Teaching Children How to Think Internationally
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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
The International Primary Curriculum is an [A]idea[/A] that began in Britain eight years ago. Today this [A]curriculum [/A]is taught in more than one thousand primary schools in fifty-eight countries, [A]including[/A] the United States.
Educator Martin Skelton co-wrote the International Primary Curriculum, or IPC. He says for children to learn and [A]succeed[/A], they need a program that permits them to learn [A]individually[/A].
MARTIN SKELTON: "Our view is the [A]teachers[/A] should be thinking about their [A]kids[/A] in their class and why they are not learning and trying to work out what they are going to be doing [A]tomorrow[/A] to help [A]individual[/A] kids learn much better."
He says the idea with the curriculum is to help today's children become good [A]citizens [/A]of the world and twenty-first century leaders.
MARTIN SKELTON: "Most world problems are going to be solved internationally now. I mean no single country is going to solve the [A]environment[/A] or [A]terrorism[/A]. It's a multi-cooperational activity."
Mr. Skelton says the curriculum has activities built around the [A]development[/A] of "international mindedness" starting from the age of five.
MARTIN SKELTON: "We encourage the kids to [A]mingling[/A] with schools in other countries, and then of course things like Skype now make that [A]fantastically[/A] easy to do."
The British American School of Los Angeles is one of a few American [A]private[/A] schools that teach the International Primary Curriculum. Second grade teacher Alison Kerr says the main goal is to [A]engage[/A] children in the learning process. This term, for [A]example[/A], her class is learning about people important in [A]history[/A].
ALLISON KERR: "I got the children to come in [A]secret[/A] and dress up with several [A]clues[/A] of a famous person. They had to research and bring us ten written clues and the rest of the class had to [A]guess[/A] who these significant people were. So the children do not [A]simply [/A]just do the same worksheet type of format every single time."
The British School in Boston held a fair for students and [A]parents[/A] called Around the World in a Day. Emma Northey, head of primary learning at the school, says fifty-one [A]nationalities[/A] were represented. She described one activity designed to teach about similarities between[A] different[/A] cultures.
EMMA NORTHEY: "The children were each given a [A]passport[/A]. They basically knew that they were going around the world in a day and we said to them 'You have to come back with two [A]similarities[/A] that you had seen between the different [A]cultures[/A].' Even the three-year-olds came back to me saying 'Gosh, you know everybody writes. Some people write going down. Some people write from left to right, some from right to left.'"
Another [A]educator[/A], Kate Foy of the British School in Washington, says the teacher's role is to [A]enable [/A]students to discover for themselves.
KATE FOY: "And you kind of have to sit back a little bit. You have to [A]make sure[/A] you're asking the right [A]questions[/A]. You maneuver yourself around the [A]classroom[/A] and enable the children to learn as [A]opposed[/A] to telling them."
