Guidance

Action, Guidance, Learning, Spirit
31 Mar 2021

AISB Student Leadership – Helping Students Find Their ‘Why’

Student leadership began to take shape at AISB in the summer of 2017 when the Vampires summer camp introduced the concept of student-coaches and leaders into the program. Our students and kids from the local community loved interacting and spending their time with high schoolers who made their summer a blast whilst teaching them many new things each day. This idea of student leadership was then furthered by a small group of exceptional students in that school year, when they began coaching under 11 football and leading some artistic courses, such as CCA (Co-curricular activity) painting. The success of these students and the winds of energy ushered into AISB then gave way to new ideas and planning for the newly formed CCA department in the 2018-19 school year, when we welcomed over thirty student leaders and these activities made up over 15% of our CCA program, which was also the…
Alex Sota
Guidance, Spirit
17 Dec 2020

Being Grateful for Life As We Live It

In these times of such adversity, I would like to share a special piece of writing that I have always found sustaining. It was shared with me in life-changing circumstances, also close to Christmas time.  After teacher training in London, I took a volunteer assignment in Ghana to teach in the remote Western Region of the country, close to the border with Cote D’Ivoire. This was an extremely poor area in which people relied on cocoa farming. I was supposed to teach English in a new Secondary School, but the students rarely came. Primary education was hardly well-established in the area.  As the only white European for many miles, I attracted a lot of attention, often positive, sometimes aggressive, sometimes just amused. I would get a small audience to watch me wash my hair in a bucket outside my ramshackle home because my long straight hair was just weird for…
Peter Welch
Action, Guidance, Learning, Spirit
18 Jun 2020

The Nibble – the AISB Elementary Literary Magazine

Continuing in the tradition of last year, when we published AISB’s first ever ES Literary Magazine in June 2019… we are proud to announce the publication of the 2nd edition of the magazine - online! It has been an interesting and adventurous journey from the first day we met as a staff on December 6 in the ES Library, to the completion of the magazine in its digital form this week. We started as a Friday lunchtime CCA with a group of twelve 5th graders with the goal of publishing a hard copy magazine that could sit on the library shelves for students to peruse.  When school closed, on March 11, we thought there would be no magazine this year, until one intrepid 5th grader emailed us on March 20 with the message: “Dear Ms.Shona, Will we still continue the Lit Mag online? Have a good day, Juliet.” This one…
Shonali Sarkar
Guidance, Learning
04 Jun 2020

Online Safety in the Age of Extended Screen Time

In this time and space where access to broadband connectivity and digital technologies have taken center stage in our lives, it is more important than ever to consider strategies and take steps to ensure our children are having a safe and age-appropriate online experience. At AISB, we believe that keeping students safe online is a shared responsibility. We have intentionally expanded our K-12 1:1 program in recent years. Alongside this expansion, we have implemented a digital citizenship program paired with extensive security measures to keep children safe while using technology on campus. At school, student usage is monitored to help safeguard from potential dangers or unsuitable materials. In this current context, we have been impressed with the progress our students have made and the substantial new skills they have developed while engaging with peers online.  The level of creativity and resourcefulness achieved by many has made us proud, and it…
Gitane Reveilleau
Guidance
30 Mar 2020

Everybody Hurts, Sometimes: Psychological Responses to COVID-19

During the last month we have all experienced significant changes to our lives.  Most of us have gone from travelling or relaxing over the February break, to some uneasy weeks with a sense of impending change, to transitioning swiftly to a distance learning plan, to a complete lock down.  Some of us have traveled to other countries, all of us are separated from loved ones in some way. Some of us are facing financial struggles. Others are afraid for their health or the health of loved ones. Every day we read the news and see the numbers increasing and some sort of changes from the authorities.  Physically, socially, emotionally and psychologically, this situation takes its toll. Of course, most of us continue to cope very well considering the situation and continue to look positively. However, we are all affected in one way or another. The effects of these changes on…
Michaela Young
Building, Guidance
06 Feb 2020

Attachment Theory in Action: Why Strengthening Relationships is Key

You may have heard about the Circle of Security program, which is being run by the AISB counselors, and wondered why we are focusing on learning about secure relationships, and what is attachment theory. Attachment theory was first described by John Bowlby in the 1950s as a deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another. Since this time, a plethora of research has been conducted on the topic.  This research shows time and time again that a secure relationship between parent/caregiver and child is predictive of just about all elements of mental and physical health and well being into adulthood. In fact, the relationship between parent and child is as important as food and physical safety.   Human babies are born significantly more premature than other mammals and therefore are dependent on their caregivers for significantly longer than other animals.  This anomaly means that we developed an intricate…
Michaela Young
Action, Guidance, Spirit
15 Jan 2020

“Once a Vampire, Always a Vampire” The significance of Team-Building for Student-Athletes

Often modern day coaches are criticized for what some people consider outdated training methods. However, championship teams and greatness has always existed in sports, dating back to the times of ancient civilizations, the Roman gladiators, and even street ball at Rucker Park. What I am trying to say is that the methods of a "cantonament" which in Romanian refers to a retreat of the team from their normal environment is as relevant today to a team's comradery and performance as it ever was, it's all about location, timing, and the people involved believing in their goals. Allowing student-athletes the possibility to explore new environments, overcome challenges together, and be disconnected in order to connect is as prevalent today as it ever was! For the AISB Vampires, the team-building excursions represent a lot more than just a weekend get-away (more often than not in the beautiful Romanian country-side), they represent a chance for the team…
Alex Sota
Guidance, Learning, Novelty
24 Oct 2019

How do Music and Math Fit Together?

Led by Mr. Lawson and Mr. Lacher, students in Grade 5 are learning about the different kinds of musical note values and the duration of each note. The teachers are taking this opportunity to authentically inquire into the mathematical concept of fractions, as applied in music. As students were introduced to musical note values, they folded and cut paper to create strips that showed the fractional relationship between the note values. Yigit in 5KM explained it by saying, “A whole note is four beats, so a half note is two beats. A quarter note is one beat or half of a half note, so that’s why we call it a quarter note. We’re doing fraction work in our classroom too, and it’s cool because I love math and now I’m doing both.”  After making the paper note values, students spent time arranging them into four-beat measures to create a four-measure…
Callie Lane
Guidance, Learning, Novelty
19 Sep 2019

Diving Deeper Into Learning About Culture: Grade 2’s Amazing Cultural Race

Grade 2 students have been inquiring into different cultural perspectives that influence the way people express and understand ideas.  The children were given the opportunity to play the Amazing Cultural Race. They had to “travel” to multiple countries, where they were to perform specific tasks together. These challenges were related to a culture of that country. One destination was Kenya where they did the Maasai dance, another destination was New Zealand where they watched the Haka and posed “Haka style”. They also were shown the ‘hongi: a sacred Maori greeting from New Zealand. In their visit to Bhutan, they had to respectfully refuse cookies offered to them (the Bhutanese manner) by saying ‘“meshu, meshu”. Another destination was Malaysia where they played a bean bag game called Batu Seremban and when they went to Japan, they wrote the word peace in Japanese after learning the story of Sadako Sasaki. A final…
Johanna Rusu
Guidance, Learning, Spirit
13 Jun 2019

The Secret to Authentic Learning Experiences in PE: Grade 1 Create Own Activities

The mission of PYP PE at AISB is to prepare, engage, and inspire all students in the skills, knowledge and attitudes that will enable them to experience the joy of movement throughout their lives. The experiences that learners have in PE during their time at AISB should reflect this mission and as such will be a balanced blend of: Active Living: Learners are challenged and supported in acquiring the movement skills that will allow them to participate actively in a range of physical activities. Learners understand the  concepts, and strategies that will enable them to  confidently, competently and creatively engage in a range of physical activities, including using their physical capabilities to explore the natural environment. Interactions: Learners develop and use personal, interpersonal, behavioral, social and cognitive skills and strategies to promote a sense of personal identity and well being. Learners are competent in building and maintaining positive relationships which…
Laura Morrison
Building, Guidance
22 May 2019

ELC Principal Reading Recommendation: ‘What Is The Executive Function?’

Here is an interesting infographic from Harvard University - Center for the Developing Child. It helps to explains the importance of developing executive function and self-regulation skills in early childhood and beyond. These are skills needed at every stage of life as they allow us to manage the intake of information, make decisions, and plan with intention and not impulses. Should you wish to explore this topic further, please click this link.  
Rosella Diliberto
Guidance, Innovation, Spirit, Uncategorized
24 Apr 2019

Student Coaching: Above & Beyond

As a coach, there is no prouder moment than when a child you coached spreads their wings and takes flight! I am a firm believer in the situations when students one day surpass their teachers, because of the accumulated knowledge of the elder, mixed with the evolution of the game throughout eras, students become vessels of information, skill, and modern understanding. Our student coaches are a perfect example of those who have chosen to take flight! As their confidence increases lesson by lesson, they are allowing themselves to make mistakes, trust instinctively-made decisions, and react to the needs of their team players. It is a beautiful thing to behold as a coach – the fact you have contributed to this person’s overall character development, and now they are willing to keep growing by passing their insight on to younger players. They are a new generation of Vampires who have the…
Alex Sota
Guidance, Innovation, Learning
09 Jan 2019

Go for a SeNsOrY WaLk…

“I really liked making the sensory walk with Ms. S.  We used colored tape on the floor to walk and jump across.  I like to take breaks from the classroom to move my body.” -Tomy, Grade 2 Not many venture down past the Elementary School Library through the corridor where the building meets the playground, but if you have recently, you can't help but notice the colorful and tempting path that challenges our body and mind.  Meet Tomas, a grade 2 student who demonstrated learner agency and helped with the creation of this tool.  Jane Ayres, American Occupational Therapist, Educational Psychologist and advocate, helped develop meaningful research in the areas of sensory integration.  Sensory integration is the process of organizing sensory inputs so that the brain produces a useful body response and useful perceptions, emotions, and thoughts.” (Ayres, 1979, p. 28)  As children grow, they are exposed to a variety…
Jennifer Szwarc
Guidance
12 Jan 2018

Kick the habit

Back in the early seventies, when I was still at school (just), a social revolution was underway that was to transform society in so many different ways. San Francisco was at the heart of this social evolution; songs were published, books written that captured the age, typified by the generational anthem by Scott McKenzie, 1967, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" All across the nation Such a strange vibration People in motion There's a whole generation With a new explanation People in motion While San Francisco, London and other major cities around world were experiencing this societal change, a book, entitled Future Shock by Alvin Toffler (1970) cautioned that "too much change in too short a period of time" will have profound, unknown consequences to “certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies”. This prescient message resonates loudly now as we witness even more radical changes…
Robert Brindley No Comments
Guidance, Innovation
02 Nov 2017

Day Dreams and Sleepless Nights

Among the many articles that I read this month, a few have resonated with me because they applied to education and how students learn. The first was a book on sleep, referenced in an article in the Guardian newspaper that that was published a few weeks ago: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker review – how more sleep can save your life. To quote from this article – which is brilliant by the way: That low-level exhaustion becomes their accepted norm, or baseline. Individuals fail to recognise how their perennial state of sleep deficiency has come to compromise their mental aptitude and physical vitality, including the slow accumulation of ill health. A link between the former and the latter is rarely made in their mind. Another article on Facebook (yes, I do read it now and again) from the World Economic Forum, was about the Finnish school system and their…
Robert Brindley No Comments
Building, Guidance, Learning
06 Sep 2016

Confronting the Data

Last week we reported to the community the feedback from the Parent Survey that was undertaken at the end of the last academic year. As with last year’s survey, the participation rate was marvelous and I would like to thank all of you who contributed your thoughts and comments. Such feedback is very important for us to gain perspective on how successful, or not, we are in both the operational and educational aspects of the school. A key Good to Great (Jim Collins) principle is that a school that aspires to be great must confront reality. We must confront the brutal facts, parental perspectives being one of them, in order to be great. It is advocated that unless we face our shortcomings we can never be really great. Whilst we scored better on every metric of the survey compared to last year’s responses, there was one particular data point that needs to be…
Robert Brindley 2 Comments
Guidance, Spirit
21 Jan 2016

Freedom of Speech

About a year ago I wrote something on free speech, that was published, if I remember correctly, in 'The Underground’, but it seems to have gone largely unheeded. So without succumbing to the temptation of repeating myself, I will state my thoughts in a wider context and perhaps be rather more explicit in my expectations. Although we are in Romania and governed by their laws, I was intrigued to see what ‘free speech’ meant in an American court of law as described in the First Amendment. The Court has clarified through their past decisions many interpretations of the concept of freedom of speech enshrined in the Constitution, one being that it does not “… permit students to print articles in a school newspaper over the objections of the school administration.” (Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988)) What does this mean for any articles written within the school’s…
Robert Brindley No Comments
Guidance
18 Nov 2015

Balance

We often talk about the AISB community and how important it is in the life of past, present and even future students. Whilst we need feedback and help from alumni and parents, there is an onus on the school to provide information that invites discussion and presents data that has the potential to maximize the learning experience for their children, our students. Teachers can only achieve so much in exploiting such potential; it is our partnership with the parents and alumni that really fosters such latent talents. There was a remarkable piece of research from Australia that studied children, over time, on how the home environment influenced a child’s learning. Their findings - Longitudinal Study of Australian children (LSAC) ( highlights factors that affect future academic performance. The study applies to younger children but the outcomes, in my opinion, relate to all students as they build traits for life-long learning…
Robert Brindley 1 Comment
Guidance, Learning
20 Apr 2015

Handwriting

Finland, a noted vanguard in the field of education, is dispensing with paper and ink in favor of the keyboard; by next year cursive handwriting will no longer be taught in Finnish elementary schools and typewriting skills will take ascendancy. Learning joined-up, cursive writing, in the early days with a scratch-pen and ink-well, then the fountain pen, was a rite of passage for elementary school students and a headache for those who had to clean ink-stained shirts, skirts and ties. The Common Core in the U.S. no longer requires handwriting to be part of the curriculum, although many states are fighting a rearguard action to keep cursive writing in their schools. The move from pen to keyboard is more than just underway, it has arrived. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but now it seems that the keyboard has replaced the pen. However, the number of tablets and ‘apps’…
Robert Brindley 5 Comments