Unlocking Opportunities: How Knowledge Empowers Progress at SCIS

By Daniel Eschtruth, January 5, 2024

“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.”
– Plato

Knowledge is defined as the awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation. That awareness starts from one’s desire to learn about a certain topic, event, and/or even an individual.

This desire to gain knowledge leads to our connection with each other through the sharing of ideas and facts, thus delving deeper into the research of the matter, and ultimately leading us to our connection with human progress.

Why is knowledge an opportunity?

To answer this, we must tackle further the importance of human progress. Human progress immensely shapes us as a society. However, to progress as a society, we must examine our development as individuals.

Acquiring knowledge is the first step to discovery and learning. When we find ourselves in the stages of discovery and learning, we inch our way closer to understanding – approaching an issue and understanding it from different angles.

At Shanghai Community International School (SCIS), we firmly recognize the role we play as educators in igniting their curiosity and perhaps, the emotion of excitement in learning within our students. We believe that knowledge starts with education, both inside and outside the classroom.

Furthermore, not only do we acknowledge our responsibility, but we take wholehearted pride in our role in creating circumstances for our students to gain knowledge, and fully assimilate themselves in the practice of curiosity and problem-solving, thus creating opportunities for themselves.

Our program of learning at SCIS ensures that we curate activities that encourage students to work with each other and cooperate with each other through discussions in class that provide them with the opportunity to discover ideas, consume facts, and deliberate notions that pave the way for new and better outcomes for them.

We extend our students’ learning experience beyond the classroom to allow for further exploration of ideas that are exciting and engaging with practical methods applicable to their day-to-day lives. This allows for flexibility yet realistic collaboration amongst peers.

As any Dragon would know by now, SCIS’ well-rounded approach to education through the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme empowers each of them to think critically, solve problems, and adapt to a rapidly changing world. Being able to think critically fosters innovation that will assist tremendously in tackling complex challenges and drive advancements in various fields.

Our aim is to foster lifelong learners as we develop our students through dynamic cycles of inquiry, action and reflection. This will not only prove helpful to our students academically, but of equal importance in their personal success.

Our educators set goals for our students and identify resources to aid in their learning. In the IB programme, learning a language is a requirement and taking on that task is an added layer of learning and application of effort.

Our duty as educators is to expose our students to varying avenues of opportunity and provide them with the skills to self-manage and remain goal-oriented so they can choose the path that will lead to their success. Success that they will define for themselves and will design for themselves.