By by Chika Wilms, Bangkok Patana School in Thailand.

Welcome to another cyberspace musing by this mind-wanderer. I've been teaching in international schools for the past 18 years. Prior to teaching, I was a student in three different international schools. So, I've already spent nearly a quarter of a century in international schools. Well, that gives me something to muse about...

I'll start with the positive aspects: students and teachers are international and it is not an over statement to say that many good international schools form a multicultural community on their own. Children growing up in such communities are aware of cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity and learn to appreciate it. They are also well-traveled and knowledgeable about transitions and adaptation to different types of environment. Their often privileged socio-economic status gives them access to many opportunities for learning and to other things such as Information Technology and the use of its high-tech gadgets. In sum, children attending international schools tend to be well-educated, socially privileged, culturally sophisticated, and economically comfortable. They also have the inclination to be confident, competitive, conscientious and even compassionate through various types of community work available in and outside of school and by living and growing up in a caring environment which values the importance of good education and unity in diversity.

I mentioned some points about the down side of international school students in my previous article with regards to their material possessions or privileges associated with economic affluence and the power vested in it. Adding to the list would be their exclusiveness or relative independence from the local society as well as taken-for granted assumptions of the dominance of certain political, cultural and linguistic ideologies. In this sense, one way to look at international schools is that they turned out to be an island for the privileged or a cocoon for ‘the different' (e.g. Third Culture Kids, biracial, multilingual kids; expatriates with prolonged overseas sojourns who feel that they no longer fit in their home countries, and others). But there is no reason to regard them too critically for appearing not to be living in the ‘real' world because their seemingly elitist educational environment can still inspire the young -- and old -- to pursue the ideals of international understanding and relations in an ecological way. And as if by osmosis, these children grow up with more awareness for global concerns and are bestowed with more potential to act upon them than those who are not exposed to the type of education available in many international schools.

This is where education comes in. Perhaps the fundamental question is not ‘what exactly are international schools?' but rather, ‘what does good education look like and how can one tell?' If international schools can foster the love of learning through meaningful and supportive interactions amongst students, teachers and other community members, then the seeds of life-long learning have been planted. After all, not only our ability to learn but also our desire to learn will bring us to the next level of personal and collective growth. Learning is not just an obsession of the geeky few or for gate-keeping purposes; learning is the key to the evolution of humanity. Technology has come a long way since the age of restricted geographical movements and migration patterns (i.e. prior to the advent of trains, cars and planes).

International schools can exist thanks to these and other societal and scientific developments. And as more people cross
regions and continents to work with or meet people foreign to their places of origin, the more salient the importance of understanding one another beyond the differences in outer appearances, creed and socio-economic status becomes. Diversity seemed like opening Pandora's Box at first: the excitement of exoticism in the encounters with the Other soon gave way to a stale and wary strife of pessimistic thoughts about never being able to reconcile all the differences to achieve a fairy-tale like be-all, end-all harmony and happiness. Well-experienced international citizens should know, however, that the initial confusion and pain felt as a result of adjustment anxiety to a new culture or place soon become absorbed in the process of cultivating a more international or multicultural understanding of the self and others.

Then there will be a sort of revelation or realization that diversity is not an adulteration of one's national, cultural and linguistic identity but rather, its enrichment. You can still be ‘you' with all enrichment additions and not be labeled as ‘half-baked', ‘linguistic schizophrenic' or ‘identity confused'. Strangely enough, this reassurance and affirmation can only come from dialogues with the like-minded people and surmounting adjustment problems. And if education can provide the platform for such dialogues, then its purpose is well-served. And international schools seem to be able to provide an ideal environment for it. A network of alumni helps to tell the story. Its existence is testament to the solid success of this on-going process and that it is actually going on.

Well, those were my two satangs for today's cyber musing. I appreciated hearing from some of you out there. I hope to be connected at home in the near future, so that I can also respond to your comments or articles. Keep on thinking. Keep on enjoying the encounters you have every day.