|
|
 | Curriculum developers mnowadays have a huge range of resources to draw from , including detailed standards and benchmarkds designed for educatinal systems around the world. ISB Curriculum director Dr Deborah welch (foreground) and K-12 staff development coordinator Ann strayb make sure their teahers have access to all of them. |
International School Bangkok (ISB) has taken full advantage of the local autonomy American-oriented schools enjoy to develop a curriculum relevant to children of many nationalities
For many countries it makes sense to talk about a national education system. For the United States, this is problematic. American education is not so much a system as an approach.
Constitutionally, education is largely the responsibility of the individual 50 states. But since most funding comes from the local community, the states have delegated much of the actual control over what schools teach to cities and towns.
Traditionally, this has led to considerable diversity in American educational programmes, not only between individual states, but often between schools in neighbouring communities as well. On the plus side, schools are free to develop curricula relevant to the particular needs of their students. On the negative side, local autonomy can create vastly different standards of education, producing some of the industrialised world’s best and worst schools.
Things have changed dramatically over the past two decades, however, with the advent of US national standards and benchmarks coupled with growing demands that the country’s schools become more accountable for the services they provide. As a result, the similarities between schools are beginning to outweigh the differences.
Probably the best local example of the American approach to education is the International School Bangkok (ISB), Thailand’s first international school and, in fact, one of the first international schools ever to be established anywhere in the world.
ISB is particularly interesting because it has the resources and experienced teaching staff to take full advantage of its local autonomy. And, as a hub of curriculum development, the ISB experience has a lot offer to Thai educators as they struggle to design and implement their new curriculum.
'Transportable gift'
Dr William H. Gerritz, Head of School |
Calling ISB an American-style school is a bit misleading, as school principal Dr Bill Gerritz points out. "We’re an international school with a North American philosophy and background so it’s both Canadian and US. But we take curriculum, good stuff, wherever we can find it.
"A big issue is preparing kids for universities and other schools all around the world. We don’t care about our kids being excellent in the Texas curriculum. We want them to be able to go to the university in Houston or in Johannesburg or in Buenos Aires or in Tokyo. That’s what we focus on.
"We only typically have kids here for three to four years. So what we think about is giving them what we call a ‘transportable gift’. It’s an educational gift that they can carry on to their next school, so they go really well prepared whether it’s in the fourth grade or whether they’re going into first year university."
Like most American schools, Gerritz says ISB places "a big emphasis on assessment". But the range of instruments the school uses is quite international in scope.
"We do classic American achievement tests like the Iowa Test. We also do a specific writing assessment from Alberta (Canada). That was the best one we could find in the world. And now we’re starting a new programme this year called the international school assessment," Gerritz says.
"It’s a project we’re doing in collaboration with the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) which will allow us to compare our kids performance with the UK assessments, the Australian assessments with the ones in the US. So it’s truly international."
Developing the curriculumISB, says Gerritz, began developing it’s curriculum about five years ago. Two people who have played a key role in that project are curriculum director Dr Deborah Welch and Ann Straub, K-12 curriculum and staff development coordinator.
"We start with documents (‘authoritative texts’) from the United States or Canada," Welch explains. "We look at, let’s say, the field of science or math, and we look in, say, grade four, or in a range of grades three through five, what a student should be able to know, do and understand.
"In the United States, those are called standards and benchmarks. They all go back to some basic authoritative text in each subject that professional organisations create. So, for example, in math it would be the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. That consists of university professors and practitioners in the field who meet and look at the total field of math and say what the students should know, do and be able to understand. And they offer those guidelines to us.
"We also have different research labs that take that information and all of the standards and benchmarks that are created in the different states and they synthesise them. Then they say ‘how does this compare to other countries? What would a British system say? What would a system in Australia say,’"
"That’s actually very similar to what we do here," Welch explains. "We start with US and Canadian standards and then we look at them relative to our student population and relative to other countries. We then have to work them over a bit to establish what our standards and benchmarks are."
In some cases, says Welch, North American-based standards and benchmarks are not appropriate for an international school located in Thailand. "We wouldn’t want to have a social studies programme where grade seven had an entire year devoted to American government in civics lessons – or where American history was so strong a thread throughout the social studies programme," Welch explains.
The actual curriculum is written internally by the teaching staff with Welch and Straub acting as facilitators. "We meet with teams of teachers doing this work," says Straub. "We get all the professional resources for them and we set a structure for them. We tell them how to begin and how to go through the step by step process.
"Inexperienced teachers could not do this," Straub adds. "We have a very experienced staff. They’re from many countries and bring many perspectives from teaching in many other international schools around the world.
"They have to have a very strong knowledge of their content area. If they don’t, they can’t do it. If you’re teaching magnets to first graders, for example, what is it you really want the kids to know? What is appropriate for the developmental level for a first grader? You have to think, think, think, think.
"I bring that up," Straub says, "because teachers are having a very heated debate right now about whether magnets are appropriate for first graders. Can they understand positive and negative on a real scientific level? Is it worth doing on a first grade level? The teachers are thinking it’s not – that they ought to look at another scientific concept. Magnetism belongs in third grade where they can conceptually begin to understand how magnets work and what it means to attract and repel and why."
Throughout the curriculum writing process, Welch says, each team has access to assistance from external agencies and consultants. But the key to their success, she says, is a strong commitment to collaboration within the staff itself.
"The most vibrant dynamic curriculum is the curriculum that teachers themselves embrace – the curriculum they live, they are constantly thinking about and that they are constantly improving."
Close collaboration
Elementary school co-principals Thomas Baker (left) and Patrick O"Brien are a good example of the collaborative structure in place at ISB. |
"The collaborative structure is built into our school," says Thomas Baker, one of ISB two elementary school principals – an excellent example of collaboration in its own right.
"Our teachers have common grade level planning time, so teachers can meet together almost every other day. That’s really important because then the curriculum’s not a static thing. It’s a dynamic thing.
"We have been sequencing so grade-levels are working on similar units for the year, so we don’t have one class doing one topic and another class doing another. So the teachers will meet before they teach a unit and they’ll talk about the activities and the assessment that they want to demonstrate the learning.
"Then, once the unit is done, they’ll bring in samples of student work – the common assessment – and they’ll take a look at how well their students performed – what piece of work demonstrates an acceptable standard for that grade level and what would be a standard of excellence," Baker explains.
"So they learn from each other. Then, they’ll do a review at the end and they’ll say, do we need to change our common assessment? Was it challenging enough? Did it provide for enough diversity in terms of students demonstrating their learning? What about some of the activities? Were they appropriate for this learning?
"So it’s a very dynamic kind of thing and the teachers have a lot of ownership in the learning – in the presentation of that curriculum. So I think that’s a real strength of this kind of approach to learning," Baker observes.
Another advantage of a standards-based curriculum, says Baker, is that "we are very clear on what we want kids to know and be able to do and how they demonstrate that through common assessments."
This makes for a clear-cut reporting system to parents as well. According to elementary school co-principal Patrick O’Brien, the school uses a six-point scale. "A four would be that they are at an acceptable standard. Six would be excellence. Everything else really describes where they’re at in achieving a four or moving beyond a four."
The programme is geared towards helping students achieve at least the minimum standard by the end of the year. "They receive two report cards a year," says O’Brien. "Let’s say at mid semester, they receive a two or a three, so they’re not at the standard level. In January they’re going to come back and they’re going to set some goals in a goal-setting conference. They will also talk about what their strengths are what their areas of improvement are and they’ll start writing goals that will have sub-skills in them to help them achieve a four."
Goal-setting is also an important part of parent-teacher conferences which take place in November. "We’ve already collected information," says Baker. "We’ve done a writing assessment so we know how the child’s writing skills are. We’ve done a reading assessment. We’ve done some units in math, social studies and science. So teachers sit down with the parents and they talk about where the child is and then they set goals."
The upper grades
Andrew Davies, High School Principal |
You might think that with its North American roots, the programme of choice at the high school level would be Advance Placement (AP) courses from the US-based College Board. ISB does offer a variety of AP courses, but, according to high school principal Andrew Davies, the emphasis lies elsewhere.
"Our take is that we believe that every academically able student should be in the IB (International Baccalaureate) full diploma programme just because we believe it is intrinsically the best preparation in its entirety – with the extended essay, the TOK (theory of knowledge) and the CAS (creativity action service). So our bent is definitely towards the IB," Davies says.
"You’ve also got to consider how well as a school you can support two systems, so we prefer to put most of our energies into the IB. Having said that, we do have a strong AP programme. AP US history, for example, is very popular among the kids as is AP calculus."
Gerritz, too, is an enthusiastic supporter of the IB because "in my opinion, it is way ahead of the rest of the world" in promoting true learning.
"We know that people don’t really know something until they understand it," Gerritz says. "By understanding I mean they can explain it to somebody else, they can use information and apply it in real-world situations. They can communicate in a variety of ways. The IB requires kids to have a deep understanding. You can’t pass IB exams without being able to apply the information," he says.
The IB diploma is a two-year programme taken in the final two years of high school, grades eleven and twelve in an American-oriented programme. At ISB, Davies says, about a third of the students take that option. "Most of the others are taking a mix of AP and IB courses which are probably more tailored to the individual interests and needs."
What about life after ISB? "Approximately, 50 percent of our kids go to North American universities, Davies says. "For acceptance you wouldn’t need the AP or the IB, whereas in Europe or Australia and other countries, you would. Having said that, a large number of our US-bound students, take the international baccalaureate, even though they don’t require it for university admission.
They take it because it’s the best programme around, but also because they realise it prepares them well for college. There’s also a certain amount of college credit that you can get with success in either AP or IB courses and that’s an added motivator," Davies says.
Parental involvementOne thing that is very American about ISB is the high level of parental involvement in almost every aspect of the school.
Wendy Chairin, Admissions ?? |
"We are owned and operated by the parents of the school," observes admissions director Wendy Chairin. "In order to be on the school board, you have to have a child in the school – which is something I really like. We get a lot of strength and a lot of direction from our parents. A lot of time their suggestions are very good and provide a very positive direction for the growth of the school."
Coordinating the parents’ role is Parent Teacher Association president Colette Worm. Now in her second year in this unpaid volunteer position, she has been surprised at the level of parental interest in ISB.
"Parents are on everything," she says. "I see parents as part of the food committee. It seems so trivial, but at high school, elementary and middle school cafeterias, parents and students have a say in ways to improve the service – better pizza, for example. There are a lot of committees and I tend to be a representative or my first vice-president goes, but there’s a parent at almost every meeting of the school, so we at least know what’s going on.
"Each of the schools have their own (PTA) coordinator, but I oversee all of them," Worm explains. "Fund-raising – we have an international food fair,.we have adult education. We do a PTA newsletter once a month. I’m not on the school board, but I go to the meetings and I give a parents’ report."
Colette Worm |
One of Worm’s most important roles is to assist parents with problems. "People don’t know where to turn, especially if they’re new, so if they have a concern, something they want fixed, then I generally know, or can find out, who they can talk to."
School administrators are accessible to parents, Worms says, and Principal Gerritz has introduced a monthly get-together known as "First Fridays with Bill".
"It was started this year," Worm explains. "I meet with Dr Gerritz once a week, but this is intended for other people to have a direct line to Dr Gerritz. Once a month he has a coffee and so anyone can come. He’ll have a topic that he’ll bring up, but it’s open to everybody. So they have a one-to-one contact with Dr G, so they can present whatever they want."
Does parental involvement really make a difference? Worm clearly feels it does. "If you have 400 parents setting up dances and doing the supplementary things, helping in the cafeteria, reading in the classroom, helping in the computer lab and on the playground – every part of the school there are parents. That sends a message to the kids that education is important."
A special thanks to Dr Phillip Stroup, ISB Director of Marketing, who, as usual, went out of his way to make arrangements for us.
terryfrd@ksc15.th.com |