I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to all the individuals who made this visitation so enjoyable, as well as the students of IST, who demonstrated a welcoming spirit and high degree of achievement. May IST continue to grow and thrive for many years to come.
Students in [xxx] classroom were busy at work on Venn Diagram upon my entrance. Students had been mastering the skill of comparing/contrasting human body parts with an animal of their own selection. One student approached me in order to tell me that he had been working on the digestive system of a tarantula and comparing that with the digestive system of a human. (At the culmination of each 5-week period, students have gotten into the habit of sharing their projects with parents at the school Open House.)
He reported to me sadly, “Since I am a fifth grader this year, I will have to leave this school at the end of this year. Even though I would love to stay here, I will be matriculating to [xxx] next year.” I could understand his sadness. This school is indeed unique and special!
I thought to myself, “If only IST could continue up to eighth grade, or perhaps 12th grade! Plainly, students love it here… they adore their teachers, who see their role as that of mentor and guide, leading their charges to increasingly higher levels of mastery. (Except perhaps in very spare instances in both the 4-5 English class and the French class, I’ve seen very little evidence of direct teaching here at IST.) This, I am convinced, is the locus of IST’s success… each teacher I had observed had their students working on authentic, meaningful projects in the target language. Therefore, students acquire not only the knowledge of how to speak the language, but how to read and write it all while learning important content knowledge.
Perhaps what sets this school apart from other schools is the degree of planning teachers commit to for each unit of study. Just as with [xxx], [xxx] was teaching a unit on “The Human Body,” but this time focusing on the lungs and bronchi. Everywhere I looked in the room I found items related to the unit… human skeleton, skulls, models of the human digestive system, as well as an extraordinary array of books on the subject. One student was busy reading a book entitled, “Der Mensch”—“The Body.”
It is obvious that each teacher at IST is hand-selected for both their knowledge of language as well as their overall educational level. Certainly, one cannot teach what one does not know. Yet in most schools offering language instruction, teachers fall far short of mastery of content. Sure, they can speak the language, but do they have the content knowledge in, say anatomy, to teach the functions of the trachea, esophagus, or Diaphragm? At IST each teacher observed can and does!
Notebooks out, ready to begin lesson, [xxx] students sit eagerly as teacher discusses the unit of study, “Explorers.” The explorer of the day is the legendary Jacques Cousteau. Integrated within unit were poems about the sea, vocabulary related to the topic, and books, books, books. Again, teaching children to think is paramount at IST, so, teacher has students compare/contrast explorer Cousteau to Columbus, in French! As if this was not impressive enough, what stood out in my mind was a young girl who walked to where I had been sitting in order to get a pair of scissors. I admired the fact that she did so with tact and without disturbing the teacher. But, interestingly enough, instead of taking scissors to her seat, she walked around an entire set of tables in order to deposit scissors in front of another student who needed them.
They learn a whole lot more at IST than subject matter! No wonder so many parents wish to provide this kind of opportunity to their kids, I thought! As I left, I could not help but feel a pang of sadness, feeling that this is the way schools SHOULD be, if only they COULD!
Thank you all for your warm hospitality! Each one of you can be exceedingly proud of yourselves and your school!
Respectfully,
Scott A. Connuck
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