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Int'l-schools-advantages

Int'schools offer diverse, complex learning

Simon Marcus Gower
Jakarta

The name Maria Montessori is perhaps most readily associated
with the many schools that bear her name (a number of which may
be found in various locations around Jakarta).

But she has also rightly been described as a profound and
original thinker on education, a scientist, a philosopher, a
physician and a feminist and humanitarian. But perhaps her own
words tell us more about her than all those descriptors and
titles.

She once stated, (in a way that most likely troubles many
politicians), that, "establishing lasting peace is the work of
education; all politics can do is keep us out of war."

Recent events might suggest that politics has tended to keep
us in war but her thinking about education as a "peacemaker" is
profound and highlights what international schools and
international education can be involved in and achieve.

Growing up and attending school in the United Kingdom allowed
for an ethnically and culturally diverse education. I was able to
enjoy friendships with classmates from many different ethnic
backgrounds and even nationalities and this clearly had a
beneficial effect.

The kind of understanding and tolerance that is, quite simply
and unconsciously, learned from having a multiethnic and
multinational education can be hugely beneficial later on in life
when meeting and working with people from around the world.

This is an experience that may be had in international
schools, as quite often they have a student population that is
very diverse too.

But in addition to having benefits from a diverse student
population, there can be benefits from having a diverse range of
teachers. Again, a personal example can illustrate this. In my
primary schooling I had a teacher of German origin. It was quite
unusual for a German person to be teaching in a British primary
school, but the benefits were considerable.

At a time when many school children, and indeed adults, were
still dwelling on negative imagery and thoughts of Germany and
Germans; this German teacher - living and working in England -
was able to broaden her students' horizons and give them
appreciation and understanding beyond the naivete and
stereotyping that was so common.

This again is an experience that may be replicated in
international schools here in Jakarta. Education really ought to
be about broadening people's horizons and setting up the
potential for Maria Montessori's "lasting peacemakers" and
international schools can be seen to be bringing educators of
many nationalities together to advance the education available in
the Indonesian capital.

Also, it should be recognized that this "availability of
international education" is something that is, more than ever
before, available to Indonesian people. International schools now
welcome many Indonesian students into their ranks and this adds
to that stated diversity.

However, diversity does not exist alone in these international
settings for education. There is also a complexity that people
should be aware of and consider. The multinational and indeed
multiethnic and multilingual settings that students may be
entering when they join an international school can be very
complex and even quite difficult to assimilate for students.

For example, one teacher in a Jakarta-based international
school consistently makes reference to the complex language
situation that can exist in international schools. As she points
out, even though the English language is used as the lingua-
franca in most international schools, "the many varieties of
mother tongues of students in these schools can sometimes make
life difficult".

This can go to quite extreme circumstances where, as another
international school teacher noted, students of different
nationalities will group and stick together and not really mingle
with others. This creates a complex situation that an
international school needs to take care to address and possibly
alleviate the problem of exclusion and cliques forming divisively
within the same school or even the same classroom.

It is probably fair to say that the saying "birds of a feather
flock together" often holds true in human nature but an
international school does provide an opportunity for boundaries
to be broken down and stereotypes and prejudices to be redressed.
A key component to any good school is the manner in which it
seeks to engender and generate a sense of school spirit and
community. Even though various nations represented within a
school can mean a very varied and complex school community, this
should not preclude the development of that community.

There are consistently ways and means in which international
schools can and do create understanding and appreciation of the
diverse and complex nature of humanity. For example, cultural
events are often a feature at international schools and these
events are often multinational in nature. Students from different
cultures and nationalities are given opportunities to express
themselves and represent who and/or what they are.

Maria Montessori's claim that "establishing lasting peace is
the work of education" can and should be a guide and a target for
all schools -- whether national or international -- but it should
also be realized that when entering a school, participation and
involvement in the school's community can and should be expected.
But this is not always the case.

The complex nature of international schools can make it
difficult for all parties to get involved in the school's life
and sense of community. For example, one student attending school
found that her parents could not really attend meetings with her
teachers because they did not have sufficient English to either
speak or receive the information that is quite normally shared in
parent-teacher conferences.

Although this situation does seem rather sad in many respects,
it does also, in a way, highlight how the international school
experience for the student is proving beneficial. Instead of the
parents talking directly to the teachers, they would talk to
their daughter and she would translate. Effectively then, her
international exposure in school was allowing her to break down
boundaries of nationality and language barriers.

International education does, then, provide potentially very
diverse and even complicated settings for students; but, with
good handling, they can indeed be primary and excellent settings
for the cultivation of true learning and understanding and hence
lasting peace.

-- The writer is the principal of Raffles International Christian
School, Pondok Indah