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The American Worldwide Faculty of Freetown in Sierra Leone (AISF) has 90 college students between the ages of three and 19, seven academics and a director–an all-encompassing administrative function that’s frequent in small worldwide colleges in Africa.
AISF doesn’t have an authorized highschool however does have 11 excessive school-aged college students who haven’t any different choices for a global training on the town. So, our faculty has been providing them programs from VHS Studying in grades 9 and 10. We offer onsite help as college students take their programs on-line. It’s a good possibility to arrange college students who plan to maneuver on the finish of grade 10 to an in-person highschool.
For grades 11 and 12, we enroll college students into Massachusetts Mayflower Academy (MMA), an accredited on-line highschool that makes use of the net supplier’s programs. AISF nonetheless offers onsite help and sources to our college students, however they may graduate with a diploma from MMA. For AISF college students, this can be a good choice to graduate with an accredited American highschool diploma in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
What grabbed my curiosity when contemplating the net programs was that the scholars have been being requested to do big-picture considering, and so they have been requested significant questions. It’s participating, genuine studying. I had fairly a gaggle of ninth grade college students, and so they’re of their second week of the programs. As they checked out one of many important questions for world historical past, which most of them have been doing, the query was: “What’s the function of artwork and faith in society?” We talked about what artwork does, and the youngsters have been in a position to tease that one out. Then, we pivoted to the second half. What’s the function of faith in society? I assumed it was a significant query. And it was a lead-in to the Renaissance. They have been trying on the Renaissance Reformation, the artwork and faith of Renaissance.
One other profit of those programs is that the scholars are additionally in a position to have workplace hours with their academics, which aren’t out there via another on-line choices, which solely supply electronic mail. And maybe even extra importantly, they change into a part of a digital classroom the place they’ll meet classmates throughout the US and all over the world.
Having participating studying is extraordinarily vital. Doing a full digital course load is tough and motivation is typically difficult. Even when you’ve got adults there bodily supervising the scholars and asking them questions, it’s difficult to maintain that motivation and to maintain the educational taking place. The extra participating it may be, the extra human contact–digital and in any other case–{that a} college can present, the higher it’s going to be for the scholars and that’s what we discovered with our on-line associate.
For a faculty just like the American Worldwide Faculty of Freetown, it is very important take a look at the place the scholars are planning to go subsequent; each VHS Studying and Massachusetts Mayflower Academy are going to attraction to postsecondary colleges which can be broadly American of their character.
In my dream of desires for a small college, I’d have a mix. If our faculty grew to become somewhat bit larger, I wish to have a few highschool academics who may immediately train a few of the programs, after which, flesh that out, as a result of there’s no method a small college like ours goes to have the ability to have a physics trainer, a chemistry trainer, and a biology trainer. To really create a mix can be my dream for a modest measurement worldwide college, and I feel it could be a dream that transcends our measurement as we change into a bit bigger sooner or later.
