EAB welcomes its new board president

By Nicole Nasr

This year we have received a new school board president: Katherine Dueholm. Ms. Dueholm is an American from South Carolina and works for the U.S. State Department. She has lived in the U.S.A, Germany, London, Guyana, and now in Brazil, where she has lived during the past year and a half.

While in High School, Katherine lived in South Carolina and studied in a school called James Island High School. Her favorite subject in school was History and her favorite course was AP European History. She said her teacher would give challenging assignments and was always discussing about current affairs rather than having monotonous note-taking classes. In spite all her commitment to the AP courses, Katherine was also involved and very committed to STUCO, Class Council, Cheerleading, NHS, and the French Club. Accordingly, her ultimate goal in high school was to learn all she could, to participate in extracurricular activities, and to be admitted into at least one of her dream colleges.

When asked if there were any memorable experiences in high school that changed the way a certain aspect of life was viewed, Katherine gave an emphatic yes. She shared that for a couple of years her high school would constantly be awarded with the Spirit-Sportsmanship award for sports. However, when she was a senior and the captain of the Cheerleading squad, they did not win this award because the organization solely based their choice on the fact that the school would win every year, thus disregarding the school’s outstanding sportsmanship. Katherine was very upset, but then realized that she was the Cheerleading captain and had the obligation to cheer up herself and everyone else. She then stated that the lesson learned was that life will always be unfair, and when it is unfair or when something doesn’t turn out the way you wished, you have to leave it behind and move on.

By coming back to a high school environment and observing students, Ms. Dueholm believes that from the time when she was in high school until now, students’ behaviors in high school have not changed but the availability of resources have. She states that all high schools are built based on the students and there will always be the dedicated ones and the ones that are more laid-back.
Technology, however, has made the shape and scope of education very different. The information available and the communication opportunities are amazing, which consequently has increased the competitiveness between students. Nonetheless, the social side of high school students is always going to be the same. She affirms that High School is a very intense life, where all students are trying to present themselves in a pleasant manner, fit in, deal with breakups, friends, assert their independence, and especially, make future decisions.

Compared to Katherine’s high school (300 students were in her graduating class alone), EAB is very small and what she loves about it is that one person in a classroom can sit next to a person that is from another country and culture, and this person can sit next to person that comes from yet another country. Thus, the exposure to different cultures is exceptional and that makes students true citizens of the world. She also loves the strong focus of service learning and of the leadership roles at EAB. To her, students have a grater voice when administrative matters come up, which then opens more of a possibility of changing.

Finally, Katherine would like to say to all High School students at EAB: “If you are looking at your future first find out what is meaningful to you and what makes you happy. Always shoot for the stars and still have a back up plan. The worst feeling is to regret that you didn’t do what you wanted.”

FYI:
The School Board is a local committee that is in charge of the decision-making in education. The roles of the Board in our school is to establish school goals, adopt operating policies, review the school program, evaluate financial affairs, and provide programs for the development of activities. Membership in the Association is granted to parents who choose to pay the annual association fee, and the U.S. Ambassador appoints one member.

International Baccalaureate Program at EAB

By Luc Fagerberg, Deborah Glasman and Moritz Muller

The International Baccalaureate program can be described as a rigorous, demanding course that pushes students to learn from experience and each other as well as from the educators. The EAB community has heard much about the IB program but few have yet to take a close look at how it has affected our administration, staff, and students.

The IB program has been a long standing agenda item of the Board of Directors. It was first considered ten years ago, and after years of close examination it was introduced to EAB due to the changing needs of education. This program emphasizes EAB’s diverse student body as it adds an international educational branch to the American and Brazilian diplomas. The main difference between the IB program and the normal classes is the standardization: candidates are compared to other students all over the world enabling them to compete internationally and therefore pushing them to strive for loftier goals. According to one of the administrators, Mr. DesVignes, it is necessary for IB students to demonstrate academic consistency and success in order to participate in this program.

With regards to the actual education, it is important to note that IB teachers are required to attend a four day workshop in order to be certified. They must be fully cognizant of the philosophies, objectives, assessments, and grading systems of the program as they differ from other courses of education. Mr. Galles believes that the content and skills for the IB and regular classes are similar, but it is the expectations and depth of understanding that are required for IB that make the difference. He believes that the process of applying to IB will greatly help students to prepare for the real world as they are put into situations with scenarios that they will encounter later in life. Such a circumstance was the selection process in which they had to give a formal interview, write an application, and had to cope with competition and the fear of not being accepted.

This brings us to the student. When the IB came to EAB, Victoria Barreto was one of the brave ten students who decided to work with the EAB teachers and administrators to be the avant-garde for this advantageous program. When asked about how her specific selection process went, she focused on the fact that the panel of teachers gave a majority of attention to the IB learner profile. “A lot of this profile comes naturally for me, like being communicative.”

When being asked to share a little bit of her experience so far, talking about late nights working on assignments, Barreto’s main source of concern is the workload. Optimistic as usual, she never seemed demoralized saying, “These problems will surely be solved as we adapt to the restrictions and regulations of the program, as well as the newly introduced schedule.” Despite the workload, she is very excited about embarking on this educational journey: “I chose to enter the IB because of its mission statement; I want to learn from experience as opposed to study for a test in the AP. I also really want to go to Europe. So for me, the IB is really a good fit.”

The EAB community as a whole is really excited about this newly implemented program. For students however, it is something more – it is an opportunity. As Mr. Galles aptly put it, for the IB students, “something more important is at stake than a grade: it is their path in life.”