December 2006

1989 was a big year for Europe. Borders were breaking down throughout the Eastern Bloc and the world seemed to be getting smaller...and smaller.

By coincidence, if there is such a thing, pupils and teachers on a small group of islands in the far north of Scotland were setting their sights on one of the very countries whose political system, unbeknownst to us all, was about to crumble.

It was actually a year earlier when a small group of teachers at Shetland's largest school, the Anderson High, in Lerwick, focussed their thoughts on expanding their horizons beyond the islands' shoreline.

Shetland has always had an international outlook. These tiny, remote islands equidistant from Scotland and Scandinavia, have always needed to look overseas to survive. The economy has variously been propped up by Vikings, German Hanseatic traders, Dutch fishermen, and most recently foreign oil companies.

The latter, who helped build Europe's largest oil exporting terminal at Sullom Voe in the 1970s, brought a rush of foreign blood into the isles, folk known locally as "soothmoothers" as they traditionally entered through the "sooth mooth" of Lerwick Harbour.

In 1988 Anderson High found youngsters of several nationalities in its wind-battered classrooms, including Dutch, American and Nigerian. It was a relatively new experience for such an isolated educational outpost.

Their presence inspired headmaster George Jamieson to encourage his fellow teachers to build on this multi-national dimension. "I want you to network with other schools in other lands," he commanded.

In these pre-internet days, letters were sent out far and wide via the British Council's - now Connect Youth - and The Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council.

"By reason of accident or serendipity, our efforts brought responses from the strangest quarters," remembers Stewart Hay, a then history teacher who has gone on to become the driving force behind what is now called the Global Classroom, garnering credits from educationalists worldwide who see it as one blueprint for the future of learning.

The most interesting initial response was posted from behind the Iron Curtain, from a school in a city named after the first Communist president of Czechoslavakia, Gottwaldov - now known by its pre-Soviet name Zlin.

The correspondence led to the first direct student exchange when Czech pupils flew to Shetland in October 1989. Just one month later the Communist regime was toppled by the Velvet Revolution.

This new dawn for Eastern Europe gave birth to a new era for education in Shetland. "That was such a successful visit" Stewart recalls. "I think if it had gone wrong we would have left it there, but instead it inspired us to carry on."

The contacts snowballed. Via the Scottish Community Education Council (now Community Learning Scotland) an exchange was established with a Japanese school in Towa, now part of Hanamaki City.

Shetland-based employees of oil and gas multinational Schlumberger helped create links with a school in Diepholz, northern Germany. In 1992 a visiting delegation from Ånge, Sweden, brought about the fourth connection.

By this time a new generation of teachers was getting excited about the global connections and modern studies teacher Stuart Clubb joined the then principal teacher of religious education Gary Spence on a flight to South Africa to build a bridge to the post apartheid democracy.

"On the plane they found themselves sitting next to a trade unionist who insisted they visited his old school, in Cape Town," Stewart said. "It wasn't on their list, but that became the partner school."

That same year of 1995 saw another school, the Nara Women's University Secondary School, become the new link with Japan.

By now the enthusiasm for this emerging global web of young learners was spreading, greatly encouraged by the ease of communication engendered by the internet's world wide web. This in turn led to a push for a more formal bond between the participating institutions, and the Global Classroom was born at a conference in Shetland in 1997. The tenth has just taken place in Japan.

"By now we had a structure, a concept, an annual gathering of students sharing and preparing work together, but we wanted more. We wanted this to make a deeper impact on the schools," Stewart said.

"By coincidence there was at this time a tremendous political shove by government to work out how to measure the quality of education in schools. That led us to the notion of an international team of students coming together for a year, visiting each of the schools and researching an aspect of learning.

"That was the next dimension of the Global Classroom. We called it The Learning School and it's about to begin its eighth year."

Still seeking to broaden their horizons the teachers at the Anderson High started investigating how they could spread international education to younger pupils. Video conferencing helped them realise the next stage of their dream.

Through the Scottish Executive's national debate on Future Learning and Teaching (FLAT), Shetland started teaching its pupils via video links - German direct from Germany, maths from Japan and history and modern studies from South Africa.

It has been a success, though not without its hurdles, especially with Japan. "They ended up setting up a special maths club and we had a higher maths class which had to come in to school at special times to overcome the problem of time zones. Our students had to come in between seven and eight in the morning," Stewart explained.

Always looking ahead, the Anderson put in a bid for the next major executive initiative - Schools of Ambition. "We wanted to make the Anderson High the centre of a global campus in which every student in the school would have access to international learning at some point in their school career."

After one year the foundations of this three year project have been lain for this truly ambitious programme of work.

a.. Standard grade biology students are filming their experiments and presenting them for peer review by higher grade students in South Africa. "We have the lab facilities, they have no labs but know the theory only too well. It's proved to be a really interesting way of boosting achievement. They don't want their peers in Africa saying they don't know what they're doing!"
b.. All six participating schools have just written "a virtual play" about peace, each composing one act, sharing it by video conference and performing it live in early August at Hiroshima on the 61st anniversary of the atomic explosion.
c.. A group of Shetland ASN students have been to Sweden to exchange aspects of learning, and to experience a real Swedish winter.
d.. Students from across the British Isles have combined to create a project called Images of Britain, reflecting themselves, their school and their community. As part of the exercise Anderson High students filmed a virtual tour of their school, now available on the web for anyone who wants to pay it a virtual visit. The next step is Images of Europe, involving European partner schools.

Perhaps the most ambitious project of all is in the field of "enterprise and development" in which students from Shetland, South Africa, Germany, Czech Republic, Sweden and the US will work with Shetland-based social enterprise firm COPE and Lerwick fish processors Shetland Catch to learn a range of business and marketing skills.

They will then travel to South Africa to use those skills to assist the Hermanus Rainbow Trust set up similar social enterprise with deprived and excluded youngsters, many from township communities. They will also be going to the Czech Republic to do the same thing.

The Global Classroom has come a long way since those heady days 17 years ago when the British Council sent out a sheaf of letters on behalf of an unknown school stuck out in the middle of the North Sea.

This growth has been a natural outcome of the enthusiasm shown by pupils, parents, and the local authority who have given the teachers their unstinting support in "going global”.
"This has been a gradual process. It may have been accident or serendipity, but running through it has been a clear aim: to see each community become part of a global network of learning.

"It's a model that I would like to see grow, especially in Shetland where I think it could provide a model for our social and economic future. We've already had a lot of encouragement and support. I hope that we do it well enough to keep developing it into the future."

It is, in Stewart's eyes, an idea whose time has come. "Young people need to be able to make sense of a world in which the potential to destroy us all has never been more clear, and the potential to combine and grow has never been more imperative.

"At the same time schools have to wake up to the fact that they are no longer the sole repository of information. At the touch of a button the world's libraries are available to young people. If we don't harness that not only locally, but also globally, we will cease to have the place we enjoyed as the main deliverer of education to young people.

"We are forming a new relationship with learners and the Global Classroom is one of the best ways of getting that realisation smack in your face."

By the end of the Schools of Ambition project, Stewart hopes the idea of a global campus will be considered "absolutely normal".

"I think this offers one possibility for schools of the future, in which everyone is a learner and in which how you learn becomes as important as what you learn. If we can achieve that I think we will have made an important contribution to Shetland's future...and to the future of learning beyond Scotland as a whole."

For Stewart, it was summed up by the words of one blind student who now studies German and modern studies at Dundee University. After visiting all the partner schools during his time at Anderson High, Jordan Smith said: "I am never going to see the world, but I have to understand it."