Death of Michael Knight, former head of the History Department and of the Audio Visual Department at LGB
The historian Michael Knight, an influential and greatly esteemed Ecolint educator who played a key role in the development of the International Baccalaureate in the 1960s, passed away on Friday 25th February 2022. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Knight (who had a long and distinguished career as an English teacher in La Grande Boissière’s Secondary and Middle Schools and is the author of the children’s novel The Skull).
Michael joined Ecolint (which at the time consisted exclusively of La Grande Boissière) as a teacher in 1961. He partnered the legendary History teacher Robert J. Leach in laying the foundations of what would eventually become the International Baccalaureate, which was hatched in LGB’s History Department (a department that at one point Michael headed). He was also one of the very first IB Theory of Knowledge teachers and helped to shape our conception of that core subject. In his role as a pioneer of technological aids to education, Michael subsequently created and for many years directed the school’s Audio-visual Department, which played a crucial function during the decades when slides, film strips, overhead projectors, reel-to-reel celluloid films, magnetic reel-to-reel audio tapes, audio cassettes, U-matic tapes, VHS tapes and (finally) CDs and DVDs succeeded each other as cutting-edge technology that could assist classroom teaching.
To commemorate its 75th anniversary, the school commissioned Michael to write a new overview of Ecolint’s history. This authoritative elegantly expressed and witty 220-page volume was published in 1999 under the title of Ecolint: A Portrait of the International School of Geneva, 1924-1999.
Michael was an impressively cultured, erudite and suave interlocutor, whose beautifully mellow and precise English invariably commanded attention and respect. His imposing physical presence was softened by the grace with which he moved and spoke. He must surely have been handsome as well, for when I was a student at LGB not a few teenage girls were hypnotized by him for reasons that were not entirely related to the competence, cogency and panache with he taught his classes — but it was doubtless the three latter qualities that inspired Bob Rae, former Leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, Premier of Ontario and current Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations, to declare on the IB’s website in 2018 that Michael Knight was the teacher who had made the greatest impression on him.
Had Michael not devoted his impressive knowledge and intellect to the field of education, one felt that he would naturally have achieved distinction as an old-school, high-ranking diplomat. Nevertheless, like Erasmus, he never failed to see the ironic implications of human folly and was animated by a mischievous but understated sense of humour. On one occasion, to express his puzzlement at the proliferation of trendy “coordination” roles that had emerged in education over the years, he posted in the school’s Staff Room a very official-looking job advertisement for a “Coordinator of coordinators”, complete with a detailed and deadpan job description. I understand that more than one colleague took it at face value and applied.
It can reasonably be affirmed that, during his long and distinguished Ecolintian career, Michael Knight acquired an iconic status, despite the savoir vivre with which he disregarded petty professional advancement. He will be remembered with admiration, fondness and gratitude by generations of students and colleagues.
Alejandro Rodríguez-Giovo
Emeritus Foundation Archivist
The funeral will be held at the crematorium of St Georges, Chem. de la Bâtie 13, 1213 Genève, on 11 March at 2.00 pm. No flowers, but anyone can give to a charity of their choice.