ISB and me

Lessons learned

I did not expect tears to run down my face this morning but so it went. We visited my Thai school with a different outcome than my assumptions led me to expect.

It is a distant campus from the one I attended on Soi 15 in a well known district. This place exists, according to the kid (a 2014 graduate versus my graduation year qualified him a kid) sitting in front of me on our long bus ride, in a bubble. In fact, the school exists within a gated community on the outskirts of the Bangkok I knew fifty years ago. It was halfway to Phnom Penh best I could tell. The surrounding houses in the gated community are single family dwellings so these are not your average locals.

The International School of Bangkok, created in 1951 on U.S. Embassy grounds, had a distinct flavour when it was on Soi 15. The war was going on not that far away and, after 1968, there were no dependents, as we were called, in-country for Vietnam. We American school kids were either in Manila, Taibei, or Bangkok, with Manila shutting down the same year I arrived. Lots of families by the early 70s did not want to go to Thailand because of the drug problem already well known but, with Manila shutting its doors to dependents in 1970, the length of time to await quarters in Taibei became prohibitive so my mom agreed to Bangkok instead of Taibei. Many Americans were military or diplomats but there were also missionary kids and those from businesses in country.

But we had lots of foreign students, too. My best friend was Belgian, born in the Bahamas. The Danish ambassador’s son had the locker underneath mine. The sisters killed in a car tragedy coming back from Pattaya Beach were German. In other words, the U.S. presence was obvious but it was truly an international school except that Thai law prohibited Thai nationals from attending.

No longer is much of that paragraph true. The war is long over and Thai students now form the single largest percentage of the 1800 students. Americans are a full ten percent fewer and other nationalities have representation in single digit percentages. The buildings at the Nichada campus have been operating longer than the Bangkapi campus was even open between 1960 and 1991.

But that wasn’t what brought me to tears. I had decided on the long excursion to the campus that I was sorry I had come since I knew it was going to be so different, probably destroying my views of ISB.

We began our tour in the auditorium with a full orchestra in front of us, the Middle School orchestra. We stood as we did for each and every single public performance of any type during in my three years in Thailand: they played the national anthem in respect for the King. Different king from the one I knew who ruled for more Seventy years but the same anthem.

It was beautiful, absolutely lovely. I have heard professional orchestras who didn’t sound any better than middle schoolers. After a few opening remarks, they played a second tune written to focus on intercultural assumptions and understanding. The flood gates opened. Watching their faces (we were asked not to publish photos of their faces for privacy reasons), the earnestness and diversity took me back to understanding who and what I am, as a scholar, a citizen, a person, and a woman. As the school’s director said a few minutes later, this international school made each of the 100 or so alumni who participated in today’s visit into the people we are today as few who did not go through this process will ever understand.

We are ‘third culture kids’, whether we intend to be or not. We don’t fit into our American peer group yet we obviously are not Thai (or whatever country an international school serves). We bond, we struggle, and we fail or succeed in unison yet as individuals separate from our traditional societies.

Indeed, my Colombia experiences (I lived there twice) and especially my ISB experience keenly taught me about putting myself in someone else’s shoes, about why Americans get the reputation—good, bad or great—that we sometimes receive, and that we are able to thrive on our own because we must. We don’t always get our way but we are more comfortable with the world because we have had to become citizens of that world earlier than so many others.

My keen love of international events and questions directly results from what I experienced and learned on Soi 15 as a student. Of course I have learned much since but the fundamentals began from those years and the intellectual curiosity I may have absolutely builds on the world I could not escape for those years. Somehow about that song and the Director’s few comments pulled that to the surface in a way I certainly did not anticipate at this point in life.

These current students have incredible resources we never dreamed of, particularly because the 3D printer in the library did not exist in my years but, more importantly, because we were not attending ISB as a high end prep school it is today. The fees are extraordinarily high so the students, from wherever, are wealthy and the ISB experience only reinforces that. I am not unaware these privileges are open to a microscopic number in the grand scheme but I was surprisingly thrilled the school is supporting them. Financial support, small student to teacher ratios, excellent facilities, and keen bonding with peers are remarkable gifts which I hope they will use to change the world in a positive manner. Some will, many won’t yet I would rather motivate them to try than not if I were a parent able to share this or one of the other international school programs currently operating in the Thai capital. I hope some of them will become a bit like me because the world craves more awareness rather than only reinforcing self-entitlement.

Two last anecdotes. As our alumni group walked from the gymnasium to lunch, a straggling queue of kindergartners were coming towards us. After several passed me, I put my hand out to ‘high five’ one. Those perhaps fifteen of following all put their hands out for the same treatment but with huge smiles on their faces as well. The exhilaration I felt seeing their recognition that we were connecting was palpable with huge smiles as the passed me.

Similarly, my husband was sitting by himself with his eyes closed in the library as we awaited our transportation for the long ride back to town. He was wearing a a navy ball cap as he is prone to do after his career. I looked up a few minutes later to see a high school student chat with him for about fifteen minutes, which was surprising.

When I walked over upon the lad’s departure, I asked whether this was career counseling or something. Turned out the Japanese-Thai student knew the ship number my husband’s ball cap carried was a Forrest Sherman class destroyer and he had some questions. Huh? This kid had the wherewithal to approach my husband, then discuss intelligently what my husband’s career had entailed. That is a student with poise that no SAT or ACT or Ivy League essay will capture. We need more of this rather than just tests measuring the lowest common denominator answers to guidelines set by a committee.

In sum, I was so happy by what ISB is doing. I cannot rewrite my own history or relive it but I can cheer on those getting to experience it today. And I am eternally thankful I had the experiences I did. They were not all good and the loneliness of being cut off from some ‘normal’ things seemed hard at the time but was most invaluable.

Actions create consequences.

I welcome your thoughts. Thank you for reading today’s column.

Be well and be safe. FIN