Month: May 2014

Below is an article I wrote for the Central and Eastern European Schools Association web site. The link to the article is here.

 

Earlier this month, the worst flooding in history occurred in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Serbia. An area the size of Slovenia was flooded and thousands of people needed to be evacuated. Here in Serbia, many left in the middle of the night to avoid the almost 2 meter high waters that inundated their homes and apartment blocks. 33 people lost their lives and over 25,000 people fled to evacuee centers in Belgrade or found lodging with friends or family.

The response to the disaster from our school and the entire country was incredible. Thousands of volunteers came out to help fill and carry sand bags, rescue stranded people with boats, etc. I heard immediately from parents, students, and teachers, asking for the school to organize a donation drive. In just a few days, our gymnasium was filled with clothes, diapers, water, canned food, etc. in response to a call for donations. The students helped out by sorting and delivering the goods to evacuee centers around the city. Many of the students held fundraising events like bake sales, theatre performances, donation drives, etc. The high school students asked for a school-wide assembly to explain what happened and to outline the school’s relief efforts. The Board of Trustees and Staff Association are distributing cash donations to our employees from Obrenovac, a city 30 kilometers from Belgrade, located on the banks of the Sava River. We also selected a special needs school in Obrenovac to help. They need everything, from new flooring and paint, to books and school supplies. We also heard from other CEESA schools, asking how they could help.

 

The city of Obrenovac is covered with mud and some areas are still inaccessible. There is no electricity, water, or mobile phone service. Most people have not been able to get back to their homes. There is much more work still to be done to get the flood victims’ lives back to normal. The school hopes to continue helping and community service initiatives are being planned.

With all of this sadness and tragedy, it has been wonderful to see the kindness and caring of the people of Serbia and our ISB community. It is also nice as an international educator to get the opportunity to help out our host nation of Serbia and make a difference in the lives of those impacted by the disaster.

 

Below is a report from our Facilities & Security Manager and Director with the donation totals.

 

Parents and staff brought many bags and boxes of donations, and students were directly involved in the process of  gathering, sorting and distributing these. A joint decision was made to send the majority of the donations to Suplja stena in Avala, due to the high number of children there and the distance of this evacuation center from the city center. (Evacuation centers within Belgrade city limits were received more donations than more remote ones.) ISB students were directly involved in two visits there, and brought the following:

• Clothing (male, female, child) – 850 kilos
• Blankets, sheets, pillows – 400 kilos
• Food – 500 kilos
• Diapers – 20 packs
• Baby food – 30 kilos
• Water – 300 liters
• Toys – 20 boxes
• Hygiene products – 16 boxes

ISB has provided a pump for extracting water from houses along with a generator to citizens of Obrenovac, and trained some of them how to use the machines. We also donated 240 liters of disinfecting chemicals and fuel (120 euros). We intend to buy an industrial-strength dehumidifier as well.The remaining donations that are still in the school gym will be distributed during the following weeks directly to households in flooded areas, especially rural ones. Students are eager to help, and will be involved in making packages for
households and distributing them.

We have set up two funds: one for the money that we are receiving specific for the ISB employees who have personally been impacted by the flooding in Obrenovac, the second for any monetary donations we receive towards our intended longer-range relief efforts. We have identified a school in Obrenovac for special needs students as the primary recipient
of funds from the second account. The school is called Dnevni boravak and we have established contact with the school Director. ISB has had previous connections with this school. We envision not only buying items needed, but also involving our students and community directly in things like painting and building projects, all to be determined according to the
specific needs that are identified.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My wife Nadia and I completed our final Girls On The Move (GOTM) and Boys On The Move (BOTM) program this morning. The idea was brought to us by a friend from Seattle whose daughter participated in a Girls On The Run program.  We wanted something adapted for our international school so she came up with a different version and called it Girls On The Move.  GOTM is a club for young girls that discusses issues such as body image, relationships with boys/parents, happiness, self confidence, intercultural understanding, etc. After each session they train for a five kilometer run. Most of the girls have never done any distance running before, and this opens a new lifelong activity for them. It also is an example of some of the things Nadia is trying to teach them in the club. This year another teacher, Jeff Zollner, joined and did a similar program for the grade 4 and 5 boys.

As you can see above, we had a lot of fun! It is a positive experience for both the parents and teachers, who serve as “running buddies” and the students. She hopes to do the program again in Japan.

 

 

 

What is a pump track? I asked the same question when approached by a student for his personal project. In the Middle Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate, students in their fifth year (Grade 10) are required to complete a Personal Project. Students complete a year-long project about something they are passionate about, which can range from making a guitar, writing a play, learning how to code and making a app, planning and executing an overnight hiking trip, etc. It is the culmination of their time in the MYP and is an independent project outside of their school work. They select a supervisor at school to help them and many use their parents or other community members, especially experts in the field they are interested in to help them.

Rafael is young man who spends much of his weekend riding mountain bicycles. He competes in extreme downhill events and belongs to a BMX (bicycle motocross) club. His goal was to build a “pump track” at our school and introduce the sport to other students. A pump track is a dirt circuit with bumps, berms, and jumps that allows students to learn how to ride on rugged terrain. At first I was skeptical like any administrator, worried about student safety and school liability, but as I learned more and saw how committed Rafael was to doing this, I decided to support him and make it happen. We had to go through a lot of convincing, and he made a presentation to the school administration team. After clearing with the school insurance, he got permission to go ahead and design and build a pump track on our campus.

He spent a week constructing it with friends, with the school supplying dirt and tools. This weekend he held two sessions, one for middle school students and another for lower school students. It was one of the most rewarding projects I have seen in my educational career. The boys absolutely loved it and it was good to see how physical challenges really engaged them. Rafael was very patient with the younger students and I noticed how they really looked up to him. I even got into the spirit of the day and rode the course myself. I am an avid cyclist, but only on road cycles, but I experienced the appeal of off-road cycling. It is a great workout and fun! The pump track was another way to “hook” kids into school and I have developed a closer relationship with them.

Rafael’s project was a great example of what is best about the personal project. He learned much about how to get a project from the idea, through a bunch of obstacles to completion. It took a lot of planning and working through school channels to get it done. Rafael learned how to work the system. It also brought the community together and allowed a student to demonstrate leadership ability that would not normally be seen in a school setting. It also made me realize the importance of facilitating students to “discover their passion” and how educational leaders sometimes need to take calculated risks. I am glad we went through with it and the experience of being a personal project supervisor, ended up being one of the most rewarding of my career.