Kindergarten children in the playground

A High School student from Israel

A High School student from Palestine

Junior School girls

Main Building

One World Day: After the Parade of Nations

The International School of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo was founded in 1908. We will soon be celebrating its 100th year.  It is an English speaking school for girls from Grade 1 through Grade 12, and a co-educational Kindergarten for three to five year olds. The purpose is to serve the English speaking community in the Tokyo area, where there are about 10 international schools. Our current enrollment is approximately 520 students with 50 countries represented in the student body. Many of our students are from embassies and big companies from abroad. We often accept students with no English at all. For some students English is their 3rd or 4th language. The school community is very rich in a variety of cultural, religious, and racial backgrounds.

The school offers an international program based primarily on the curriculum from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. The faculty and staff represent more than 15 different countries. The Values program (Religious Education) that we offer serves as a thread woven through the academic and non-academic program. The school offers students in High School Advanced Placement (AP) courses, and our graduates are accepted into colleges and universities around the world of their first choice in various fields. We have the same Goals and Criteria as the Sacred Heart network schools in the United States.

I would like to share with you what the graduating class of 2006 wrote on the posters they made on the Day of Reflection in May 2006.  Due to the nature of international schools everywhere, students come and go throughout the year, and it is rare that students stay with us for longer than 5 or 6 years. This year, however, we had 10 “veterans” out of 30 students. Those veterans had been with us since Kindergarten.

What we learned at ISSH:

• not to fear differences
• the joy of exploring
• the courage to admit that we are not good at certain things and to choose what we are good at
• life is not all about fun, so we have to take responsibility for our own future
• to question

As I was reading this, I remembered the meeting that some students of the graduating class ‘2006 had with Sr. Clare Pratt in October 2005 when she visited our school. She was very impressed by what they shared with her. She asked them what the good things were that they had experienced here at ISSH. Their answers were: no racial discrimination, many opportunities to develop themselves as a whole person and to become aware of the world situation. Some of them said that there were many things that they had taken for granted all these years, which once out of the school they might not have opportunities to experience.

There are times when we are concerned about students and their families due to political situations around the world. There are times when some families are suddenly called back by their government to their own country at a very short notice.  However, it is lovely and moving to see students enjoying their school life here in a safe environment with friends coming from such a variety of backgrounds. Many students are constantly moving from one country to another because of their parents’ jobs. They are the ones who are often called ‘Third Culture Kids’, who often suffer from issues of identity. One concrete example that we all found moving happened on One World Day, one of the events in which the entire school participates and which everybody loves tremendously. On that day everyone comes to school in her own national costume. In the afternoon there is an assembly of the whole school, where many groups share their own culture, dances and songs, followed by a parade of nations. Representatives from each country go on the stage and offer greetings in their language. This year at the very end of the Assembly two high school girls went up to the stage and started a prayer for world peace. One was from Israel, the other from Palestine.

Some comments from students, parents and faculty: “We live together in the school community, and treat each other as a person.”  “We almost never think of the nationality of the person we are working with”.  Parents will often ask their children when they tell their parents about a new friend: Where is she from?  What color are her eyes, her hair?  Children will say, “Mom, I don’t know, but she is a lovely girl and she is a good friend of mine.”These students I believe will share what they have received in school with people whom they will encounter after leaving our school. They are the ones who can make difference in society. They know from experience what it is to live with people from different backgrounds.