Taipei American School

If you glanced over your child's swim team schedule for the coming school year and saw:

November: Swim meet in Jakarta
December: Swim meet in Singapore; Swim meet in Hong Kong
January: Swim meet in Bangkok

...what would you think?

Today the Fulbrighters in Yilan visited Taipei American School (TAS). With the goal of "providing an American education to foreign students in Taiwan," TAS prides itself on its dedicated work staff, confident, informed student body, and knack for fusing American ideals with the unique foreign cultures of both the students and the country waiting outside the campus walls. Tuition stands at around the standard for college prep schools--$15,000--though it's important to note that relative to other international schools in Taipei this number is "low."

International school has always been a mystery to me. In the past, I was only briefly exposed to the possibilities and uniqueness of multinational schools via the Hammond family. Today, we were lucky enough to sit in on two classes, discuss with the assistant superintendent the opportunities available to students at TAS, and finally talk with a few of the students themselves to hear their perspective on their educational experience.

A broader scope.

First up for me was second grade. The class had a unique makeup: four Koreans, a boy from India, several Taiwanese, Americans, and a boy from Canada who was described by his counterparts as "a smarty-pants...he wants to be the president of the United States. But he doesn't even have an American passport!"

It was comical how these second graders were discussing summer trips to Mexico and Japan, or even something like a passport. Most American adults can't even point these countries out on a map. And I don't think I knew what a passport was until at least high school.

Simply put, the awareness of the students was unparalleled to anything I'd ever seen before.

Next up was seventh grade. At first it took my mind a bit of time to adapt. The teacher stood in front of the students, excitedly discussing weekly tasks and a new game they planned to play that period. As I looked around the classroom at the students--a vast majority of whom are Asian--I gradually realized, they understood what she was saying! I was so used to Asians not understanding English that witnessing kids who not only spoke English but spoke it with an American accent really blew my mind.

The school tour brought about even more surprises. We walked into the gymnasium to find the second graders--I repeat 2nd Graders!!--waiting for the results of their solar car competition, sponsored by the German engineering conglomerate, Seamens. Corporate sponsors on campus was an awesome sign of a progressive approach to education and something I think really illustrates why international schools may be at the forefront of creating a new type of pupil--i.e. a global student.

The autonomy given to the students was obvious from the second we walked in the door. There is no uniform, stories written in different languages hang casually on the hallway walls, and laptops are given to all students for use in classes ranging from geometry (where we saw a class building their own virtual city with pyramids, prisms, and spheres) to humanities (where students digitally designed posters for the upcoming middle school play).

If this is a peek into the future of education, I'm feeling pretty confident.

We also heard some great constructive criticism from students, such as the push to be progressive may be at the expense of traditional mechanisms that still work (i.e. laptops for note taking versus paper and pen). Similarly, the administration stressed the difficulty finding their place in the local community and the constant struggle to avoid being tagged "elitist" because of their different educational style.

Down to business.

On the business side of things, all the students have Lenovo laptops, and their e-mails are standardized via Google's gmail platform. It's very interesting to see these companies move their business models to campuses, and I think it shows the possibilities--especially for a company like Google--to adapt its fairly basic technology (e-mail, hosting documents on the web, etc.) to any type of client.


A few unique aspects of TAS include:

-Offers Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) classes to students (traditionally considered mutually exclusive programs for high schools)

-Beginning next year, will undergo renovations with plans of growing the school facilities three-fold

-A student body primarily made up of Chinese- or Taiwanese-born parents whose children were born in the U.S.

-Strong math program, average SAT math score: 680

-All foreign service officers' children attend the school

-Every student has a notebook computer


All in all, this was probably the best weekday of the year for me. I learned more about international education at one of Asia's top-notch schools, took some mental notes pertaining to what I plan to look for if I send my kids to international school in the future, and saw some of Taiwan's highest caliber students at work.