Beliefs in Action Issue 7: Curiosity and Open-mindedness

ISA Celebrates Global Village Day 2023

After a three-year hiatus, ISA’s community-favourite Global Village Day event returned last week with a bang.

Prior to the pandemic, the ISA community came together every February to celebrate Global Village Day as an opportunity to be proud of our own cultural origins while being curious and open-minded about the cultures of others and celebrating the richness and diversity of our school community.

Last Wednesday, our community was thrilled to come together again to appreciate and be proud of the cultural identities we each bring to the ISA Global Village. And with 1,249 students representing 65 nationalities and 277 faculty and staff members from 30 different nationalities, ISA has a lot of cultural diversity to celebrate!

This was the first Global Village Day celebration for many of our newer students and community members. Everyone in the community was encouraged to dress in clothing and colours that expressed their national, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. In the morning, the PTA hosted an International Breakfast, sharing the cuisine of a wide variety of cultures from all over the world. The Global Village Day Assembly took place in the Upper School Gym, with parents able to watch the student performances and speeches via livestream in the Annex and World Theatre.

The Chinese community kicked off the event with a traditional dance, complete with colourful, traditional costumes and a Chinese Dragon. Director Dr. Carmody then wished everyone an Aussie G’Day in her speech, in which she rightly reminded us: “while there are many ways to celebrate community, to affirm and validate identity, to honor diversity, I’d like to offer an invitation to each and everyone every day to commit to being kind; kind to self and others.”

The Assembly continued with memorable musical and dance performances including from the Indian, Korean, US, Japanese, French and Hispanic communities. A poignant moment came when student representatives from the Turkish community unfurled a ‘thank you’ sign in recognition of the student-led, community-wide efforts to fundraise to support victims of the recent

Ethan Ahn, ISA’s High School Student Council President, gave a notable speech exemplifying the meaning of Global Village Day, reminding us to enjoy the spectacularly diverse facets of ISA: “In a world of turbulence, conflict, and disarray, we represent a symbol of peace, equality, and wishful thinking. At ISA, we can preserve and nurture our own cultural backgrounds while simultaneously learning from each other. We all come from different corners of the world, but circumstances and even luck have brought us to a meeting point: this great pink castle. Let us all take this day to celebrate the amalgamation of culture, thoughts, and ideals under this roof.”

Curious Creatures Read: ISA Celebrates Book Week!

February also saw the return of another community-favourite event: ISA Book Week. What a lot of fun with books and reading everyone had!

Book Week is ISA’s annual celebration of reading and books, aiming to expand students' horizons by encouraging them to be curious about discovering new books, authors and perspectives and thereby foster a lifelong love of reading.

Prior to Book Week, the ISA Librarians issued a challenge to the ISA Community: to recreate a book cover, which where then displayed on screens around campus throughout the week. Many students and staff took on the challenge, with the winning entry drawn from a hat receiving a voucher for the ABC Bookstore.

Dr. Carmody kicked off the week on Monday with an announcement: Drop Everything and Read! The whole community was invited to take part in the DEAR, stopping whatever they were doing to pick up a book and read together for an uninterrupted 15 minutes.

In playgrounds around the Lower School, students had the opportunity to go for a Story Walk during recess. In Upper School, a Story Walk was displayed outside the library for students to read during their break times.

Tuesday brought the great Reading Marathon, in which students and staff signed up to read in cosy seats in the main foyer for at least 15 minutes, and each seat was kept warm with a reader throughout the school day. In total, the community read for a fantastic 4065 minutes! On Wednesday, the Upper School Library hosted a multilingual and multicultural seminar in which Upper School teachers shared their home languages and meaningful texts as part of the Global Village Day celebrations. ISA welcomed the American Book Center onto campus to sell books throughout the day on Thursday, while Friday saw the popular book character dress-up day.

Throughout the week, the ISA community discovered that Curious Creatures Read! Being curious about reading new books and hearing new points of view have reminded us of the importance of reading to learn more about the world, ourselves and others, not just during Book Week but the whole year around. We can’t wait to celebrate again next year!

ISA

Students Praised at Prestigious THIMUN Conference

In January, ISA’s Model United Nations (MUN) students were once again put to the test as they participated in the renowned THIMUN conference.

Believed to be one of the biggest and most prestigious High School MUN Conferences, and against the backdrop of the historic governmental city of The Hague, this 50th anniversary of THIMUN gave our 20 participating ISA MUN’ers a chance to prove their debating mettle as they competed against over 2000 students from schools across the globe.

However, despite the size and reputation of the conference, our MUN’ers were not daunted by their task. In fact, many ISA students were recognised for their active engagement in the conference and their level of debate skills as they represented the delegations of Slovenia and the UN Environment Programme.

Grade 10 MUN’er Elle Chassin said: “THIMUN represents everything we love about MUN. We expanded our world views with peers from all four corners of the world and were able to enhance our debate and public speaking skills in a conference that assembled more than 5000 students in The Hague.”

Insert quote here.

Headed for the past several years by Individuals & Societies teacher Mary Lowe, the MUN Programme has expanded significantly over the past few years and gone from strength to strength, growing in prestige, the number of participating students and opportunities for students to attend conferences to hone their debate skills.

In keeping with ISA’s core belief of developing minds, students in the Programme are challenged and supported on their individual journeys to self-discovery. Through taking part in MUN conferences such as THIMUN, students are encouraged to ask questions, be curious and open-minded, develop problem-solving skills, and take ownership of their own learning experiences, allowing them to build self-confidence and leadership skills.

Mary said: “THIMUN is a non-competitive Model United Nations conference that promotes diplomatic collaboration among participants. Our students had the opportunity to engage in friendly debate and negotiations with a diverse community of students from over 50 countries who came together for the largest MUN conference in the world held at the World Forum in the Hague. This conference, and MUN in general, raises student awareness in pressing global issues, empowers them as problem-solvers, and gives them confidence as public speakers and critical problem-solvers while making connections with students from a wide array of backgrounds.”

Congratulations once again to our ISA MUN students for another successful conference!

Grade 12 IBDP Biomimicry Exhibition

Anyone who has recently walked up the stairs in the Main Foyer may have noticed some beautiful artworks on display as part of the DP Art Biomimcry Exhibition. Grade 12 students recently finalised the culminating pieces of their second-year project, Inspired by Nature, and have put them on display for the ISA community.

DP students began their Biomimicry Unit by considering the question: what can nature teach us about good design? They were given a design brief with a broad scope which allowed lots of room for interpretation and individual inspiration: to design a 'wearable item' that reflects the visual qualities of nature. This challenged students to investigate, reference and draw inspiration from the concepts and materials of a variety of artists as part of the research phase of the design process, including the drawings of Ernst Haeckel, the architecture of Santiago Calatrava and Zaha Hadid and the fashion designs of Iris van Herpen and Alexander McQueen.

IBDP Art Teacher Sian Lysaght emphasises that "this unit is not about fashion, but about creating new, innovative designs that adorn the body in fresh and surprising ways. Biomimicry is the design and production of materials, structures, and systems that are modelled on biological entities and processes. During this unit, students have explored the possibilities of harnessing natural resources [...] and will understand that good design comes from observations of structures and processes from the natural world."

WATCH THE HIGHLIGHT VIDEO HERE

But what is biomimicry? As Grade 12 student Ruby Williams explains, "biomimicry is the mimicking of an ecosystem and the world around us. It is any way that we can mirror nature, for example, through the scales of a snake, or the roots of a tree, or other things we can see in nature in a very physical sense of the word."

Following their own sense of curiosity and remaining open-minded and flexible throughout the design process, students drew their biomimicry inspiration from a range of sources, including their favourite animals, structures found in the natural world or the work of fellow artists who themselves draw inspiration from nature. For example, Eva Canavan drew her inspiration from a Dutch fashion designer: "my primary inspiration was Iris van Herpen; she's a very talented artist, and she works with the intricacies of water and other aspects that I found really inspirational." While fellow student Leonor Peereboom drew her inspiration from her favourite animal and its lifecycle, naming her Biomimicry piece 'A Memoir: The Life Cycle of an Eternal Jellyfish.'

As part of the project, students were required to work on a process book and create three mood boards to help conceptualise their inspiration. For example, for her piece, Ruby, who was inspired by "reptilian design, such as snakeskin and predator qualities such as ears, teeth and other dangerous objects", created a mood board with a working prototype of some of the hand-sewn scales she used in on the sleeves of her final design.

Each student used various techniques and materials to bring their Biomimcry visions to life, from sewing and painting to glueing and manipulating metal wire. Explaining her approach to the project, Electra Sarafopoulou said: "I found out that I work better with my hands, more than specifically drawing or painting, so I really wanted to use materials that I could mould with my hands to create my biomimicry piece, so I used a lot of different kinds of wire to create this very basic form a sea urchin." To create her piece, Ella Ural said: "I made the front piece design by manipulating hot glue, which I painted over with gold acrylic paint, and I sewed the hot glue pieces onto the bodice of the mannequin with gold thread."

Through the power of their individual curiosity, making connections between the natural world and art, the DP Arts students have each created a nature-inspired Biomimcry piece that is uniquely theirs. The Exhibition is still on display, so be sure to check it out!

ISA Students Recognised in GOA Catalyst Public Showcase

Three ISA Grade 10 students recently received recognition for their hard work in their Global Online Academy (GOA) courses, as their culminating projects were selected to feature in the online Catalyst Public Showcase.

ISA partnered with GOA in 2021 to promote student voice and choice. As a member school, ISA students were given the opportunity to broaden their academic horizons with increased course offerings, allowing them to pursue their passions and discover new subjects which spark their interest. Student agency is the foundation of the GOA organisation, and the Catalyst Exhibition was created seven years ago to celebrate this.

Of over 590 student projects in total submitted to GOA, only 19 of them were selected as exemplary and published in the Catalyst Project 2022-2023 Public Showcase, including ISA Grade 10 students Lilly, Freya and Daniela, as part of their Introduction to Psychology, Architecture and Entrepreneurship in a Global Context courses respectively.

Julia Watson, GOA Site Coordinator, said: "The students taking part in GOA's Catalyst Exhibition engage with their own learning in a personalised, passionate way. Through the Catalyst work, students synthesise the content they have learned through GOA and apply it to a 'beautiful question' that they pose and answer. This structuring of the project allows students to really explore and expand what they have learned in a new direction."

Each student, with feedback from their teachers and peers, poses a question to drive their project forward, using one of three tracks as a guide: 'Respond' which proposes a solution to a chosen UN Sustainable Development Goal; 'Share' which applies research to offer a response to a Beautiful Question, or 'Impact' which aims to make an impact on a chosen community. Participating students are given the chance to discover what their peers have been working on and celebrate each other's work across all GOA courses.

According to GOA, Catalyst will soon become the culminating project for all courses, as the project challenges students to find their own voice and agency through creating, designing and exploring their ideas.

ISA supports students on their individual journeys to self-discovery, challenging them to share their ideas from diverse perspectives and pursue a wide range of interests and passions outside of traditional classroom learning. Our partnership with GOA continues to be a fantastic opportunity for students to benefit from an increased sense of agency over their own learning experiences, nurturing their confidence to make decisions about their own future path.

Well done, and congratulations to Freya, Lilly and Daniela!

Daniela said “I had an incredible time working on my Catalyst Project for GOA, I thought it was an incredible opportunity in which I could apply skills I had been learning throughout the course to a final project that I was passionate about. The topic I worked on was something I was interested in for years and the catalyst project gave me the opportunity to start working on it. I specifically enjoyed this experience because along the process of finalizing the project, I was getting feedback from classmates around the world and this truly gave me insights into things I had never thought about before. I personally really enjoyed the project and now that the second semester has started and I am studying a new course I am even more excited to see what I can do with GOA. I am also excited to see the catalyst exhibition for this new semester to see what my peers have been working up to with their selected courses.”

Lilly said: “The catalyst project was a very interesting and GOA specific project, different from anything I have done in the past at ISA. Though I think it could be compared to the 10th grade MYP Personal Project, it was absolutely more personal and course-specific. The course I chose was introduction to psychology, and an overarching theme of the class involved discussing how various aspects of what we learned applied and related to the teenage brain. These topics ranged from the psychological, biological, and cognitive perspectives, to learning how the brain reacted to different things, and so much more. One assignment we had was to listen to and take notes about a podcast episode of our choice, and I chose an episode that talked about the effects of alcohol on the teenage brain. Following this, I watched a documentary on Netflix called "Take Your Pills' ', which expanded on the competition both in a school environment and in the

workforce as a result of prescription stimulants such as Adderall. Following this, I was particularly interested in learning more about this topic, and more specifically about how it affects the teenage brain. Soon after this, we began thinking about the catalyst exhibition of learning, and I knew I wanted to do something about this topic to further spread awareness about the dangers of this phenomenon, as well as proposing solutions and ways that it can be avoided. Because my class focuses on psychology, I constructed a question with feedback from my teacher to outline not only the abuse of cognitive enhancing drugs, but also mental wellness with healthy alternatives and options.”

“Collaboration Leads to Community”: A Spotlight on Student Collaboration

at ISA

The new year has brought with it new opportunities for us to work together, make new connections and collaborate with each other across different classes, grade levels and school divisions, as well as refreshed chances for students to take ownership of their learning experiences through student-led projects.

At the end of January, Grade 7 Drama students performed ‘The Comedy of Errors’ to an eager audience of their parents, as well as students from Grade 2. Similarly, Grade 6 students recently took part in the culminating Improv project for their MYP Drama class, with their peers in Grades 4 and 5 as their audience. As part of their project, MYP students planned and led the improv sessions, taking risks and showcasing their hard work and improvisation skills. Grade 12 students recently took part in Grade 11 Extended Essay lunches. Having recently finalised their own Extended Essays, the Grade 12’s attended Grade 11’s introduction to the research project to share their own experiences as well as tips for success with their peers.

Finally, students from across the school came together in response to the recent earthquake. The student-led response raised 8000 euros for charities working in the area, showing that great things can be achieved when students come together and collaborate.

Insert quote here.

These opportunities for student connection and collaboration across the Lower and Upper School divisions are important not only for younger students to get a preview of what their future classes may look like but also for older students to be motivated, inspired and challenged. At the core of the ISA experience is a strong community connection, as these cross-school collaborations forge deep and lasting relationships amongst students, which is a link in our enduring legacy of education for international understanding.

Vicki Watson, Assistant Head of Lower School, said: “collaborative projects and shared experiences between different age groups are so important for ISA as this is an opportunity for older students to lead and coach younger students as role models whilst the older students benefit by learning about how to support and differentiate for the needs and skill levels of younger students which builds empathy. These experiences feed into developing IB Learner Profile attributes such as being caring, a risk-taker, and inquirer, promoting awareness of our whole school as well as building our sense of community.”

Sharing Vicki’s sentiment, Head of Upper School Andrew Watson said: “Collaboration is about sharing and enjoying multiple perspectives, sharing our passions, our experiences and our appreciation for who we are and who we want to become as a school. The most important thing to remember at all times is that we’re all well-intentioned humans trying to be the best we can be. Collaboration naturally leads to community.”