A well-educated mind will always have more questions than answers.
American and International Schools around the world define their core central beliefs about Teaching and Learning, EAR is no different. What we believe about the teaching and learning experience is nurtured by our school community from the moment they join our campus and throughout their professional lives. The current ones are listed below.
- Learning is enriched by the connections, communication, and collaboration that we engage in across different global perspectives.
- Learning is a process best realized when a student’s learning environment allows their personal story, identity, autonomy, and creativity to flourish.
- Learning is constructed by unpacking meaning through critical thinking, inquiry, feedback, and constant reflection.
- Learning and working in the 21st-century demands that our student’s digital literacy, information fluency, media acumen, and collaborative capacities are extensively cultivated.
- Learning comes to life when it is embedded within the contexts of our students’ lives and used to address global issues proactively.
ELA (English Language Arts) Teaching & Learning
– Reading
EAR standards are directed toward fostering students’ understanding and working knowledge from the alphabetic principle to the wide range of conventions of the English writing system. These foundational skills are necessary and important components of an effective, comprehensive reading program designed to develop proficient readers with the capacity to comprehend texts across a range of types and disciplines. Instruction is differentiated: good readers need much less practice with these concepts than struggling readers will.
– Writing At EAR…
- Writing is a process that involves explicit instruction through modeling, practice, and Feedback.
- Each writer’s learning is an individual experience.
- We encourage our students to be creative, curious, experimental, and imaginative in their writing.
- Writing should be authentic, personal, meaningful, and empowering.
- For good writing to occur students need a space that is engaging, invigorating, exciting, and fun.
Mathematics Learning
We develop citizens who can problem-solve and think critically to compete in an ever-changing technological and global society. Therefore, students must develop a deep understanding of mathematical concepts and possess a strong foundation of number sense in order to become proficient in mathematics. Instructionally, this goal translates into three components: Conceptual Understanding; Procedural Fluency; Problem-Solving:
Conceptual Understanding consists of those relationships constructed internally and connected to already existing ideas. Students use conceptual understanding of mathematics when they identify and apply principles, facts, and definitions, comparing them and contrasting related concepts.
Procedural Fluency is the skill of carrying out procedures flexibly, accurately, efficiently, and appropriately. Although the word procedural may imply an arithmetic procedure to some, it also refers to being fluent with procedures from other branches of mathematics, such as measuring the size of an angle using a protractor. When students learn procedures through understanding, they are more likely to remember the procedures and less likely to make common computational errors.
Problem-Solving is the ability to formulate, represent, and solve mathematical problems. Most problems that students will encounter in the real world are multistep or process problems. Students need to have a broad range of strategies upon which to draw. The selection of a strategy for finding the solution to an issue is often the most difficult part of the solution. Therefore, mathematics instruction must include the teaching of many strategies to empower all students to become successful problem solvers.
Science Learning
Science is a way of making sense of the natural world. Scientists seek to describe its complexity, explain its systems and events, and find the patterns that allow for predictions and understandings. Not all students will become scientists or engineers. But science and technology occupy ever-expanding places in our everyday lives. As citizens, we are asked to make decisions about social issues that involve science and technology. As workers, we have occupations that increasingly involve science and technology. To empower students to meet tomorrow’s challenges with passion and resiliency is our vision.
Therefore, all graduates of our school science program should be:
- Knowledgeable about the important concepts and theories of the three major branches of scientific study: earth, life, and physical sciences;
- Able to think scientifically and use scientific knowledge to make decisions about real-world problems; able to construct new knowledge for themselves through research, reading, and discussion;
- Familiar with the natural world, and respectful of its unity, diversity, and fragility; able to make informed judgments on statements and debates claiming to have a scientific basis; and, able to reflect in an informed way on the role of science in human affairs.
Social Studies Learning
The purpose of the EAR Social Studies Curriculum is to provide students with the foundational components that prepare them with the knowledge and intellectual processes, practices, and dispositions to be active, informed, engaged participants in public life.
Questions play a key role in our philosophy. These questions aid students in the exploration of the disciplines in relation to the standards, while others transcend individual disciplinary categories and allow students to develop the habits of mind required of a social scientist. Social scientists share similar practices which refer to those habits of mind that cross the disciplines of social studies. The term practices are used instead of skills to stress that engaging in social studies inquiry requires coordination of knowledge and skills.
We require students to:
- Develop Questions and Plan Inquiries
- Evaluate the Credibility of the Sources and Relevance of the Information to the Inquiry
- Construct Coherent, Reasoned Arguments and Explanations
- Communicate Conclusions From an Inquiry
- Take Informed Action for the Common Good
Portuguese and Brazilian Studies Learning
The Brazilian Studies at EAR follow the curriculum guidelines present in the Common National Curriculum Base (BNCC), the Laws and Guidelines for Brazilian National Education established by the Ministry of Education of Brazil (MEC). It comprises Portuguese, Literature, History, Geography, Sociology, and Philosophy.
French and Spanish are added to the curriculum as foreign languages. Portuguese as a Second Language (PSL) and the Brazilian culture are also offered to foreign students.
The Brazilian curriculum together with the U.S. curriculum provide students with a solid education in knowledge and values to become world citizens, ensuring access to the best universities in the US, Europe, and Brazil. The Brazilian program gives students the opportunity to take the National Secondary Education Examination (ENEM), entrance exams in the state of Pernambuco and throughout Brazil.
The Department of Brazilian Studies strives for students to acquire the Portuguese language as a prerequisite for oral and written interaction with their peers, as well as to know the origin of our human, socio-cultural and territorial creation.
The teaching of Portuguese adopts principles centered on the text and textual genres. Instruction is contextualized and articulated with the social use of language. It is divided into four different language practices: Reading, Text Production, Orality, and Linguistic/Semiotic Analysis.
The focus of the Department of Brazilian Studies is to develop citizens capable of different uses of language to participate in society in a critical and creative way.
Specials and Electives Classes
At Secondary School, students have the opportunity to take elective classes. These are classes outside the curriculum that you get to choose. You will find elective classes in subjects such as art, music, journalism, computer programming, and business.
Students choose their activities according to their interest. These activities provide an enriching and challenging experience for middle and high school students where they can express their ideas, develop solutions for global and community issues, or explore new interests.