{"id":18683,"date":"2017-10-18T13:00:43","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T17:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=18683"},"modified":"2017-10-18T13:00:43","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T17:00:43","slug":"unesco-designation-opens-international-doors-to-local-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/unesco-designation-opens-international-doors-to-local-students\/","title":{"rendered":"UNESCO designation opens international doors to local students"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

A school broadens the horizons of anyone eager to learn, but the horizons of local students at Pickering College are set to expand to a global perspective thanks to UNESCO.
\nThe Newmarket-based private school, which is a popular destination for girls and boys in Aurora, was recently named a UNESCO candidate school.
\nSelected as a candidate within the Canadian Commission for UNESCO\u2019s Associated Schools Project Network, it is, so far, the only independent school in Ontario to secure a candidacy.
\nWith the candidacy comes responsibility in order to achieve full membership, and Pickering College, a school well-known for its international student body, is looking forward to meeting that challenge.
\n\u201cWe feel pretty validated,\u201d says student Montgomery Gole. \u201cWe have a lot of cultural diversity and not only are we a Quaker school, we also have a lot of boarders and it has been really cool for me to learn about other cultures.\u201d
\nA key component of the school\u2019s philosophy is their Global Leadership Program, which tasks students with identifying worldwide issues and looking for ways to make a difference.
\n\u201cOur capstone project is trying to solve a major issue in the world, so it goes hand in hand with UNESCO,\u201d says student Hayden Spiers. \u201cWe get to learn a lot more and I think it will be a great step forward for the school.\u201d
\nThis is, of course, a view shared by the school\u2019s administration.
\nUNESCO is an acronym for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Comprised of 195 member states, it focuses on education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, communications and information sharing, as well as culture.
\nThrough these prisms, the focus of UNESCO is very similar to those of Pickering College students who are seeking ways to have an impact on these global challenges.
\n\u201c[With our application] we have to provide evidence of the work that we\u2019re already doing, teaching, learning, and our values as a school,\u201d says Kim Bartlett, Director of Teaching and Learning. \u201cPart of the excitement is we did submit all the work we have done on the Global Leadership Program and the things our students are doing are phenomenal. The UNESCO network asked us to join them because they were so impressed with everything that we\u2019re actually accomplishing.
\n\u201cWhat also impressed them was between Kindergarten to Grade 12, our program has a scope, sequence and continuum of skills and values and knowledge. We\u2019re not just taking students one year and teaching them; we\u2019re teaching them from a very young age to become active, informed global citizens.\u201d
\nWhile the goals of the United Nations aren\u2019t always being met, headmaster Peter Sturrup says they are \u201cincredibly worthy aspirations to have.\u201d Now, as they have always been, they are aspirations shared by Pickering College as well.
\n\u201cAs Monty and Hayden have pointed out, we have students from all over the world, a mini-United Nations representation here. If we can take and learn from the United Nations things that are important, processes, and transfer that to what our students are doing and how they are learning, I think it becomes a really valuable educational opportunity for our students,\u201d he says.
\n\u201cConversely, I think that if our students are learning those ways of thinking and interacting with the global community and being global citizens and seeking goals, they can leave Pickering College and go out and accomplish what the United Nations is trying to accomplish, and maybe accomplish it to their own individual ways instead of relying on international bodies to do that. There is a really nice overlap.\u201d
\nTo gain full membership, Pickering College will have to retain its candidacy for approximately two years and be active participants within the network. They encourage candidate and member schools to recognize special international days, such as World Peace Day, and international days reflective of the international student body.
\nEach October 24, for instance, is United Nations Day and that occasion is recognized within the school. As such, each year the flags in the Pickering College dining hall, representing the nations embodied within the student community, are taken down and paraded by each country\u2019s respective students into assembly.
\n\u201cIt is a very powerful visual representation of the international nature of our school, but typically the students who speak [on the occasion] speak so passionately and articulately about the international community, about the United Nations and the value of being global citizens,\u201d says Mr. Sturrup. \u201cIt is a powerful day.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A school broadens the horizons of anyone eager to learn, but the horizons of local students at Pickering College are set to expand to a global perspective thanks to UNESCO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/2017-10-19-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4Rl","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 03:12:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}