OWIS Blog

In a traditional classroom, students are encouraged to retain information through memorisation. It's a passive method of learning that may help a student achieve an adequate test score. But information gained in this manner is often forgotten, because the child who 'learned' it had no active role in gaining the knowledge - other than that of leaning over a tablet or copying words from a whiteboard. There is little-to-no inquiry-led learning in this type of classroom.

Parents who are relocating to a new country often find themselves faced with a lot of decisions that have lasting consequences for their children. One of the most important decisions that parents have to make is deciding which school they will send their child to once they have moved to a new country. Subsequently, parents who are moving back to their home country are often concerned about their children acclimating to the curricula offered in the home country.

Today’s teachers deploy far more subtle and sophisticated strategies than those that were used in the past. No longer is it deemed viable, or effective, for a teacher merely to deliver information to his or her class and expect them to react to it. At One World International School, we uphold that the learning process is non-linear, and that human curiosity is the engine that drives our ability to acquire knowledge.

Children are naturally curious. Without being aware of it they are constantly wondering about and marvelling at the world that surrounds them. Sometimes this will take the form of enquiring about a word with which they are not familiar. At other times, it will be a stream of constant questions: “why is the sky blue?”, “where do flowers come from?”, “why do people speak different languages?”...

From smartphones to computers to video games, today’s youth are growing up in a world dominated by screens and multi-tasking. Learning how to focus on the moment at hand – rather than anticipating the future and jumping from one idea to the next – can be a huge challenge. Mindfulness teacher Jack Kornfield shares that “when we get too caught up in the busy-ness of the world, we lose connection with one another – and ourselves.”

 

Art class is so much more than just learning to draw a shapely line and studying the position of colours on the colour wheel, especially for young, developing minds. For many children, art is a tool that fosters critical-thinking skills and aids in problem-solving. Exploration, experimentation and reasoning all play huge roles in a quality art curriculum, and all are skills that benefit children as they grow and progress. This is the premise behind the Arts Programme at One World International School.

How can we provide opportunities for students to deepen their understanding about the world around them? How can we best prepare our students for an ever-changing future?