The American Community School at Beirut Magazine
Fall/Winter 2014-15
From every corner of the globe, to ACS XX
Contents ACS Matters - The American Community School at Beirut Magazine
Fall/Winter 2014-15
ACS Matters is prepared and produced by the Development and Alumni Relations Office
12
Editorial Committee Andrea Alemany Raissa Batakji Ceci Clark Danai El Hajj Ibrahim Fadwa Ghannoum Nabila Hamady Rebecca Naughton Daniel St. James
Contributing Writers Nicholas Boke ‘63 Colin Campbell Design & Layout Nada Fawaz Photography Amer Assi ACS (Faculty & Staff - Archives)
Cover story: From every corner of the globe, to ACS
10
Alumni Profile: Nadine Hachach Haram ’99 - From Scrubs to Social Change
Quiet, Please: students are reading
Where in the world are ACS Alumni?
4 8
20
Community Question: What would you eat with Lebanese Ka’ak?
New On Campus!
22
26
The Early Years: Where the pathway to success begins for ACS Students
Knights
Campus News
33 34
Letter from the Head of School
Marhaba and Hello You, our graduates, parents, and supporters will be gratified to know that by every measure it has been a terrific fall term at ACS, highlighted by the official news that we have been re-accredited by the Middle States Association of School and Colleges. MSA accredits schools and colleges in the US and all around the world, and when they visited us last May, they singled out two of our programs for special recognition: our Arabic Language program and our Early Years/ Reggio Emelia program. On behalf of ACS and its talented teachers in these two areas, Hanadi Dayyeh our curriculum coordinator and I were delighted to receive plaques for these awards at the NESA regional meeting in Istanbul in October. This was the very first time these MSA awards had ever been presented, making this an especially proud moment for ACS among its peer schools from the region. In early September, we organized a convocation ceremony to honor our community and celebrate our surprising geographical strength and diversity. On that occasion we gathered our 5th- 12th graders and their teachers in the gymnasium, and we asked the oldest student from each country to process with their national flag. Most everyone in our community was surprised and delighted to see that our students this year hail from 65 different countries - literally from every corner of the globe. In this issue of ACS Matters you will read about our diversity at ACS and with multiple flags proudly held high, it was never more apparent than at that ceremony. Most of our students are Lebanese, and most have been raised in Lebanon, but we also now enroll Lebanese students who grew up in Brazil, in Venezuela, in Syria, in numerous countries in the Gulf, in North and West Africa, in Eastern and Western Europe,
and, of course, in North America. We enroll students whose families are here working for the United Nations or for UNIFIL or for a growing number of different NGOs, and they join us from different postings and points of origin from all over the world. And, as was the case before the Civil War, we also enroll a number of embassy children, with large delegations from Australia, Japan, Kuwait, India, Holland, Germany, Brazil, China, Egypt and Korea. It is exciting to see our students form friendships with others whose upbringing has been far different from their own and to see them sharing in each other’s culture. I recently attended a Diwali party (the Hindu Festival of Lights), which brought ACS students and families from a multitude of different backgrounds together for wonderful Indian food and dancing. At school we will soon be celebrating Lebanese Independence Day and our foreign students will have the opportunity to learn some Lebanese history and to learn to dance the dabke. There is no end to what we can learn from each other in the diverse community that has been created at ACS. In fact, that diversity, and the fact that we are a secular school that goes out of its way to enroll students and teachers from as many different religious, ethnic, and national groups as possible is what attracted me to ACS in the first place. Ours is a school working hard to challenge each and every one of our students, that focuses on helping each child to find his or her voice and to think critically, and we are also a school dedicated to having each student learn from and work with their classmates. We are engaged in trying to help our students to rise above the barriers that have so long divided their parents and grandparents in this part of the world. It is our hope that with more understanding, hard work, and collaboration the next generation can craft a brighter future for this region.
3
4
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
Quiet, Please:
Reading students are
Nicholas Boke
As ACS begins the second year of its school-wide literacy initiative, one of the things you’ll notice is that students are being provided with more opportunities to read and talk about what they’re reading. Last year’s “Get Caught Reading”—the week-long project that reminded everyone that reading can take place anywhere, any time—set the stage for students and teachers to read more and have fun while doing it. This year, Middle and High School students are being provided with regular opportunities to read for pleasure through scheduled Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) slots during the week. High School Principal Robert Evans explains that SSR was introduced last year, but that this year all students are provided with two twenty-minute blocks to read each cycle. “We’re doing this to build on the idea that everyone can enjoy reading, to raise their comfort level with reading for enjoyment.” Evans, like the rest of the faculty, participates in the SSR, remarking that he alternates between genres, sometimes reading professional works and sometimes things that simply interest him, saying, “It’s a great time just to catch up on the world.” A similar approach has been set in motion in the Middle School, where a fifteen-minute SSR period is provided during every advisory meeting, once per cycle. In
addition, time for SSR is provided in three blocks per cycle in every English class, and French and Arabic classes will soon be providing similar opportunities. Middle School Principal Phil Wendel says, “There has been immense buy-in from the entire Middle School—including students, faculty and administrators—towards this initiative. Informal student conversations concerning what they are reading has been a very apparent positive consequence of this initiative in the Middle School.” Elementary School Principal Diann Osterlund says reading continues to be a strong and important aspect of the elementary curriculum. In the elementary grades, reading occurs every day in a variety of ways, with teachers providing direct instruction in skills and strategies. “Students read independently or with another student, they receive small group reading instruction with their teacher, and they engage in one-to-one reading conferences with their teacher. This approach ensures that every day, students are reading books at their individualized level as well as books of their choice. Most importantly, we want to help students develop a love of reading.” 5
Early Years students will continue with the variety of previously initiated reading activities, Principal Sawsan Yaseen says. Teachers pay close attention to modeling vocabulary use and “foster the love of reading in children through daily story-telling, reading, reflection and dialog,” Yaseen says, adding that, “it’s great to educate parents and share with them how important reading is and what they can do with children in their home to promote the love of reading.”
content instruction with every department, and observed almost every teacher as he or she practiced what we were preaching about the importance of bolstering students’ abilities to read strategically and learn independently. The best part was that I didn’t have to convince anyone that literacy matters: the school-wide initiative had already done that work for me. That I wanted to talk about books and reading-comprehension strategies came as no surprise to anyone.
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
Last year’s buddy-reading program with the Middle School is being continued. While ES children had previously read to Early Years students, Yaseen says, “last year was the first time we paired up with the MS, and it proved quite successful.”
6
Everybody already had a head start. The Math Department was already engaged in explicitly teaching the “language of mathematics.” The Science and Social Studies Departments had begun discussions with the English Department about Head of School Hamilton Clark, who set reading strategies. The English Department “I didn’t have to the school-wide literacy initiative in motion was already focusing on the role of last year, comments, “It’s exciting to see the convince anyone that metacognition—or “thinking about one’s momentum: SSR, books available in book literacy matters: the thinking”—to improve student reading. bins around the school…. And what a gift it Arabic and French Departments were school-wide initiative The is to have a moment of quiet to read.” elaborating on traditional practices to had already done make their efforts to improve student Asked how he’ll know if the project is that work for me.” reading through explicit instruction about working, he pauses, then responds: “I’d like strategic reading. to see a situation where, if I took a group of our kids to the beach, they’d bring a book to read as they lay in the sun.” The school—Head of School Hamilton Clark, Deputy Head Karim Abu Haydar, incoming MS Principal Phil Wendel and Deputy MS Principal Nick Thornton—had done the hard part: They had gotten people talking. Plunging into Print What a pleasure it was to spend a week in late September working on literacy with ACS Middle School teachers. It was a busy time. I spoke twice to the entire MS faculty, discussed ways to integrate reading-strategy instruction into
What did I find in the Middle School corridors and classrooms? A math instructor who took my advice to actually use the textbook as a teaching tool, helping the students understand how to learn by reading, rather than simply waiting for the
teacher to explain it all. The Arabic instructor who asked the students to jot notes about what they had read without worrying about grammar and spelling—these revisions, she understood, could come later, after they had used the act of writing to prompt their thinking. The English teacher who, like several French teachers, asked the students to find things that interested them in the reading selection as discussion starters, rather than simply looking for right and wrong answers. The science teacher who asked the students to figure out what the main point of an article was, then
led a discussion, asking the students to refer to the text to show how they had arrived at their conclusion. The PE department that invited me to talk with them about how they could become involved in the process. The point of all these efforts is simple: to help the students learn to read independently. The result of this will be that students will be better able to learn the basic material on their own. This will allow the teacher to transform the classroom experience: no longer will class time be spent explaining the basics. Now it will be used to elaborate and expand upon those basics, deeply enriching the quality of students’ thinking and learning. Making this transformation will require time, energy and commitment. But if what I experienced during my week with Middle School administrators and faculty, the commitment’s already there, along with a willingness to spend the time and energy to make it happen. n
Or maybe they have predicted what might come next—will the protagonist be mugged? What will happen once the hydrogen and the oxygen atoms combine? Perhaps they’ve made a connection with their own lives, remembering when they felt embarrassed by a teacher, or remembering the i-before-e rule because they got it wrong so many times before.
Meta-, Meta- what?
That’s Metacognition, or “thinking about one’s thinking.” And it is, some research tells us, a very important aspect of becoming a better reader … a better learner … and even a better thinker. So it’s no wonder that the Middle School English Department has adopted sixth-grade teacher Eric Triche’s “Metacognitive Moments Guidelines” for use in all classrooms. The “Guidelines” include a variety of activities that are designed to help the students pay attention to what’s going on in their minds as they read. Have they, for example, visualized something, made a mental picture of what the author has described: The house the protagonist has just left? The way Napoleon’s troops have been assembled on the battlefield at Waterloo?
And then the “Guidelines” suggest that they note things they either like or don’t like, agree or disagree with, or even where surprised by.
What’s the point of all this?
It’s simple: the more attention students pay to what their minds are doing while they read, the more likely they’ll be to become better readers. And better readers can learn more from what they read, and combine what they’re reading with what they already know. In other words, the more metacognitive you are, the more effectively and efficiently you can learn; the smarter you get. The “Guidelines” have recently been modified so that they can be applied in all subject areas, math and science as well as English and other languages. They, along with the “Nine Strategies for Reading Comprehension” that were used as the foundation of the recent Middle School literacy consultancy, have been distributed to all Middle School teachers.
7
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
8
North america Canada • USA
central america Costa Rica • El Salvador • Mexico
South america Argentina • Brazil • Chile • Colombia • Venezuela
EUROPE
Middle East & Gulf
Austria • Belgium • Bulgaria Croatia • Cyprus • Denmark England • Finland • France • Germany Greece • Ireland • Italy • Luxembourg Macedonia • Norway • Netherlands Poland • Portugal • Serbia • Spain Sweden • Switzerland • Turkey • UK
Bahrain • Jordan • Kuwait • Lebanon • Oman • Qatar Saudi Arabia • Syria • UAE
Africa Egypt • Kenya • Liberia • Nigeria
ASia China • India • Japan • Korea • Malaysia Singapore • Tajikistan • Thailand
Russia Australia New ZEaland 9
alumniProfile
From
scrubsto social change
How Nadine Hachach Haram ’99 is keeping up with a busy schedule between the surgical unit, charity work and being a mother of two.
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
“Examine us mummy,” said 10 year old Khaled Haram and 7 year old May, as they lay still on their mother’s bed with eyes shut in anticipation. Nadine Hachach-Haram ’99 didn’t really need the extra practice, but was keen to spend quality time with her children, after a long week of work including clinics and surgeries, an average of 4- 5 hours of sleep per day and a busy fundraising campaign, raising more than GBP 50,000 to set up a surgical simulation lab for trainees.
10
Nadine’s journey started at ACS, where she graduated with an International Baccalaureate Diploma, and was inspired by her Chemistry teacher, ACS faculty Dania Maaliki Tarabishi, to change her major from pre-med to pre-med & biochemistry at the American University of Beirut (AUB). Two years into her undergraduate program at AUB, Nadine transferred to the University of California San Diego (UCSD). During that time, she met Waleed Haram, her husband, and they moved together to London where she finished her Bachelors of Science with distinction from University College London. Nadine also received the prestigious Jack
Drummond prize and Jackson Lewis scholarship, for top marks in the Faculty and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Nadine was eager to make up for time lost having had to transfer between the American and British medical school systems. Her plan worked perfectly when she got accepted and enrolled in the accelerated graduate entry program for Medicine at Barts and the London School of Medicine & Dentistry. This fast-track program started with a pilot class of only 40 students out of thousands that applied, and Nadine graduated among the top in her class. She also earned the Harvey Minasian Prize for academic excellence, and the BAPRAS student prize. These awards landed Nadine a rare and competitive internship opportunity, which is awarded to only a handful of trainees, in all of London, based on their academic merit.
She finished two years of internship followed by another two years of core surgical training, and came first amongst 150 and secured her residency in Plastic Surgery in London. Today, Nadine is a Plastic Surgery Registrar at the Royal Free Hospital in London. Nadine’s work extends beyond the surgical unit. She helped set up the surgical training simulation lab at the Microsurgery Institute of St. Thomas’s Hospital, working with a team to create a program that was recently endorsed by the National Health Service in England. She currently comes on regular trips to Beirut, to support medical students and residents working at the AUB Medical Center (AUBMC), who are looking to apply to programs in the UK through advice and board exam prep guidance. Nadine has also embarked on a number of digital-based projects related to surgical practices and is using them to help promote greater efficiency and improved communication amongst various members in the medical team. Nadine sees opportunity wherever she looks, and automatically tries to advance her work through what she learns – and impacts other people’s lives while at it. “My years at ACS and AUB are the dearest to my heart,” said Nadine, looking back at her years in Beirut, and she always tries to visit the school whenever she can. Nadine’s eagerness to help took her all the way to Vietnam, as part of a volunteer program with a UK charity: Facing the World. The charity was founded to help treat children
“Giving back to the community is certainly something I learned at ACS” with severe facial disfigurements. While there, Nadine and the team train local surgeons and treat children who cannot receive treatment locally. To date, Nadine has made 4 trips to Vietnam. Nadine recently volunteered and continues to work closely with the Global Smile Foundation – MENA, an organization that her twin sister Noha Hachach is a founding board member of. This charity caters to patients born with facial congenital deformities, especially cleft lips, across the MENA region. Nadine is currently helping them set up a training center for surgeons. “Giving back to the community is certainly something I learned at ACS,” said Nadine. She remembers trips with her classmates to Dar Al Ajaza (elderly home), and says that it had been the combination of co-curricular activities at both ACS and AUB that have given her ‘an edge’ against other applicants whenever she was shortlisted for a scholarship or an award. Nadine now lives in London with her husband Waleed and their two children, Khaled, 10, and May, 7. She said that her kids would have definitely gone to ACS had she been living in Lebanon. n 11
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
12
From every corner of the globe, to
Former faculty member and alumnus Nicholas Boke ’63 and current faculty members Daniel Saint James and Andrea Alemany reflect on their experiences within the school’s uniquely diverse community. 13
Coming Home, Sort Of Nicholas Boke Recently returned to the US from Beirut, I fondly recall the complexity and diversity of my five years’ teaching at ACS.
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
I immensely enjoyed all those students from all those places, with all those experiences. There was Danish Oscar and Canadian Carla and Chinese Thomas. There was Bakr, who spent his summers with his father in Angola, Maher, who had just returned with his family from his childhood in Brazil, and Ramzi, who’d come to ACS from Saudi Arabia before heading off to college in California.
14
To say nothing of the local differences. There are the religious and political differences that ACS kids bring with them to the school, to say nothing of their diverse family backgrounds and experiences. But no matter who they were or what their backgrounds, there they were: playing together on the soccer team, raising money for the sister school in Sri Lanka, performing in the musical, or studying for a test. The way ACS students get along offers Lebanon--indeed, offers the world--a model of acceptance and mutual support. Back in the late ‘50s I was an ACS kid. I came to ACS from Washington, DC, in 1957, and left in 1961 to finish my high school career in Rio de Janeiro. Some of my ACS classmates
lived in the dorms because their fathers worked in Saudi Arabia or Iran; others had traveled the world as their parents had moved from diplomatic post to diplomatic post. Most of my classmates, however, were European or American—the Lebanese population of the school grew only after the Civil War drove the Western ex-pats away, both the diplomats and the business people. So when I came back to teach at ACS in 2007, I was at first puzzled by the change in the student demographics. It didn’t take long, however, for me to revel in the richness of this new make-up, the mix of Lebanese, dual- (or triple-) passport Lebanese who had lived all around the world, and ex-pats from a wide variety of nations and cultures. ACS is, indeed, unique. It’s not a typical international school, but it’s not a typical Lebanese private school, either. It is an increasingly rich mélange of cultures and religions, social classes and cultural backgrounds, pasts and futures. Those fortunate enough to be part of this rare community are, indeed, enriched by the experience.
“It is an increasingly rich mélange of cultures and religions, social classes and cultural backgrounds, pasts and futures.”— Nicholas Boke
15
A day amid the diversity that makes ACS, ACS
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
Daniel St. James
16
The two students stared at each other. Their classmates held their breath. Each of these two very different young people with very different backgrounds, from very different countries carefully calculated what they would say next. Both knew the right answer was buried somewhere in their brains, and all they had to do was figure out the words that would enable them to convince their classmates: very different points of view; equally strong convictions.
They dug desperately through their memories, combing through everything they had learned in the class, considering which analytical and oratorical strategy would best suit their purposes. Their classmates remained silent, watching. The teacher stood off to the side to allow the students full possession of the floor. He smiled as they started speaking again, going back and forth with strong opinions supported
by empirical evidence. The students’ backgrounds could not have been more different, nor could their opinions. This was certainly a different world, eighth-grade social studies teacher Tim Livingston thought to himself. Growing up in Ephrata, Washington, a farming community with a population of 7,664, Mr. Livingston knew that his perspective was just as different as those of the two students who were facing each other. He looked around the room and realized that his differences were what made him similar to every other individual in the room. This rings true throughout the ACS campus. Every student, faculty member, employee, and volunteer provides his or her own unique background, perspective and set of beliefs. More than 65 countries are represented every day at ACS as representatives from six continents attend class every day.
In the halls one hears Arabic, English and French, and then does a double take, listening carefully in order to pick up a new language that isn’t taught within the school’s walls. From these different countries and communities, students and faculty members alike bring their own unique sets of skills and life experiences. Visit the middle- and high-school library and the library staff will help you find what you need among the many genres and languages found on the shelves. Hailing from various parts of Lebanon, as well as Seattle, Washington, each librarian possesses invaluable knowledge that they graciously pass on to all the students who make the hike to the fourth floor. If a middle school student is looking for a good youngadult book to read, they need to look no farther than Mrs. Livingston, who has most likely read every single one and will find the perfect book for even the most hesitant of readers. 17
Across the street, Early-years teacher Aisha Casanova proudly displays her Mexican-American heritage, sharing her fluency in Spanish. She also will boast her origins as a Texan, which she assured her class is a different culture in its own right. She acknowledges while she is proud of her background, she is even more proud that her students speak multiple languages, have diverse cultural backgrounds, are well-travelled and themselves have unique experiences to offer the school community. And everyone loves to hear her sing.
conversations about 17th Century Lebanese culture that are integrated into their study of the Ottoman Empire. With a classroom full of diverse and rich religious traditions, Mr. Peet is able to expand the scope of the history being covered, making connections between the historical content and the local and regional locations that students may be familiar with. Mr. Peet is proud to admit that, through teaching at ACS, he has learned more than he ever imagined about the content area he teaches.
During music class with Ms. Ingrid, Early Years students are introduced to the Arabic drum (derbakeh) and the African drum (jambeh). They read books on how all people differ while sharing similarities, such as We’re Different, We’re the Same. Even the youngest students at ACS are immersed in diversity and have begun to embrace different backgrounds and cultures.
With the diverse atmosphere that is the American Community School at Beirut, it is no surprise that Mr. Livingston smiled as the two students continued their academic showdown in his classroom. A discussion of varying beliefs and opinions embodies what ACS stands for. Differences are not hidden or scorned, but rather are met with genuine curiosity and a desire to gain a better understanding. They are encouraged and celebrated. This attitude to difference is engrained in the culture from the very beginning of a student’s time at ACS.
Step into Jared Peet’s high school social studies class, and not only will you find the best looking bow ties in Lebanon, but you will find students who are actively engaged in
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
“From these different countries and communities, students and faculty members alike bring their own unique sets of skills and life experiences.”
18
Mr. Livington’s students were not fighting or becoming angry. There was a mutual respect between two people with different opinions trying to accurately convey their points, as well as to gain an understanding of the opponent’s viewpoint. While this discussion did not end in agreement, it did end with students developing understandings of each other’s perspective. They may not have agreed, but that did not mean they couldn’t communicate and feel comfortable expressing themselves. Nor did it mean that their teacher couldn’t smile at the event that had just unfolded in the classroom.
Small Moments Andrea Alemany
Julie’s curly red hair bounced as she walked into the classroom, newly arrived during the third week of school. As a teacher, it’s my job to build a strong sense of community within the classroom, so it’s always a challenge when a new student joins the class after the chaos of the first few days of school has subsided. I wondered about a lot of things. Would she fit in? Would the other students accept her? Would she throw off balance the dynamics we had worked hard to create together? I was about to find out. We sat in a circle on the rug and began introductions. “Good morning, Julie,” I began. “My name is Ms. Andrea and I’m your first grade teacher. I’m from the United States.” Julie looked at her new classmates and replied, “I’m Julie. I am from Canada…. And Lebanon. My family is from Lebanon.” Hearing this worried me. I’m no stranger to the dilemmas that “otherness” can introduce into the classroom. I, myself, had to figure out how to deal with this problem a long time ago, since I am from Puerto Rico, a Spanish-speaking territory of the United States. I had found that the easiest thing to do was simply identify myself as American. That way I could avoid the questions about my lack of a Spanish accent. Moreover, I’ve worked with enough international students to know that the introduction of a new person—especially one
with an unusual background—could turn into a problem. People, I have come to realize, prefer to surround themselves with people like themselves. When I lived in New York, for example, the Chinese kids hung out with the Chinese kids. When I taught in Texas, the Guatemalan kids preferred not to associate with the Mexican kids. In Kuwait, the Kuwaiti kids made it clear that the non-Kuwaiti students were not a part of their crowd. After hearing what Julie had to say, I immediately went into teacher mode, planning future lessons on diversity and acceptance that could strengthen our classroom community. At that point, without any guidance on my part, the introductions continued. “Hi, Julie, I’m from New York. I’ve been living in Lebanon for a year,” said Odysseas, without any hesitation. The students continued. “I’m from India,” said another. Then came Florida, Germany, Ukraine, Tajikistan, and, again, Lebanon. “I’m from Lebanon too, but my family sometimes lives in Nigeria,” said Jude. The introductions—and the list of countries—went on. I took a step back and watched in awe as each of my 17 six-year-old students readily and with complete confidence answered the same question I’ve been struggling to answer for years. After every child had spoken, it occurred to me that Julie was going to fit in just fine. But this time it wasn’t because she was surrounded with people who shared her nationality or ethnic background. And it wasn’t just because she was surrounded by children who came from all over the world. It was because she had come to a school that values experiences like hers—the experience of being from whatever place one comes from, and the ways that experience allows her to perceive where she is now. I was finally in a place where I could let my guard down and confess that I am also a part of all the places I’ve been lucky enough to call home. “Actually Julie, I’m from Puerto Rico. It’s a small island that belongs to the United States,” I said as I Googled a map of the world, knowingly drifting away from the day’s lesson plan. “Let’s take a quick look at where we all come from.” n 19
CommunityQuestion
Ka’ak is a common staple on the Lebanese snack menu. It’s made of slightly sweetened dough, covered in sesame, and traditionally eaten with either thyme, cheese or Knefeh (famous dessert in the Levant area). We asked ACS faculty and staff to share what they would opt to eat in a Ka’akeh, and learned a lot about breakfasts from around the world! Julianne Ostrosky
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
Robert Fedorak
20
Music Teacher, Canada There is no ‘traditional breakfast’ in Canada – it all usually depends on your profession. If you have an office job, you would go for toast and coffee. Workers who have to do manual labor would opt for an option that boosts their energy, such as eggs and bacon. My personal choice would be toast with butter and jam on weekdays, and waffles or pancakes on the weekend as a treat. With Ka’ak, I would go for yellow, melted cheese. I also enjoyed having Foul (fava beans) for breakfast when I had lived in Egypt, so I may try having that here, with Lebanese Ka’ak.
Fine Arts Teacher, Hawaii, United States Poke (pronounced Po-kay) is a traditional Hawaiian breakfast. It’s made of marinated raw fish (usually yellow-fin tuna) and onions, wrapped in rice and similar to sushi. Another very popular breakfast option in Hawaii is Spam Musubi, which is ground meat that is eaten with rice, seaweed and eggs. I would love to try out Lebanese Ka’ak with Poke or Spam meat!
Nour Domloje Lower School Administrative Assistant, Lebanon While most people would eat Ka’ak with spread cheese or melted cheese, I skip the dairies and go for Sumac (red, sour spice) and extra chili spread, as I prefer my Ka’ak spicy to counter the sweetened dough.
Kim Evans PE Teacher, South Africa People in South Africa love to eat meat, and they host lots of barbeques, known as Braai. For breakfast –or any time of the day- we traditionally eat boerewors. The name is derived from the Afrikaans words ‘boer’ which means farmer and ‘wors’, which means sausage. I would love to try chopping some boerewors onto my Lebanese Ka’ak, to replace the bread roll we usually eat it with, and maybe add some cheese on top.
Sharon Rogers Drama Teacher California, United States I grew up in Tunisia, and I loved their Harissa, which is a chili pepper paste made from roasted peppers, spices and herbs, mixed with garlic paste, coriander seed and olive oil – very spicy. When I came to Lebanon and tried Labneh (a Middle Eastern soft dairy), I decided that it’s the perfect option to calm the spicy Harissa, so I have it very often. With Lebanese Ka’ak, I would go for a mixture of Labneh and honey, which provides the perfect sweet and sour combination.
Nicolas Marlin French Teacher, France The typical French breakfast is a baguette (long French bread) with butter and jam, dipped in hot, chocolate milk. Sometimes we eat chacuterie (cold cuts) with bread for breakfast – but never cheese, contrary to what people might think. I enjoy Lebanese Ka’ak with spread cheese and I would have that as a snack between meals – not for breakfast.
Did you know that Ziyad Ayass ’06 launched Ka’ak Al Manara, a Lebanese street food concept, in Dubai, UAE? In a comment on the ACS Knights Facebook page, Ayass said: “Back at ACS, we used to chase the Ka’ak seller on the Corniche right after a long day at school. This played a big role in our concept development. So our thanks go far back beyond this shout out”. For those interested and living in or visiting Dubai, ‘Ka’ak Al Manara’ is open for breakfast and brunch every Friday, from 9 am till 2 pm at Zabeel Park. You can also follow ‘Ka’ak Al Manara on Instagram @kaakalmanara, and Ka’ak Al Manara on Facebook for regular updates. 21
New on
Campus! Ceci Clark & Daniel Saint James Meet new principals and some familiar faces who took on new roles at ACS!
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
Diann Osterlund
22
Robert Evans
Elementary School Principal
High School Principal
Walking around the ACS Elementary School, the sounds of children laughing, reading, singing, and playing fill the air. The students are all excited to be at school and have such a strong desire to explore, discover and learn. They are arguably the happiest group at ACS. Diann Osterlund, the new Elementary School principal, does give them a run for their money. It is almost impossible to catch Mrs. Osterlund without a smile on her face as she goes about her daily routine. Like all of her students, Mrs. Osterlund loves being at school and is excited about her life here in Beirut. She feels that her passion fits perfectly in this vibrant city with its beautifully diverse culture. It also coincides nicely with all of the warm hearted and kind people that she has already met in her time in Beirut.
Besides spending quality time with his family, Robert Evans’ favorite activity is coming to work. To many, this may seem like a typo, but it is not, he really wakes up every morning and is excited to get to work as the new ACS High School principal. While Dr. Evans may be new to this school, he is as experienced as administrators come. He has spent eighteen years as an educator, having worked in South Carolina, Virginia, Abu Dhabi, Cairo, and now Lebanon. While most of his work has been at the high school level, he has experience as an elementary school principal in Abu Dhabi which has given him a unique perspective on the connections between curricula and grade levels top to bottom.
Her passion for elementary education compliments her experience. Mrs. Osterlund has eighteen years of experience as an elementary school administrator. She has held positions all over the world, including China, Abu Dhabi, and Jakarta; and has become an expert in best practices from the United States including balanced literacy, and reading and writing workshops. As her experience increases it seems obvious that so does her joy everyday as she comes to work.
Beyond being an administrator, Dr. Evans still has a passion for teaching. As a principal last year in Cairo, he still taught as a classroom teacher. Yet as much as Dr. Evans loves his job, his favorite thing is to go home at the end of the day to his wife, Kim and his two daughters, two year-old Reagan and one year-old Katelyn. While Dr. Evans and his family look forward to exploring more of Beirut and the rest of Lebanon, right now he feels privileged to spend his days doing his favorite things in a wonderful new city.
Hanadi Dayyeh
Phil Wendel
Curriculum and Arabic Coordinator
Middle School Principal
In addition to her role as the Arabic Program Coordinator, Mrs. Dayyeh has become the new ACS Curriculum Coordinator. She says her job brings her two joys: the first is observing students as they transition across divisions where she gets to ‘observe their development on their learning journey”. The second source of joy is the access to the latest research and trends in teaching, which she translates into school-wide initiatives.
To compare a middle school to a storm would not be far off. Students are physically growing at such a rapid rate they find their new pants suddenly only go to their ankles as if preparing for a flood. They demand to be treated as adults with force, yet are still unsure what that exactly entails, and whatever is going on with their peers is clearly the most important thing in the world. Enter Phil Wendel, the new principal, who sets the calm tone that engulfs the Middle School at ACS. Phil Wendel’s calm is contagious and his face is by no means a new face to the students, having spent the last four years as the assistant principal; so he has slid perfectly into his new role.
What Mrs. Dayyeh misses the most is teaching, after having taught for 14 years. Mrs. Dayyeh and Mr. Clark are planning a ‘student shadowing’ initiative which will take them back to the classroom, where they will get to be students again for a day. They will attend classes, complete assignments and do homework to see how the curriculum is applied from a student’s perspective, and to get a better sense of all that our students experience in the course of a day at ACS. Her goals for the year are raising the standards of the school’s academic programs and providing the teachers with quality professional development opportunities. She says ACS is already building a great culture of visiting consultants almost on a monthly basis. Mrs. Dayyeh enjoys spending time with her husband and two daughters, 6 year-old Beilasan, and 12 year old Yasmina. She has also been taking dance classes twice a week for the past three years and says that it helps her vent and stay fit.
Karim Abu Haydar
Deputy Head of School
Prior to his time at ACS, Mr. Wendel spent fifteen years at The Galloway School in Atlanta where he was a middle school teacher, assistant principal, and principal. Yet his passion for teaching middle school can be traced back to his own time in middle school, a time he found to be extremely difficult and unpleasant. It is his goal to make sure that students at ACS have the opposite experience. It is at this point it is clear that the calm and comfort that students feel in the middle school comes from more than Mr. Wendel’s calm, yoga instructor like demeanor (his yoga class is afterschool on Thursdays and is attended by faculty from all grade levels), it also comes from his philosophy of running the school. Mr. Wendel believes that students’ wellbeing and education always come first, and that it is essential for everyone working in Middle School to appreciate what the students are going through at their age, and always provide an opportunity for them to grow and develop. As principal, Mr. Wendel loves being involved in the global view of the school where he can have a hand in providing support and validating the students’ beliefs and concerns.
Karim Abu Haydar signed a contract to be the principal of the Middle School for only one year to temporarily fill a much needed position at ACS at the time – back in 2005. He quickly realized that ACS had a strong sense of community, and continues to believe that it is a great place for kids to attend school and for adults to work. Now, after having filled this position for nine years, he has taken on the more ‘behind-the-scenes’ role of Deputy Head of School. Mr. Abu Haydar enjoys his new challenge of working with school staff as well as faculty to identify and solve challenges in specific areas. His current primary goals are to make sure students, faculty and staff are receiving the best equipment and training in regard to technology and to make sure that the Human Resources office is providing the best possible support, to minimize any teacher or staff concerns. He enjoys his opportunity to influence academics so they are at the highest standard they can possibly be. Outside of school he enjoys the beautiful weather of Beirut, as well as everything this world class city has to offer with its wonderful people, food, music and culture. While hedoes love going out and enjoying the food of Lebanon, his favorite food is prepared right at home by his wife Nicole. 23
Take a quick tour of what has been accomplished by the dedicated Facilities & Operations team, with the help of the Business Office and the fundraising support of many friends, parents and alumni. BD Façade Our old facades need TLC and this year the walls of the BD building received much needed attention in repair and paint. The BD dates back to 1948 and is such a signature building on our campus that is greatly appreciated, and others will follow.
KG Room Formerly an art space facing the interior LS play space, this room has been transformed into a 3rd KG classroom and unites all the KG students in one area of the building creating a coordinated division of Kindergarten. It has been carpeted, re-painted, specially lit, and is a cheerful new classroom for our young ACS’ers.
New Cafeteria
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
The major and most visible summer project is a beautiful glass-enclosed expanded cafeteria lunch space, which, as always, faces the Rabbit Field and allows student seating inside or out. The renovation has made school lunch break far more relaxed and accommodates many more of our community. More direct pathways and pleasant Rabbit Field access from the Gym has helped crowding as well.
24
Meticulously designed, it is also a lovely space in which to hold parent or alumni events, the first of which were receptions for our new parents. Lunches are prepared by well-known Beirut caterer, Cat & Mouth, who pride themselves on serving well-balanced, healthy and delicious food for our students.
Security/Signage Safety and security are always a top priority and this year opened with new signs that clearly help in any evacuation or emergency. Additionally, there are cameras that help our guards keep close watch on all doors, buildings, street traffic and pedestrians.
LS Art Room Moved from an under-lit interior classroom, the Lower School Art Room now is located on the 2nd floor of the LS and is spacious, well organized, has pretty views and faces in the direction of the Med and is sure to produce more of the interesting art that the LS students are known for.
Memorial Benches
ACS at Deir El Qamar
In memory of the late Catherine Carlin Bashshur (1938 – 2013), ACS Head of School from 1984 – 2003, two new benches were dedicated on campus this year.
We are proud to be the only school in Lebanon creating a bond with nature for our students in a deliberate and repetitive manner. ACS students from nursery to Grade 12 have access to a breathtaking natural setting located in Deir El Qamar to quiet and shade and to a thoughtfully designed off-campus experience which fosters and supports an appreciation for the natural beauty that exists in Lebanon and adds depth to an already excellent academic education. New to this country campus is a small, purposeful “farmette” where rabbits, tortoises and chickens thrive and we plan to acquire yet more farm animals like sheep and perhaps peacocks for the students to feed, learn about, sense, understand, and love. Bravo to the ACS Outdoor Education Department team consisting of Andre Bechara, a well-known and respected outdoor enthusiast and expert in outdoor education, and support staff Pierre Abou Rjeily and Hamzah Al-Harakeh.
The first is in the Lower School Building, facing the LS Library, and on the walls around it are quotes from The Little Engine That Could, a book that Bashshur had often used excerpts from in order to motivate and inspire faculty and students, especially during the trying times of the Lebanese Civil War. The second bench is in the Rabbit Field, encircling an olive tree, and was inspired by another book, The Giving Tree. This bench was painted by students and has quickly become a popular hangout. The Rabbit Field tree, bench and stone were donated by the Bashshur family and former ES Principal Ebba El Hage, while the Lower School bench was donated by a generous ACS family who wishes to stay anonymous.
Tennis Court & Weight Room
Sound & Light
A welcome addition of athletic options is a hard surface tennis court that now is in use at the back of the Athletic Field. Ryan Naughton, ACS Director of Athletics, made upgrading facilities a priority and has also re-organized and upgraded the weight room in the gym – an area heavily used by our older students and many staff members.
Very welcome to the Music and Drama Departments, to speakers and assemblies, will be the new sound and light systems that have been installed in both LS and MS/HS Auditoriums, supporting the creative work of our talented students on stage. There is also a portable system now available for those events that stray from the academic buildings and can be used on the Athletic Field or in the Gym to ensure top quality programming. 25
26
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
Where the pathway to success begins for ACS Students Colin Campbell 27
“There are always parents that come to us on Monday and say ‘What did you do? Our children want to come on the weekends.’ This is because it’s a lot of fun. The children are learning through play and they are not aware how much learning is happening during the day. It’s our job to highlight it to them,” proclaims Sawsan Yaseen, Early Years Principal at ACS.
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
Lamis Ballan has two sons who currently attend the Early Years program. Yamen is in the Nursery and Mahmoud is in KG2. “My sons really like the program. My son in nursery adapted really quickly and feels very comfortable, which helps the
28
learning process. It makes it easier for him to learn; it also helps with the transition from daycare to school,” says Ballan. She continues, “In KG2, Mahmoud is also very happy to go to school - that is the most important thing. He is enjoying it and he learns a lot. At the end of the day, students remember more because they are learning through their interests and hands on learning. They have more interest in learning and information sticks in their mind longer, because they are doing something they love.” Early Years is the name of the program at ACS where many students begin their academic journey in Nursery, KG1,
and KG2 from ages three to six. It is designed as a warmup to prepare young minds for the First Grade. Since the program’s major format change in 2006, ACS receives three times the number of applications and has a very competitive 33% acceptance rate. More importantly, both the students and teachers have expressed an increased level of happiness, curiosity, excitement, and learning. In the early 2000’s, former EY Principal, Adele Hutchison, led the charge to institute a new type of learning for the youngest ACS children based on the Reggio Emilia approach, a style founded after World War II in Italy by Loris Malaguzzi. The
approach is named after the town it began in and practices a format where children lead the conversations, ask questions, work in groups, and learn through self-discovery, instead of being simply “taught to”. The most important skill to learn is creativity and students primarily learn through experiences with touching, moving, listening, and observing. Malaguzzi is well known for championing the term “the hundred languages of children”, referring to the many ways that children express themselves. In 2006, the new Early Years program officially started and in 2008 ACS began sending teachers, sometimes as many as eight, to Italy every year to train for a week at the Loris Malaguzzi International Centre. ACS was one of the first schools in the Middle East to adopt the method; many schools have followed. The change to the new format was not easy, as many teachers had been at ACS for years teaching the way that they were accustomed to. Hutchison personally walked everyone in the department through the transition, including Yaseen, who was a teacher at the time. This change can still be difficult at the beginning of each school year, says Yaseen, “The main challenge is for the new teachers who haven’t been in a Reggio Emilia inspired program before. We don’t have a formula where we tell them ‘This is what you will teach today and tomorrow’. They have to learn to let the students guide the discussion. The guiding belief that “the child is a capable and competent individual” prevailed and after bouts of intellectual conflict, Hutchison won over the teachers and they began to believe in the philosophy. The changes began with the students’ learning environments, where previously standardized classrooms were converted into cozy and homely spaces with lamps, rugs, curtains, and couches to make the children feel safe and relaxed. The new focus points are to “help children keep their sense of wonder, stay engaged, and reach their full potential - it is impossible for them to not find their interests”, says Yaseen. Curricula are child focused, not material focused, and unstatic - materials are constantly changed. The children are each allowed to see things in their own open-ended way and are not criticized for their ideas; this leads them to become less intimidated by adults. An incredible variety of subjects and art forms are explored through hands-on activities in the classes by the students, including clay, food & cooking, natural materials, colors, letters, found objects, wire, digital arts, disguises and costumes, observation and drawing, light, storytelling, painting, dance, sound, shadows, string, water, and photography. Through these experiments, students learn the basics of subjects they will study later on at ACS, including Social Studies, Reading, English, Math, Music, Arabic, and Science. 29
30
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
Another great example comes from a project in which KG2 students were playing with blocks and race cars. Heidi, Amina, and Mohammad were working in a group and used blocks to make stairs. Mohammad then made a pathway for the car to roll onto after it came down the stairs, but the car kept falling off the pathway. The three of them kept trying to get the car to stay on the path, but it would not. When the teacher came back ten minutes later, Amina had added blocks on the side of the pathway to make walls to keep the car on track. The teachers are constantly impressed when five year old kids think outside of the box like this to solve problems.
The students are encouraged to ask questions and give their own thoughts and opinions. Yaseen said that a common question is “What is a rainbow?” She illustrated one example where this led to a class project on water. When it started raining, the teacher brought the students outside to investigate. One boy proclaimed his theory that water was in the clouds, he said “The Sun gives it to them when it hides behind them”. Another student said it rains when God sneezes. The teacher did not correct them, but did challenge them. Later, the teacher took the students to an ACS science lab to see a water condensation and evaporation machine, where they began to connect the dots on the science of rain. The students’ journey through self-discovery is evidenced by stories like Tala and Maia in the Nursery. One day the girls were painting with red and white, but got confused when they began painting in pink. When their teacher asked them how they got pink, they replied that they got it from a cup, just as they had with white and red. But then they were more confused when they realized there was no cup of pink paint. Then another girl in the class, Dana, said she also got pink. When Tala and Maia asked how she got it, Dana replied that she mixed the two colors; Tala & Maia finally understand how paint worked mixed. What seems so obvious to adults is often a defining learning experience for young children.
The Early Years program has 28 co-teachers that teach nine classes of approximately 22 students each, currently totaling 195 students. This includes three classes for each year - Nursery (ages 3-4), KG1 (ages 4-5), and KG2 (ages 5-6). The Nursery classes have three co-teachers and the KG1 and KG2 classes each have two co-teachers. The “no assistants” format is unique to ACS and is quite rare; Yaseen believes it is more effective. Almost all of the students stay at ACS to begin first grade. Class days are very productive. Commonly, they follow this type of schedule: At 7:30am, the day begins with two hours of writing, reading, and games, plus working on group projects, followed by snack and then recess for a half hour each. 31
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
Around 11:30am, it is story time with each co-teacher reading to half of the class for a half hour. Most of the remaining time in the day is used for learning and arts projects, until the kids are asked to use the last twenty minutes for reflection on the day. The program ends at 1:30pm every day. Students are not given homework, but they often check out books from the library to have their parents read to them at home.
32
Lamis Ballan is impressed with the way the EY program is run for her two sons Yamen and Mahmound, even for recess. “During recess the teachers make sure the playground is safe and there aren’t too many kids in there at once. Plus, the teachers-to-students ratio is great, especially having three co-teachers for the nursery.” The boys’ school interests continue at home, as Ballan reads a lot with both of them, “Mahmoud [in KG2] is very curious about learning how to read. He always grabs books and tries to read more and more. Even if it’s not a book for his age, he will try to grab it and read it. The big focus on literary at ACS really works.” Another important feature of Early Years are the field trips each class goes on at least five per year. Students especially love going to Deir El Amar, a property ACS owns in the
mountains, where they can play and enjoy nature. When there, they have a chance to learn from the “Atelierista” - the ACS artist in residence, who supports their classes in an artistic way. Parents are encouraged to volunteer and help out in class, on field trips, and as cooking chaperones; the EY program sees almost every parent come in at least once a year. Yaseen is hoping to build a “natural” playground on campus in the coming years; she believes the real trees, logs, and a garden will help the kids continue to learn about nature and feel more at peace. The Early Years program is thriving and has become an important part of the ACS school culture to prepare students for their next step. “The teachers are focusing more and more on the issue to make the transition to Grade 1 smoother for the children. It’s been only three months since school started and I can already see the difference with Mahmoud. He is starting to read and write more,” says Ballan. Yaseen hopes that one day every school in Lebanon will institute a program similar to Early Years, “We believe that the first five years in a child’s life are the most fundamental years, where you set the basis and lay the foundation. If you start from the way beginning, things will be better later on.” n
New Activities Conference This year, the ACS Knights will compete for the first time in the Oasis Activities Conference (OAC), which consists of eight international schools in the Middle East that provide excellent interscholastic sports and activities. The schools that make up the Oasis Conference are dedicated to developing long lasting social exchange opportunities for our students. The ACS Knights will travel to events hosted by the following schools: American International School of AbuDhabi, American International School of Egypt, American International School of Jeddah, Amman Baccalaureate School, Al Bayan Bilingual School of Kuwait, Riffa Views International School of Bahrain, and the Universal American School of Dubai. The ACS Knights are looking to be a successful member of the Oasis Activities Conference for many years to come.
Fall Athletic Awards Night After returning from their fall international tournaments, meets, and races, the Fall Athletes came together on Nov. 26th to celebrate the Athletic Awards Night. Despite the wind and rain, the main gym was full of proud parents and excited students. The Athletic Director, Ryan Naughton, gave a brief description of all the highlights, the multiple first place finishes, the championships and runners-up, the new banners to be hung, and all the individual and team accomplishments of our athletes during the season. Next, twenty-two students were recognized for their participation in a varsity sport during their senior year. With the pressures of the IB and LB diplomas, university applications, and other distractions, these students were presented with well-earned rounds of applause and award for their accomplishments. Thirty-nine students were also recognized as members of the All-Academic Team. Having earned a 3.3 GPA while participating in a sport at the high school level, these students deserved to be recognized and are motivating their peers. Finally, the teams separated and the fall coaches had the opportunity to recognize each player individually in team meetings. It was a great night for all and congratulations to all the award winners and all the fall athletes. Go Knights!
Winter Sports Season Kicks Off The ACS Knights started their Winter Season in mid-November with tryouts for the JV and Varsity Boys and Girls Football/Soccer and Basketball Teams. The competition was fierce and the selected members are ready for the local games, leagues, and tournaments, as well as the international tournaments in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Cyprus. Our Dance Team began practicing as well and they are looking forward to some local showcases. 33
Halloween & Spirit Week Celebrations
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
Campus News
Costume Drive collects and delivers more than 100 outfits to children The Halloween costume drive organized by the high school Children’s Cancer Center (CCC) co-curricular group in October was an overwhelming success. Well over 100 outfits were donated by ACS families and delivered to children just in time for Halloween celebrations. The original plan to provide Halloween costumes to the children at the Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon (CCCL) morphed into donations to three different organizations devoted to children in need including the NASMA Learning and Resource Center, and the Dr. Mohammad Khaled Social Foundation. CCC is a community service activity for high school students. It involves 18 students from grades 9 to 12, visiting and volunteering with children who are patients at CCCL, AUBMC, Hariri Hospital, and Makassed Hospital in the afternoon of each Day 6. The club meets and plans their activities under the supervision of Mr. Tom Pederson, Ms. Dima El Masri Chaarani and Ms. Rana El-Masri.
34
NHS students skip the trick, give kids a treat A night before Halloween, twenty four National Honor Society (NHS) students from Grades 11 and 12 put together a “Reverse trick or treat activity” as part of their NHS service pillar. They visited the children at the Dar Al Aytam Al Islamieh Orphanage with bags full of treats and a long list of fun activities for the children. The students spent the afternoon playing music, coloring, face painting, and interactively playing with the children, who had a great time with the students.
Middle & High School students celebrate Spirit Week and Pep Rally Spirit week was a busy one this year at ACS, culminating in the Pep Rally Weekend. As usual, every day of the last week of October had a different theme; Monday was Pyjama Day, Tuesday was “character-from-a-book” day, Wednesday was the day students ‘suited up’, Thursday was class day and Friday was ACS day where everyone dressed in the school colors: blue and gold. The week also featured a number of activities from a trivia competition to a tug-of-war challenge. The Pep Rally Assembly was held Friday afternoon where ACS’s Athletic teams were introduced. The Knight mascot was cheering on the teams and students screamed at the top of their lungs to win the title of ‘Highest Divisional Spirit’. The Pep Rally Weekend kicked off with a swim meet in the AUB pool, volleyball games in the gym and a Rugby match at AUB. Saturday morning started with a race featuring ACS’s Cross Country team, followed by Halloween Hustle, a costume fun walk/run. The weekend ended in style with “Knight in New York”, a fashion show organized by the prom committee.
Early Years and Elementary School students celebrate a colorful Halloween EY and ES students put on a great display of Halloween costumes on Friday, October 31st, and made their classes, playgrounds and school hallways a little spookier and a lot more colorful. EY students trick-or-treated their way across all the offices in the Admin Wing, while Elementary School students put on costume parades and bought pumpkins for carving, while devoted parent volunteers decorated the classrooms and hallways.
Independence Day Celebrations
On Tuesday, November 18th, students, faculty and staff dressed up in red, white and green to celebrate the Lebanese Independence Day. The Lebanese Army Band visited the ACS campus and played the Lebanese Anthem amongst other nationalistic songs on the stage in the Rabbit Field, as students from different grades gathered to watch and wave their flags to the music.
Elementary and Early Years classes had an open house to show their parents what they’ve been up to in terms of Independence Day activities. Parents came in over the course of the week to listen to their children sing the National Anthem and watch them present a compilation of drawings, writings and activities which they had prepared for in anticipation for Independence Day. Early Years students put on their own show in the Lower School Playground by dancing the Dabkeh with their teachers and classmates. The High School Student Council organized a trivia competition about Lebanon in the Rabbit Field, featuring students playing the Derbakeh (Oriental Drum) and dancing the Dabkeh. 35
student performances
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
Campus News
MS Drama opens with ‘School Daze’ The MS Drama group put on their first production of the year, ‘School Daze’, a humorous short play written by Lindsay Price, on Wednesday, November 19th. Nervous 6th Graders, savvy 7th Graders and cool 8th Graders came together in a 30 minute presentation of life on the first day of Middle School. A talented group of 26 Middle School students worked on this production as cast and crew or both, and their peers in the High School computer design class helped publicize the event by designing posters. Students had stayed after school for rehearsals with drama teacher and production director Sharon Rogers, as well as drama coaches Lolita Mattos and Tim Livingston.
36
Harmony for Humanity Concert captivates parents, students, faculty and staff Music and drama students put together mesmerizing performances at the Harmony for Humanity concert held in the Rabbit Field on Wednesday, November 5th. The concert featured musical performances by the MS and HS orchestra, the ACS House Band, Grade 7 Choir, and the ACS Afterschool Choir, as well as short drama acts by the MS Drama and IB Theatre. With a full moon backdrop and a fall breeze, the students gave their audience an outstanding performance that will continue to be successful annual school tradition.
professional development
Visitors at ACS
Literacy Consultant Carrie Ekey In line with the school’s literacy initiative, literacy consultant and curriculum specialist Carrie Ekey visited ACS to work with ES faculty and students on a balanced approach to literacy. Carrie spent November 19th to 28th at ACS, presenting professional development sessions, gaving demo lessons in classrooms and meeting with teachers to engage in professional learning. She also met with KG2 teachers from EY to give an overview of the literacy approach and align assessments. “As an experienced staff developer, Carrie came at the right time to provide our teachers with the additional support they needed to move our literacy initiative to a higher level and improve student learning,” said Elementary School Principal, Diann Osterlund. This is Carrie’s first visit to ACS and she will be back in March 2015 to follow up on the literacy initiative and continue working with the ES & EY faculty.
President of the Beirut Marathon Association (BMA) President of the Beirut Marathon Association and past parent, May El Khalil visited ACS this week to thank the students who participated in ‘The Peace We Run For’ pre-project by the BMA. Kyla Wickens, Naye Idriss and Zayn Abunnasr had worked hard on designing their own version of the Beirut Marathon mascot, with the help of visual arts teacher Mary McKone, and displayed it in Zaitounay Bay prior to the marathon.
The Annual Mini-NESA Teacher Training Conference ACS hosted the annual Mini-NESA conference for more than 250 in-service teachers from 13 schools on Friday, November 14th, 2014. Mini-NESA is a professional development day that offers teacher-training workshops and idea exchange sessions for teachers and educators in Lebanon and the region. All the sessions and workshops were presented and organized by ACS’s local and international faculty. “This notion of teachers teaching teachers is one of the most powerful things that we could do here,” said ACS Head of School, Hamilton Clark at the opening ceremony, as he welcomed attendees to the school and invited them to welcome in the spirit of sharing expertise to “further everyone’s excellence as teachers”. ACS faculty and conference co-organizer, Rima Halabi, said: “This conference reflects ACS’s social resilience and perseverance despite the challenges in the country,” in reference to everyday and unforeseen struggles that Lebanese teachers face across the country.
“We are the agents of change, and it is our role as educators to teach today’s and the next generation learners how to use learned information and apply it to real life situations, so they can become leaders of a better future,” said Simon Barakat, ACS faculty and conference organizer, in his speech. For the first time, this year‘s conference included a technology fair where teachers shared their expertise in integrating technology in the classroom. The fair also included students’ technology showcases that reflect on the various ways that technology integration is being used in the learning process. At the end of the day, certificates of participation were handed out to all attendees. 37
Conferences
ACS Matters Fall - Winter 2014 - 15
Campus News
ACS Students attend the International Emerging Leaders Conference in Virginia Four 11 Graders - Rhian Davis, Ibrahim Shawki, Raneem Alzahem and Cayanne Chachati - attended the International Emerging Leaders Conference, held at the Collegiate School in Richmond, Virginia in October 2014 and they spent 4 days in Washington, D.C. The focus of the conference was ‘The Global Economy and the Environment’ and it hosted 13 schools from 12 countries. Each student delegation was presented with a leadership opportunity to creatively tackle an issue that their country or community is currently facing. Lebanon’s delegation, our own ACS students, chose to discuss the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis. Students spent the week working with their peers from other schools to come up with potential solutions to address these issues.
38
MS & HS Students attend the Model United Nations Conference in Amman (AMMUN) Four HS students: Maya Peglow, Daniel Harriche, Wael Awada and Rayan Deeb, as well as Eighth Grader Lianna Safa attended the Model United Nations Conference (AMMUN) in Amman, Jordan, from October 29th till November 3rd. The students actively participated in four forums: the General Assembly (GA), International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Disarmament Commission (DC) and the Economic & Social Council (ECOSOC). Students from more than 15 regional and international schools took part in this conference.
USAID grants ACS half a million US dollars to enhance science teaching and learning The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) mission in Lebanon has supported education for students across the country for many years, and most recently, granted the American Community School at Beirut (ACS) a gift of USD 500,000. This grant will be used to fund equipment and material for middle school and high school science labs, as well as IT equipment and media for the Upper School library. The grant will help ACS achieve five main goals: Equip technology-enriched teaching and learning environments for High School students to go beyond text-book based learning and engage in scientific analysis and experimentation; Create hands-on learning experiences for Middle School science classes, as this project will provide furnishing and equipment for enhanced creative projects.
Improve environmental safety for science learning; Provide print and media materials to support science learning, such as books, e-books and new media; Provide personal and organizational productivity tools, such as upgraded network switching and storage capacity, to support scientific data collection and analysis.
Thank You USAID/ASHA For the past 18 years, USAID/ASHA has awarded generous grants to ACS, supporting the school in its ability to provide an excellent education to students in Lebanon. The most recent ASHA grant, which was completed in 2014, funded much needed projects around campus including: multimedia resources for the Upper School Library, for students to use and/or sign out from the library for their school projects, color printers for students, faculty and staff, and the most recent IP Telephony network, installed in October 2014 to give faculty and staff better telecommunication options including voice mail, call conferencing and sync with email. A public address (PA) and clock system was also installed in every classroom, hallway and some offices to keep all announcements centralized, control classroom interruptions and keep the entire school community connected more efficiently. Finally, the grant also helped the school with the installation of CCTV surveillance cameras around campus for added protection and safety to all community members.
39
The American Community School At Beirut 67 Nigeria Street, Jal El-Bahr 2035-8003 P. O. Box 11-8129, Riad El Solh 1107 2260 Beirut, Lebanon Tel: +961 (1) 374 370 Fax: +961 (1) 366 050 www.acs.edu.lb