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For those of us most familiar with the North American school system and its brick walls and classrooms, taking a virtual tour of Green School Bali will drastically alter your vision of what a school could look like. Their website is mesmerizing because it is so different from what we have come to expect as Canadian educators. The story is an interesting one and stems from the entrepreneurial and creative spirit that both of the founders possessed as jewellery designers. From the initial root of their jewellery design business and before opening Green School Bali, John and Cynthia Hardy always had tremendous respect for the environment, the community and the culture of Bali.
This school embodies the entrepreneurial spirit and the principles of environmental sustainability in every aspect of their educational mission. They are woven together very naturally within the buildings and throughout the land that the school is a part of as well as within the curriculum. The school itself is wall-less and they strive to be systems thinkers. Their waste is part of a closed system with everything cycling back. They use solar power, have a composting and aquaponics program and their bio-bus runs on used cooking oil. They operate on 8 values that guide their school mission – integrity, responsibility, sustainability, empathy, peace, equity, community and trust. This is not a school that has added sustainability to their list of goals or as part of their mission. They live it as do their students each and everyday.
The Curricular Outcomes
Having taken some time to explore the high school curriculum overview, one can see that entrepreneurial education is woven into the curriculum and taught not as a separate course or theme to be studied on the side. Though one of the instructional frames is about proficiency and is content based, the other two frames explore thematic lessons and experiential learning and culminate in a project that is undertaken called the Green Stone project. I took some time to watch the videos associated with these projects and was struck once again, by how narrow my vision of entrepreneurship understanding can still be. Prior to watching the videos, I was still imagining that I was going to see kids having created “something” but that wasn’t necessarily the case. They deepened their learning on a specific topic and took that knowledge and looked for ways that they could better understand or even change some pre-existing systems. Some of these students are already demonstrating intrapreneurial, entrepreneurial and social entrepreneurial skills related to something they are passionate about. The link below will take you to one of my favorite Green Stone presentations which ties together creativity, innovation and sustainability from a student at the school.
High-School-Curriculum-Overview.pdf
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Observations:
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Reflections and rethinking
A wall-less school might not be the most thoughtful and comfortable design for Winnipeg. Virtually visiting Green School and thinking about how great it would be to teach there is perhaps not very realistic or productive. I think that the changes that need to be made to the current model that I work in are so drastic that we need to reflect and consider where we want to go, to create our own vision. Having said that, it is also not productive to talk about drastic change while simply waiting for someone else to instigate said changes. What is better is to take inspiration from the possibilities that these unique models provide and work towards our own model of Green School Insert City here. According to John Hardy this is possible in our local communities provided you always “believe in three simple rules underlying every decision: be local; let your environment be your guide; and envisage how your grandchildren will be affected by your actions.” (https://www.ted.com/talks/john_hardy_my_green_school_dream) This Friday our school will be conducting a waste audit in partnership with Green Action Centre that I organized after doing some research in the last course. I recognize that this may seem insignificant but it is a tiny step in a direction I think our school needs to take to begin to look at what kind of environmental impact our school is having on the land and the people. It may not yet be in the realm of innovative entrepreneurial education, but to take one or several creative sustainable ideas and try to do something with it is perhaps a good start for now. After all, if “entrepreneurship refers to an individual’s ability to turn ideas into action,” (World Economic Forum, 2009, p.9) then why not think outside the box and just get started.
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Green School Bali, Indonesia
