“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

In the spirit of love that is so extra special this week, our Green School students embraced their surroundings with compassion and care by engaging with others and their environment. The Bye-Bye Plastic Bag team in the middle school visited local High Schools in Badung, Gianyar and Sanur and collected more than 500 additional signatures for their petition, adding another 48,000 names to their list! Grade 7 visited the children in Humanity Care Foundation (YPK) to help them in a number of different activities including gardening, cooking, singing and sharing some of their favorite things. Grade 4A helped Pak Henry to dig mud pits for our swines to dip in to during hot days. You can check out the video of their fun and mucky day right here. Yes, our students have big big hearts and big big love to share with the world around them!

Don’t forget to see other classes in action in our weekly classroom blogs.

In this issue:

Green School News

Upcoming Events

Ongoing Events

Media & Links

Green School featured at Woohoo Brazilian TV Channel

Also in the Green School Community

Green School News

Parent Information and Events Calendar

kids-football-ground

February
Feb 15 & 16: Green School Family Day to Munduk Mountains & Bali Treetop
Feb 17        : Mindfulness Talk for ‘Health is Wealth’
Feb 18        : Meet Day with health insurance representative at 12.00pm
Feb 19        : “Get into Golf” free introductory program with Pak Rory (see details here)
Feb 20, 21, 24 : No School, Professional Development Days
Feb 27        : Parent Meeting with Principal, Head of School & General Manager, 08.30am in the Mepantigan

March
March 8     : Saraswati ‐ required attendance for staff & students
March 10   : No School, Saraswati Day
March 15 : Green School Family Day – Hike Mount Batur
March 27   : Green Ogoh-ogoh Parade
March 28   : No School, Parent‐teacher conference
March 29‐April 6: Mid‐semester break
March 31   : Nyepi – Balinese “Day of Silence”

Parent Reminders
Make sure to check our Lost and Found for missing hats, water bottles, etc..
An important link to our school calendars: http://www.greenschool.org/calendar/

From the Head of School

john Schools are strange in that we are collective networks of people – all different, all important. Schools rely on people sharing a common goal – a common good: stripped down we all come together to develop a community for shared success.

Our values are our anchors. At Green School, these are outlined as iRESPECT (integrity, responsibility, empathy, sustainability, peace, equality, community, trust). Good schools have good people doing good to and for others. This ideal is what we set our sights on to be ‘ideal’. It is very altruistic.

As an educationalist, I am committed to the ideology of strength through diversity. We see diversity in our children, we expect it in our classrooms, and we want it in our schools.

Green School is not your ‘normal’ school – in fact, I would state it is exceptional. What makes me so certain is that we offer a different schooling experience. All that we do is founded on an authentic, a common-sense, philosophy that wants to make school fun, engaging, empowering and memorable. We specialise. We are purposeful. We have a cause. We are small enough to know, truly, all our children and celebrate their differences. Our school’s independence allows us to offer opportunities that are unique. And we are in a unique position: we are not controlled by any board of study or department. We are free! We have the ability to choose the best practice from around the world! That is so exciting.

All schools need to be relevant for a future ten to twenty years away. We must look forward, we must be progressive, and we must be considerate. If schools are just focused on an apprenticeship to gain a good job, the dilemma is highlighted in the futurist’s rule-of-thumb: 60% of the jobs in ten years’ time have not yet been created. There is a difference between education and indoctrination. The purpose of education is much more than job preparation (John Dewey, George Counts, Noam Chomsky). We need to prepare our students with the values, the attitudes, the habits, and the skills required for an uncertain future, to equip an individual to flourish. We want to establish the character aligned with the confidence to be successful. To this end our character does defines our destiny (Lao Tse, and Canggu graffiti artist!).

To this end, educators should focus on three keys for quality learning: holistic, pluralistic and personalised schooling. But what does this mean?

Holistic (focused on six keys: self and others; broad Intelligence; structured pedagogy; multisensory delivery; experiential connections; purposeful patterning)
Pluralistic (the belief that an educational community is enriched when individual differences are respected and welcomed)
Personalized (one that realizes, emphasizes and supports the individual needs of each student)

This week, I wish to unpack holistic learning. The six keys of ‘holistic’ education need to be clearly defined and specific:

1. SELF and OTHERS: spiritual, personal, and intrapersonal connections. More than ever before, our world with its varied cultures is connected. This offers such fantastic opportunities for collaboration. Six degrees of separation – which allows us to find specialists anywhere – is nurtured via our own self-awareness, willingness and openness to share with, and listen to, others. Communication relies on active listening more than talking.

2. BROAD INTELLIGENCE: We need to distinguish ‘intelligence’ as being more than an individual’s cognitive propensity for knowledge balanced with deductive reasoning (the traditional definition). Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences introduced the notion of domains of intelligence. Daniel Goleman popularized the notion of EQ – so much so it became the front cover of the 1995 Time magazine. Intelligence needs to be considered in light of different modalities because it broadens our curriculum, stretches our teaching, and opens our minds to appreciating – then respecting – the great wealth of capacities and compensations every individual has to offer. I would suggest ‘Intelligence’ be based on at least five threads:

Cognitive
Emotional
Social
Cultural
Physical

3. MULTISENSORY DELIVERY: instruction should always be considering how the brain embeds and recalls information best by using multisensory keys (colours, sounds, textures, associations, smells, tactile opportunities), time frames, reiteration, and study skills. In schools, we find the dominance of the classroom – where a teacher is font of all knowledge to a group of students captured in an age-cage. This is so archaic! True educators consider all the senses.

4. STRUCTURED PEDAGOGY: there are many ways to impart and grow understanding. Consider the following and then determine the level to which these are being implemented:

The class – whereby we do group to instruct.
The lecture – where we deliver didactic monologue to a mass market, and in so doing prepare for tertiary education.
The tutorial – smaller groups where we establish critical friendships and closeness, and a greater security for asking pertinent questions.
Think, Pair, Share – where two students feed on thought and are more willing to lead their own learning.
Mentorship – where we are assigned a guru to question and support us in our developmental growth.
Exceptionals in Residence – schools need to draw in the wider audience, a knowledge-base of professionals who are influential and exceptional. This can be parent oriented but we also have the opportunity to connect with a global network with expertise.
Video Lecture – where we control the message, as long as we sustain engagement and motivation (vital for flipped classes).
Video Tutors – engagement with an online global tutor.
Virtual Class – engagement with like-minds unbound by geometry but framed by time zones.

5. EXPERIENTIAL CONNECTIONS: Educationalists such as David Kolb and John Dewey, espoused the importance of offering experiences. Learning based on experiences improves understanding by forming concept links with contextual awareness.

6. PURPOSEFUL PATTERNING: Learning must be considered and focused to ensure the key skills are personalized and build on previous conceptual knowledge (what Vygotsky calls the “zone of proximal reinforcement”).

Our success in meeting these idealist aims is generated by our community’s trust, trust stemming from the recognition of our children’s love of learning, academic growth, good manners, and positive attitudes to learning and life. Our success is our success! It is strengthened as a result of our commitment, be we pupils, parents or staff – we are all stake-holders and we all carry the mantle of responsibility for our school’s collective heritage five-and-a-half years to become 55 years and more. Time will pass and with it our passage shall lead from learner to leaver to parent to grandparent.

Letter from Pak Andy on Professional Development Days

Andy-Slavin Green School teachers will be involved in three days of Professional Development February 20, 21, and 24. This means a 5 day weekend for you, but more importantly it means a great learning opportunity for us!

This year we have partnered with Antioch University (specifically the Antioch Center for School Renewal) in the U.S. to provide teachers with training in the Critical Skills Program. This is a 5-day workshop that offers teachers opportunities to learn and strengthen skills that are critical to thriving classrooms and school change. Included in the workshop is learning in the areas of collaborative and problem-based learning, as well as integrating critical thinking skills. The aim of the workshop is to help build and sustain strong, supportive classroom learning communities, and to develop ways to target curriculum in ways that provide both a depth of understanding and meaningful learning. Earlier this year we received the first two days of this 5-day program and we are excited to complete the remaining components of the workshop.

We are excited to be partnering with Antioch University for this training as we believe they are doing excellent work in the training of teachers to teach in holistic and sustainable ways. One of our current teachers, Pak Glenn, and several former Green School teachers have received Master’s degrees from Antioch in Sustainability Education, and we hope this partnership may encourage some of our current teachers to do the same.

Thank you,
Pak Andy

kemBali At Green School

kembali (kembali : return, come back, change, renew)

We are excited to announce the launch of kemBali at Green School, a new and much needed GSCA project!

What is kemBali ?
kemBali is a ‘not-for-profit’ thrift shop, recycling and responsible waste disposal location in one.

Where is kemBali ?
Nowhere yet but it is in the final planning stages and will be built near the security guard hut (just before the main entrance to Green School).

How does kemBali work ?
The thrift shop will be the main source of income for kemBali and ensure it can cover its running costs so we need GS families to get behind the project and make regular donations of second hand items to the store. kemBali will also be a place where outgoing families can donate useful household stuff for incoming families to purchase. This way we can reduce the consumption of the GS community as a whole. In addition to the thrift store kemBali will be a community recycling centre. Some of the materials will be used in school art projects or upcycling workshops and any excess will be sold on to Eco-Bali and other existing recycling companies. kemBali will be the focus of reduce/re-use/recycling efforts at Green School and we hope eventually to operate a ‘bank sampah’ to help solve the local plastic problem.

How to help ?

Give us your stuff! We are starting to collect items for kemBali now so that we have stock for when the centre opens next term. Please bring in:
- Good quality second hand items - for the thrift store (e.g. linens, kitchenware, books, toys, clothes etc.), clean and working please.
- Recyclables – including plastic bottles, paper, cardboard, boxes, cardboard rolls, plastic containers, clean metal tins and anything else that can be repurposed.
- Tetra paks – there is already a collection bin for these to the right-hand side of the main GS entrance.
- Items can be dropped off any morning at the Welcome Desk, tell Yani it is for kemBali.
Join Team kemBali. kemBali is at the design/planning phase at the moment but we would like to have it operational asap. So, there is lots to do! If you would like to be involved in making kemBali a reality then please get in touch – many hands make light work!

Contacts:
Sam and Richard Rice at rices_personal@yahoo.co.uk. We are Green School parents and the project leaders for kemBali. The GS staff member contact point is Ibu Muria at muria@greenschool.org.

Health Insurance Representative Meet Day

Nick, our friendly health insurance representative from B.H. Financial Services, Ltd., will be on campus this Tuesday, 18 February, from 12:00 to 04:00 pm to answer any questions you may have regarding health insurance in Bali. If you hold a health insurance policy with him, please remember to bring any receipts or supporting documents you may have to assist with claims processing.

Email Sherri at shridee@greenschool.org for any questions.

Upcoming Events

GS Scholarship Team Fundraising Effort for Mount Sinabung Eruption

GS-Scholarship

Our Indonesian scholarship team will hold a fundraising effort to help more than 30,000 people in Tanah Karo, Sumatra who have been suffering for more than 3 months from the ongoing Mount Sinabung eruptions. Please support us by donating money, used-clothes, blankets, books, stationery, and diapers for the babies. The donations will be distributed to The Indonesian Department of Social Service in Denpasar.

The collection will start on Monday, February 17 and ends at the end of the month.

You are all welcome to join our mini bazaar where we will sell cakes, arts and crafts in the Mepantigan and around the ‘WARUNG’ area prepared by our scholarship parents and students on Wednesday, February 19th from 03.00pm to 04.30 pm. The money raised from the mini bazaar will be donated as well. Along with that, a big box will be put by Ibu Yani’s concierge desk if parents want to drop off some donations. All students will collect their donations with their classroom teachers. For further details or questions, please contact our scholarship team: Ibu Puri (081999244916) and Ibu Pera (081999244910).

About Mount Sinabung Eruption

Mount-Sinabung-Eruption

Sinabung is a volcanic mountain on Sumatra Island that has continuously erupted since November 24, 2013, engulfing dozens of villages in ash and killing at least 16 people. Mount Sinabung spewed hot gas, ash, and rocks 2km (1.5 miles) into the air in a series of eruptions during the morning. It forced more than 30,000 people to move out from their homes and live in shelters for months. Most of them don’t have enough money and food supplies to support their lives. Babies are also suffering and many young children could not continue their studies as their schools were also covered with volcanic ashes as well as their houses.

Parent Mindfulness Talk for ‘Health is Wealth’

Parent-Mindfulness The Mindfulness program at Green School is in full swing with classes from Kindergarten to High School. As part of the Health is Wealth month, parents are invited to a talk by Yeshi and the mindfulness teachers’ team on, ‘The mindfulness program at Green School’.

We will cover the benefits of mindfulness practice and how parents might learn to support their children in acquiring this skill. Matin and Zoe shared how successful the process was in relaxing their daughter, Luna, on a ‘hard to get to sleep’ night: she drifted off to sleep while Martin talked her through the ‘relaxation bubble’ exercise.

Mindfulness Teacher Training started at Green School last Wednesday with the New York based company Mission Be.

“To me, bringing mindfulness-based practices to students, teachers and parents is some of the most important work we can be doing. If we can help the next generation become more self-aware, empathetic and emotionally resilient, they will bring their wisdom to healing the earth and creating a more peaceful world.” – Tara Brach

The talk lasts for 45 mins and will be in the Meranggi Bale, 8.45 this Monday, 17th February.

Circus is Coming! Circus is Coming!

Circus-is-Coming

It’s time to get inspired and creative in costuming and mask making with ingenuity and imagination and get ready to join the Green School circus ~ ‘Cirque de Paradiso and the Flamboyant Vaudevillian Masquerade’, Friday March 7th! All students and parents are invited to participate in the Cirque de Paradiso Handmade Parade which will kick off this day of fun and frolic with prizes for the best costumes: clowns, sideshow characters, animals… think recycled materials, find objects and be outrageous!

Circus-is-Coming-2

This event is presented by our High School Enterprise students. More to come…

Ongoing Events

Weekly Sports Update

Weekly-Sports-Update BSSA Basketball:
Well done to all our teams for a great effort in Week 2 of the round robin games!

Matches for Wednesday 19 February:
9/10s v Sunrise at Sunrise School (bemo leaves 2pm)
11/12 boys v Sunrise at Sunrise School (bemo leaves 2pm)
13/14 boys v SLK at SLK (bemo leaves 2pm)
13/14 girls v AIS at AIS old campus (bemos leaves 2pm)
11/12 girls- V CCS 1 and 2 at Green School (2.30pm start)

Parents please inform coaches if you will be collecting your child from the match venue. A child automatically goes back to Green School with the coach on the bemo if a parent does not inform the coach of a pick up.

Please make sure the kids have green and white sports kit and proper shoes, and bring water bottles with them.

PE/Sport Kit and proper shoes reminder:
PE Kit, appropriate footwear(closed toe trainers/running shoes), hats and sunblock (for outdoor lessons) are compulsory for all PE lessons. Our PE kits represent the four houses at Green School: Fire (orange), Earth (maroon), Water (blue) and Air (yellow)

Our Sports Kit is green and white and is worn when a student represents the school in the BSSA after school games. It can also be worn for PE classes. All kits can be purchased from Ibu Novi in the HOS 2nd floor.

Many thanks,
Pak Colin

Wednesday Evenings in February with John Stewart

Wednesday-Evenings-in-February-with-John-Stewart

Bamboo Indah was the venue for another Evening With John Stewart last Wednesday. Once again, Rudiger, the man behind the harp at the heart of Green School, entertained and interacted with the group of new parents with his hand-made string and wind instruments.

The evenings, hosted by Green School co-founder, John Hardy, have become a way for new parents to meet and get to know the new Head of School, John Stewart.

The evening was yet another great success set within the grounds of Bamboo Indah’s Minang House, which was beautifully decorated with welcoming flowers in the Balinese Tradition. John spoke about his background in education and discussed his ideas about integrating scope and sequence into the Green School curriculum. The complimentary BYO dinner was authentic and delicious and also gave parents an opportunity to meet John’s wife, Sophie.

The couple are already looking forward to the third dinner in the month of February next Wednesday. There are a few spots still available for those who are new and want to come.

Green School High School Renovates Safe Childhood’s Center for Street Children in Denpasar

Green-School-High-School-Renovates-Safe-Childhood's

For the past few months, a group of high school students has been working with the Safe Childhoods Foundation for our service project. The Safe Childhoods Foundation is an NGO that works to combat crimes against children. This foundation is particularly important to us because of our previous work with them at their sanctuary, where we built a healing circle and clubhouse. Our team has been working with their Center for Street Children in Denpasar, which gives street children a safe space to learn and play.

We have been visiting the center and are working to create a small soccer field and garden. The current space they use for a soccer pitch floods every time it rains, so we have found a new location on the school grounds that is more suitable. We also chose to create a garden to make a more pleasant environment, for the school is surrounded by concrete walls and we hope that in the future they might have the opportunity to grow their own food. So far we have cleared the building rubble from the backyard in preparation to make the pitch, and we have been planting a range of flora in the front yard. It has been a really amazing experience for all of us, and working with these young kids has been very special.

So far our trips to the school have been very productive, and every time we visit, the kids are much more excited to come to school. They love helping us out! Though we have already done quite a bit, we still need lots of help. We are holding bake sales on Thursdays and holding other various fundraising projects. If you have any spare gardening tools or school supplies, or would like to make a donation, please contact Pak Joel or Ibu Emily at joel@greenschool.org and emily.ferguson@greenschool.org

Media and Links

Green School featured at Woohoo Brazilian TV Channel

Woohoo TV is one of Brazil’s well known television channel. They aired two episode of the Green School Bali.

Also in Green School Community

Kul-Kul Connection: Kick-Off Meeting

Kul-Kul-Connection Kul-Kul Connection’s Race to 300 is holding a kick-off ‘Family Reunion’ to get the ball rolling Bahasa for Green School’s second term. Race to 300 is a fast, free and fun way to build basic communication skills in the national language of Indonesia.

We would like invite all of our old and new participants to start their day off right with a morning of bonding over Bahasa Indonesian. Come and join us at the Green Warung seating area at 8:30am on Wednesday, February 19th. Don’t forget to bring your Race to 300 materials, your family and your friends!

Materials and instructions will be provided for all newcomers. More information on the Race to 300 and registration details can be found here.

Race to 300 is now on Quizlet!

Along with our Family Reunion, Kul-Kul Connection would also like to mention that have made all 300 words that make up the first set of Race to 300 are now easily accessible on an online learning website called Quizlet. Not only is Quizlet a little flashier than the original old-school Race to 300 flashcards, but it also comes with interactive learning tools and games that are fun and easy to use. Once logged in, you are able to create sets of terms customized to your personal learning needs. You and your Race to 300 partner can continue to add to current pool of flash cards and there are also millions of learning sets created by other users that are also easily accessible.

Check out Quizletto help you prepare for our Family Reunion on Wednesday morning!

Contact Emma Titley (Intern for Tim Fijal), at emma.titley@greenschool.org for further details.

Welcoming Andrew Ma, Student Village’s Resident Parent

ndrew-Ma,-Student-Village’s-Resident-Parent Please welcome Andrew Ma into our community! Andrew joins us from South Korea and is the current resident parent living in the Student Village house for the remainder of the academic school year. Andrew has lived in 4 different countries, 6 different cities and 7 different schools and these experiences have sparked his interest in working with youth.

While in North Carolina, USA, Andrew organized the inaugural Wake Up! summit, a program that encouraged students to voice their opinions on how they think schools should be run. He’s also currently volunteering at Ibuku within PT. Bambu to further his interests in design and architecture before heading off to graduate school.

‘From my four years at boarding school, ten years living abroad, and my academic background in anthropology, I am adept in understanding students with different cultural backgrounds. As an aspiring architect and an educator, being at Green School gives me the opportunity to challenge existing institutional establishments to help build an economically, ecologically and culturally sustainable society.’

Dr. Marc Stern presents at PechaKucha Night Ubud on Tuesday

Dr-Marc-Stern

New Green School parent Marc Stern will present a talk at the 16th edition of PechaKucha Night Ubud this Tuesday 18th February at Betelnut, Ubud.

Dr. Stern, Associate Professor at Virginia Tech, USA, researches what drives success and failure of environmental organizations and projects. His talk tracks his current work on a book on the importance of recognizing and understanding the multiple ways in which trust can develop and how different forms of trust interact. Though based on empirical research in the natural resources field, Marc believes those working in any type of business can benefit from this information.

PKN Ubud is presented by a committee that includes several Green School parents, including the founders of Hubud, Ubud’s coworking community space.

See you there! Tuesday 18th February at Betelnut, Main St, Ubud. Doors open 7pm, starts 7.30pm. Live music from Indonesian psychedelic band Deep Sea Explorers (tbc). Full event listing here.

Photography Workshop for Green School Community

Photography-Workshop Green School Community,

Are you eager to find creative activities for your children? Take them to a photography experience through the hand of an experienced photographer for the National Geographic where you can learn the art of photography documenting the cultural richness of Bali.

The workshop will take place in Lake Batur Trunyan Village and Old Mystic Cemetery on February 20th. It is open for children from 9 to 17 years old. No photography experience needed!

For more information, please email tallersuki@gmail.com.

Submitting Newsletter Items

We welcome you to submit your own news updates for our weekly newsletter. To submit, send your news update to communications@greenschool.org by 12 noon each Wednesday. Please follow the instructions below to make it easier for us to publish your news:
1. Please add “NEWSLETTER” in the title of your email.
2. Please write a concise (2 to 6 paragraphs, more or less) blurb describing your news.
3. Please attach a photo that illustrates or accompanies your news.

* We are open to publishing projects connected with Green School, however please be sure to include “Green School” in your title and or the paragraphs below.

** We cannot always guarantee that we will publish your submission and when we do, we may need to edit it a bit before publishing & sometime may need a week or two before we include your article.

Visit the Green School Website: http://www.greenschool.org

Visit the Green School Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/greenschool