Global Preparedness

Overview

Avenues will answer the current call for global preparedness and deliver it in a system of schools around the world. We will provide a unique and dynamic educational village—one school with 20 or more campuses in major cities in Asia, Europe, Africa and North and South America—and a global orientation that includes language fluency, the World Course and international experience and study on continents around the world.

Today, educational institutions everywhere tout goals of going global. The forces fueling this trend are social, economic, political, environmental and technological. There are daily reminders of the interdependence and interconnectedness with all people and countries. As never before, citizens of the world will have to understand these dependencies and connections; they will have to move easily across boundaries; they will have to be comfortable with difference and ambiguity; and they will have to speak languages other than their own. Avenues will prepare its students for such realities.

A global orientation infused in the curriculum

In Avenues’ classes at every level, faculty will introduce authors, information, perspectives and challenges that reference a global horizon. As one of the great international cities, New York will itself serve as a laboratory for research projects, internships and service learning that will allow students to understand its structure and function and, later, to compare it with other cities in the Avenues network. Through partnerships, videoconferencing, Skype and online collaboration tools, students will be connected from the outset with peers in schools abroad. To all of this the Avenues faculty will bring international perspectives, based on their own experiential learning, academic training and nationality. In these ways, traditional values and standards will be recalibrated to introduce global sensitivities and attitudes to the learning process.

The World Course

A distinguishing feature of Avenues will be the World Course, a global studies curriculum consisting of courses offered in the Lower, Middle and Upper Schools, as well as a series of topics that will be infused throughout the Avenues curriculum to ensure that a global vision is a ubiquitous component of a student’s education.

World Language Instruction

Mastery of languages other than one’s own is a central feature of the Avenues mission. The forces fueling this trend are social, economic, political, environmental and technological. It sparks curiosity and invites travel. It erodes stereotypes and fosters peace. It builds both self-confidence and self-knowledge. All are essential outcomes of an Avenues education.

The language of instruction in all Avenues schools will be English. By graduation, all students will be expected to be fluent in a second world language, although some will push well beyond this requirement. Instruction will begin in the early years when students have proven capacities for language learning, with exposure to Mandarin and Spanish in the Early Learning Center. Authentic in-class language instruction will be supplemented with online resources, and the immersion experience of study abroad will lead to fluency. Students who have achieved fluency in a second language by the beginning of Upper School will be able to continue their mastery of that language or add a third language of their choice through a supervised independent language study program. Avenues expects a number of its students to have attained fluency in three languages prior to graduation.

One School with 20 Campuses

Among the most distinguishing features of Avenues is the concept of one school with 20 or more campuses in major cities around the world. Once realized, this system will allow fluid exchanges between campuses of students and teachers, as well as a full range of interactive collaborations. Experiences ranging from multi-week exposure trips to semester exchanges will be offered, and in the course of their time at Avenues, students here and abroad will have the opportunity to study on five continents. No other system of schools currently offers such opportunities.