International School
New International School Opens in Hakuba
Long a beloved destination for international travelers, Hakuba now has its first international school. Opened in 2022, Hakuba International School serves both local day students and boarding students from Japan, China, the United States, and other countries. Not only is it a first for Hakuba, but in many ways it is the first school of its kind in Japan.
Hakuba International School (HIS) describes itself as a school in pursuit of a question: what kind of education enables people and planet to flourish? Founder Tomoko Kusamoto explains: “Our school philosophy begins with creating the conditions for human well-being and a sustainable human presence in the natural world. When we learn how to be well and how to live in balance with nature, we have the ingredients for both deep academic study and to develop leaders who can solve the world’s most pressing problems.”
HIS uses methods like project-based learning, in which students learn academic content while working in small teams to solve real-world problems, like designing a long-term study of a local forest to measure ecological changes. Alongside this, HIS teaches with Socratic seminars, in which students learn how to analyze texts, cite evidence, and respectfully discuss and debate with peers. These methods are used across HIS’s program, which currently serves students in 7th through 9th grades, and will expand each year until it reaches 7th through 12th grades in all.
Founder Tomoko Kusamoto and her Australian husband Joe moved their family of 3 children to Hakuba in 2009, seeking a more peaceful and child-friendly environment after living in Tokyo during her prior career in the finance sector. She became involved in local schools and co-founded the Hakuba SDG Lab, becoming increasingly passionate about both improving education and teaching young people how to love and care for our environment.
HIS Principal Chris Balme explains how this approach works: “If we want to raise young people to care for our planet, it won’t happen just by scaring them with statistics about climate change. We have to develop in them a love of the planet, a sense of relationship with and comfort in nature. People want to protect what they love. And when they connect with the natural beauty of Hakuba, not only do they fall in love with it and want to protect it, but they have a perfect learning platform for essential skills like understanding complex systems.”
Hakuba International School is located near the Iwatake Ski Resort, having taken over two former ski lodges to reduce its environmental footprint at launch. After opening in September 2022, it has been growing in both student and faculty numbers, but aims to stay small, approximately 150 students total, in order to foster a close-knit community where everyone feels known. The school plans to gradually add more buildings as it grows, while also stewarding a 9-acre forest next to its current properties. Students have already extensively studied the forest, set up observation posts to understand local wildlife, and even used trigonometry to calculate tree heights and carbon density.
HIS has already gained notice in Japan for its innovative learning methods, including projects, Socratic seminars, outdoor expeditions, and social-emotional learning, a practice which develops students’ abilities to understand and manage their emotional and social lives. In early 2023 the school co-created and hosted the Hakuba Forum, a gathering of education leaders from 10 countries. These leaders represent schools and school systems collectively serving over a million students. They spent four days in Hakuba envisioning a future in which schools prioritized well-being, and built their academic success on a foundation of human and environmental wellness. The gathering received rave reviews, and will be followed by a larger conference in 2024. This is part of the founding vision of the school — to become a gathering place for innovative educators looking to learn and exchange new learning methods.
On an average day though, students are not worried about HIS’s role in the education sector. They are engaged in the daily life of the school, one that is unusually connected to the village and nature around it. You may see students walking to the village to interview longtime residents, or heading into the forest for ecological studies. A student’s day involves working collaboratively on a core academic project, meeting with a small team of peers in advisory sessions, and studying Math, Japanese, and English at their level of ability. Most importantly perhaps, students will be following the school’s motto — let curiosity be your guide — to discover their passions and find ways to contribute those to the betterment of both human and natural worlds.
More information about HIS can be found at www.hakuba-is.jp.