I was five-years old at the time, and I still remember hearing the lyrics to ‘It’s a Small World After All,’ as I sat in the rickety old boat in Orlando, Florida watching the mechanical world go by. When I asked my father whether the world really was small, he replied “It’s getting that way son.”
Skip to 2015, and its now common place to call or message loved ones on the other side of the world, as you would anyone else. The world is shrinking as previously unreachable parts of the word flash up on the screen nestled in your hand. But how does this influence the education of our future generation?
Business leaders rate knowledge and awareness of the wider world as an ever increasingly important skill for a potential employee. In today’s modern world, it’s the ‘soft’ skills of cultural awareness and the understanding of global events, cultures and relationships that are becoming the crucial skillset. With the shift of work moving online to a globalized platform, education needs to accommodate a change in how the world now works.
At BISC Lincoln Park, alongside the use of the International Primary Curriculum and Global Campus, our international community of over 50 nationalities enables our students to experience, learn and appreciate just how diverse and wonderful a place the world really is. We are creating global citizens right here, in Chicago’s very own Small World experience.
Dougie McNeill is a Learning Resource Leaders at British International School of Chicago, Lincoln Park.