleagues to consider applying to the open Principal position at SAS even though the timing wasn’t what he had in mind, Mr. Muldoon began doing some research, and found himself unable to curtail his interest.
“Everything that I read about this school just really made me interested. In particular what I read about the Innovation Institute and the work teachers and students were doing there,” he explained. In addition, some of the unique elements of SAS’s mission statement immediately drew Mr. Muldoon in, particularly the school’s mission to “inspire students to act with a commitment to integrity and compassion.”
 |
| Courtesy of John Muldoon |
“That was the first thing that jumped out to me that SAS would be a really special place,” said Mr. Muldoon. He saw this sentiment reflected in all the students and teachers he encountered when he first visited SAS. “It became very clear that kindness was a core part of this community and kindness is my core value. I felt very connected almost immediately.” He added that he was “just blown away by the fact that SAS really represents so much of what I value. I felt it was a natural match.”
Bringing such high expectations going into the position, Mr. Muldoon has been pleased to see that SAS has “lived up to, and in some cases, exceeded [his] expectations.” He explained that many schools, just like products we see advertised on TV that don’t live up to the hype, and often hold large promises that they fail to deliver on, but that hasn’t been the case with SAS. In particular, he was curious to see if the Innovation Institute was as impressive as everyone said, and found himself “blown away that not only does it live up to it, but it exceeds what people thought or what I was led to believe. There have been so many surprising things,” he said.
One other surprise for the Muldoon family has been the ease of adapting to life in Shanghai. Muldoon and his wife did a lot of reading on what to expect but found that so much of even the most current materials were incorrect. For example, they had been warned that it would be difficult to find antiperspirant in the city and packed a large amount of it, but it turns out they find it for sale everywhere. Mr. Muldoon also expressed surprise at how easily he adapted to living in such close proximity to his place of work, which is a new experience for him. “When I wake up in the morning and am riding my bike, I see two dozen people that are either students or teachers here. So living in this type of very close community is really great, but is really different for me,” he said.
When asked about his hopes and dreams for SAS, Mr. Muldoon explained that he doesn’t believe the principal’s personal goals are the most important to consider. He said, “one of the things that people do by mistake is focus too much on the hopes and dreams of the principal. I think that a good principal really needs to help the students, parents, and faculty voice their dreams and to find a way to make them happen.”
He does, however, have some plans in store for SAS, including an effort to help teachers, students, and their families better navigate the many programs and options available during high school and how those options play out across the four years. Mr. Muldoon says that by creating a visual map of all the programs that outline the potential pathways that would occur with each decision made will help students make better decisions and allow school administrators to eliminate or reduce problems. “For example, you would be able to see what happens if you do Innovation Institute and what your options are as a result of taking it,” he said.
Mr. Muldoon also said that he hopes to guide students as they navigate the competitive college acceptance process by helping them realize that colleges are seeking students who are “chasing their passion and becoming really interesting and dynamic people,” rather than just taking the hardest classes and getting the highest grades. He gave the example of a former student who had good grades and “pretty average” test scores but was “exceptionally passionate” about clean water because of his family ties to Africa. The student read an article by an MIT professor about non-powered water filtration and was inspired to design and patent his own gravity-fed water filter, which led to a full scholarship at MIT. Mr. Muldoon said that “the future for high schools is that we do more than just provide a good education, we facilitate journeys and passions and doing things that are interesting and authentic to you.”
In what little free time he has, Mr. Muldoon enjoys reading, being outdoors, and spending time with his wife and their two “goofball dogs.” He is also a self-described lover of bad movies, and has a serious fear of horses, which is rather ironic given that his wife’s family owns a horse farm. He said his friends would say he is “a study in contrast. I can be both very serious and very fun, with very little transition time in between. I think they would tell you I’m dedicated to the pursuit of kindness, that I am very excitable.”
Mr. Muldoon shared some advice for SAS students hoping to meet with success in the future. He believes that “the world is an amazing place and people with really authentic traits will have no problem finding a place. My advice around traits is to figure out which ones are yours and then own them, instead of trying to be something you are not.” He also encouraged students to fully engage rather than merely being present. Mr. Muldoon ended with “the difference between a really rewarding experience to me, whether it is a high school experience, a college experience, or a career experience, is to really engage, focus, and contribute.”
Alexander Lin
