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mentary teachers on both campuses had been through the
basic PYP workshops. Every year, two PYP specialists
come to IC to conduct training sessions. Teachers them-
selves are sent abroad to attend PYP conferences.
Began in 1997, PYP is part of the International Baccalaureate
(IB) Programme aimed at children aged 3-11. The program
is the brainchild of a group of international educators based
in Switzerland who wanted to provide younger students
with an international perspective and critical thinking skills.
IB provides schools with the guidelines of learning.
“But you take your own and the government imposed
curricula and teach it in an approach which is very clear
to everybody, parents, teachers and students,” said
Khoury. “Students themselves become highly involved in
their own learning.”
Seven years after PYP was first introduced at IC, Nathalie
Shehadeh was listening intently to her daughter Hannah,
6, explaining the group of cardboards in front of her. It
was Hannah’s book. Her own story and creation. She
looked proud. Shehadeh and other parents had come to
see their children’s work - marking the end of a ‘unit’,
where students’ activities have been centered on the
theme of “stories inform us, give us pleasure and help our
imagination grow.”
For the past four weeks, the Grande Section & KGII have
been reading all kinds of books, telling stories in all possi-
ble ways, miming, acting out stories and going to
libraries, visiting a publishing house and seeing the many
phases of turning a storyboard into print. Finally, each
student created his or her own book. Every activity per-
formed was to help the children understand for them-
selves the main theme.
“It’s amazing,” said Shehadeh. “I can see how much Han-
nah has learned.”
Hannah herself looked pleased. But suddenly she sighed.
“I liked making a book,” she confided. “But I don’t think
I want to do it again. It’s a lot of work.”
It was PYP working at its best. The aim of the PYP is to
turn students into ‘inquirers, thinkers, communicators,
risk takers, knowledgeable, principled, caring, open-
minded, well-balanced, and reflective'.
It is these characteristics – IB characteristics - which will
create internationaly minded people able to learn by
themselves and integrate on their own in any country in
the world.
“We want our students to have the right attitudes,” said
Ghada Maalouf, the assistant director at the preschool.
“We explicitly address and promote the PYP attitudes
during the units. We hope students will become better
learners, will care for the environment, will do something
for other people, for their schools, for their country and
for the world. It is the students not teachers that must ini-
ate these actions.”
The PYP program spans over eight years. Every year a
new concept is introduced and fully explored – using the
knowledge acquired in previous years.
“To reach those aims, we have tools,” said Maalouf. “The
most important tool is the curriculum. The PYP definition
of the curriculum is everything that is done at school.”
Maalouf, a former teacher, was appointed as PYP coordina-
tor as IC immersed itself more and more into the program.
She became so proficient in the PYP system that she is now
considered an “international trainer”. IB “borrows” her and
another pre-school teacher, Lina Mouchantaf, from IC three
or four times a year to help other schools train their teachers.
Every four to five weeks children work on one theme or
“unit of inquiry” as is known in PYP. Everything they do
revolves around that theme – one of six in a year.
Every week the faculty and directors meets and reflect
over what worked and what didn’t. They assess and
reassess. They discuss and compare.
In another class, students of KG1/M.S. have just finished
another unit. This time it was about decision making,
planning and cooperation. The task was to create an
object. Some decided to create pupptes, acquarium, mail-
box or a book. The class took a vote. Plastered across the
room are the votes, charts, graphs and the tallies that the
students themselves performed. The final project was
proudly displayed: the product of much pondering,
exploring and teamwork.
Khoury proudly looks on and eagerly shows visitors
around. The program is a sound success.
“Students were memorizing and now they are learning,”
she said. “They don’t see math or science as subjects on
their own. They understand how everything works togeth-
er in all situations and apply it in their everyday lives.”
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