International Schools Mission: "To educate students in order to prepare them to be global-critical thinkers"
This past week ED199 had the opportunity to travel to the International School. The International School is a small, private school that has been around for nearly 25 years. They house around 600 students from ages 3 years to twelfth grade in their upper and lower schools. Within their 600 students, there are 54 different nationalities represented most of which are bilingual or trilingual by the time of graduation. Since they are considered a "non-public school," they have more autonomy in their curriculum and have more latitude to add creativity. The International School is known as an "IB for all" school meaning each one of their students will graduate with an International Baccalaureate diploma, making their students extremely appealing to colleges.
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Natalie Wolf, the International School's assistant principal described their educational system as "bamboo and rivers." The Bamboo is the staff members who have been at the school for a long time, providing roots and create a solid foundational structure. Whereas the rivers are the beautiful, demographic teachers who travel from school to school and are known as cosmopolitans. The International School aims to have new teachers all the time. So, every 2-3 years the teachers move on and are replaced. This provides the school with an ever-changing dynamic and constant new energy and life within the building. As for the students, there is a 40:60 ratio. 40% international and 60% local students which allows for an appreciation of diversity and similarity (COE core value) within education but also numerous cultures producing an extremely inclusive environment. ISI puts a lot of emphasis on multiculturalism and diversity within their school.
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"Success looks different to everyone and is found at different rates" |
The International School's mission is to create a diverse environment with critical-thinkers. Because of this, they do not base intelligence on memorization but rather ask the "why" questions and are open to multiple perspectives and collaboration. They are known as an "IB for all" school meaning that each of their students will graduate with an International Baccalaureate diploma with a history of a 100% graduation rate. As I mentioned earlier, this makes the students extremely appealing to future colleges and also challenges each of them to the most rigorous courses. Since these students are here from age 3 to 12th grade, they use it as an opportunity to build an educational framework each year. Meaning, they are scaffold learning, everything builds off of each other every year. This is a great strategy to create critical thinkers and overall well-educated students.
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The International School puts its students first, which is a large part of my future educator identity. For example, they give their students an "X block" at the end of each day to last around 35 minutes. In the "X block," they focus on student's well-being and balance. They offer 64+ clubs during this time allowing students to connect with their passions. Additionally, they have an amazing push-in model that tailors to students with special needs and learning barriers which goes back to support their extreme sense of inclusion. Nearly everything that "ISI" does that their school has a service embedment encouraging their students to step outside of their comfort zone and help others.
ISI offers exchange trips almost every year from 4th grade on. These exchange trips last about 2 weeks and each educational "track" goes to a different destination. All trips have a curricular, language/cultural or service connection. We had the opportunity to speak to a junior named Asha who has been at the International School since pre-k. She shared that she is on the "Spanish track" and has been able to travel to Costa Rica, Chilé and Spain. These trip s are awesome because they give the students of ISI real-world experiences that better prepare them for the future. |
Overall, the International School taught me a lot about my future educator identity. The ISI mission to put the students first and to create a diverse environment was perfectly in line with my own educator identity. The COE core value "appreciation of diversity and similarity" was so present in this multicultural environment and the ISI inclusion piece. A personal asset that I brought to the site visit was definitely thoughtfulness. I took a lot of time to be thoughtful and take everything in that I was observing that day in order to improve myself as a future educator to the best of my ability.
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