By Sanjeev Baga
The unique setting in which many international schools operate creates an environment where social-emotional learning is crucial to help children foster resilience and develop the life skills needed to thrive in the dynamic international school context and after.
Teaching a robust social-emotional education can be more difficult without a national curriculum to anchor the subject matter to, and with some schools offering a variety of qualifications, mapping these lessons to an international curriculum can be tricky.
With classrooms that are often filled with children from all over the world and from diverse cultures and backgrounds, teachers need to be able to transcend borders and ensure their lessons align with the school’s philosophy and community if they want to see their students’ emotional intelligence and awareness flourish.
Mapping the curriculum
International curricula providers such as the International Baccalaureate (IB) place great emphasis on the holistic development of the child and attempt to encourage a more global outlook from its teaching. With these core themes aligning closely with many social and emotional learning topics, school leaders need to ensure that their approach is mapped to the philosophy of the chosen academic programme to blend in with the content for social-emotional learning.
Primarily, school leaders should familiarise themselves with the terminology and ideology of the chosen curriculum and begin to draw distinctions between social-emotional learning and the international programme. It’s important to remember that social emotional learning might not directly slot into the confines of the international programme, but leaders should look at the bigger picture and map the core characteristics that align with the major themes that need to be covered. Many social-emotional learning topics complement an international curriculum, for example, the IB learner profile promotes open mindedness, caring and reflective attitudes. All these traits are affiliated with excellent social emotional learning characteristics meaning that lessons can be mapped closely to the programme’s core tenets.
International school leaders should also consider incorporating social-emotional learning as a whole school approach, ensuring that all teachers are using the same terminology and techniques across different subjects from PE to Biology and everything in between. If schools are struggling, some social-emotional learning providers are able to map their lessons to a school’s chosen international curriculum for them, saving teachers countless hours of effort to ensure that all aspects of their education provision are interlinked.
Photo: Jigsaw Education Group
Transcending international barriers
Due to the inherently global influences present in an international school environment, teachers must ensure that their social emotional learning lessons are culturally relevant to all children by globalising the lessons and teaching themes that transcend borders. Unlike schools which align their emotional enrichment and life skills development to a national curriculum, international schools must be mindful of their context and use examples and resources which are relatable to their classroom demographic.
In an international context, teachers should embrace the multi-cultural identities and experiences of their classrooms, inviting children to share and expand their horizons using their own unique cultural backgrounds. These discussions will not only instil a natural sense of curiosity in the classroom but will build confidence in themselves and their heritage. Teachers can also focus on universal topics of friendship, ambition, caring and self-confidence and adapt as needed to make content more culturally relevant.
Teachers in this context really benefit from resources and lesson plans that act as frameworks from which they can adapt to make the content more culturally relevant and relatable to the classroom demographic. They can use these materials as a high baseline from which they can edit to their environment, alleviating fears that content will create a divide between certain sections of the classroom. School leaders should actively seek out providers which offer flexible learning pathways and editable resources that support and encourage teachers to implement their own unique teaching style and imprint onto the curriculum. Teachers ultimately understand what will and will not work within a classroom environment so trusting them to further develop resources is essential.
“In an international context, teachers should embrace the multi-cultural identities and experiences of their classrooms, inviting children to share and expand their horizons using their own unique cultural backgrounds.”
Building resilience
Resilience is a core skill to develop within any social emotional education, but the unique context that many international schools operate in makes it particularly pertinent. Parents of children in international schools are often on assignments meaning that moving is common for their children as is the prospect of attending new schools. The impact of this can also transfer to their classmates who will have to come to terms with their friends leaving and will need to build resilience to cope with this change in environment.
Teachers should be upfront with their students about the realities of change and share their own personal experiences of coping in these situations as examples for students to draw on when the time comes for them to face their own challenges. It is essential that children learn to accept and embrace change in their lives and their social emotional learning can help to support and develop the coping mechanisms and skills needed to build emotional resilience to experiences they might face in the future. Teachers can deliver lessons on techniques such as breaking down problems, sharing their issues as well as breathing techniques to alleviate anxiety.
International schools rightly place great emphasis on developing a child’s social and emotional skills, highlighting the importance of global citizenship, inclusivity and cultural diversity, all core tenets of a social emotional education. International school leaders will soon see that a child’s emotional learning can dovetail effectively with international programmes which champion holistic education, but they must support their teachers through meticulous programme mapping and adaptable resources. In providing superior social emotional education, schools can equip their students with the core life skills and techniques needed to build confident and resilient children.
Sanjeev Baga is the CEO of Jigsaw Education Group. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
