Lincoln School in Kathamandu

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Amazing 8th grade Science class

It might have been the best day ever except that I was so tired. (Doesn’t bode well for teaching sunrise, does it?) I woke up super early, partly because of downtown noise, and partly because I needed to get to Lincoln School by eight.  Renee was the absolute most helpful person, letting me observe two of her classes, buying me lunch, and making me feel so welcome. She teaches English 11 and before she starts with Antigone and the Romantics, she has her students do their own project investigating the whole idea of a movement by investigating hip hop. The whole school is oriented this way, project learning and inquiry learning. Her students went down to computer lab and worked away on hip hop for an hour. Later I saw her anthropology class which she created and which loosely follows an IB curriculum. The kids were very engaged in that class and she was asking good make-you-think Socratic questions. Only eight kids in the class, sophomores and juniors. They were a little quiet, but engaged and asking good questions, which she assigned them to answer themselves the next period. Full on investigative/inquiry learning.

Raining at Lincoln School

Brad is the principal. Because one building is down to prepare for a new one, the staff is smaller this year, with everyone teaching five preps. People have to wear a lot of hats since the staff is small: Heather teaches Chem, AP Chem, Photography and Forensics. They use the AP system rather than the IB system, because most kids are going to American universities, even though some kids are Dutch or Swiss, or African, and 25 percent Nepalese. Renee believes in teaching the non AP kids, as I do, and creates classes like Anthro where different abilities all shine. I also had a chance to see Peter, a Canadian, teach an 8^th grade science class. This was also project based and inquiry based. Only two people chose to make a podcast for the website, and the rest chose to draw cartoons/comics. The subject was to research Rutherford’s experiment and show how the model for matter and the atom changed as a result. As the teacher said, if he just talked about it, the students would forget everything.  

From the upper stories of Lincoln School

The students all got MacBooks off the laptop cart and began their research. Peter was able to go around to all students and offer differentiated, individual instruction, and asked each student good and intriguing questions geared to their own abilities, but never gave answers. Lincoln School has two sixty minute periods and one 90 minute period per week, for a total of 210 minutes, which seems standard. Brad told me there are 8 periods, four required, and four electives. This system seems to work out well for both their core studies, their breadth and developing interests, and college admissions in the US. The whole model for learning is a little chaotic, but results in excellent and deep learning that is retained. Teachers are flexible about how many periods projects take, showing they aren’t just trying to cover material but instead teach depth, though Renee assured me there were lectures as well. The campus has great technology, is completely wired for wifi, and can stay powered up despite the many power outages. The rooms are enormous with great flexible seating in moveable desks and chairs, and multiple places to sit in the rooms.

Overall, I’d never been to an American school, though there is apparently one in every big city in the world. The quality of the students and teachers was quite high and I was inspired to try a little more project based learning myself. Even middle school kids seemed very oriented toward learning and the capable direction of the teacher made the learning even better.

At last I’m done touring schools in Nepal, but it has been the absolute best part of my whole journey. I’m a bit of a junkie when it comes to education. Many people would have advised me to take a hike, but this feed my soul (and my habit).