IB, Technology Help "Re-Format Al-Jahra's Youngsters

Grade 1 students at Kuwait Bilingual School get a shot at the big time (photo: KBS).

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Kuwait Bilingual School (KBS) in Al-Jahra is the second school in Kuwait to adopt the challenging and rewarding IB PYP program. “It is the second year now since we started making PYP happen at KBS,” explains Rebecca Hawtin, PYP coordinator. “There are some struggles there... It’s a lifelong journey. Creating a springboard from which learners can jump into international mindedness with responsibility is not easy, but in the past year we made a big leap.”

The IB PYP program, based on the constructivist theory of learning, proposes that the most penetrating questions come from students' existing knowledge. A successful inquiry will lead to responsible action, its manuals say. The PYP curriculum consists of planned, taught and assessed components as answers to three questions: what we want to learn, how best will we learn and how will we know what we have learned. Teachers plan lessons collaboratively based on the six trans-disciplinary themes – who 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. Learners inquire into these globally significant issues in the context of units of inquiry, each of which addresses a central idea.

Technology played a large part in getting students into the program. Last year the school bought 29 Smart Boards, and upper graders now also do their mathematics and science principally on laptops. The library is equipped with 14 more laptops, used for research and e-reading, and also has a section of audio books. “Even the reluctant readers change their mind when we offer headphones,” said Jarrah Al-Jarrah, the Arabic librarian: what is more, "parents who are teachers elsewhere are borrowing books from our library!" In conjunction with enhanced technology, assignments based on discovery learning, hands-on, experiential, and project-based approaches have triggered a research mindset.

The information and communication technology corner in an IB classroom is not quiet anymore. It is a provocative place, where students dive deep into topics as varied as sustainable society and biomes, and discuss passionately issues such as the tragedy of the commons and Agenda 21. "Chalk and talk" is obsolete here; learners decide what they want to learn and take responsibility for, and that includes teachers and parents. The senior learners of Al-Jahra now make art, videos, and PowerPoint presentations on hot topics that include the illegal wild life trade in Kuwait.

The school's 700-odd students (pre-kindergarten to Grade 5) have come around to this new type of education – an inquiry-based, concept-driven system with international mindedness that aims to generate intercultural understanding and respect. In the Grade 5 PYP exhibition at KBS last spring, students spoke of the defining issues of our time: environmental problems, alternative energy, and ethical consumerism.

Al-Jahra's parent community, like its teachers, are good facilitators too. Last spring some parents arranged for doctors, nurses, and firefighters to visit the school when the Grade 1 students studied "community helpers" as their unit of inquiry. The result, as the photograph shows: pure learning pleasure.

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