5th Apr, 2009 | Source : Aisling Daly
The benefits of an international school are varied and far-reaching. Whether you’re learning to appreciate exotic cuisine (courtesy of your classmate’s lunch box), or memorizing the Happy Birthday song in five languages, an international school affords a unique set of opportunities.
Preparing for our best future International school provide an education suited for everyone – no matter where you’ve come from or where you’re going to. I need only to look at my classmates, who have gone on to many different forms of higher education all around the globe, to see that ISB has prepared them all equally for their future exploits, as varied and diverse as their lives will be. In such a distinct setting as ISB, students benefit from a variety of ways of learning; this plays to a student’s strengths and teaches them to improve in those areas where they experience more difficulties. Every student, no matter their background or their future goals, can succeed.
Coping with changeAs friends move on to new challenges, the ability to form and sustain relationships in an international setting becomes very important. At an international school, life for most students is fairly transient – spending two or three years in one place, then on to new horizons. I spent, by ISB standards, an unusually long time in the same place. In coping with the changes happening around me, as old friends left and new ones arrived, I learned one of my key lessons at ISB – to adapt to change and to benefit from the new opportunities it presents.
Developing empathyFinally, exposure to so many other cultures, ideas and ways of thinking from an early age means you can’t help but learn about - and consequently adapt - your view of the world, and your place in it. Working with students from backgrounds very different from yours means that, inevitably, you learn from them as well as with them. In the process, you tend to learn just as much about yourself as about them. These are the kinds of lessons that I took away from ISB, which will continue to benefit me long after the memory of classroom learning is faded.
Aisling Daly
ISB Class of 2008
