An academic nomad at International School Maastricht: a testimonial
Inside of the large white envelope that Louis Boon, the dean of the University College Maastricht, handed me this past February, lay an aesthetically simplistic, but monumentally significant document: my Bachelor’s degree. As I stood upon the stage, I could not help but to reflect on the path that had led me there.
A multicultural life
By virtue of my mother’s occupation as an international school teacher, I have been able to accumulate a considerable amount of intercultural experience. I witnessed Hungary transform against the backdrop of the disintegration of the Soviet Union (albeit from the somewhat diminutive perspective of a seven year old), sampled the best jerk chicken in the world in Boston Bay, Jamaica and have been carried to and from home in a Bangladeshi rickshaw.
Yet, alongside the immensely varied and inspiring sights and sounds of these countries, lay a place where to a certain extent geographical considerations were largely irrelevant, namely the international school, in which I have spent most of my academic life.
The international school system is built to cater to the educational needs of expatriate students all around the world. Locals are able to attend although the higher cost of international schools is a major limiting factor, especially in developing countries.
The greatest drawback in my experience with the international school system is that the designated curriculum may either match with the regional educative standard (that uses the English language to boot), or be dependent on whether the school is autonomous, or sponsored by a country’s embassy. In Jamaica for example I studied under a standard American highschool curriculum at the American International School of Kingston, while at the Anglo-American School of Sofia, Bulgaria, I had to follow the British secondary school system. Because I often changed schools my transition into these varied curricula caused some setbacks for me on the academic level, especially in mathematics and life sciences.
‘Ambushed’ by the International Baccalaureate
When I arrived in Maastricht in August 2001 I sought nothing more than to avoid further academic complications. My goal was to finish the last year of my highschool education at an institution with the same American curriculum as the school in Jamaica where I had studied for the three previous years. AFNorth (Armed Forces Northern Europe), an international school located on the NATO base in Brunssum, about half an hour outside of Maastricht, seemed a perfect fit. AFNorth followed an American highschool model, which would have allowed me to graduate with an American highschool diploma and, after taking the standardized test required by the US for University acceptance, the SATs, proceed to an American institute of higher education. My future, for the first time, seemed clear.
Unbeknownst to me however my parents had other ideas as to where I would undergo the last stage of my secondary school education. They thought that the International School of Maastricht (ISM), which offered an entirely different educational model from AFNorth, known as the International Baccalaureate, would be a better choice. Founded in 1984, this school was different from AFNorth primarily for its use of the International Baccalaureat Diploma Program. The IB Diploma, pioneered by English and French teachers from the International School of Geneva, Switzerland in 1968, was designed to “facilitate the international mobility of students preparing for university by providing schools with a curriculum and diploma recognized by universities around the world.” (source: www.ibo.org) The IB is a quickly growing program, as currently over 2,195 schools teach under the IB curriculum in over 127 countries around the world.
My first semester at ISM was spent getting my bearings with the IB program. The first step I was asked to take was to select six courses that I would follow for the duration of the IB diploma program from a wide-ranging menu. Three of these were advanced, or “higher” level courses while the other three were at the “standard” level. In addition to these six, and to make us more well rounded global citizens, we had to also take an introductory course in philosophy and accumulate 150 points in three categories: Creativity, Action and Service.
In relation to the American School system I had become accustomed to at the American International School of Kingston (AISK), the idea of being able to choose my own courses in the IB was revolutionary to me. In Jamaica the only option I was given was to select from one out of three different secondary language courses, German, French or Spanish. The necessity of taking more advanced courses also differed greatly between AISK and the ISM.
During my years in Bulgaria, Bangladesh, Hungary and Finland, the language barrier posed a major challenge in my establishing a connection with each country of residence. Moreover I felt that the international schools themselves contributed to this insulationist feeling. My experience at ISM however proved very different in this respect.
An international fraternity
The difference lay in the fact that ISM is not located on an isolated piece of land in a dedicated building, but has a symbiotic relationship with a Dutch highschool. When I entered ISM in 2001 it was contained within the Dutch highschool, Jeanne d’Arc College and in 2002 the school was moved nearer to Maastricht to what was then called the Euro College, and which now along with the Jeanne D’Arc College is collectively known as the Porta Mosana College. The ISM was comprised of around three hundred international students, ensconced within a school of over a thousand Dutch highschool students.
At first I interacted very little with the students of the Dutch section, besides the coincidental meeting at a social event. That all changed in February 2002, the beginning of my second semester at ISM, when the Dutch and international department organised a joint trip to Adelboden, Switzerland for a week of alpine mountain navigation. More importantly, the trip also aimed to give the ISM students and Dutch students a chance to get to know one another. In order to ensure that social bonding, we were split into groups comprised of an equal number of Dutch and ISM students. On more than one social level, this was an extremely effective practice as I made quite a few new friends, and picked up some Dutch to boot.
Unfortunately, this was the only such activity that attempted to bring together the two student bodies during my time there, but the residual effects of that one and only trip helped me to learn something of Dutch culture in a small way. Without that immersive catalyst the lasting friendships with the many Dutch people that have passed in and out of my life during my time here would have been much harder to achieve, and I also do not think if I would still be here. To the best of my knowledge this whimsical trip to the Swiss Alps was and continues to be a yearly tradtion.
One positive side effect of the International School’s enclosure within a much larger Dutch highschool was the fostering of a kind of familial relationship between students and teachers within the foreign section. This is actually something that I have found in every international school that I have attended, including my alma mater, the University College Maastricht.
This sense of comfortable familiarity was made even easier by the fact that all of the teachers and students shared English as a common language, and while it may not have been their native tongue, noone seemed to have any trouble in its use, in either an academic or social context.
The national heritage of my classmates was quite diverse: aside from one or two Americans, they came from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and a wide assortment of European countries. A quarter of the students were either Dutch or Belgian. The teaching staff was less diverse, but this was largely due to the fact that the teachers formed a much smaller group than the student body: many were Dutch, a few were of British origin, and again, there was the odd American.
Post ISM
In retrospect, the high overall academic standard of the IB Program, combined with an internationally diverse student body and extremely competent teaching staff, made my two years at ISM a greatly beneficial influence to my academic success at the University College Maastricht. While most of my classmates, as is the case in most international schools, dispersed to higher education establishments around the world (although the majority went to the UK), the few that remained in Maastricht have also effectively put into practice the diverse range of educational material accumulated during the IB program.
Due to the fact that UCM gave me the same academic flexibility as ISM in constructing my curriculum, I was able to mold my education into something that fit my academic strengths and weaknesses, which made the transition between ISM and UCM very easy, a comforting first for me.
By Eliot Rolen
Eliot Rolen is an American expatriate living in Maastricht and a regular freelance contributor to Crossroads.
For more information about ISM and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program please see:
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