Gulf Times EDUCATION Supplement September 2020

September 2020

Sidestepping pandemic scare through effective teaching & parenting

DOHA COLLEGE

Educating, nurturing and inspiring What makes Doha College outstanding n

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oha College is one of the world’s leading British International Schools, educating students between the ages of 3 and 18. Its achievements in academia, sport and the arts are outstanding. Their state-of-the-art campus and exceptional teaching team reflect their unwavering pursuit of excellence. Students are consulted and influential in shaping the approach to learning. A Doha College education reaches far beyond the curriculum, educating global citizens who listen, respect others and have the confidence to stand up and be heard.

Established in 1980 and celebrating its impressive 40th anniversary in Qatar this year, the College successfully embarked on an exciting expansion with the opening of its impressive new campus in Al Wajba at the beginning of September 2020.

First in the world to be accredited as a High Performance Learning school with the prestigious world-class award Recognition at the Qatar Sustainability Awards 2018, when the College was honoured with the Schools Sustainability Initiative Award.

Was included in the first batch of schools to be nominated as COBIS Training Schools

Best examination results

“Excellence for all, excellence from all’ now has a new home and Doha College is filling these walls with a DNA of 40 years of fine educational achievement in Qatar, opening new horizons for the future. I am so excited for our students to get to new heights with all the opportunities that this new facility now enables them to do,” – Dr. Steffen Sommer, Principal of Doha College Despite the challenges brought by the pandemic, the efforts of all involved ensured that this ambitious project was ready to open its doors on time, to welcome its students.

Inspiring the future

The first school in Qatar to be accredited under the new Council of British International Schools (COBIS) Patron’s Accreditation and Compliance scheme.

Dr Steffen Sommer, Principal of Doha College, said about this momentous occasion: “With the opening of the new campus, Doha College now finally has facilities which it has truly deserved for many years.”

In 2020, and a challenging time globally for all examination students due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Doha College clocked a new record with exceptional results across the board, the best in its 40-year history.

For A-Level examinations, Doha College recorded 62.4% A*-A, 87.5% A*-B and 98.4% A*-C results, and for (I) GCSE examinations – 74.6% A*-A, 96.4% A*-B and 99.2% A*-C results. These scores put Doha College right up with the elite of international education, commensurate with its High-Performance Learning World-Class award it received in 2018.

Community A beacon in international education, Doha College shines in community spirit too. The school organises large events open to people in Qatar and beyond, in the fields of sports, music and medical research. n

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Doha College 10K and 5K race has been going strong since 2011, and attracted many thousands of runners through the years, from budding young athletes to world champions.

Since its launch in 2016, Qatar School Choir of the Year galvanised young choristers across the country, and children’s choirs in Qatar grew in number and size as a direct result. Its latest edition was hosted by the Qatar National Convention Centre and was a resounding success.

The Medical Review School Conference has built a platform for international schools to conduct and present research on medical issues, giving students a taste of medical careers and having them interact with experienced medical professionals.

On its 40th anniversary and after recording the best examination results in its history, Doha College heralds a new era of British international education in Qatar by opening a state-of-the art brand new campus in Al Wajba, opening its doors to students across Doha.

Enrichment

Completed in just over two years by Domopan Construction and project managed by quantity surveyors Quantex Qatar, the new campus is kitted with the latest technology designed with forward-thinking features in mind for all areas of education, including science labs, performing arts auditorium with a LED backdrop screen, two swimming pools with touch pads, flood-lit astro turf pitch, recreation areas shaded by plentiful trees and greenery, and much more.

Life at Doha College is made all the richer by complementing the curriculum with a wide array of other activities. Apart from sports, music, arts, dance, languages as diverse as Mandarin and Latin, the enrichment extends to Model United Nations and the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award. These offer guaranteed once-in-a-lifetime experiences that equip students with life skills to make a difference to themselves, their communities and the world.

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Pandemic could change education forever

By Tal Frankfurt

Empowering virtual learning experience

he historic havoc COVID-19 has wreaked on modern society has been, and continues to be, well documented.

It’s time for some good news. These moments of global emergency have the invariable ability to progress technology and the wide-scale implementation of technology, in ways previously not thought possible. With a positive outlook, this crisis can be viewed as a sort of “bypass” button for the application of technological processes and thought patterns that would have taken many more years to adopt in a time of relative peace. One could say that a positive takeaway from disaster is its recurring ability to turn something once viewed as impossible into an accepted aspect of a new reality.

Traditional in-person classroom learning is likely not going away entirely, but the opportunity for heightened virtual solutions complementing that in-class experience will be furthered with the arrival of 5G technology. By the year 2035, 5G networks are projected to generate $13.2 trillion in global sales. The increased, improved stability and revolutionizing of our devices as a result of widespread 5G implementation will likely allow our instructors, students and technology providers to take “anytime, anywhere learning” even further. Tools like our partner Salesforce Advisor Link provide a unified network for advisors and students within their respective higher education communities. It’s no longer sufficient to simply offer online courses. Modern students require greater virtual support, whether it be through advising or communication. Public health events like COVID-19 serve as catalysts of change, showcasing the importance versatile virtual technologies have on our ability to maintain educational standards.

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Discussions debating the viability of higher education institutions moving to virtual teaching environments have been taking place for well over a decade. Once COVID-19 was brought stateside and steadily increased its spread, those years’ worth of deliberations, evaluations and concerns were all addressed in a matter of hours.

With swift intention, educational institutions nationwide were forced to reevaluate their delivery methods across all aspects of teaching, campus life, extracurricular activities and so much more.

There has simply been no time to delay. The steps being taken by nations worldwide are proving just how viable the online learning experience is and can be.

Rise of remote teaching In a mere matter of days, educational institutions were forced to make major strategical shifts that had been in the works for years.

China established a national cloud learning platform providing study materials for all students at the junior and senior high school levels. They’ve also incorporated public broadcast learning into their domestic education strategy with dedicated public TV channels airing primary school class material.

What we’ve seen in the short amount of time since this pandemic first arrived is how impactful the virus has been in forcing widespread innovation across the higher education sector.

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EDUCATION Supplements Team

Advertising & Marketing Manager Hassan Ali Anwari

Bridging digital divide

Supplement Editor

More than 4.5 billion people currently use the Internet, but that is still only 60% of the world’s population. This gap between countries and socioeconomic equity must change if we are to broaden the viability of virtual learning. The negative effects of the divide are exacerbated in times of crisis, leading to a lack of information, education and opportunity for those offline. Now, more than ever, we must collectively strive for more readily available technology and move past physical limitations in favour of virtual solutions. If this global pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that the importance of online flexibility is absolutely critical for the sustainment of education and overall well-being. We should all take this time to assess our institutions, our organizations and our online habits in an effort to better prepare for such historic upheaval. Opening our minds while our doors remain closed just might put us all in a better position to succeed and educate once normalcy returns.

Sr. Business Development Manager

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Gulf Times/Arrayah Building, C Ring Road, P.O. Box 533, Doha Qatar Tel: (+974) 44466620 Fax: (+974) 44310992 email: advr@gulf-times.com

DBS Ain Khaled Sixth Form at its finest

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igh quality Teaching and Learning, combined with excellent facilities result in exceptional performance in exams. These factors are key in deciding upon where to enroll in post-16 or Sixth Form education.

DBS Sixth Form prides itself in offering the most diverse academic and vocational pathways for students in Year 12 and 13, including four distinct qualifications - International Baccalaureate Diploma, Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level awards (UK), and the Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) vocational qualification.

Admissions at DBS Al Wakra Limited places available

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oha British School (DBS) Al Wakra has announced the final stage of the admission process for the academic year 2020-2021. Only a few places remain for both primary and secondary levels.

DBS Al Wakra has recently completed the refurbishment of some of its existing facilities. The school has upgraded rooms and corridors and created an all-weather football pitch in addition to a new surface on the basketball court. The school is fully committed to providing an environment where pupils can thrive, prosper and benefit from a first class education.

“We are all delighted for our students and are extremely proud of their achievements. We have record numbers in our Sixth Form. Our students continue their education through different post 16 pathways and progress to some of the most prestigious universities all over the world,” – Paul Sherlock, Principal

“DBS Al Wakra is a unique school where both academic excellence and the development of effective personal characteristics are promoted at every opportunity. All students who attend our school will thrive in an environment that is suited to their academic and personal needs,” – Steven Miles, Principal

DBS students receive outstanding teaching from subject specialists as well as personalised pastoral support from dedicated form tutors. Whichever pathway the students decide to take, they will receive guidance throughout the programme and full support in university application. DBS students achieve wonderful results and go on to attend universities around the world, including the UK, USA and Canada. DBS Ain Khaled and DBS Al Wakra are part of the Doha British Schools system. DBS has over 2,200 students from 88+ nationalities and is renowned for offering outstanding National English Curriculum since 1997.

Pandemic safety measures

DBS Al Wakra, resurfaced basketball court

Parents have complimented DBS Al Wakra on how well prepared it is to deal with the challenges of the Covid environment. The school’s Virtual Learning Environment was established and has been up and running from day one of the crisis. The school also has the strictest health & safety precautions in place.

The children are as safe as they can be.

DBS Al Wakra, new all-weather football pitch

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Benefits of teaching non-cognitive skills W

e believe including a non-cognitive skills education can support students to achieve greater academic and personal success. But our belief in the potential of non-cognitive skills doesn’t come from wishful thinking. There are an increasing number of studies that point to successful academic and life outcomes for school students who learn specific non-cognitive skills. There are literally dozens of researched benefits that flow from learning and mastering non-cognitive skills. Here, we’ve detailed just some of the key benefits of developing non-cognitive habits and skills.

Increased sense of self-belief when tackling new challenges Work by Dr. Carol Dweck at Stanford University has shown that teaching students about fixed and growth mindsets, then introducing techniques to apply a growth mindset to problems, can lead to improved self-confidence and self-belief in the face of new challenges.

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Fixed mindset thinking affects all of us at times, but by learning to recognize and adjust our thinking, anyone can become more confident in taking on new challenges.

Improved ability to bounce back from failure or set-backs Another key benefit that stems from learning growth mindsets is an improved ability to bounce back from failure or set back. One of the key reasons for this is that viewing a challenge from a growth mindset allows a student to see failure in a whole new light. Rather than failure being bad, or a negative outcome, it is simply seen as a stepping stone to future success. Learning to accept failure as a necessary part of the process to learning and mastering anything can become a freeing experience for students, allowing them to push the boundaries of their existing skill level more confidently, as they no longer fear failing, and have a stronger sense of self-esteem and self-confidence.

Increased levels of persistence Closely related to the concept of growth mindsets is persistence. Persistence (as we call it) has been researched and championed most publicly by Angela Duckworth from the University of Pennsylvania under the name ‘Grit’. Duckworth defines grit as ‘perseverance and passion for long-term goals’ – a skill that seems obviously beneficial to anyone who wants to achieve a long-term goal of any kind. In her book, ‘Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance’, Duckworth outlines not only the specific benefits of

grit, but the ways in which this skill can be increased.

Some of the techniques to build higher levels of persistence link closely to other well researched noncognitive skills such as Dweck’s growth mindsets, Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow, and Anders Ericsson’s work on deliberate practice.

Improved focus There is a huge amount of research that points to the benefits of mindfulness practices. Just one of these is the ability to build the brain’s ability to focus for longer periods of time on a single task. Closely related of course, is the ability for the brain to not be as easily distracted. Improved focus is highly beneficial in helping students to improve academic and nonacademic outcomes in school and beyond. Mindfulness practice allows students to notice when they lose focus or are distracted, teaching how to move past a distraction and bring attention back to the task at hand.

Mindfulness is often considered to be another name for meditation, but meditation is simply one form of mindfulness training.

improvements across the board, including lower levels of stress and anxiety, lower levels of obesity and even a longer life.

skills. Strong relationships have perhaps a far more significant impact than we might have imagined; not just on happiness either, but success and income.

Lower levels of anxiety

Higher levels of academic success

Mindfulness practice, along with other non-cognitive habits and skills such as developing positive attitudes, building self-control, learning to accept failure and forming healthy habits all contribute to helping students to lower their levels of anxiety and in some cases even prevent the symptoms of depression. Each of these skills helps students to recognise and manage their emotions as a means of helping them stay calm and as a result, can help them function at their best.

Better relationships with others Skill development in areas such as empathy, communication and building a sense of community all contribute to helping students develop stronger relationships, as do seemingly internally focused strengths such as self-awareness and self-confidence.

Habits such as being curious and self-control further enhance relationships while also helping to expand the diversity of relationships students develop. In broad terms, these skills are often discussed under the banner of Social Emotional Learning (SEL). The Grant Study, a Harvard Medical School’s 75 year-old longitudinal study run in tandem with The Glueck Study, has shown the importance of relationships in helping people to lead happy and healthy lives, while many studies focusing on the impact of SEL point to significant academic and life outcomes as a result of learning social emotional

We all know that one of the best ways to succeed at anything is to practice. But how do you ensure your practice is effective at pushing you closer to success and not simply using up your time? The answer is a concept expertise researcher Anders Ericsson calls Deliberate Practice. We call it perfect practice, but the method is the same. There are ways that practice can be structured to ensure ongoing improvement in any area. Unfortunately, most of us don’t practice in this way, so we don’t get all the benefits of practice that we could. It’s perhaps no surprise, when reviewing the list of benefits above, that students with strong non-cognitive skills might also succeed in cognitive tests and assignments. Traits such as self-belief in the face of new challenges, persistence and the ability to bounce back from failure all seem obvious to achieving academic success. Even factors like relationships with others and self-control are firmly on our radars as student traits that seem to correlate well with positive academic outcomes. What appears less obvious however is how we teach these skills, or even whether we can. Research in all these areas (and more) suggests not only that teaching non-cognitive skills is possible, but it also outlines the specific methods by which to do it.

Courtesy: Passion arena.com

Higher levels of happiness and optimism Research has consistently shown that there are a number of interventions that can be made to help anyone improve their levels of optimism and happiness (or wellbeing). Scholars such as Martin Seligman and Shaun Achor have demonstrated a variety of techniques that can support improvement in optimism and happiness, leading to a host of benefits. Happiness it seems improves performance in practically every way you can imagine..

Reduced incidences of addiction and crime One of the key drivers of non-cognitive skills is the ability to improve self-control. The importance of self-control cannot be overstated. Longitudinal studies such as the now famous Dunedin Study and, the work of self-control researchers such as Walter Mischel, have shown that not only can self-control be improved through the application of specific techniques, but the lifelong benefits to those with high levels of self-control are significant. One such benefit is a lower likelihood of addiction or problems with alcohol or drugs, and (perhaps relatedly) a lower instance of committing a crime. It seems that self control also leads to health

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The role of afterschool

programmes

By Kate Kelly

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good afterschool programme can turn the aimless hours after school into productive learning time. That’s a big benefit, especially for kids who learn and think differently. Here are a highquality afterschool programme can do for kids.

Improve social skills

Create a sense of belonging If the afterschool programme isn’t run by your school district or a local facility, it may be a way for your child to make some new friends. Being away from school can offer a break from any usual cliques or social concerns.

If the programme is local or at school, it may be a nice way for your child to connect with peers in a new setting. Kids in afterschool programmes are more likely to be included and feel like they’re part of a group. These programmes often have more adult supervision than playground time offers.

Provide academic support Many afterschool programmes provide homework help. This time can be very helpful for kids who struggle with homework at home or who can’t sit down to do it until late. Getting it done after school can make everyone’s evening more pleasant.

Make sure that the aides or other kids aren’t doing the homework for your child.

Some centers don’t have teachers or aides who are equipped to handle kids who struggle with homework.

A good programme promotes cooperation, support, and respect. This can help kids feel more secure about joining a game or starting a conversation.

And if they slip up, a sympathetic staffer should be on hand to remind them to take turns or stop interrupting.

Make learning more fun Some afterschool programmes offer classes in areas like science or computers.

In these sessions, there aren’t tests and students may work together in groups.

It’s a fun and meaningful way for kids to work with other kids in areas they enjoy.

Programmes may also offer arts options like drama and music, which can help kids find new interests.

Build confidence For kids who lack confidence or have learning challenges, an afterschool programme may feel more forgiving than school. The stakes may not feel as high. Kids may be more willing to try new things and take more positive risks. This, in turn, can lead to higher self-esteem.

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An afterschool program can expose kids to new interests.

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Kids who struggle with school may feel like they fit in better at an afterschool programme.

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Staff at an afterschool programme can give feedback to help kids improve their social skills.

Courtesy: Understood.com

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Accepting failure and learning from it

By Tarek G

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ometimes your best effort just isn’t good enough. You can pour blood, sweat, and tears into something, only to have it fail in the end. If this hasn’t happened to you yet, it’s easy to take the possibility of it for granted: I know I did.

It was a second year philosophy course. I passed, but with a measly final grade of 58 percent. It came as a total shock: I did well on the two assigned essays, and studied every last detail of the material for the exam. Infuriated, I contemplated filing an academic appeal. On the first day of my summer break, I commuted to my school registrar, carrying with me a binder full of my essays and short assignments. When I arrived there, the woman at the front desk informed me that all I could do was email the professor to ask if there had been an error in submitting my grade.

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In other words, I could do nothing.

I couldn’t be bothered in wasting my time with such an email (“there was no error, that’s just the grade you got” would have been the response). On my commute back home, I tried to forget about it. And it was then, on that subway train, that I came to a realization. I had always heard about the importance of accepting failure from self-help books and lifestyle magazines, but never fully acknowledged it. Now I had to: I was living it.

From my experience, I learned different ways of coping with failure and how to learn from it. And what I learned, you can as well.

All this said, don’t let it get you down. Failure due to laziness is a legitimate source of shame, but failure in spite of trying hard isn’t. Even geniuses make mistakes.

When inventing the light bulb, Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts until finally succeeding.

When asked by a reporter how it felt to fail 1,000 times, Edison replied, I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.

Don’t look at your failed attempts as efforts wasted in vain: even a wasted effort is an invaluable learning experience.

Assess yourself

time studying material that I wasn’t going to be quizzed on. Don’t just study hard, study smart.

Look forward After you re-evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, don’t waste any more time dwelling on your failure.

Move on by focusing your energy on new work at hand.

Not only will this take your mind off of it, it’s also an opportunity to demonstrate that you have learned from your mistakes. So long as you actively avoid the traps that doomed your last effort, concentrating on current work will provide you with results that will more than make up for your previous failure.

Be at peace with liability

Being bitter and shifting the blame elsewhere won’t change anything. Thinking that you’re infallible is not only unhealthy, it’s counterproductive. Be introspective: meditate on any possible mistakes you made that hindered your success. I look back and realize that I made four major mistakes in my philosophy course:

Get comfortable with the fact that the possibility of failure will always be there. Be at peace with it, because once you are, you’ll be better prepared for when it strikes again.

I came in late to most tutorials (sometimes not at all), with having not read the assigned readings

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I major in English, so I’m assigned several lengthy novels which take up a lot of my reading time. I reasoned that I didn’t have enough time and only read select readings for the essay assignments

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I caught up on all the course material in the days shortly leading up to the exam – a foolish mistake

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As a result, I rarely contributed anything meaningful to tutorial discussions. This took a toll on my final grade as participation in tutorial made up 15% of the final mark

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Since then, I have vowed to keep up with all the readings in any given course to the best of my ability.

Recognize and correct your mistakes, because unless you do so you’ll just end up repeating them.

Feel good about your effort Putting a lot of effort into something doesn’t alone guarantee a high grade. In my case, my initial outrage stemmed from putting in so much time and effort into studying for the exam. I soon realized that the amount of effort invested doesn’t mean anything if the final results are unsatisfactory to whoever is grading your work. The same applies even more so to jobs in the real world.

Learn to study smarter Reconsider your study habits. If you already work hard, focus on readjusting the ways you study rather than the amount of time you spend studying. It wasn’t that I didn’t study for my exam; I laboriously did so in the two weeks leading up to it. My mistake was that I crammed in the material within that short period of time. Had I studied in small doses over the course of the entire semester, I would have received better results for both my exam and my tutorial mark. No matter how hard you work within a short amount of time, finishing things at the last minute will only cheapen the results.

Halfway through my self-assigned two-week study period, I realized that I had forgotten to check the format for my exam. Once I did, I was shocked to find out that I had wasted time studying course material that wasn’t going to be included on it. Instead of first carefully going over the exam format, I dove straight into studying. As a consequence, I wasted precious

My pieces of advice aren’t instructions for foolproof protection against failure; no matter how religiously you follow them, there will always be that lingering chance.

Nevertheless, you can still avoid it. School is like a game of cards. No matter how thorough you may think you play, there will always be a chance that you lose the game. But like any skilled player, you can still increase your chances of winning.

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ACS embracing a new era of blended learning

By Caroline Rennie, Deputy Head of School, ACS Doha

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n a post-COVID 19 era, returning to school this term looks much different from anything we have known.

Mindful of the need for the safety for students, yet also addressing the need to continue education, we enter a new era of blended learning where we can address both together.

Most importantly, we have found parents to be more involved with at-home learning for their child.

From reading a book, to learning numbers, parents can note where their children are most engaged and be involved in the skill-building first-hand.

Under a new model of ‘blended learning’, we divide class time between face-to-face learning and online learning, working within the guidelines provided by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MOEHE), in an attempt to deliver the best experience to our students.

Channeling the strengths of blended learning

Consistency is key

Blended learning addresses many of the challenges presented by COVID-19, introducing a new model of education which balances between academic continuity and student safety. It combines the strengths of studying at school and at home. One of the greatest takeaways for our students has been the chance to work independently. They are very positive when it comes to taking ownership of their learning and focusing on their individual pathways.

We can create more opportunities for learning in new ways. We have found students who are shy now speak up more during class. In this kind of collaboration, everyone has a voice. Also, we focused on health and wellness, and exchanging time for electives like computer club or robotics for social time with teachers to develop healthy social connections.

Making the most of the 30% capacity rule, we manage our educators between online classes and in-person classes. While our teachers are amazing and dedicate extra time, we want to ensure they are not overworked to maintain the quality of education.

We have ensured consistency so that parents know what time their child needs to be at school, being allowed up to three days. That way, parents can organise their day around a set schedule.

Returning to a safe school environment

Working closely with parents Creating a back-to-school timetable that also honours the 30% capacity rule means preparing a considered plan which accommodates the varying needs of families, whether they have one child or five children at our school.

In some families, both parents work outside home and need to drop their child at school. Catering to different needs, we need consistency in our timetable to allow parents to plan.

At the end of the last school year, we scheduled virtual communication sessions over the summer holidays with parents, students and staff on a bi-weekly basis to consolidate what is happening and our plans moving forward.

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Enforcing a safe environment is at the core of bringing our community back to school. We follow health and safety procedures in line with our UK schools’ risk assessment, which helps reassure students and their families.

The first days of returning to campus, our staff will be dedicated to teach students how to use their mask, particularly the younger ones. We teach them that this is a practice they must do for their own safety and for the safety of others.

We are very lucky to have moved into our fantastic new landmark campus this September, which also helps facilitate our precautionary measures and safety standards. Spanning 60,000 square metres, with selfcontained buildings for Early Childhood, Lower, Middle and High School, we avoid cross-contamination issues with different group ‘bubbles’. Our campus lends itself perfectly to implementing effective social distancing.

Traits of

child-centred education C

Learning takes place as he strives to meet his needs and gives expression to his drives. Here immediate purpose and interests are the motivating factors, which may go on changing with the situation.

The great philosophers and educationalists like Rousseau, Tagore, Froebel, Pestalozzi and Montess or have given emphasis on the child-centred education at different times.

Characteristics As child is the centre of education, development of mind, body and spirit of the child should be reflected in the programme and planning of education.

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Freedom Pestalozzi added a new dimension to educational thought and practice by insisting that education was not the privilege of any single class but the right of every child belonging to different classes.

Freedom was granted to the child to discover things than getting secondhand information through books.

Emphasis was as they like given on the freedom of children to learn and create.

hild-centred education is a sort of revolt against subject-centred education. Child-centred education seeks to provide natural flow of activity and spontaneous growth of the child. He must be allowed to enjoy complete freedom of action subject to the condition that he should not interfere with the freedom of others.

The teacher’s role is that of an interested observer and at best that of a guide who encourages, advises and stimulates the child, if and when needed. The child is stimulated to activity by his own felt needs and inner drives.

The following points need be considered for promoting child-centred education.

Self-activities Froebel developed plays, games and songs and occupations, designed especially to stimulate the child’s self-activity. He laid great stress on self-development of the child and child’s activity should stem from his own interests.

Process of spontaneous development Rousseau advocates that child should be allowed to learn from nature in his natural way without any interference from the adult, that nothing should be taught to him until he is capable of understanding it, that his individuality should be respected, that his natural interests like play and curiosity should form the basis of his education, and that books should be avoided particularly at the early stage and more emphasis should be given to the child sensory and natural development.

The stress laid by Rousseau on the individuality of the child means that the child should be respected, as he is with all his abilities, and drawbacks, that in educating him these should be given due consideration and that all children cannot therefore be treated alike. So child should be treated as the centre of education.

A child progresses at his/her own speed in a subject.

The role of the teacher is to understand the child. The child’s freedom and individuality have found expression spontaneously in the lap of nature.

Development of interest & needs The education of child depends on his interest and needs. The physical, social, moral and spiritual development of the child is “the main objective of the child-centred Education.

Education based on experience The main objective of child-centred education is to enable the child to learn through experience which is permanent. The course and subject should be experience-oriented to meet the needs of the child.

Keen to develop global identity and cultural intelligence

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he Hamilton International School, owned and operated

by International Schools Partnership (ISP), is one of Doha’s newer schools, with purpose built worldclass facilities, an extensive after school programme, and a bespoke international curriculum.

“At Hamilton International School, our goal is to ignite student’s passion, encourage them to discover their purpose and realise their limitless potential.

We support each student to develop a global identity and cultural intelligence, so they truly become global citizens. Our amazing education offering and proven teaching practices ensure our students are equipped with skills such as problem-solving, communication, collaboration and cross-cultural awareness, so that they are intellectually and emotionally ready to succeed in the global community,” – Terry Senior, Founding Principal of Hamilton.

Throughout the distance learning provision, students at Hamilton continued to access high quality education through various platforms. The school and families worked in partnership during this time, and the success can be seen through the progress students continued to make.

Healthy, safety and well-Being of the entire community is our priority In our truly global world, schools have been challenged with having to adapt to ensure learning is continuous, while keeping their communities safe.

Senior shared: “In line with the guidelines issued by the MoEHE, our school has implemented enhanced health and safety protocols, ensuring that our community comes back to a safe environment. We are fortunate that we can offer our parents flexible learning options, so that they can choose what is best suited for their children. While we expect most of our students to return on campus for onsite learning, parents may choose online learning or a blended approach. Our spacious campus in Mesaimeer allows us to cater to all our students, onsite, 5 days a week.”

Hamilton has shared comprehensive re-opening plans with parents and has invited their community to take part in

personalized tours, individual Q&A meetings and virtual coffee mornings, so that they can share details of what school is going to look like with the new protocols in place.

The school is also in a unique position as 100% of the teachers are present in Doha, so are able to provide teaching and learning in the classroom and on-line. Hamilton has an extremely high caliber of teachers, all of which are native English speakers from the UK and North America, with proven track records in teaching experience.

The school was recently visited by well-known entrepreneur, model, actress and humanitarian, Yezenia Navarro. She wanted to see the new health and safety measure in place and to find out exactly why school is safe with The Hamilton International School.

Alongside the visible additions of sanitisation areas, thermal temperature scanning and signage around the schools highlighting social distancing, some of the changes students will experience include but are not limited to, maximum class size of 15 students, changes to movement around the school and new pick up and drop off procedures.

“When parents choose an ISP school for their child, they are not only choosing a school where health and safety is a priority for the entire community, but they are choosing a school where amazing learning and progress never stops,” Senior concluded.

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As a school, Hamilton believes that students should have the opportunity to engage with inspirational and motivating role models. Over the past year, Hamilton students received inspirational messages from and met with the Qatar Football Association members and Asia cup champions, Golfer Yasmian Al Sharshani and Mountaineer Fahad Badar.

“Our amazing education offering and proven teaching practices ensure our students are equipped with skills such as problem-solving, communication, collaboration and crosscultural awareness,” – Terry Senior, Founding Principal of Hamilton

Hamilton is currently offering onsite learning, 5 days a week, for the 2020/2021 academic year for Pre-KG through Grade 8. Teaching the high quality bespoke international curriculum in the Early, Primary and Middle Years with future expansion to High School, Hamilton is accepting applications for Pre-KG to Grade 8 (Year 9).

Hamilton’s students will graduate with an IB Diploma or a High School Diploma accredited by NEASC, a US accreditation organisation, preparing them for the best international universities. Hamilton is located in Mesaimeer in a brand new, state-of-the-art facility, including an 850-seat theatre to host music and art performances, multiple premier sports facilities including tennis courts and swimming pools, ICT suites equipped with the latest digital learning technology, and incredible indoor learning spaces.

Part of

We are part of a global group of schools

45,000

7,000

45

12

14

Students

Staff

Schools

Countries

Curricula

Park House records outstanding results Park House English School, owned and operated by International Schools Partnership (ISP), is proud to announce outstanding examination results for the 2019-2020 academic year. This continues the trend of the outstanding results that Park House students have achieved for many years.

At A Level, 42% of all grades received by students were at A* or A and 100% of students at Park House English School passed their examinations.

Head of Sixth Form, Lyvica Allen commented: “It was a school year like no other and we commend our students who have shown that the work undertaken prior to lockdown and the school’s continuous focus on academic improvement have equipped them to succeed. We congratulate them on their resilience, motivation and fortitude and I wish them all the best for the future.”

Park House IGCSE candidates were also celebrating as the IGCSE examination results were announced.

“We retain our very best teaching staff year on year to ensure we have the critical stability required to provide an outstanding education,” – John Smith, Principal

93% of grades received by students were A* - C (or equivalent), while nearly 60% of all grades were A*/A or equivalent and 100% of our students passed.

John Smith, Principal, congratulated all A-Level and IGCSE candidates and commented: “I am continually impressed by the incredible results our students achieve.

It is testament to the hard work of both students and staff and we couldn’t be prouder. Yet again, our results are evidence of the high-quality education that students receive at the school, enabling them to attend universities of choice around the world. As a 27-year-old school, we have many years of experience and retain our very best teaching staff year on year to ensure we have the critical stability required to provide an outstanding education. Even in the most difficult of circumstances this year, we have maintained the highest standards.”

Meanwhile, Park House welcomed new Head of Primary Mrs. Natasha Hilton. Mrs Hilton hails from the U.K and will be part of the journey that will enhance students’ learning.

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21

Classroom etiquette that students should follow

By Priya Sharma

S

etting proper classroom rules is extremely important for maintaining order and encouraging the best behavior from your students. It’s how students learn classroom etiquette, their responsibilities, and your expectations from them.

Though students may sometimes perceive these rules as harsh or unfair, they set a foundation for a positive learning environment where students learn, grow, and thrive. Establishing comprehensive, value-based rules in the classroom can instill positive behaviour in students and is essential for their development.

Respecting their teachers at school and treating their peers with respect is a behavior that should be practiced until it becomes second nature. There should be a zero-tolerance policy for any sort of impolite behaviour or bullying.

Students should also learn to be kind to others and to extend a helping hand to others whenever possible. Does a student witness a peer being bullied?

They should be taught to stand up for others. Does

But how do you make classroom rules that students respect and follow? As a starting point, consider involving your students in the rule-making process.

When they take part in the process, they won’t constantly question why you’ve included those rules — they’ll have to answer that themselves!

To help you out, here are a few classroom rules that students are more likely to follow.

someone need extra supplies? Sharing is quite literally caring in the classroom.

Finish work on time Unless any extension is provided by the teacher, all work or assignments should be submitted on time. This is how students learn to respect deadlines — and it’s an essential skill that will serve them well into adulthood.

Late assignments should be given a lower score to encourage punctuality.

in school. They should be told not to interrupt the teacher during class lessons. Frequent interruptions can drain the teacher’s valuable teaching time, which can make it difficult for students to get through the lessons you’ve planned.

Ask permission before leaving class If students must leave your class to use the restroom or visit their locker, they should politely ask for your permission and/or use a hall pass.

Keep the classroom tidy Always be on time Punctuality is one of the best habits that can be learned at school. Students should be taught that being on time is essential to keep the classroom running smoothly and that everyone should develop a fixed routine to reach school and be seated in the classroom before the bell rings. The same rule should be followed after lunch or recess breaks.

Be respectful to others Treat others the way you want to be treated. We’ve all heard it, but do you practice it in the classroom? It’s an ethical principle that students should learn as early as possible.

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Students are responsible for keeping their classroom neat and clean. They should learn that it’s not acceptable to litter the premises with paper, supplies, or food. Students should also learn to use trash cans (and recycling bins!) properly. At the end of the period, students should work together to put supplies back where they belong and clean up any messes they spot.

Don’t disturb others While it’s tempting to chat with your peers, it’s disrespectful to other students (and the teacher).

Students should know that they must devote their full attention to your lesson.

Raising one’s hand when one needs to ask something is one of the basic rules that your students should follow

Wait for your turn Students should be advised to stand politely in the queue and patiently await their turn for anything (e.g., leaving class for lunch). Students should also be taught to respect each other’s personal space.

Attend classroom activities Activities in the classroom are also an essential part of the learning process. Every student should be advised to actively and voluntarily take part. This is when students realize their hidden potential and learn to take responsibility for their own actions. Team activities help establish leadership skills, which play a great role when it comes to succeeding in this competitive world.

Respect each other’s property Each student must care not only for their own property but also for the property of their peers and the school.

Students should ask for permission before borrowing another student’s belongings and should take good care of them.

Courtesy: Classcraft.com

GOOD MANNERS NEVER GO OUT OF STYLE

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Compass International School The right pathway to your goals

By Simon Porter Head of Secondary, Themaid Campus Compass International School

T

here are many ways to identify a good international school, and whilst many schools will have international staff, an international student body and an international curriculum, few can offer truly meaningful collaborations and a true choice of pathways to enter top universities.

Compass International School’s ground-breaking collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the best universities in the world, falls into this category. MIT provides Compass students with unique challenges to develop their technological and thinking skills throughout the school year. They also provide training for Compass staff and provide opportunities for students to visit MIT to take part in student events.

Compass’ collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provides students with unique challenges to develop their technological and thinking skills throughout the school year.

internationally recognised qualifications. Students and parents in Year 11 receive intense counselling and information sessions to enable them to make the best choice for them. They can then move between the campus of their choice to do the qualification with best chance of getting them into the top institutions.

Compass’ collaborations do not stop there. Their Music, Dance and Drama curriculum is in collaboration with The Juilliard School, the world-renowned

performing arts conservatory. Compass is the only school in Doha to offer this curriculum. Juilliard Artists visit the school each term, and Curriculum Specialists visit the school to offer training and advice to teachers on a regular basis.

Parents send their children to international schools to seek entry to the world’s top universities. Whilst most schools can offer only one pathway, via either the British style A-Level or the International Baccalaureate, Compass’ opening of their new state of the art Themaid campus means that they can now offer both

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Compass’ highly trained international staff will then give them the best opportunity of entering the university of their choice by choosing the most beneficial choice of subjects and qualifications.

Top universities demand a fully balanced education in addition to excellent examinations results, and Compass’ unique collaborations with the best institutions in the world offers the best pathway to these goals.

Compass International School is now offering A-Levels for the 2020/21 Academic Year, in addition to the IB Diploma.

About the author

Simon Porter is a Times Education Supplement ‘Subject Genius’ for Science and contributed to Professor Deborah Eyre’s recent book on High Performance Learning.

Fostering empathy through

social emotional learning W

e’re all used to hearing phrases like “sharing is caring” and “treat others the way you want to be treated.” These principles once served as the basis for social emotional learning in pre-K and elementary school classrooms.

But today, where children use a variety of technologies to connect and interact, social emotional learning looks and feels much different. To ensure your students grow up to be caring, empathetic and successful individuals, here are the tools, tips and resources you can use to foster social emotional learning.

Why emotional learning matters In addition to making sure children still know how to build healthy relationships offline, it’s important they learn how to be respectful and empathetic in online interactions.

maintains that teachers need to intervene when students feel sympathetic instead of empathetic.

According to Alex Kajitani, 2009 California Teacher of the Year, students who learn social and emotional skills in school will be more prepared for the workplace and life in general. After talking directly to HR managers, Kajitani found that the top three most desired qualities are:

Clemens writes, “When students feel sympathy, they leave the situation feeling like there is no need to change their own world—only the world of the character. Such a relationship leads to a case where the reader wants to be a savior, when my goal is to challenge students to be allies in the fight for social justice.”

The ability to work on a team Punctuality Empathy Laszlo Bock, member of the National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, agrees with this statement.

He adds that a strong work ethic and the ability to function in a multigenerational and multi-ethnic environment are cited as key soft skills that determine professional success in the workplace.

Differentiating empathy from sympathy It’s clear that social and emotional learning is key to fostering an empathetic and kind generation. However, it’s important that empathy lessons don’t turn into sympathy sessions. Colleen Lutz Clemens, co-host of the Inside254 podcast,

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Instilling emotional learning early If you’re wondering when the best time to start teaching social emotional skills is, it might be earlier than you think.

According to Jessica Alexander, co-author of The Danish Way of Parenting, children in Denmark are taught social emotional learning as early as preschool.

A program called Step by Step teaches children how to conceptualize other people’s feelings in order to foster self-control and empathy. Instead of judging their peers, Danish children are taught to recognize and respect the feelings of those around them.

And in a recent study by Johns Hopkins University, children who entered kindergarten without social emotional skills experienced negative consequences later on. New America Education Policy Program Associate Aaron Loewenberg explains that kindergarten students in the study who ranked low on the social emotional learning scale were up to 80 percent more likely to require special education services. They were also seven times more likely to have been expelled — all by the fourth grade.

Social emotional learning resources To foster more empathy in your classroom, it’s important that you take advantage of the many research-based tools and practices available. A great

place to start is with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, which outlines four primary tools that anchor emotional intelligence in schools: Charter, Mood Meter, Meta-Moment and Blueprint.

Charter refers to a collaborative document that helps schools establish productive, safe and supportive learning environments. Mood Meter helps students become more mindful about their emotions; MetaMoment refers to handling strong emotions; and Blueprint is how interpersonal school relationships impact school climate.

More helpful resources for teaching students empathy can be found through Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

One exercise is called the Circle of Concern, an activity that helps students widen their circle of awareness and become more caring of those for whom they don’t normally have empathy.

The Committee for Children The Committee for Children offers a research-based school resource called Second Step, which helps teachers instill social and emotional learning into preschool, pre-K, elementary and middle school students. These exercises leverage music, video, and other interactive methods to cultivate discussions about inclusion, exclusion, stereotyping and fairness.

A Second Step success story comes from Arika Dickens, a school librarian at Medina Elementary school in Bellevue, WA. Dickens read her kindergartners the book By Mouse & Frog, where characters become angry with one another. She then used the Second Step curriculum as a guide to form questions around managing emotions and solving problems.

Technology resources Technology can either help or hinder students’ social and emotional learning, depending on how it’s used. Alex Hernandez, partner at the Charter School Growth Fund, explains a positive example of using technology in the classroom. Hernandez says programs like Base Education facilitate strong relationships between struggling teens and supportive adults.

EMPATHY

Empathy and personal success Self-directed learning is one of the most effective ways to keep students engaged, and it’s a direct consequence of social emotional learning.

As explained by Jessica Berlinski, who is a social emotional learning (SEL) consultant, kids perform better when they’re given an opportunity to identify what’s preventing their own learning. Whether those barriers occur at home or in the classroom, students need time to identify their biggest struggles and find their own ways to control and move beyond them.

Students who are more in tune with their own challenges are also more aware of their successes and goals.

Take teacher Rudolph Matheny, for example. Matheny teachers a Methods for Personal and Academic Success (MAPS) class at Austin High School in Austin, Texas. In the class, Matheny gives his students an art project where they map out a future goal. This helps them visualize their goal and forge a clear understanding of what success means to them — and how they can get there.

A Powerful Word!

According to research empathy is inborn. It allows children to learn that others have feelings and that their own actions can impact another person’s emotions through n

Experience

n

Learning

n

Good Parenting

As Children get old they...

Learn to recognize emotions and cause of emotions Get better at inferring other people’s feelings

While society tends to emphasize empathy skills for girls more than boys, all humans need empathy to nurture relationships.

Empathy and discipline Empathy skills can also help with behavior problems and keep kids out of trouble. According to research cited by Stanford University’s Project for Educational Research that Scales (PERTS), traditional discipline and suspension policies do not help misbehaving students improve their behavior and mindset.

In the study, misbehaving students were taught social and emotional skills through an online course (instead of being disciplined traditionally). This practice effectively halved the amount of student suspension rates over one year.

Courtesy: Planbook

Empathy...

Is one of the single most important factors in fostering successful leaders, entrepreneurs, managers and businesses Delivers a dose of happiness to everyone involved Improves relationships and increases feelings of connection Enhances relationships Reduces bullying Increases forgiveness between people Kids who are empathetic also tend to be more successful because they are purpose-driven rather than narcissistic.

Concentrating on instilling empathy skills in children is good for everyone!

Base Education is a software tool that asks struggling teenagers questions about their emotions and personal lives. Adults can learn what’s going in the students’ lives by reviewing the answers to these questions, which in turn opens up deep emotional conversations.

Educational video games are another increasingly common way to teach empathy in the classroom. Elizabeth Svoboda explains that when children play games that help them practice cooperative and positive behavior, they learn to show more caring and empathy in the real world.

School activities In a world fueled by digital communication, learning interpersonal relationship skills is critical for developing empathy and respect for others. Luckily, there are easy ways to incorporate these skills into everyday school activities.

Technology Resources Technology can either help or hinder students’ social and emotional learning, depending on how it’s used. Base Education is a software tool that asks struggling teenagers questions about their emotions and personal lives.

Educational video games are another increasingly common way to teach empathy in the classroom.

For example, education teacher Rebecca Alber suggests providing students with a vocabulary list of new words to describe their feelings. Younger students can benefit from a shorter, simpler word list that challenges them to think more deeply about their specific feelings and why they’re feeling them.

For older students, journalist Holly Korbey explains that there is a strong association between participation in high school theater productions and inner development. Learning and performing classical works, like those written

by Shakespeare, teach students conflict resolution, body language and empathy.

And even if a student isn’t interested in joining the school play, there are still ways to incorporate these skills into literature, history and language classes.

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27

Coping with the pandemic... make sure your kids feel secure

By Rachel Ehmke

W

e’re all on edge because of the coronavirus.

Our daily lives have been disrupted, we aren’t sure what tomorrow may bring, and for many of us the nonstop news and social media coverage isn’t helping.

Our experts say that dealing with your own anxiety can be the most powerful way to make sure your kids feel secure. If you or your children are feeling worried, learning how to deal with that anxiety in a healthy way can help the whole family be more resilient, both now and when the pandemic is finally over.

Tolerating uncertainty “The treatment for anxiety isn’t to make the fear go away, it’s to manage the fear and tolerate uncertainty,” explains Jerry Bubrick, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute. “So for the kids who’ve been in treatment for this, it’s almost like they have an immune response or they’re vaccinated against uncertainty.

They’ve been training for this and now they’re able to put their skills in place and for many of them the coronavirus is not affecting them as much as those of us who aren’t used to dealing with uncertainty on a daily level.”

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Many parents are having a harder time dealing with COVID-19 than their children, and some of the anxiety that kids are experiencing may be inadvertently passed on by worried parents.

As parents, we need to be modeling for our kids how to react to stressful times by coping with anxiety in healthy ways. “I think we have to be mindful of the present and stay focused on what is actually happening and not let ourselves go to worst case scenarios,” Dr. Bubrick recommends.

How to stay calm Be smart about what you’re reading. While we should

make sure we are informed about how best to keep our families safe, we should also be thoughtful about what we are reading online to make sure it’s actually helpful.

Consider putting a limit on the number of articles you read, or for how long you will read about the coronavirus each day. If you’re consuming media that is making you anxious — take a break. Being informed is one thing; being overexposed is another.

Focus on what you’re doing right now. Though we’re getting more information about the virus daily, we don’t know what will happen, something that’s a

feeling is — a red light means they feel overwhelmed, a yellow light is medium and a green light is okay.

For kids who are more able to articulate how they are feeling, Dr. Bubrick says it is better to ask what psychologists call “forced choice questions.” “If you ask a vague question you’re going to get a vague answer,” he says. “So instead of asking ‘How was your day?’ which is pretty vague, maybe ask, “Did your anxiety get in the way of you having a good day today?” he suggests.

If you’re wondering about a teenager, Dr. Bubrick recommends talking about yourself first. “You can say something like, “I saw this article today and it made me wonder about this and that. Did you see something like that? What’s your reaction to it?’”

Helping anxious kids Structure their day. As parents we often think that

setting boundaries for a child is a way to make our lives easier, but in fact kids thrive on them, too. It is easy for children to get bored or fretful if they are facing a day without structure, and anxiety can thrive under those circumstances.

Make sure that you are structuring their days when they are cooped up at home. Alternate chores or schoolwork with more fun activities and periods of free time. As restrictions lift and summer sets in, be sure to incorporate safe, socially distant outdoor activities as well. Make sure kids are still getting the chance to exercise and socialize with friends via video chats and social media if they are on it.

massive anxiety trigger for almost everyone. It can be tempting to get caught up in imagining what the future might look like, but Dr. Bubrick recommends trying to stay focused on what’s happening now rather that what might happen later on. “Focus on making sure you’re in the moment, and dealing with things in the present.”

Stop yourself if notice that you are getting carried away with “what ifs.” It will help if you can set aside time to regularly practice mindfulness, which is a tool to help people stay grounded and calm. Parents can practice mindfulness alone or with children. You can’t control the future, but you can take charge of the present.

Rely on routines. Establishing a routine that involves

exercise, regular meals and healthy amounts of sleep is also crucial to regulating our moods and our worries.

It can be hard to accept that our old routines are no longer possible because of COVID-19 precautions, but looking for ways to be flexible and start a new routine can help you feel less anxious and more productive.

Remind yourself that life is still continuing, and ground yourself by doing things like making agendas and setting goals.

thing,” says Dr. Bubrick. “We should be ready to handle a variety of different expressions of anxiety.” Anxiety could look like: Reassurance-seeking (Are we going to be okay? Is Grandpa going to be okay?) n Reluctance to separate from parents n Physical symptoms like headaches or stomach aches n Moodiness and irritability n

Tantrums or meltdowns Trouble sleeping

n n

Kids may not always be able to express how they are feeling. For younger children, Dr. Bubrick suggests using a feelings chart instead of saying “Tell me how anxious you are.” With a feelings chart, which you can find on the internet, you can ask kids to point to the feeling they are having now. Parents can also use a traffic light chart to help kids share how intense their

Avoid giving too much reassurance. For kids of all ages, Dr. Bubrick recommends avoiding getting into a cycle of providing too much reassurance. Kids can come to rely on the reassurance and want to hear it more and more often — and when a parent isn’t able to give them complete reassurance their anxiety can worsen.

Instead, remind kids of the things they are doing to take care of themselves (like washing their hands and staying indoors) and encourage them to focus on being in the moment. They can practice mindfulness activities alone or with you.

Look for the positive. Finally, Dr. Bubrick recommends looking for the silver linings. “I spoke to a family this morning on Skype and they said, ‘You know, our kids are all together for the first time in months and they’re playing games together and they’re laughing together and we’re spending time together.’ So there are silver linings, you just have to look for them.”

Courtesy: Child Mind Institute

Checking in with kids When kids are feeling anxious, it may or may not be clear to parents. “We shouldn’t be looking for just one

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Understanding

dyslexia

and ways to support a

By Katherine Martinelli

Child

C

hildren each learn and develop at their own pace, and reading is no different from other skill building. It’s common for kids to find reading challenging at one point or another. But if learning to read becomes an ongoing struggle that leaves a child falling behind his peers, it’s possible that he has a learning disorder known as dyslexia.

What is dyslexia?

Dyslexia is most commonly associated with trouble learning to read. It affects a child’s ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds in language. Kids with dyslexia have a hard time decoding new words, or breaking them down into manageable

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chunks they can then sound out. This causes difficulty with reading, writing and spelling. They may compensate by memorizing words, but they’ll have trouble recognizing new words and may be slow in retrieving even familiar ones.

Dyslexia is not a reflection of a child’s intelligence — in fact it’s defined as a gap between a student’s ability and achievement. Some youngsters with dyslexia are able to keep up with their peers with extra effort at least for the first few grades. But by the third grade or so, when they need to be able to read quickly and fluently in order to keep up with their work, they run into trouble.

With help and strategies for compensating for their weakness in decoding, students with dyslexia can learn to read and thrive academically. But dyslexia is not something one grows out of.

Stumble and have difficulty spelling even common words; frequently they will spell them phonetically (hrbr instead of harbor) n Avoid being called on to read out loud in front of classmates n Become tired or frustrated from reading n

Dyslexia affects children outside of school as well. Kids with dyslexia may also: n Find it difficult to decode logos and signs Struggle when trying to learn the rules to games n Have difficulty keeping track of multi-step directions n

Struggle with getting the hang of telling time Find it especially challenging to learn another language n Become incredibly frustrated, which can affect their mood and emotional stability n n

Social and emotional impacts Dyslexia affects a lot more than reading — it can also impact a child socially. “A dyslexic person who has word-finding difficulties can have trouble with their expressive language,” says Scott Bezsylko, the executive director of Winston Preparatory School, which specializes in teaching kids with learning disorders. “That has a social impact, in addition to your difficulties with reading and writing, that make you feel not so good about yourself.”

Kids with dyslexia — particularly those who have yet to be diagnosed — often suffer from low selfesteem because they worry that there is something wrong with them, and are often accused of not trying hard enough to learn to read. “A lot of our work with dyslexic kids is to help them rediscover that they are smart and capable,” notes Beszylko, “because they’ve stopped believing in themselves.”

Ways to support One of the best ways to support a child with dyslexia — or any child who is struggling — is to encourage those activities that she likes and feels good at, whether it is music, joining a sports team or anything else that helps build her confidence.

To help reinforce that dyslexia is not a marker of intelligence, it can also be helpful to talk about successful people — like Whoopi Goldberg and Steven Spielberg — who have also been diagnosed with dyslexia.

Other things that may help your child with dyslexia include: n Listening to audio books as an alternative to reading Typing on a computer or tablet instead of writing Apps that can make learning fun by turning decoding into a game n Using a ruler to help kids read in a straight line, which can help keep them focused n n

Emotional support Dyslexia can result in frustration, embarrassment, avoidance and low self-esteem as a result of difficulties performing tasks that seem to come naturally to others. Demystifying the learning disorder with your child can help him develop the tools — and resilience — necessary to manage it, both in school and in social circumstances. Some things you can do to help include: Discuss the specific challenges that result from dyslexia: “You know how you have a hard time reading signs or copying notes from the board?

That’s dyslexia.” n Acknowledge his effort and celebrate hard work, even if there are still mistakes: “I know how difficult that reading homework was. I am so proud of how hard you tried.” n Help him recognize his strengths: “You showed such great sportsmanship and teamwork in the soccer game the other night, and that was a great goal you scored!” n Combat negative self-talk: If your child starts saying things like, “I’m just stupid,” don’t ignore it. Instead, check out these ideas for helping kids who are too hard on themselves. n

How common is dyslexia?

It is estimated that as many as one in five kids has dyslexia, and that 80 to 90 percent of kids with learning disorders have it. Dr. Sally Shaywitz, codirector of the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, notes that many children go undiagnosed as struggles in school are incorrectly attributed to intelligence, level of effort or environmental factors.

Although experts used to say that dyslexia occurred more often in boys than in girls, current research indicates that it affects boys and girls equally.

Signs of dyslexia A young person with dyslexia may: Struggle with learning even simple rhymes Have a speech delay

n n

Have trouble following directions Repeat or omit short words such as and, the, but

n n

Find it difficult to tell left from right

n

In school, children with dyslexia are likely to: Have difficulty sounding out new words

n

Lack fluency compared to other children their age Reverse letters and numbers when reading (read saw as was, for example) n Find it difficult to take notes and copy down words from the board n Struggle with rhyming, associating sounds with letters, and sequencing and ordering sounds n n

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By Caroline Miller

A

10-year-old boy named James has an outburst in school. Upset by something a classmate says to him, he pushes the other boy, and a shoving-match ensues. When the teacher steps in to break it up, James goes ballistic, throwing papers and books around the classroom and bolting out of the room and down the hall. He is finally contained in the vice principal’s office, where staff members try to calm him down. Instead, he kicks the vice principal in a frenzied effort to escape. The staff calls 911, and James ends up in the Emergency Room.

To the uninitiated, James looks like a boy with serious anger issues. It’s not the first time he’s flown out of control. The school insists that his parents pick him up and take him home for lunch every day because he’s been banned from the cafeteria.

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Unrecognized anxiety But what’s really going on? “It turns out, after an evaluation, that he is off the charts for social anxiety,” reports Dr. Jerry Bubrick, a child psychologist at the Child Mind Institute. “He can’t tolerate any — even constructive — criticism. He just will shut down altogether. James is terrified of being embarrassed, so when a boy says something that makes him uncomfortable, he has no skills to deal with it, and he freaks out. Flight or fight.”

James’s story illustrates something that parents and teachers may not realize — that disruptive behavior is often generated by unrecognized anxiety. A child who appears to be oppositional or aggressive may be reacting to anxiety—anxiety he may, depending on his age, not be able to articulate effectively, or not even fully recognize that he’s feeling.

“Especially in younger kids with anxiety you might see freezing and clinging kind of behavior,” says Dr. Rachel Busman, a clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute, “but you can also see tantrums and complete meltdowns.”

A great masquerader Anxiety manifests in a surprising variety of ways in part because it is based on a physiological response to a threat in the environment, a response that maximizes the body’s ability to either face danger or escape danger. So while some children exhibit anxiety by shrinking from situations or objects that trigger fears, some react with overwhelming need to break out of an uncomfortable situation. That behavior, which can be unmanageable, is often misread as anger or opposition.

“Anxiety is one of those diagnoses that is a great masquerader,” explains Dr. Laura Prager, director of the Child Psychiatry Emergency Service at Massachusetts General Hospital. “It can look like a lot of things.

Particularly with kids who may not have words to express their feelings, or because no one is listening to them, they might manifest their anxiety with behavioral deregulation.”

struggling, not feeling safe at home,” she notes, “can act like terrorists at school, with fairly intimidating kinds of behavior.” Most at risk, she says, are kids with ADHD who’ve also experienced trauma. “They’re hyper-vigilant, they have no executive functioning, they misread cues and go into combat.”

Problems at school It’s not uncommon for children with serious undiagnosed anxiety to be disruptive at school, where demands and expectations put pressure on them that they can’t handle. And it can be very confusing to teachers and other staff members to “read” that behavior, which can seem to come out of nowhere.

Dr. Nancy Rappaport, a Harvard Medical School professor who specializes in mental health care in school settings, sees anxiety as one of the causes of disruptive behavior that makes classroom teaching so challenging. “The trouble is that when kids who are anxious become disruptive they push away the very adults who they need to help them feel secure,” notes Dr. Rappaport. “And instead of learning to manage their anxiety, they end up spending half the day in the principal’s office.”

Dr. Rappaport sees a lot of acting out in school as the result of trauma at home. “Kids who are

People tend to assume what’s happening with this child is ADHD inattentive type, but it’s commonly anxiety. Kids with OCD, mislabeled as inattentive, are actually not asking all those questions because they’re not listening, but rather because they need a lot of reassurance.

How to identify anxiety “It probably occurs more than we think, either anxiety that looks disruptive or anxiety coexisting with disruptive behaviors,” Dr. Busman adds. “It all goes back to the fact that kids are complicated and symptoms can overlap diagnostic categories, which is why we need to have really comprehensive and good diagnostic assessment.”

The more commonly recognized symptoms of anxiety in a child are things like trouble sleeping in his own room or separating from his parents, avoidance of certain activities, a behaviorally inhibited temperament.

“Anyone would recognize those symptoms,” notes Dr. Prager, co-author of Suicide by Security Blanket, and Other Stories from the Child Psychiatry Emergency Service. But in other cases the anxiety can be hidden.

To demonstrate the surprising range of ways young children express anxiety, Dr. Prager mentions a case she had just seen of a young child who presented with hallucinations, but whose diagnosis she predicted will end up being somewhere on the anxiety spectrum.

“Little kids who say they’re hearing things or seeing things, for example, may or may not be doing that.

These may not be the frank hallucinations we see in older patients who are schizophrenic, for example. They might be a manifestation of anxiety and this is the way the child expresses it.”

the teacher, who’s wondering why she has to answer so many questions, and why he’s so wrapped up in what other kids are doing, whether they’re following the rules.”

Giving kids tools to handle anxiety When a teacher is able to build a relationship with a child, to find out what’s really going on with him, what’s provoking the behavior, she can often give him tools to handle anxiety and prevent meltdowns.

In her book, The Behavior Code: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Teaching the Most Challenging Students, Dr. Rappaport offers strategies kids can be taught to use to calm themselves down, from breathing exercises to techniques for distracting themselves.

First of all, good assessment needs to gather data from multiple sources, not just parents. “We want to talk to teachers and other people involved with the kid’s life,” she adds, “because sometimes kids that we see are exactly the same at home and at school, sometimes they are like two different children.”

And it needs to use rating scales on a full spectrum of behaviors, not just the area that looks the most obvious, to avoid missing things.

“When a teacher understands the anxiety underlying the opposition, rather than making the assumption that the child is actively trying to make her miserable, it changes her approach,” says Dr. Rappaport, “The teacher is able to join forces with the child himself and the school counselor, to come up with strategies for preventing these situations.”

If it sounds labor-intensive for the teacher, it is, she notes, but so is dealing with the aftermath of the same child having a meltdown.

Anxiety confused with ADHD Anxiety also drives a lot of symptoms in a school setting that are easily misconstrued as ADHD or defiant behavior.

“I’ll see a child who’s having difficulty in school: not paying attention, getting up out of his seat all the time, asking a lot of questions, going to the bathroom a lot, getting in other kids’ spaces,” explains Dr. Busman. “His behavior is disrupting other kids, and is frustrating to

Dr. Busman also notes that a child with severe anxiety who’s struggling in school might also have attentional or learning issues, but she might need to be treated for the anxiety before she can really be evaluated for those. She uses the example of a teenager with OCD who is “doing terribly” in school. “She’s ritualizing three to four hours a day, and having constant intrusive thoughts — so we need to treat that, to get the anxiety under control before we ask, how is she learning?”

Courtesy: Child Mind Institute

EDUCATION

DURING THE PANDEMIC

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HEC Paris in Qatar Delivering impact & excellence

H

EC Paris joined Qatar Foundation in 2010 with the objective of bringing world-class Executive Education programmes and research activity to Qatar and the region. And if its journey thus far is anything to go by then there’s scope for immense optimism in the coming decade. With every passing year, HEC Paris continues to work relentlessly on its vision and mission to build corporate competitiveness within the global economy and support the transformation of Qatar into an advanced, competitive and knowledge-based economy. The institution’s programmes and research activities are fully aligned with Qatar National Vision 2030.

“With almost 140 years of delivering impact and excellence in education, HEC Paris is proud to have alumni who have strived, successfully so, to make an impact and learned to dare,” – Dr. Pablo Martin de Holan, Dean of HEC Paris in Qatar The second degree programme offered by HEC Paris in Qatar is the Specialised Master’s in Strategic Business Unit Management, which is also delivered in a flexible 15 to 18-month modular format starting with a core curriculum focused on strategy, finance, leadership and change.

The appointment of Dr. Pablo Martin de Holan as Dean of HEC Paris in Qatar represents the start of an exciting and ambitious era for the institution. He took charge on December 1, 2019 and also joined the HEC Paris Strategy and Business Policy Department as a full professor. “ Real change, the kind that creates a real and sustainable impact is rarely achieved by following the status quo. It takes a special kind of individual to want to do things differently, to make a difference and dare to learn. HEC Paris, with almost 140 years of delivering impact and excellence in education is proud to have alumni who have strived, successfully so, to make an

RANKINGS Ranked 2 worldwide for Executive Education in 2020 Ranked 1 for International Executive MBA in 2019 by the Financial Times impact and learned to dare,” said Dr. Pablo Martin de Holan He added: “Going forward, we will work with the local and regional business community to make the next decade even more successful than the previous one for HEC Paris in Qatar. We will do so with a strong focus on entrepreneurship, women-in-leadership and innovation.”

Going by its list of achievements in the last 10 years, one can safely say that HEC Paris’ watershed moment in Qatar came in 2011 when it launched the country’s first international EMBA. The International Executive MBA (EMBA), ranked #1 by the Financial Times in 2019, is aimed at providing executives with a set of fundamental skills to expand their knowledge and leadership capabilities. It is a practical and intense 15 to 18-month programme developed to provide participants with an understanding of the social, economic and environmental aspects of international business, as well as the skills to implement their vision.

34 EDUCATION

DURING THE PANDEMIC

However, the significance of HEC Paris is not just limited to its degree programmes. Its award-winning customdesigned programmes, also offered in Qatar, have also been gaining traction in recent times and were ranked #2 worldwide by the Financial Times in 2020. A wide range of these programmes are now available online.

In addition to that, the institution’s alumni network was ranked #1 by The Economist in 2019, so it comes as no surprise that its members are not shy about expressing themselves when asked to give an account of their experiences.

“I felt HEC Paris in Qatar was the perfect place to continue my journey as it enabled me to fulfil my career goals,” said Amna Mohammed Al-Naama, Project Manager at ASTAD and a participant of the Specialized Master’s 2018 batch.

And Jamila Ismaili Hutchinson, Market & Business Manager at Sasol Qatar and participant of the International Executive MBA 2020 batch, praised the flexible nature of the programme. “The way this programme is delivered across weekends certainly provides the perfect balance between my work, family and educational commitments,” said Jamila.

Established in 1881 by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry, HEC Paris is a founding member of Université Paris-Saclay. It features a faculty of 160 fulltime professors, more than 4,000 students and over 8,000 managers and executives in training each year.