Compromiso global

Glocal Week: Inspiring Solutionaries

By Melahnie Moodie, Stratford Hall School,
Vancouver

Glocal Week is now a tradition at
Stratford Hall and last week we had our 4^th annual Glocal event for all the
MYP students. Glocal is a word that we have adopted that represents looking at
issues from a global and local perspective. This year our theme was
“solutionaries" and to explore the notion of being a “solutionary,”
students participated in interactive workshops, learned from inspiring
guest presenters and are following up with action-based activities.

We are all very aware that our
students will face unprecedented problems when they graduate from school. The
planet has a finite number of resources that we are consuming much faster than
it can sustain. Entire species are facing extinction on a daily basis. More
than one billion people do not have access to clean water or food. Debt is
piling up and unemployment is on the rise. While understanding these issues is
important, solely focusing on their gravity can be overwhelming and leave
students feeling a sense of despair and hopelessness. Through Glocal Week,
students gained more awareness of the global and local issues, but more
importantly we focused on their ability to become problem-solvers in the fields
they are passionate about.

The term “solutionary” represents
someone who can view each problem in the world as an opportunity for action
that requires creativity, innovation and perseverance to solve it. As Zoe Weil,
founder of the Institute for Humane Education proclaims, our educational goal
should be to graduate a generation that “has been inspired to be everyday
“solutionaries” who can joyfully, resiliently, and enthusiastically meet the
challenges they’ll face in the 21st century.”

For the interactive workshops,
students were divided in multi-grade groups (grade 6-10) and participated in
four workshops that looked at solutions through the lens of the IB Areas of
Interaction: Community and Service, Health and Social Education, Human
Ingenuity and the Environment.

The Community and Service workshop
looked at how micro-credit loans are helping to address the issue of poverty.
Students took part in an experiential activity that helped them to
conceptualize the idea of getting a micro loan to help a small business get to
the next step and create more income. Students looked at how organizations such
as Kiva are empowering people around the world by providing safe, affordable
access to capital. This enables those in need to create better lives for
themselves and their families. Stratford Hall is planning to follow up by
creating a micro lending program with Kipevu, our partner school in Mombasa,
Kenya.

The Health and Social Education
workshop looked at a local solution to health problems. They explored drug addiction
and Insite, the only safe-injection site in North America located on the
Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Students brainstormed how substance abuse
affects the emotional, social, physical, spiritual, intellectual dimensions of
health. Students read through research on the effects of Insite on the
Downtown Eastside and shared this information through a jigsaw activity in
mixed grade groups. Students dialogued and debated about the benefits of
Insite and students were asked to share their thoughts on whether this facility
was part of a solution to addiction and to brainstorm other
alternatives. Students are involved in taking action for the Downtown
Eastside through clothing and food drives and through serving meals.

In the Environments workshop, students
learned about an innovative, short-term simple solution, which was using a
plastic bottle to allow light to come through a roof in the Philippines for
people who could not afford electricity. They also learned about a long-term
more complex solution, which were the living bridges in Northern India, whereby
local villagers coax tree roots to grow along riverbanks and subsequently
across rivers to create living bridges thus making the rivers traversable
during rainy season. Next students focused on a challenge at Stratford Hall:
not all students are recycling. Students calculated how much money could
be earned if the entire senior school recycled, roughly $1,100
annually. This amount inspired the students to discuss a student need and
figure out how their earnings from recycling could satisfy that need.

And finally On The Shoulders of
Giants, a game created by our teacher Chris McGuigan and his partner Celia
Brownrigg, focused on Human Ingenuity and cooperation. Multi-aged groups
of students entered a global simulation, running their own country as well as
they could: balancing energy, culture, education, information-technology and
defense. They had to solve problems like whether or not to accept
immigrants; to spend resources on education or military protection; to
collaborate with others or to dominate. Students soon realized that no
country is an island: their fates are intertwined. Our simulation saw
students working together on the same problems the world sees today,
encountering the same obstacles and triumphs in the quest for balance,
cooperation and sustainable progress.

We also brought in guest
speakers. Our first guest presenter was Suzanne Fielden from Rocky
Mountain Flatbread Company. Interestingly, Fielden discussed the
difference in food quality when it is shipped unripe and loses vitamins
overtime versus eating locally produced, vitamin rich food that tastes better.
Students also learned that roughly 70 percent of youth on the westside of
Vancouver in Kitsilano are malnourished: They are getting enough calories, but
not enough nutrients. Fielden shared the initiatives her company has
implemented in attempts to be more solution oriented. For example Rocky
Mountain Flatbread Co. uses local and organic ingredients, all their restaurants
are carbon neutral, they have zerowaste and do outreach gardening with schools.

Our second guest presenter, Toby Reid,
local business owner of Solegear Bioplastics, shared his moving story of how he
hopes to address the issue of plastics accumulating in the ocean forming
massive garbage patches. After a failed attempt of being a stockbroker, he
tapped into his passion about the environment and he decided to create a
company that made plastics out of plants rather than oil. His plastics can be
used for a broad range of purposes such as sunglasses, toys and packaging and
he is currently in negotiations to supply companies such as Lego. Since Reid’s
bioplastics are made from plant material, under the right conditions they will
biodegrade in a short time frame and therefore would not accumulate in the
ocean. Many of the students left inspired by his presentation:

“Just thinking that
someone could come up with such amazing and unthinkable ideas was astonishing.
I would have never thought that you could make plastic out of corn. It is truly
amazing what people think of to help our world and each other,” reflected grade
seven student, Isis Sutton-Jones.

Reid left us feeling that we all have the
capacity to shine and we can tap into our courage to use our creativity in ways
that contribute to society.

The week ended off with all the MYP
students taking a field trip to the Rio Theatre to watch the debut screening
of Surviving Progress. The documentary is based on Ronald Wright’s
book that aims to convey the message that reform is needed in order for us to
survive as a human species. He suggests a reform that transitions from
recklessness and excess to moderation and the precautionary principle, in
other words from short-term to long-term thinking.

Seeing students in from grades 6-10
working so well together was a big reward for teachers. As part of the action based follow up
to Glocal Week, students contributed towards the Kipevu project and raised
money for building a wall so that students in Mombasa, Kenya can go to school
in a safe and secure environment. Additionally students will
be taking a critical look about how they can be “solutionaries” in the every
day actions. What can they do to make a conscious effort to reduce their
impacts on the planet and contribute to making it a more sustainable and just
place in their unique ways?

And a final
inspiration that we intend to revisit throughout the year comes from a quote by
Marianne Williamson:

"Our deepest
fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful
beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us… Your
playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about
shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant
to shine... And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other
people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our
presence automatically liberates others.”

We will have students explore what their
unique passions are and encourage them to make those passions shine in ways
that contribute to positive change. Being a “solutionary” does not have to
constitute a radical change in the way we live our lives. It starts with small
conscious choices that when collectively taken make a big difference.

While there are many revolutionary
movements that are taking place around the globe, we at Stratford Hall are
embarking on a “solutionary” movement that seeks to view the problems in the
world as an opportunity to take positive action, apply innovative thinking and
work in a collaborative manner to address these problems.