Dave, we have to meet.
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 8:50 am
If you're as funny in person as you are on this forum.
1) You were the one who made the claims, not I. Consequently, you should be the one who has to back up those claims with data. (Not anecdote dressed up as data.) After all, according to you, data is what really counts.
2) Sorry, I should have been clearer. If you want to be a top-flight school, that doesn't happen in a year or two years or even three or four years. The Korean schools I mentioned want to be top-flight. I don't think that has ever been the ambition of QSI. So let me rephrase the question: which top-flight schools (Tier 1 in your nomenclature) have ever been recognised as such within five years of opening their doors?
3) Sampson Elementary/High School. That's a cracker, Dave. I think I asked for an "international", native-speaking-English population. Your response is to cite the DODDS school in Guantanamo Bay. As if a DODDS school could ever be considered international. Mono-cultural, mono-lingual, mono-national and with a program that is as centralised and as American as it gets. Sampson is a school for children of US military personnel and is no more international than you are my Aunt Lulu. Mind you, according to one of your criteria, I bet they enjoy a rich international community culture that helps develop them into global citizens. I recall that many of the personnel there are supervising illegally detained prisoners who are being force-fed - a scandal that your President promised to end five years ago.
4) Interesting that you say an international school can only so if the owners and or administration are Western. You really are a global citizen aren't you? Incidentally, those five schools in Korea I cited are all run as wholly owned subsidiaries of the mother school. The Korean government provided (and maintains) the facility.
5) Who are you to say what is the "defining characteristic" of international schools? And how black and white you see the difference between bilingual education (incorporating all those schools in South and Central Americal) and international education. The fact is that the large majority of international schools have a significant second language population all of whom access the program through the medium of English and in doing so master the content as well as the language. Even when those students are beyond the formal EAL support, they are still spending each of their school days honing and polishing their English skills. You seem to think that there is something "second class" about an education that provides that kind of learning opportunity. I see that as one of the great banners of international education. By the time those students in the Korean schools I mentioned graduate, they will be genuinely bilingual and racing ahead of those mono-lingual, mono-cultural kids into the best universities in the USA.
6) Dave, we've had grammar issues before with you. Last time, you told me that the subject in the first sentence governs the verb in the second sentence. We'll try something easier this time. "This characteristic is the necessary and sufficient criteria..." Leave aside the arrogance of your assertion, please just remember that "criteria" is plural. I think you probably wanted to write "criterion".
1) You were the one who made the claims, not I. Consequently, you should be the one who has to back up those claims with data. (Not anecdote dressed up as data.) After all, according to you, data is what really counts.
2) Sorry, I should have been clearer. If you want to be a top-flight school, that doesn't happen in a year or two years or even three or four years. The Korean schools I mentioned want to be top-flight. I don't think that has ever been the ambition of QSI. So let me rephrase the question: which top-flight schools (Tier 1 in your nomenclature) have ever been recognised as such within five years of opening their doors?
3) Sampson Elementary/High School. That's a cracker, Dave. I think I asked for an "international", native-speaking-English population. Your response is to cite the DODDS school in Guantanamo Bay. As if a DODDS school could ever be considered international. Mono-cultural, mono-lingual, mono-national and with a program that is as centralised and as American as it gets. Sampson is a school for children of US military personnel and is no more international than you are my Aunt Lulu. Mind you, according to one of your criteria, I bet they enjoy a rich international community culture that helps develop them into global citizens. I recall that many of the personnel there are supervising illegally detained prisoners who are being force-fed - a scandal that your President promised to end five years ago.
4) Interesting that you say an international school can only so if the owners and or administration are Western. You really are a global citizen aren't you? Incidentally, those five schools in Korea I cited are all run as wholly owned subsidiaries of the mother school. The Korean government provided (and maintains) the facility.
5) Who are you to say what is the "defining characteristic" of international schools? And how black and white you see the difference between bilingual education (incorporating all those schools in South and Central Americal) and international education. The fact is that the large majority of international schools have a significant second language population all of whom access the program through the medium of English and in doing so master the content as well as the language. Even when those students are beyond the formal EAL support, they are still spending each of their school days honing and polishing their English skills. You seem to think that there is something "second class" about an education that provides that kind of learning opportunity. I see that as one of the great banners of international education. By the time those students in the Korean schools I mentioned graduate, they will be genuinely bilingual and racing ahead of those mono-lingual, mono-cultural kids into the best universities in the USA.
6) Dave, we've had grammar issues before with you. Last time, you told me that the subject in the first sentence governs the verb in the second sentence. We'll try something easier this time. "This characteristic is the necessary and sufficient criteria..." Leave aside the arrogance of your assertion, please just remember that "criteria" is plural. I think you probably wanted to write "criterion".