Principal’s Blog: June 2025

What If School Was a Place You Loved — Because It Saw Who You Truly Are?

By Rebecca Hauch
Executive Principal, The International School of Switzerland

 As parents of three-year-olds, we are bombarded with questions fired at us for what seems like every waking moment. Why is the moon following us? How do worms breathe? What would happen if cats could talk? It’s relentless, sometimes exhausting—and completely beautiful.

It’s in those moments that we see learning in its purest form: driven not by rewards, not by pressure, but by the joy of not knowing something – yet. And yet, something goes quiet over time. The light dims. The questions slow. Creativity gives way to compliance.

By the time many children reach adolescence, that joy has been dulled. They stop asking. They stop wondering. Not because they’ve lost the capacity—but because they’ve learned it’s not always safe or welcome. School becomes a place where there are right answers and wrong answers, and not much space in between.

And that’s what keeps me up at night—not that children stop being curious, but that the systems we place them in stop making room for it.

So, the question isn’t how we make students learn—they were already doing that from the moment they could speak. The real question is: how do we protect that spark? How do we build schools that fuel it, instead of extinguishing it?

Let’s be honest: our education systems were never truly designed to nurture curiosity, creativity, or the individual spark in each child. They were built to produce conformity, predictability, and order. In a different time, for a different world. But that’s not the world our children are stepping into.

We don’t need to return to some imagined golden age of education. We need to move forward—into a model that honours the full humanity of every learner. One that sees learning not as the transfer of knowledge from teacher to student, but as a dynamic, relational process of meaning-making, challenge, and discovery. One that believes school should not standardise children—but liberate them.

That’s the vision behind the International School of Switzerland. And it’s why we built the K.I.N.D. Curriculum Framework—a model designed not around systems, but around people.

Kindness: Because learning happens through trust, connection, and belonging.

Innovation: Because the future will be shaped by those who dare to think differently.

Navigation: Because students need to develop not only knowledge, but direction and discipline.

Discovery: Because learning should begin and end in wonder.

These aren’t just values on a wall. They are the structure of how we design curriculum, how we train staff, and how we shape every student’s learning experience.

It’s also why we’ve chosen to be an IB World School—because the IB aligns with what we believe: that education should develop students intellectually, ethically, creatively, and globally.

But let’s talk honestly about the heart of it all: the teacher. If students are the spark, teachers are the ones who protect and grow that flame.

We believe in teachers as designers of experiences, curators of environments, and co-learners alongside their students. Their role is not to deliver information—but to ask better questions, to provoke deeper thinking, and to connect learning to real purpose.

Our teachers are not “the sage on the stage,” but neither are they passive facilitators. They are experts in pedagogy, relational leadership, and curriculum design. They’re the ones who translate vision into daily impact. And when given the trust, tools, and space to do what they do best—they transform lives.

That’s why professional fulfilment matters. Teaching should not be about surviving a broken system. It should be about the joy of making a lasting difference, of seeing potential unfold in front of you.

And of course, students need more than inspiration. They need real structure. They need feedback, challenge, resilience, and care. They need a curriculum that demands excellence while allowing space to be fully themselves.

Most of all, they need to be seen.

Education should not be about ranking, sorting, or controlling. It should be about unlocking what’s already there. Helping students become not just successful—but self-aware, capable, courageous contributors to the world.

That’s what we’re building at ISSwitzerland.

It’s bold. It’s challenging. It’s deeply human.

And yes—it asks more of all of us: teachers, students, families, leaders.
But if we get it right, the rewards are profound.

We don’t just prepare students for tests.
We prepare them for life—for purpose, for impact, and for joy.

That’s the kind of school students will love.
Because it was built for who they truly are.