What can a museum in the heart of Hoi An teach IGCSE students about globalisation, tourism and cultural identity?
For our Year 10 and 11 students, quite a lot.
Recently, our IGCSE students visited Precious Heritage by Réhahn in Hoi An Old Town, a social enterprise dedicated to preserving and celebrating Vietnam’s rich cultural diversity.
The visit was more than a trip outside school. It was an opportunity to connect what students are learning through their IGCSE Global Perspectives and Travel & Tourism courses with the community around them, making learning beyond the classroom a very real experience.
Seeing globalisation through a local lens
As part of their IGCSE Global Perspectives studies, students have been exploring how globalisation affects communities and the way people live.
At Precious Heritage, these ideas became much more tangible.
Students discovered stories from different cultural groups across Vietnam, explored traditional Vietnamese clothing and heard from local people through video interviews.
Rather than simply reading about cultural diversity, they were able to encounter it through real stories, people and experiences.
The visit also encouraged students to consider an important question: as communities become increasingly conne
What can a museum in the heart of Hoi An teach IGCSE students about globalisation, tourism and cultural identity?
For our Year 10 and 11 students, quite a lot.
Recently, our IGCSE students visited Precious Heritage by Réhahn in Hoi An Old Town, a social enterprise dedicated to preserving and celebrating Vietnam’s rich cultural diversity.
The visit was more than a trip outside school. It was an opportunity to connect what students are learning through their IGCSE Global Perspectives and Travel & Tourism courses with the community around them, making learning beyond the classroom a very real experience.
Seeing globalisation through a local lens
As part of their IGCSE Global Perspectives studies, students have been exploring how globalisation affects communities and the way people live.
At Precious Heritage, these ideas became much more tangible.
Students discovered stories from different cultural groups across Vietnam, explored traditional Vietnamese clothing and heard from local people through video interviews.
Rather than simply reading about cultural diversity, they were able to encounter it through real stories, people and experiences.
The visit also encouraged students to consider an important question: as communities become increasingly connected to the wider world, how can we protect the cultures, traditions and identities that make each place unique?
For students living and learning in Hoi An, this is not simply a theoretical question. It is something they can see around them every day.
When tourism becomes part of the lesson
The experience also connected closely with students’ IGCSE Travel & Tourism studies.
Students have been exploring how tourism can contribute to the preservation of local culture through funding, cultural exchange and opportunities for local communities to share their stories.
In Hoi An, these ideas are particularly relevant.
Students live in a city where tourism is an important part of everyday life. They can see how visitors, businesses, local communities and cultural heritage interact with one another.
That makes Hoi An itself an extension of the classroom.
A lesson about tourism is no longer simply something to discuss in a textbook. Students can walk through the Old Town, observe the impact of tourism around them and consider the relationship between tourism and the preservation of local culture.
Learning beyond the classroom
Learning beyond the classroom is not simply about taking students somewhere different. It is about giving them opportunities to apply what they know, ask better questions and see familiar places from new perspectives. For our IGCSE students, this visit brought together several strands of their learning.
Global Perspectives encouraged them to question, investigate and consider different perspectives. Travel & Tourism gave them another way to understand the relationship between tourism, communities and culture. And Hoi An provided the setting where those ideas could come together.
Perhaps that is what makes learning beyond the classroom so meaningful at HAIS.
Sometimes, the best way to understand a subject is to step outside the classroom and look at the world around you.
And sometimes, in a place like Hoi An, the classroom is already all around you.
