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