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IC Ain Aar Middle School New Leadership

Up the hill at IC Ain Aar is a new set of talented leadership for the middle school team. Middle School Director Lara Kmeid, Assistant Dean of Students Rony Asmar, and Assistant Director Katia Aranji are proud to be a group of leaders bringing a positive campus climate for their students up at Ain Aar. All three wonderful women have been a part of the IC family from their own early days. Lara Kmeid was an IC student herself, and then was a former IC science teacher. Not only now is she a director, she is also a proud mom at IC. Katia Aranji was an English teacher, and is also an IC alumnus and an IC mother! Rony Asmar is also a former IC student, and she returned back to teach at IC for 33 years. In fact she laughs and says that Katia was her student at one point. Given their own personal background and love for the school, these wonderful ladies are proud to be back at school in their roles as leadership, to have an opportunity to make a difference in the place they call home. In particular, middle school students are at a pivotal time when it comes to learning about themselves and the world around them, as it’s during these years that these children develop foundational personality skills. “Middle school is where they start shaping their personality. Where you should give them space to express themselves and to really guide them in a way where they can go and develop skills. If we don’t give them a safe environment to express themselves and actually tell them to have their voice, they will not be able to go and be the leaders of tomorrow”, Lara Kmeid says. The restorative program is a collective part of the whole school in IC Ras Beirut and Ain Aar as a restorative initiative to be implemented. This is why, having an approach that involves student participation in the process of discipline and accountability has been introduced by the new leadership team to Ain Aar. This is called the Restorative Program, and its effects have been dynamic in just the short period of time that the middle school has been implementing it. What exactly is the Restorative Program? Rony Asmar explains that it’s an interactive and restorative approach to discipline that gives students the space to reflect on their behavior while working together with teachers to implement accountability. Rony elaborates on this point. With an approach like this, it creates a chance for a child to reflect on his behavior. It also makes room to see what are the underlying reasons for misbehaving. “There’s always an underlying reason. Sometimes we have no clue of what’s causing the behavior. Once we know, we can help them out much more”. “We sit and we have a plan of action. The child has to be in with us. It’s his idea. Usually I ask the child, how do we repair the damage we caused. They come up with ideas. When it comes from the child, they abide by it because they are convinced”, Rony states. While being in the space to share what the problem is and reflecting, children are not just feeling like they are getting in trouble and facing a consequence. Instead, they will find an effective solution to the problem with the leadership team, and in the long run they will be able to apply these ways of thinking and better choices on their own terms. “I love working with kids. I love giving second chances. I love hearing kids out. I always like to hear the students’ side when they face problems. I believe in repair, not just consequences’’, Rony Asmar states. When the approach to discipline isn’t just about the actual punishment, it allows for students to actually reflect on the issue at hand and take accountability without having to be evasive or fearful. Furthermore, on an administrative end, taking into consideration what may be causing the issue at hand, which can be a myriad of things. “When I understand the student’s reason, I can plan the consequence and repair”, Katia says. An activity Rony shares is the treatment agreement, which is a fun way to present the rules and regulations They’re done in the beginning of the year. There is the Tree Activity, to find out the students’ expectations as well as the underlying causes. The activity was to write down 3 inappropriate behaviors that can take place at school. On the branches, write down the things that are currently done to deal with these behaviors. On the roots, students write down 3 reasons that drive these behaviors and what is the unmet need.

Creating a space within an administrative or leadership section where students feel respected and heard makes all the difference. This is why the restorative approach makes room for all sides of the story in a conflict to be heard. There’s also an establishment of trust and respect between one another. “They have their own space here. They’re always welcome here, they’re always heard. We listen to them a lot”, Lara Kmeid says.

Just in the past few months, the middle school leadership team tells me there has been quite a noticeable change from their students. “There’s honesty. They’re not hiding things”, Katia says. Essentially, students are feeling comfortable enough to own up to their mistakes. Rony feels that the root of this comes from having created a space of kindness and understanding for these students. “I believe that empathy, caring, and compassion are reciprocated”, she says.

The best way to cultivate a community is through honesty and compassion, and the restorative approach is just one of the ways for Ain Aar to keep building and creating a safe space for their students.“IC Ain Aar is really a family. We are all teachers from the community, we’ve been here a long time. There’s a lot of transparency”, Katia says. And this is what makes Ain Aar unique; it is its own community within the IC branch. This is why for Ain Aar leadership, maintaining IC spirit while also catering to the individual needs of the community dynamic here is important. Just this year, there have been 26 new teachers added to the Ain Aar team, and almost 45 new students. “The community is getting wider and more diverse”, Lara Kmeid states. For Lara, community development is one of the most important goals she has as director. “It’s actually to build this community and build this trust. To build a culture of Ain Aar. We really care about preserving it”, she adds.

As a whole IC, Ain Aar’s middle school leadership team has an impressive feat going for itself, and takes into account the needs of the school as they go along. “We build our advisory program on the needs that we have in our school”, Rony tells us. Lara Kmeid elaborates on this as well, as she proudly tells us about the activities, hands-on approaches, field trips, and career oriented elective program that school has implemented. The school has become more technology oriented, and in the process of accommodating those needs, the leadership team is playing their part to show up wherever is relevant. “We work closely with the ed tech coordinator to make sure teachers are trying to implement technology into their classrooms”, Katia states. From the classroom level and observations, this new leadership team is doing their best to make sure that students and staff alike have all the skills and resources they need to keep growing and moving forward. All in all, the Ain Aar middle school leadership team works hard in what they do for their students. “We care a lot about the well-being of our students. Their safety, well being, their happiness”, Rony says. The restorative method approach has brought more productivity and communicative and honest students, which is how progress is being measured at the moment. As the year goes on, we are so excited to see how Ain Aar’s community flourishes, and how the leadership team brings new ideas to the table to maintain this positive spirit and family dynamic.

Rosalind Wiseman:

Feature with Renowned Author Speaking at IC

This October, IC was honored to have renowned author and educator Rosalind Wiseman come and share her expertise in education here at Ras Beirut and Ain Aar. Wiseman is a part of an organization called Cultures of Dignity, an educational team that collaborates with parents, educators, and students to navigate through the process of young adulthood. Here at IC, Rosalind Wiseman gave workshops to leadership and staff at all campuses, with an emphasis on creating an environment rooted in dignity and making room for students to take academic risks. She offered a lot of skills and insight during her talks, and sparked a conversation on the importance of acknowledging the emotional needs of students, and implementing effective communication between children and educators for classroom growth and personal development. We had the chance to speak to Rosalind Wiseman following the completion of her workshops. She shares ideas about her role in education, and reflects on her impression and thoughts for the future of education at IC.

Wiseman initially came to IC since she was keynoting the NESA conference, The Near East and South Asia Council of Overseas Schools. The director of NESA had reached out to schools in the area, and IC responded and invited her here. As IC is always finding a way to keep up with the best standards of education, working with Wiseman would be a way to contribute towards these efforts. “It’s a part of my understanding of what the school is doing to redesign and rethink– what are the best practices for a school, for this current generation of schools”, Wiseman tells me.

From just her three days at IC, Wiseman was able to pick up on the significance of community here on campus and on a regional level. In doing so, she also emphasized the point that major schools with a reputation like IC play a role in society as leaders and role models but also evaluating where there is need to grow. In her own words, “my impression of the school is that like all institutions that are recognized for its position in the community; institutions like that are only as good as their ability to be rigorous in examining the institution.” Essentially, as great as IC is, what truly gives it respect in its role as a leading school is its ability to expand from the norm and look beyond to other ways of thinking and perspectives. “I really respect that the school is going through a process of examining what it needs to do to bring itself like any institution into best practices of teaching. And what makes young people learn”, Wiseman shares. In terms of IC’s community nature, Wiseman reiterates that the idea of togetherness is beneficial when it comes to growth. “You all are a family”, she says. “You’re so connected to each other. It means you’re going to support it by going through a process of recognizing how to be better.”

Education in today’s world has changed so much, and it continues to do so. And even so, there is often a lot of resistance towards change, even if it’s for the better. “‘This is the way we’ve always done it’ is not the reason to continue to do something”, Wiseman tells us. One of the biggest difficulties in the field around the world has been creating an environment for students with a space to let them truly belong and also excel at taking risks. At the same time, it can be difficult to accept and implement necessary skills in the ways of teaching, which is a concern that Wiseman was honest about. “The educational system has been reluctant overall to embrace the strategies we know, a sense of belonging in school, where young people will take academic risks”, she tells us. This is what her aim is with her work– to be able to give educators these skills that will create this sort of environment in school spaces. A big portion of the workshops for both leadership and teachers included a dialogue on how to interact with students and acknowledge feelings and emotions. In doing so, this creates a space where the individual feels dignified, which in turn influences how the overall learning environment is perceived. A safe space with communication between students and teachers is the key to progress and confidence for children to explore who they are, and be who they want to be. But it’s truly up to the institutions themselves to implement what they’ve learned. For Wiseman, the work that she’s doing with Cultures of Dignity is essential towards offering resources towards these learning approaches. “Joining a school that’s doing that is really important, and that’s what this school is doing”, she says in regards to IC’s choice to consider moving forward with the approaches she has shared. When asking Wiseman what she wishes IC will get out of her workshops, she says: “I hope that what people got out of it were concrete strategies to reframe the way they may think about the classroom, and about how they interact with young people that fits with their teaching, and is respectful of the culture of the school”. Another component she emphasized was retrospection on the institutional level. In other words, for teachers and administrators to evaluate their own methods and approaches towards education and seeing how to make it better while still staying true to the mission and values of the school. Wiseman tells us that having the thought of “I need to think about what I need to do to be more effective as a teacher” is a start towards growing as an educator and in turn also making the learning environment better. Ultimately as mentioned before, it’s up to the educators and leadership of the school to put these skills into practice for there to be measurable growth in the classroom and beyond. Wiseman tells us that the resources from Cultures of Dignity can be used to contribute to what the school has already been doing. “Keep with it”, she emphasizes. “Teaching is hard. It pushes your buttons”, she tells us with honesty. Wiseman’s skillset is in education, and what inspires her to be involved in initiatives like Cultures of Dignity is from her own personal experience as an educator. What inspires her is being able to give support and help to fellow teachers too. She tells us an anecdote during one of her workshop sessions, where she started explaining how she handled a particular disciplinary issue with a student. In the midst of the discussion, the subject shifted, but the teachers in the crowd wanted to know how she solved the issue. She tells us, “to have a group of teachers who are exhausted at the end of the day say ‘wait a minute wait, a minute tell me how you did that!’, that is really rewarding for me. Because that makes me feel like all of the hard times I’ve gone through with kids, where I’m like oh my God, why do I do

this?, I can use that and share it with teachers”. Wiseman enjoyed her time in Lebanon. “The school has shown me how wonderful this country is. I’m so grateful. I have been really welcomed. It’s also that people trusted me to tell me what their experiences were and I really appreciated that”, she tells us enthusiastically. While she had a great experience visiting, Wiseman acknowledged the difficulties produced by the current economic and political circumstances. While reflecting on this, she made the point that to have an institution like IC running is pivotal during these times. “We have a choice to be angry and resentful”, she tells us. “This education you’re getting in this school I’m hoping is going “This school with its to contribute to you being able to contribute to making position can really do this country better. But that you are part of a cohort something to contribute to leadership that holds itself accountable”, she adds. changing the way the next Given how IC’s mission is generation of Lebanese to strive for excellence and bring about the leaders of leaders operate.” tomorrow, the place the school has in terms of its quality of education and long term growth brings potential for positive change in the future of Lebanon. “One of the things that the school can do is to define leadership”, Wiseman advises. “This school with its position can really do something to contribute to changing the way the next generation of Lebanese leaders operate. This school is that school”. Overall, IC was so honored to have the opportunity to collaborate with Rosalind Wiseman and benefit from the perspectives of growth she brings to the table. Wiseman herself seems to be excited to see where things go as well. “I hope to be in conversation and continue to support the school and its objective”, she tells us. “My expertise is learning. I hope to continue to be in relationship with the school, in whatever way suits it”, she concludes.

Fall Memories