Edison Huynh

Edison is passionate about cross-cultural education and being able to understand and be understood across differences. As a Sauvé Fellow, he hopes to question the definition of tolerance as a hallmark of a successful society and explore ways to enable all of us to re-engage with differing notions of individual as well as collective identity. Regarding impact on education, Edison hopes to create a curriculum which will give students the tools to navigate an increasingly pluralist society.

Edison is a born-and-bred Londoner and a teacher by profession. Throughout his childhood his parents, who had both escaped war-torn countries, strongly impressed upon Edison that education was the absolute key to social mobility. At the University of Oxford, Edison realized for himself just how many doors could be opened through education. Indeed it was university that enabled him to travel abroad – a love of travel belatedly started but that continues to this day.

Such opportunities led to a strong desire to ensure that other young people, regardless of background, were given the same chances that were afforded to him. Edison taught as an English teacher in China before returning to the UK to teach science in Lewisham. In 2013, Edison was elected to Participant President of Teach First, a charity responsible for mobilizing thousands of teachers in pursuit of wider societal change in the UK. Representing teachers to business leaders, policy makers and educators, Edison championed the causes of teacher wellbeing as well as mental health in young people and adults alike.

Education and a passion for travel has led Edison to teach and visit schools across the world – most recently in Australia and New Zealand as a Winston Churchill Fellow researching culturally intelligent leadership in schools. On the basis of this research, Edison completed a Masters in Educational Leadership in 2015 at University College London’s Institute of Education.

Recently, Edison has been working in education policy at the progressive thinktank IPPR – the Institute for Public Policy Research. There he was editor of an upcoming publication entitled ‘The Future of Education’ which hopes to influence decision makers to respond to wider trends in education from automation and big data to morality in a post-truth world. In his free time, he is preparing the ground for a social enterprise focusing on Sino-British relations in education which he hopes to develop further when based at Tsinghua University in Beijing where he is to complete an MA in Public Policy as a Schwarzman Scholar.

In alignment with their program’s theme of Public Leadership for Culturally Diverse Societies, the 2016-17 Sauvé Fellows decided to collectively explore the complexities of refugee integration in Canada. To advance their learnings, they led a critical reading group, conducted site visits, and met with a wide range of relevant stakeholders, including refugees and parliamentarians. Their team project’s goal was to develop and pilot an approach to refugee integration in a holistic and practical way that delivered both impact and thought leadership while espousing core values of agency, inclusivity, fairness and cultural sensitivity.

In tackling the issue of refugee integration and implementing their team project, the Fellows wrote a policy brief (which they presented to several ministers while in Ottawa) and an op-ed, produced a short film on refugee experiences in Montreal as well as organized a series of public events exploring refugee integration in Canada.

Links: 

• Sauvé Fellow Edison Huynh’s Public Narrative (written statement)
• An Evening of Public Narrative with Sauvé Fellows (video)
• Fellows Attend “Canada on the Global Stage” Conference by Edison Huynh
• The Sauvé Fellows’ Team Project: Back Home with a Spring in our Step! by Edison Huynh