Global Citizens Unite – THINK Global School teams up with PTIS International School

Dec. 12, 2011 - PRLog -- The 100-acre campus of Traidhos Three-Generation Community for Learning is home to both the PTIS International School and Visiting Schools Program (VSP) in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Both facets of our learning community advocate its students to be active Global Citizens through challenging experiential learning, inspiring the creation of sustainable futures.

Surrounded by the beautiful mountains of Chiang Mai, PTIS and VSP provide a safe and welcoming residential community from which the diverse learning environment of northern Thailand can be explored. Both the VSP and PTIS’s International Baccalaureate (IB) programs offer a core curriculum and customized experiential programs that engage our youth in personal development through cultural, environmental, community service, outdoor adventure and team-building activities.
These programs expose our students and visitors from around the world to global issues at a personal level, broadening perspective and understanding to encourage social responsibility and sustainable living.

In January 2012, twenty-five students from fifteen countries will travel to Chiang Mai from THINK Global School (TGS) for a trimester like no other, at a school like no other! These two like-minded education institutions that share the same global inquiry-based philosophy will unite on the Traidhos campus where PTIS will serve as host and classroom for the world’s first “mobile-global” high school of its kind, integrating education, travel and technology.

TGS’s specifically sought a multicultural learning environment for its students with a specific focus on local Thai immersion – welcome to Traidhos! This group of multinational students selected from all corners of the globe and from all walks of life will become an integral part of the Traidhos Community using classroom facilities, science labs, art studios and other learning spaces whilst being taught by their own accompanying teachers. Interacting and sharing joint classes, workshops, guest speakers, community and athletic events with local peers will create a partnered experience between the two schools.

TGS’s motto Don't teach me WHAT to think, teach me HOW to think has removed the walls from today’s classroom, opening up the whole world to the 21st Century student. With a demanding trimester of intense course work and a desire for a rich cultural and historical exploration into a remarkable country, one sees why TGS selected Thailand for their fifth trimester abroad. Chiang Mai - home to over 300 Bhuddist temples - provides the perfect backdrop to explore the highly philosophical belief system Theravada Buddhism, a sociology study with a work/stay in one of the six remote hill tribes of the North and a travel through time from Kanchanaburi, Ayutthaya and the Golden Triangle discovering Thailand’s rich history are but a few of the “non-textbook” lessons awaiting these new-age learners.

Living on board the Traidhos Three-Generation Barge, a twenty-meter floating classroom, students will travel along the Chao Phraya River between Bangkok and Ayutthaya, discovering, investigating and exploring the different elements that comprise Thailand’s key watercourse and its adjacent communities.  TGS students will examine rivers, pollution and human impact, floods and drought, food chains, habitats, communities and history.

The Traidhos Visiting Schools Program (VSP) has also organized an enriching line-up of excursions with a taste of what the “Rose of the North” has to offer inquisitive minds. In a province of jungle trekking, caving, elephant preservation parks, rock climbing, mountain biking, waterfalls, kayaking and the delights of Northern-Thai cooking, the TGS students’ adventure experiences will surely bring to light the diversity of Chiang Mai’s environment and cultural lifestyle.

Remarkably, two students from Thailand make up the student body presently traveling and learning with THINK Global School. Selected with a full scholarship as part of the inaugural class of TGS, Chiang Mai’s own Yada Pruksachatkun will surely welcome this unprecedented edification about her own country and native city, shared and seen through the eyes of her universal classmates. Yada’s story (Volume 20 Number 8, August 2011) and on-the-road updates are being covered by Chiang Mai’s local English-language magazine CityLife.

With the world as their classroom hailing “12 countries in 12 trimesters”, TGS students have recently completed four legs of this globetrotting journey:  Stockholm, Sydney, Bejiing and Cuenca in Ecuador.  They have studied biology in the Amazon rainforest, Mandarin in China, history standing on the Great Wall of China, and science classes under the ocean surface off the Galapagos Islands and the Great Barrier Reef.

Founded by Joann McPike, THINK Global School’s mission is to develop true citizens of the world, young people whose unique skills, values, knowledge, and experience will make them leaders and difference-makers in the multi-ethnic, multicultural, multilingual world of the 21st Century.

For more information about THINK Global School, visit their website - http://thinkglobalschool.org . Read more about the students’ experiences at PTIS and Thailand on the TGS blog - http://thinkglobalschool.org/blog

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Established in 2001, PTIS International School is one of the most prestigious international schools in South-East Asia and one of only a few boarding schools in Asia offering the International Baccalaureate Program (IB).

Residing on the tropical grounds of Traidhos Three-Generation Community for Learning, PTIS provides a holistic (Pre K-12) IB education on a spacious, nature-filled campus, with comfortable boarding facilities to accommodate international students from across Asia and beyond.

More than 35 nationalities make up the international school student body. At Traidhos, visiting students and adults of all ages can also enjoy specialized professional sport academies in Tennis, Golf, Cricket and Football.

With a 100 acre campus admired by international schools of Thailand and across the world, the school boasts a peaceful and studious environment, with famous Thailand hospitality to help nurture the students' growth and development.