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United for
CHANGE WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY LIZ REGALIA
The mission of the United Nations is to maintain international peace and security. Here’s how Ashley Hall educators use the work they do to cultivate globally minded citizens. In 2015, government representatives met at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to adopt a global set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). From ending poverty to protecting our oceans, their list of seventeen goals serves as a blueprint for a better world. It’s also the framework for Ashley Hall’s global awareness program which aims to support each student’s growing awareness of their role as a citizen of the world. Each year, Ashley Hall makes a school-wide commitment to embrace a single SDG. This year, the Class of 2023 voted to focus the School’s global education theme on Goal 5: Achieve gender equality. Through classroom instruction, hands-on activities, and visiting speakers, students deepened their understanding of the intent of this goal, which is to empower all girls and women, while reinforcing the crucial role boys and men play in achieving these goals. “One of the special strengths of Ashley Hall is that we can introduce programming that creates connections across all the grade levels,” says Global Education Coordinator Jonathan Perkins, who works with faculty to support curricular and extracurricular SDG-centered programming. “One area in which the global education program has grown this year is in its breadth of programming we were able to offer.” In the Lower School, students took part in Women Who Persisted, a weekly assembly series in which teachers introduced women who have made a significant impact on society despite tremendous challenges. Sixth grade students did their own research on women who have made a difference throughout history and created posters highlighting their achievements, which are now hanging in Davies Auditorium. “To bring everything together, our end-of-year school-wide Girls with the Will celebration included a trivia contest about all these women,” Perkins says. “You could tell that the girls really internalized what they had learned.” 50
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One of the special strengths of Ashley Hall is that we can introduce programming that creates connections across all the grade levels. — JONATHAN PERKINS, GLOBAL EDUCATION COORDINATOR