[EDLING:1729] International School Focus / A Continental kind of education

[Francis M. Hult]

Daily Yomiuri

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20060727TDY16004.htm

International School Focus / A Continental kind of education

Brad Quinn / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

Serving Kansai's German speaking residents for nearly a century, the German 
School Kobe/European School has recently faced its toughest challenge with the 
sharp decline of German, Austrian and Swiss nationals in Japan. However, 
drawing on the resiliency that has kept the school running since its founding 
in 1909, the school has adapted to changing demographics in the nation by 
opening the European School in 2001, becoming in essence two schools in one, 
offering both German-language and English-language schools and kindergartens. 

Discussing the pool of potential German school students in Asia, Wolfgang 
Stover, the school's headmaster, said: "It's not just restricted to Japan. 
Other countries in the Far East--Singapore, maybe Thailand too--have also 
suffered. Everyone has been focusing on China for some years [in posting 
employees]." 

Stover also attributes the decline to the policies of German and European 
companies that have reduced the number of expatriate families they send 
abroad. 

"They want to save money, so they give the responsibilities for joint ventures 
in the region to Japanese staff. It's far more economical for them," he said. 

With the changing business climate, Stover says the European School was a new 
way to make the school viable. The change has not only allowed the school to 
survive, but by starting the European School it has flourished, with the 
greatest number of students in its entire history, around 60 for the 2005-06 
school year. 

Alex Inman, deputy head teacher responsible for the European section, says 
that when he initially came to the school three years ago, it only had a first 
grade. But year by year, the school has added new grades and new teachers. 

"Next year we're up to Grade 5," Inman said proudly of the school's 
progress. "The German school numbers have dropped off, while the European 
school has taken off." 

The school's curriculum follows the Switzerland-based International 
Baccalaureate Organization's Primary Years Program. In June, the school 
underwent an inspection and now has been officially designated as an IBO 
facility. 

"We use the IBO's international schools' international curriculum, Inman 
said. "It's not based on the American, the British or the religious system. 
It's 100 percent international. So if your child transfers to China or goes 
back to a state school in America, they can fit in. 

"It's the only school in the area that's 100 percent international. And this 
is our selling point, that and our European values." 

Consistent with the Primary Years Program's emphasis on developing students' 
critical thinking and intercultural understanding, the German School 
Kobe/European School emphasizes the individuality of its students. 

"The students here are not just one of the crowd," Inman said. "And I think it 
has something to do with the families as well. The families that choose this 
school aren't the traditional 'let's follow the crowd families.' We always 
encourage kids to take action themselves." 

According to the IBO's Primary Years Programme guide, the curriculum is 
organized around six themes--Where we are, where we are in place and time, how 
we express ourselves, how the world works, how we organize ourselves and 
sharing the planet. 

The classes themselves are based on interdisciplinary thematic units in which 
teachers pose open-ended questions, encouraging students to consider such 
aspects as form, function and causation. 

On an afternoon in May, about 10 students were studying the implications of 
waste disposal and recycling. Led by their teacher, Jennifer Elbert, the 
students convened outdoors with shovels and began digging into rows of dirt, 
removing various pieces of refuse. 

"We're doing a thematic unit on recycling, so we created a fake landfill to 
see what happens to the buried garbage," Elbert said. 

"Cans will stay around for hundreds of years, and plastic doesn't break down 
very well either, so PET bottles stay a long time, but we've learned that 
paper breaks down pretty fast," she said. 

"We buried a paper plate and there was hardly anything left, so the children 
got to see it break down over the course of about three weeks." 

Through related field trips as well as these hands-on activities, the students 
get vivid lessons on how their actions can affect their environment. 

With a cap of 12 students for each class, the students at the school get 
plenty of individual attention, which has proven to have many benefits. 

"We've been able to achieve the aims we set for the school year halfway 
through because you can do so much more in small classes," Inman said. 

While the curriculum is primarily taught in German and English at the 
respective schools, the school emphasizes various European-related learning 
and cultural activities. 

"We have classes every week in which the students study aspects of European 
culture," Inman said. "For example, we're in the middle of a project comparing 
the different types of residential buildings in Europe and Japan. We also 
study festivals in Europe and these kinds of things. That's how we bring it 
into the school. 

"We get a lot of families--they're not American and they're not British--and 
so they don't want to go to those types of schools. For a variety of reasons, 
we're what they're looking for." 

German School Kobe/European School 

Nada Ward, Kobe 

Founded: 1909 

Students: 60 

Grades: K-6 

(Jul. 27, 2006)