Thoughts on International Education

School’s have long in been in the business of preparing students for ‘life’. Recently, in terms of things like globalization, ‘life’ for many people has got a lot bigger and more complex. In response (or perhaps as a reflection) of such changes, one could argue that international education offers one of the most significant advances to education in the recent memory. Throughout the world, parents and governments are scrabbling to ensure young people are given the tools they need to survive and thrive in our rapidly changing, highly networked world. International education seems to hold much promise for these groups. At its core, an international education changes the parameters of traditional education; it effectively extends the traditional boundaries of student expectations as it requires students to contextualize problems and information beyond their local community and circumstances, while compelling them understand grapple with the complexity of the a global society and develop a sense of ‘international mindedness’ to shape their action.

‘International schools’ have been around in their modern form for almost a century, emerging first in Yokohama and Geneva in part as a response to the perceived need to enhance understanding between nations to avoid another global conflagration like the first world war (of course was referred to as the “Great War” back then). The notion that war is much less likely if people understand each other is not new either, and Lester Pearson’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech in the mid-50’s famously echoed this theme.

I see a strong and relatively obvious connection between elements of what we articulate as ‘emotional intelligences’ and an international education. I am reading a great book, “The Roots of Empathy”about a programme in Canada for aimed at building empathy in children. Amazing stuff actually and the results of the programme have been excellent (if the author’s research is to be believed). But the whole time I am reading it, I am thinking to myself that all we need to do is substitute a few words here and there, change the context of the case studies, and we could talking about the aspirations and application of international education. At very fundamental level international education is about empathy. International understanding cannot be separated from this emotional intelligence and I think international education research should turn it eye more to some of the research projects like the “Roots of Empathy” as I strongly suspect many of the findings and research will transcend geography, race and culture. And hey, anything that can transcend those things sounds pretty international to me.

International schools defy categorization. In fact, finding a definition of international school has proved the holy grail of international school educators and researchers. This is perhaps no surprise as there no agreed definition of international education either and title of ‘international school’ can be adopted by organizations without restriction. Having said that Cambridge and Thompson have (in my opinion) summed it up fairly nicely, and since they also regularly use much bigger words that me, so I will quote them here. According to them, international schools serve ‘the educational needs of globally mobile students’ and that ‘this culturally diverse constituency includes the children of diplomats and employees of multinational companies, parastatal bodies and non-governmental organizations’ (2004).

Big words aside for a moment, here is question for you though.

Could an international school exist on the moon?

This questions has been bandied about in international schools for some time and the crux of this question, I think, is whether or not an international school can be defined as an international entity without being reflected against a host country culture and a local society. I think it can, though I know others will disagree with me. I think a true international school could be picked and transplanted to any other viable location on the earth and, with the right tinkering, go on to provide its educational service to an international clientele. After all, if there is not an existing dominant influence on an international school the heart and soul of the school could be geographically moved.

And this really not an entirely hypothetical question. There are plenty of schools cropping up around the world in far flung and remote places. Consider oil workers in remote places. And I think in thse places, even if there aren’t locals around, one could still receive an international school education.