Holiday Wishes!

It's that time of year. Within minutes of closing the Panther News you'll be rushing into the back room to finalize the wardrobe that goes into that suitcase, slamming it shut and rushing down to the waiting taxi. Then it's off to the holiday races and to waiting family or sharing special moments in exotic destinations. But while you're enjoying your down time take a moment to teach your children about what is truly important:

• Positive time with family is important for appropriate development and healthy balance
• What matters most is the quality of interactions with those around you, not whether you've managed to find the newest tech item whose obsolescence is planned for six months down the road. 
• You can share the gift of giving by giving things other than "things". Consider the gift of volunteering and help making the world a better place while spending time with your children.  
• Try to impress on your children that every day offers a chance to make lasting positive impact on the world. Did you know that the vast majority of Melawati students want to plant a tree? Holidays are a good time to do just that, in your back yard or down the street. 
• Children watch what we do. We all know that. This holiday season take a break from the new messages that incessantly arrive in your smart phone, look your son/daughter in the eye, share a game, a story and a smile, ask them to help you make dinner, decorate the house (with recyclable materials, of course), and share the moments we all know will one day be gone and we'll wish they weren't.
• When new year's resolutions come around, take the time to resolve that you'll help the world in one way or another... yes, losing weight and exercising more are both very admirable, but reaching out to others - human or otherwise - is just as noble and perhaps more impacting

Then, when you return with that suitcase and a head (and camera phone) full of memories make sure that it hasn't just been a week or two that's served as a parenthesis in your life (though we all need that respite, for sure). Live simply. Love deeply. Enjoy the moments, during the holidays and beyond. All the best for a wonderful holiday season to all!  

Making Connections with the Community

I just had the pleasure of accompanying a number of our students - Alysha Alizan and Deanna Anuar from the Green Council and Zijia Kee and Sun Woo Kim from the HS Earth Club - to the 2nd International Eco-Schools Conference. The delegation participated in a number of activities ranging from experiential game-based activities to school presentations or their initiatives and projects. Our students also had the opportunity to run two hands-on workshops for the students from other schools. The biggest benefit, though, was the interaction and networking that took place in the five short hours we were there. The level of engagement went from an expected cautionary arrival to a thrill of being around peers who share a genuine concern for the environment. 

This got me thinking about the connections that we have with the community around us. It also brought me back to a conversation with two representatives from the MPAJ. They mentioned that the them ISKL has an "invisible wall" at the limit of our campuses, seeming out of reach to the common passer by. One of the aims of the Green Council and our community service teams is to provide a corridor of interaction between two parallel worlds that benefit from each other. 

So it was with this in mind that I was perusing the latest issue of the Hornbill. It includes a number of articles that deal with global issues, diversity, community connections, service and environmental action. It is a bit of a "wow" to read through it and makes one realize just how much is being done at ISKL in terms of connections with the various communities we work with. Add that to the community service projects that are being done on a weekly basis at the HS and you have a highly engaged population. 

Data collected from our HS community service programs that our programs have, until now, added up to 1,558 hours. Though the amount of time is not as essential as the value added by the quality of service, it is none-the-less important to recognize that what works best is on-going, authentic connections with the community. Certainly time with others, particularly those outside "the expat bubble" allow our students an engaging connection to learning from those they interact with. 

Of course we would love to do more. We are planning to have workshops and/or conferences set up for Eco-School members locally. Likewise we are working on developing connections with local schools for environmental projects such as tree planting along the Klang River in Ampang and the establishment and development of a Nature Education Center - along with local NGOs and/or schools - in the Klang Valley. 

Overall we are doing very well. But our impact as a school is made greater by the collective positive interactions we have with the world around us. Experiential in its nature and authentic in its setting, community involvement is essential to the growth of our students in the formation of socially conscious global citizens. 

The New Campus Comes Alive in Grade 5

It was a Friday. I was tired. Like most things the set up had been a bit of an issue and technical difficulties are always the norm, aren't they?  But come 1:15, when the fifth graders walked into their pod area, the place came alive!  They had been waiting for this for close to three weeks and the (renewable) energy - fittingly the unit topic - was palpable. The visitors?  The team directly responsible for creation our new campus. Architects. Check. Director of Operations. Check. Project managers. Check. Sustainability expert. Check. Engineers. Check.  All here to link our new facility to exceptional learning. 

The students were offered a glimpse of the plans related to sustainability in very informative and pretty snazzy posters focusing on nearly everything from daylight harvesting to grey water reuse to solar power to green spaces and traffic flow. The kids listened intently. At the midpoint the tables were turned. Visitors scampered across the way to the respective breakout rooms based on four main themes: Water for Energy, Pressure Points, Water harvesting, Solar/Wind energy. Other groups walked around in a gallery walk of posters and plans for the new campus. The wow factor was palpable and the questions coming at machine gun speed. 

In their respective classrooms the students impressed us all with their thoughts, intended to be "outside the box" practical things that we might consider as we plan the new campus in years to come. Ideas on the table? How about harnessing the energy from playground swings or using self adhesive, transparent solar panels on windows or cork floor tiles that absorb human weight and capturing kinetic energy? The kids were full of wonderful ideas and the visiting team loved them!  

As an observer of this sort of event it's difficult to not find inspiration in watching students engage in an authentic manner with practitioners in the field. Above and beyond the ideas presented and the sharing of thoughts and questions, it was equally impressive to see how fifth graders, only 11 years old, carried themselves as they made presentations to their peers and the visiting experts. Their poise and confidence were only superseded by the obvious level of deep understanding of their topic. 

When we all drifted away from the event the adults had a real "wow" look to their faces. The interaction alone had been a heart warming event, but they carried with them a bit of inspiration too for recognizing that our students might just be able to put sustainability into their daily practice, at our new campus and beyond. A subsequent email from CK Tang, the lead sustainability architect, noted "It was great fun for me to have the opportunity to interact with the kids and to learn from them. The great thing about them is that there is no boundary in their imagination and it is great, because they are thinking out of the box!" 

Wow. The future looks bright.

ISKL's Response to Typhoon Haiyan

From rescue operations to in-kind assistance, helping those in need is a difficult task, especially when the event is of such magnitude as Typhoon Haiyan that hit the Philippines on November 8th. As of the writing of this article close to 4,000 people have lost their lives and thousands remain displaced and homeless. We can only imagine the challenges ahead for those affected.

At ISKL the event hit close to home. A number of our community members are from the Philippines and a immediate call to action is natural and necessary. The PTA's response was nearly immediate. In a quick and concerted effort to support the typhoon victims the PTA communicated with the Embassy of the Philippines and several NGOs involved in rescue and support operations. The PTA then coordinated with our Head of School, the Sustainability & Service Learning Coordinator, the HS Community Service Coordinator, the Student Councils and the Red Hats to establish quick action. Within a few days there was a plan shared with our entire community. There are currently three main ways to support the relief efforts through ISKL:

• By making a monetary donation to the Panther Store (designated for Philippine Disaster Relief) which will be forwared to the Philippine Red Cross at the end of the month;
• By placing non-perishable food and/or health-related items (from the list provided by the PTA) to boxes already being filled on both campuses, or
• By sponsoring the shipment of a box by filling out the form here.

Please consider giving generously if you have not already done so, and thank you so much to those who have already helped in any way. The silver lining in a crisis like this, if there is one, is the growth in the sense of community - in this case the global community - that inevitably takes place with something of this scale. At ISKL we have shown time and time again, that we are willing to support those in need and this is no exception.  

On a related note - and highlighting the interconnectedness of our human and natural future - as the on-going discussions about the human impact on climate change continue the Philippine government is attending the Climate Change Conference in Warsaw this week, the latest country to demand global action on climate change.   It gives credence to the thought that, in addition to our concern for human life in emergency circumstances, which is completely appropriate and critically important, we must likewise move quickly and decisively with regard to our daily actions, consumption patterns and expectations of our governments, business environment, our communities and ourselves.

Thank you for all that you do, for this emergency and for our collective future. 

Melawati Going Trash Free on Fridays

About a month ago I wrote about the Trash Free Fridays initiative at Prep Senior. Since then I've been approached by a number of teachers and reminded that other classes are doing it too. The Prep Reception and Prep Junior classes have been doing something along these lines for years with parents asked to consider the snacks they send along with their children. Students who have gone through our program for the past three years (when the Prep Seniors started the initiative) have experienced it as well. So as of November 15th we're piloting a Trash Free Fridays across Melawati and seeing how it goes.

This has farther reaching effects than one might suspect, however, as there is a need for total community buy-in to ensure success. Students and teachers, of course, are on the front line, but this also affects operations (most notably the cafeteria) and home prepared lunches as well. which is where parents come in. 

Here's a quick guide for parents of Melawati children:

• Try to pack lunches that are healthy and natural 
• Try to purchase food that is in its natural state rather than something in a package (the idea is not to take it out of its package and transfer it to a tupperware container, but to avoid packaging altogether)
• Spend time with your son/daughter in making the food. Apart from the positive interaction it provides it's also a great opportunity to talk about nutrition and positive eating choices!

Certainly there is a new level of thinking that needs to take place regarding purchasing and preparation, particularly for those of us whose shopping bags are stuffed with single service packages. But research clearly indicates that sustainable and healthy choices are nothing but beneficial for the development of our children. Proper nutrition, healthy discussions and hands-on interaction with healthy food are all part of far-reaching nutrition education and that correlates to positive nutritional choices as children grow. If one adds the environmental benefits of less waste-to-landfill it's hard not to call it a win-win situation. 

We hope you'll join us in celebrating this through your participation, choices and conversations with your children and family. After all, we're all in this together!

Service and Sustainability in Tioman

As I write this the GAP experience is fresh in my mind and the impressions are still very strong. Last week I was fortunate to participate in the 9th grade GAP trip to Tioman, focusing on coral reef restoration.

The trip itself was an living example a whole lot of "best practices" in service learning and sustainability education as well as our school's school wide learning results (SLRs). Working with a local scuba company (Siput Scuba) and in conjunction with the University of Malaya and Reef Check Malaysia our group of 17 students were fortunate enough to explore a number of reefs, to work on scuba skills and to participating in the creation and set up of an artificial reef. 

For those who don't know (which included myself two weeks ago) setting up a reef can be a difficult talk Students constructed table looking structures of PVC piping and conducted the first "Dive for Debris" analysis in Malaysia (essentially an underwater clean up and debris identification program through PADI Project AWARE).  Once the area was declared clean enough to set up, the students had to identify coral reef "nubbings" (i.e. live pieces of coral that have fallen off the reef and might otherwise die). This in an of itself can be a challenging task. Nubbings needed to be collected in the water and placed on the structures directly so as to allow the coral a higher chance of survival. It was imperative, too, that the nubbings were alive and not covered by algae and this required training and a good deal of trial and error. 

Our 17 valiant divers fought choppy seas, strong currents, ear pressure issues as well as the lack of verbal communication opportunities under water while putting together 20 structures with a total of roughly 450 nubbings. We are hopeful, of course, that ISKL continues work in Tioman for many years to come and that future groups will add on to the success (cross fingers) of this program. On going maintenance will be necessary as well. It is not difficult to envision ISKL 'adopting' a reef and working to expand the entire reef in that area over the long term.

When leaving Tioman I was impressed by just how happy students were throughout the week. It's hard not to be happy when you're underwater and a first row seat to such a beautiful world!  But it's even more empowering to know that you've done a good deal to ensure that world thrives in Malaysia!   

This is but one story of many that GAP offers. GAP brought back with it similar stories from all sorts of places and all sorts of service. Just another example of an exceptional education. 

Food for Thought

Last Friday (Sept. 27th) around 100 students and a smattering of parents and staff congregated in the gym for a new experience:  A food packaging event. It was a first of sorts for ISKL. It was the first time we all worked with this kind of program. It was the first time we all had to wear clinical hats and gloves and involved ourselves in such an industrial process (quite the assembly line, really) of packing and more packing. 

By the end of a two hour session we had packaged 20,000 meals with the support of an organization named Stop Hunger Now. Our HS GAP teams - all represented at the event - will be involved a bit further in identifying two things:  If food aid is a good idea in the areas/communities they are visiting and, if so, which organizations they might be able to assist directly with such aid. We are hoping that, in this way, we can involve them in the discussion, research and decision making regarding food support and development in areas that we visit. This deliberation, in and of itself, is a powerful opportunity to learn the benefits and drawbacks of food assistance.  

For those GAP groups that determine that this food will not be beneficial we will be working with local organizations in the area who are happy to receive such assistance. 

In addition to assisting communities locally and internationally, our hope is that this will be a small step toward giving our students opportunities to engage in service related initiatives. ISKL already boasts a wide array of service initiatives, from our HS community service to our ES Red Hats program. But in attempting to find ways to allow service to define who we are we need to recognize the power of all service, particularly if it is coordinated by students (as was the case with this event, whose executive committee comprised of 10 juniors). We are hopeful that, as we move forward through this year and those to come, we can steadily build our service ethos and allow service into our mindset and behaviors.

ISKL's vision states "to walk in a harmonious environment where care follows closely behind; learning is stimulated, curiosity is sparked, vision is cultivated and action is inspired."  To this end such authentic experiences through service can contribute a good deal to the molding of a better future.