Rules. They are necessary. They are everywhere. Boarding is no exception. Rules are part of life. It's 10.15 pm and music is blasting out of a boarding house; it's 12.30pm and a student is shopping at a local market wearing clothes that are inappropriate. Both students will be held accountable.
Why shouldn't music be played loudly after 10.15? Why shouldn't one be able to wear the clothes they think define them as an individual? Of course, such issues are not unique to boarding schools. In one form or another they are encountered wherever societies have been formed. International School Moshi is a boarding school, but for the purpose of explaining how we enforce and uphold rules, it might make more sense to refer to our establishment as a 'residential education facility.' We overcome the aforementioned problems by relating all rules and regulations to what we call "The Five Pillars of Boarding." They are what we as a school believe to be the essence of human decency.
The Five Pillars are: Respect, Communication, Environment, Community and Responsibility. All of our rules and regulations ultimately refer back to these ideas. These pillars apply to staff and students alike. We have regular House and Boarding Council meetings as forums in which we as a staff and student body can discuss how far we are actualising our pillars. We believe that our Five Pillars are universal; they underlie all cultures, religions, and peoples. They are the baseline of decency that sets us aside as human beings. It is a baseline that we are determined to maintain. "Boarding" at ISM is now more than boarding. It's education for a lifetime.
By Chris Folland (Residential Boarding Parent) & Richard Dean Eaton (Head of Boarding)
