People and places
The English School of Kyrenia hosts a number of events to bring students from different nationalities and backgrounds together.
On the legacy of conflict Hector MacDonald says we can learn from tackling difficult issues
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have, in dialogue with our students and parents, reached a conclusion that our children are our future. Within the IB Diploma Programme there is such a sensible drive towards processes that can lead our young people to become original in thought, open minded, and to look at what could be done in a prospective rather than a purely retrospective way. Our learning experiences are not confined to individual subject areas, but based upon a real breadth of experiences. We are active in placing our context within our teaching of the IB Diploma’s Theory of Knowledge, as we are within our Model United Nations (MUN) and Junior MUN activities, where we make a point of inviting participation globally. We enjoy activities that involve getting young people together from all across the island, and indeed the world – thirty three nations are represented within our school. Each year we host the Peace Players for a day of competitive basketball where we mingle young people from both sides of the zone in mixed teams. We pick up Autumn |
Spring
Having served for over forty years establishing and refining international schools in the USA, UK, India, and now Cyprus I have had the opportunity to consider the potential that exists for past conflicts to be used as a positive basis for student learning and great outcomes. Given complex past history, including loss of lives amongst the families we serve, there is an almost instinctive first imperative that the subject of conflict should be avoided. Here in Cyprus we live in a divided island, partitioned by a zone which we can cross daily. Over my five years here I have been moved by what families feel who live on both sides of the zone. In my experience there is a huge shared sense of a Cypriot identity, rather than hostility between the two communities. Rather than ducking fraught issues, we as a learning community here at the English School of Kyrenia have made a conscious decision to draw on our context in Cyprus, and dedicate time to bi-communal activities that have the potential to unify people rather than divide them. We
| 2018
