INTERVIEW KIS prepares students for future

Korea International School / Courtesy of KIS

By Kim Hyun-bin

The Director of the Pangyo Campus of Korea International School (KIS) says the country's old teaching methods, which push students to score high on exams, are no longer effective approaches for the current and future generations.

“They are not learning for a school test or multiple choice answers, but how they can combine information from different disciplines to really use that in useful ways,” said Michelle Quirin, director of KIS.

“Unfortunately, in schools students are often taught to look at things in discrete units from Math, English, Science and Social Science classes. In most careers people don't work that way. We need to educate our students to pull from all the disciplines, content areas and develop their skills so they can be employable and make a difference in the world.”

KIS provides a more hands-on collaborative approach than just memorization. The school strives to empower students to think independently and approach obstacles from multidisciplinary perspectives.

“We really base our entire curriculum in an applied learning focus. We ask our students continually to be able to articulate what problems they are trying to solve such that they are learning in an authentic real world way,” she said.

The institution has been restructuring classes to meet those needs and applies the practices in elementary education all the way to the 12th grade.

“In the elementary grades, students work with trans-disciplinary units where a team of teachers work together. Specialists of science, design and technology work closely with homeroom teachers,” said Quirin.

“So rather than study the social sciences as a separate unit, students will look at them along with environmental issues, among others, to better understand the root of the problem and will use all the information from other disciplines to come up with solutions.”

KIS was established in 2000 with the mission to inspire students with a passion for learning and raise global talents. The school started with a handful of students from Kindergarten to fifth grade, but now has over 1,150 students, making it one of the larger international schools in the nation.

KIS also offers a variety of courses to help students better adapt to college by providing counseling and 24 Advanced Placement (AP) courses.

“AP is one way to offer the rigors in preparing them for university life through the high school curriculum. Based on how the students perform on the AP exams it is up to the universities whether they will award them credit or not,” she said.

“The AP courses help our students by providing them the convenience of living at home with more access to teachers than they will have when they attend university, but still help them learn at a collegiate level.”

The members of the faculty of KIS are carefully selected with most of the teachers hired from abroad. Of them, 68 percent obtained a master's degree or higher and the average teaching experience stands at 10.7 years, according to the school.

The combination of highly qualified teachers and the school's teaching methods has generated excellent results.

Of the graduating students in 2017, 93 percent advanced to higher education and around 60 percent of them enrolled in exclusive and highly selective universities including Harvard, Princeton, Brown and Columbia.

The high acceptance rates have caught the attention of numerous institutions hoping to recruit upcoming grads from KIS.

“As of mid-March over 130 different college representatives visited the campus even though the senior class this year only has 141 students,” Quirin said.

The school is relatively new and its legacy spans less than two decades, but more alumni each year have been giving a helping hand to the seniors who have been accepted to a university nearby.

“Connections with our alumni are really helpful since they are willing to Skype or connect with our students and help them better understand what the universities are like,” she said.

“We are launching a website this summer so we will have an improved alumni portal where students currently in high school will more easily be able to get more information about a university or find an internship.”

Quirin obtained a Master's degree in Educational Leadership from George Mason University in 2002. She has pursued her career in education for 23 years and is currently the shool director of KIS.