Special Report
Students perform a Tibetan
dance at the school's Spring
Festival celebration.
I
n the realm of contemporary education, Keystone Academy
has emerged as a pioneer. Since the opening days of
Keystone, the study of China’s past and present has been
at the heart of the curriculum. This focus gives the school
its distinctive identity, demonstrated through a unique
curriculum initiative: the Chinese Thread. The Chinese
Thread curriculum binds together China’s powerful past and
promising future in a way that develops pride and knowledge
in all of our students, both Chinese and international. It
assumes a central position, is embedded within the broader
curriculum in all three divisions of the school, and the
intellectual framework guides the coordination of activities
and ideas across the grade levels. The primary school
approaches learning thematically, with the IPC curriculum.
In this manner, Chinese cultural history and the Chinese
National Curriculum objectives and standards are integrated
in all disciplines. Gary Bradshaw explains more in his article
20
The Keystone Magazine
on the IPC and Chinese Thread in this issue. The quality
of learning at Keystone is both complex and organic. In
the middle school, the Chinese Thread is designed as an
integrated curriculum to accommodate the age-appropriate
learning patterns of grade 6-10 students. For high school
students, their academic progression will include a schoolbased syllabus in Chinese Studies.
China and the World in Middle School
In middle school, the Chinese Thread provides the main
structure for two subject groups – Humanities and Arts. The
integrated course of studies is holistic, combining the study
of history, culture, geography, politics and society, with
exploration of literature and the creative visual arts, music
and dance. The middle school component of the Chinese
Thread is called China and the World, in which history
of the Chinese civilization is taught in relation to world