Life swap: making a new Geneva connection
Geography teacher Duncan Ashworth swapped a life of sun, sand and laptops in Bermuda for a new life teaching in a Swiss IB World School. "I don't regret it for a second," he tells Pam Upton.
Would you do it? Would you swap the balmy climate and the pink sand beaches of Bermuda for rain, snow and traffic jams in landlocked Switzerland? Duncan Ashworth did. And it wasn’t the fact that Geneva has just been voted the second best place in the world to live. It was because he wanted to be an IB teacher.
Duncan took up his new post last September at the International School of Geneva, teaching geography from year 7 upwards. He’s also taking a year 12 IB Diploma Programme group and is hugely impressed by what he’s seen so far. Previously he taught for 15 years in Bermuda, working within the British system up to GCSE level and preparing final year students for the Advanced Placement university entrance examination. What struck him immediately was the level of pupil motivation.
“My last school was very affluent and very high-tech,” he explains. “All the students
had laptops and most of my preparation time was taken up with producing material for them to download. But here the students are amazing, so focused and so keen to learn.”
Their teacher’s enthusiasm is just as evident. But it was no spur-of-the-moment decision that led Duncan to relocate himself and his young family to a different continent, culture and education system. Five years ago he attended an IB summer training course in New Mexico, where he was “bowled over” by the quality of the training and the philosophy underpinning the IB curriculum.
“I honestly didn’t know what to expect,” he remembers, “but the geography workshop was superb. I left the course really enthused about the IB. It wasn’t just about getting students through exams. It’s about promoting international understanding, empathy with different peoples and cultures, and concern for the environment.”
Teaching this sort of curriculum is both stimulating and challenging and has been a liberating experience for Duncan. “It’s great to be able to use different teaching strategies,” he says, “and to know you don’t have to do a song-and-dance-act to get the message across. In my last school, I felt that group work was wasting their time. With IB programmes, I can get students to brainstorm ideas.”
In addition to the core components of the geography curriculum, Duncan is also
teaching one of the transdisciplinary courses: ecosystems and society. This covers key
environmental issues and students are encouraged to consider their implications, both for specific social and cultural contexts, as well as the wider global perspective.
But it’s not just the students who gain a broader worldview. Every time he walks into a classroom in his new school, Duncan sees faces from all over the world. “It’s fantastic,” he says. “I taught a year 7 class last week and we located everybody on a
map. In a class of 20 there were 17 different nationalities!”
There’s no doubting Duncan’s wholehearted conversion to the IB philosophy. But some might say he was taking a big risk, changing direction 18 years into his teaching career. But since its beginnings, 40 years ago, the contribution of teachers has been central to the development of IB programmes and teaching methods, and Duncan’s new colleagues are keen to draw on his expertise.
“I’m already involved in developing course materials,” he explains, “and exchanging resources with the other teachers. There’s lots of scope for using my background in IT, as well as my experience in the environment.”
There are two more important reasons for the move: Rosie, aged six, and Sam, aged five. Rosie has already settled in happily to her Primary Years Programme class in
the school, while her brother will join her next year. Their parents are delighted that they will be educated in a system which will offer them wide opportunities when they leave, and help them take their place as well-balanced citizens of the world.
So, does Duncan have any regrets about the move? “Ask me again in February when it’s six degrees below freezing!’ he laughs. “But right now I’m very happy to be in Geneva, and even happier to be an IB teacher.”
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"The students here are amazing, so focused and so keen to learn."
