UWCSEA Dunia Term 2 2015/2016

March 2016 Term 2 edition

Turning the tide Annual Report highlights Environmental stewardship

Turning the tide

How US university admissions can make a better world

By Chris Edwards Head of College Something remarkable has happened.

The Harvard Graduate School of Education has issued one of the most significant and potentially powerful reports I have read on the matter of university admissions. Entitled Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good through College Admissions, the report sets out recommendations for university admissions processes that are intended to adjust the focus of young people (and their parents) away from exclusively individual success and towards contribution to the common good.

The report comes from exploratory meetings hosted by the Making Caring Common project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and is signed and endorsed by 80 key stakeholders in admissions from US universities (including the Ivy League universities). Specifically, the focus is on “how to improve the role of the college admissions process in promoting and assessing ethical and intellectual engagement.” The following quotation from the Executive Summary encapsulates the position very clearly: “Too often, today’s culture sends young people messages that emphasize personal success rather than concern for others and the common good.

Photo by Denise Wan

And too often the college admissions process—a process that involves admissions offices, guidance counselors, parents and many other stakeholders— contributes to this problem. As a rite of passage for many students and a major focus for many parents, the college admissions process is powerfully positioned to send different messages that help young people become more generous and humane in ways that benefit not only society but students themselves. Yet high school students often perceive colleges as simply valuing their achievements, not their responsibility for others and their communities … The messages that colleges do send about concern for others are commonly drowned out by the power and frequency of messages from parents and the larger culture emphasizing individual achievement.”

Now my opening sentence used the word remarkable because this report does nothing less than redefine student achievement. It endorses an approach to education that has meaningful service and concern for the common good at its heart.

Since arriving at UWCSEA in July 2014, my mantra has been that of the Buddha: one candle can light a thousand others without losing its lustre. I believe that narrow lives can quickly become shallow lives and it is all too easy for us to avoid engaging with the wider world. For many, engaging, if they do it at all, is a spare time activity. We live in what those who do not work in schools frequently call “the real world,” and from time to time we at UWCSEA are quietly and often apologetically pulled up for not doing enough to let young people know that if they want to “succeed” later in life, it’s a dog eat dog, kill or be killed paradigm. The conversation will often finish with “that’s what happens in business.”

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Many articles in this edition have expanded content on eDunia (www.uwcsea.edu.sg/edunia)— look for the symbol as you read the magazine and visit eDunia for more photos, video and expanded content.

To an extent, league tables for schools’ academic performance (whose correlation with how academically selective you are renders them all but meaningless) start this process of commodification. To get into a Ferrari school, some parents will start the academic coaching process early, and to get into a Rolls Royce university that coaching will continue for many years.

Many people want their child to have an edge. Heavily coached young people who are crammed with facts are a godsend to assessment and admission systems because it doesn’t take a Stephen Hawking to work out that memorisation is very easy to measure. It is an important skill, of course, and in my view its significance is sometimes downplayed too much.

Nonetheless, the place of memorisation in the hierarchy has rightly changed, and now the higher order skills of acquiring, analysing and synthesising information reign supreme along with the wider skills such as working well in teams, using initiative, problem solving and creativity. And so the disconnect between what the 21st century demands and what it is testing grows ever wider because assessing these new skills is trickier than asking an eighteen year old to name the capital of Honduras.

So now let’s ask ourselves an important question. What is the good of higher and wider skills if all they mean is we have a few more collaborative friends in our narrow home? Should not these skill sets enable us to dive deep into the waters around us, be they clear or murky, and share, generously and humanely? And should not that sharing, which will be a two-way process as we learn from those we engage with, be recognised not as tangential but central to the university admissions process? Should an unengaged young

candidate crammed with thousands of hours of extra tuition trump an equally (possibly more) intelligent candidate with super grades of course, but also a broad portfolio of meaningful service, a deep understanding of and concern for social justice and the potential to be creative and effect change? We think not. Indeed, we have long thought not. And now it would appear the most significant voices are saying the same thing.

As pressures grow on students, schools and parents, we dare to hope that Harvard, Yale, Princeton and other US universities may be about to help release the pressure on students to focus on a narrow understanding of education that is confined to academic achievement, and instead see success and achievement as deeply connected to acts of service to others and the world around us.

Following such an endorsement, the temptation to smugly trumpet “told you so” must be resisted. True, UWCSEA has been focused on high IB Diploma scores and developing ethical students with a bias for action for more than 40 years: indeed, our current Impact Study (coincidentally, led by researchers from Harvard Graduate School of Education) is focused mainly on whether or not we develop students capable of ethical decision-making, with a concern for social justice and an appreciation of the diversity of human life. But until we learn more about our impact, we must exercise caution.

What we can say is that the finest minds in America’s top universities are telling us we have long been journeying on the right road. There is much comfort, hope and inspiration in that. We do not change direction: we quicken our step.

Other stories featured only on eDunia:

Primary School Stepping into their shoes Infant School leadership spent a day in the classroom – as a student The power of words Personal and Social Education unit develops thoughtfulness and kindness

Middle School Dragons basketball Strong start to the season for both the boys and girls teams Fresh fruit Fridays Supporting migrant workers develops teamwork

High School Fresco supper club One boarder is keeping it local and raising funds for refugees in her home country of Malaysia SEASAC success in Season 2 Team reports on SEASAC basketball, tennis, rugby and touch

Community UWCSEA sweeps ACSIS Swimming Championships Careers Fair Family Festival Cover: East Campus Grade 9 and 10 Drama production, Cyrano de Bergerac.

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To hand write or to type?

How can schools balance the rise of digital technology with evidence that handwriting could be better for learning?

By Frazer Cairns, Head of Campus, Angela Erickson, Head of Middle School English and Seán McHugh, Digital Literacy Coach Dover Campus Handwriting is in decline. Many of us will have written a shopping list or a note on a post-it in the past few days but few of us will have drafted a long text—a ‘proper’ letter, for example—using a pen.

It is not, of course, true that everybody has the same access to alternatives such as email—even though the number of users had increased tenfold from 1999 to 2013, nearly 75% of all internet users in the world live in just 20 countries.

The remaining 25% are distributed among the other 178 countries, each representing less than 1% of total.1 That said, a survey in the UK of 2,000 people in 2015 reported that one in three respondents had not written anything by hand in the previous six months. On average they had not put pen to paper in the previous 41 days.2 But if handwritten copy is fast disappearing in the workplace and at home, what effect does this have— should this have—in schools? In the United States ‘cursive’ writing (in which the pen is not raised between each letter) has been dropped from the Common Core Curriculum Standards.

Forty three states no longer require the teaching of cursive handwriting in public schools. Finland, a country whose education system rocketed to prominence by occupying the top spot when PISA tests were first introduced, has also announced that from 2016 students will be taught only print

handwriting and will spend more time learning keyboard skills.

However, there is concern in some quarters that giving up handwriting may affect how future generations learn to read or, indeed, might hinder their overall learning. Marieke Longchamp and Jean-Luc Velay, two researchers at the cognitive neuroscience laboratory at Aix-Marseille University, have studied children learning to write.

They found that children who learned to write letters by hand were better at recognising them than those that learned to type them on a computer.3 The evidence suggests that handwriting provides on-line signals from a variety of sources including vision, motor commands and kinaesthetic feedback.

In contrast, typing predominantly requires only visual discrimination.

Though there is less robust research in this area, there is also evidence that writing in cursive seems to have some benefits as the brain has to visually track rapidly changing positions of the pencil and control hand and finger movements. To learn such skills, the brain must improve its control over eye-movement saccades and the processing of visual feedback to provide corrective feedback. According to William Klemm, “Both tracking and movement control require much more engagement of neural resources in producing cursive or related handwriting methods.”4 Daniel Oppenheimer and Pam Mueller’s research indicates that older students who took handwritten notes retained the information learned for a longer

duration of time. After a week, those who took longhand notes performed better than the laptop users on both factual and conceptual questions.

For Mueller and Oppenheimer, the reason is clear: because working on paper by hand was a more laborious process, people tended to paraphrase information. This required them to carry out a preliminary mental process of summarising and comprehension.

By contrast those working on a keyboard tended to take verbatim notes. Transcription, it seems, requires little mental engagement. In a recent interview, Mueller explained: “There is such thing as a desirable difficulty, having a little bit of difficulty when you’re trying to learn something is actually beneficial and longhand notetaking might be just that for us.” Maria Alonso reached a similar conclusion: “Since handwriting is slower, the pace of the inner voice allows more time for rehearsal and facilitates in a greater scale the retention.”5 All that said there are, of course, a host of advantages to typing rather than handwriting in many circumstances. There is clearly the question of speed: an average person hand writes at 31 words per minute for memorised text and 22 words per minute while copying whereas an average professional typist types usually in speeds of 50 to 80 words per minute. More than this, though, online tools also allow one to read, review, and edit text almost anywhere; there is access to proofreading tools such as a thesaurus and a dictionary; one can cut, copy, paste, drag and

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm http://media.cfhdocmail.com/2012/06/handwriting-dying-slow-death.html 3 http://www.ac-nice.fr/iencannet/ien/file/apc/velay_longcamp.pdf 4 https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201502/improve-reading-hand-eye-coordination-learning-cursive 5 Alonso, M., A., P. Metacognition and sensorimotor components underlying the process of handwriting and keyboarding and their impact on Learning. An analysis from the perspective of embodied psychology, p.266. 2015.

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drop, undo, redo, format, develop and edit without starting again; students can use text to speech features to hear how their writing sounds, or to motivate reluctant readers, who may well be more inclined to listen than decode; one can collaborate online with peers who can respond. Indeed, according to Ito et al, this ‘peer-based learning’ is characterised by ‘a context of reciprocity,’ where participants don’t just contribute, but also comment on, and contribute to the content of others.6 When students come to examination time there are also some benefits to using digital technologies. A number of studies have suggested that teachers and professors grade students less positively if they have poor handwriting, even if the content is identical to someone with good handwriting.

Clearly this is an effect that is reduced with word processing. Interestingly, Nora Mogey and James Hartley report that in the end there is little difference stylistically between examination essays written by hand and those that are type written.7 They then go on to suggest that the disappearance of handwritten essays in examinations is ‘inevitable.’

It is easy to see how this issue could be a polarising one; however, a way forward rests on a simple question: How can we best support students to be successful learners? When looking to develop a strategy, it might be useful to keep in mind four guidelines: • We need not create a false dilemma between handwriting and typing as it is not an either-or situation. Schools should try to support children to develop the necessary skills for proficiency in both techniques without forcing them to prioritise one of the two methods.8 • In early childhood (and beyond) we most effectively learn to recognise and form letters through handwriting.

The additional context provided by the complex task of writing results in better memory.

• Students who have taken notes on a laptop often perform worse on tests of both factual and conceptual understanding than students who have taken notes longhand.

Assimilating new information through good note taking is not a question of transcription but of active processing.

This requires note takers to have the skill and motivation to summarise and recast information regardless

of whether they are using a pen or a keyboard.

• Typing can make accessible a host of advantages, not least of which is that it can be faster and more efficient than writing by hand and will be used for assessment purposes in essay examinations.

If we look at the history of writing and we look at the history of technology, there is both loss and positive change.

Socrates famously worried about what writing would do to civilisation.

With writing there was a loss of the required vast memory that those in an oral culture hold. However, we gained all of the benefits of living in a literate culture. On the horizon, we can foresee the loss and positive change that will someday occur when speech recognition and dictation tools are likely to supplant both handwriting and the keyboard. But for now, as a society, we are navigating the loss of writing by hand as the primary tool to record information and thoughts. We can see the positive changes and it is our collective job to mediate the perceived loss. For the foreseeable future, therefore, schools will need to actively manage the tension between the use of a pen and a keyboard.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/free_download/9780262513654_Living_and_Learning.pdf Mogey, N & Hartley, J. “To Write or to Type? The Effects of Handwriting and Word-Processing on the written Style of Examination Essays.”

Innovations in Education and Teaching International, v50 n1, pp.85-93. 2013.

8 https://sites.udel.edu/victorp/files/2010/11/Psychological-Science-2014-Mueller-0956797614524581-1u0h0yu.pdf 6 7

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Literary persuasions Writers’ Fortnight 2016 The annual Writers’ Fortnight organised by the East High School English Department brings published writers to campus to speak about their experiences as a writer and to encourage students in their own writing. This year, students met novelists Alison Jean Lester, Mukul Deva and Chris Huntington, and special guest speakers—migrant workers supported by Transient Workers’ Count Too. In addition, poet-in-residence Kosal Khiev came from Cambodia thanks to support from the UWCSEA Annual Fund’s Artist-in-Residency programme.

Through assemblies and student workshops, Khiev shared both his remarkable personal story of going from

‘prisoner to poet’ and his passion for his craft.

Grade 9 students were given the writing assignment to persuade the intended audience of something they feel strongly about, as authentically as possible, following their experiences during Writers’ Fortnight.

Following are two examples of the student writing that was produced by Grade 9 students on East Campus. The first is about Kosal Khiev and written in the style of a feature article. The second, an op-ed, seeks to remind people of the power of literature and persuade them to read more books.

“I realised, that I had the power of choice” Kosal Khiev: the man who found poetry

By Aparajitha Anantharaman Grade 9 East Campus Piercing brown eyes which have experienced too much grief, yet still gleam with exuberance. Deft hands which have been beaten one too many times, yet still bear the crafty gait of an artist. A man, who has been forced to confront his darkest fears, who has been exiled from his own home; a man, who has been broken to the point of oblivion. You would expect his face to be streaked with tears, yet Kosal charges on with the passion of an ardent fire.

When we first heard about Kosal Khiev, the man who had gone from “prison to poetry”, our reactions were mixed: while most of the class were slightly apprehensive about meeting someone who had been imprisoned for 14 years, there were others who couldn’t wait.

His story was a touching one, and we were all keen to hear about how poetry came to him, and brought him out of the abyss of insanity he had nearly fallen into.

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Before our first workshop session, the fifth floor was abuzz with the constant chatter of eager Grade 9 students: “Will he tell us about his experience in solitary confinement? Can we ask about that? How did he turn to poetry?”. The questions were infinite, and there was a tingle of excitement lingering in the air. Upon entering the room, and seeing him up close, he seemed different. We might have expected him to be cold, and quiet, but there was a glowing aura of warmth surrounding him, and it felt as if the tips of his fingers were almost spewing out energy.

Then he began to speak, nay, articulately recite his thoughts with conviction. The poetry took over him: the words weren’t words anymore, but rather, slicing twangs of significance.

Kosal was working his magic with us, transporting us back in time, back to the harsh days in his confinement cell.

The room was stock-still: mouths agape, faces hanging, and eyes bulging out of sockets, immersed in the aweinspiring tale he was retelling—spinning, weaving, nimbly intertwining the pieces of his life together through poetry. We

could feel what he had felt, understand what he had gone through as if it had happened to us. Such was the power of Kosal’s poetry. The pace, the rhythm, the pathos, was exhilarating; he had struck us, with his jagged bolt of enchantment.

But how does one create such an intense feeling through poetry? Life had thrown one of its greatest challenges at Kosal, and instead of passively accepting his fate, he had picked himself up.

Instead of giving in to the confinement cell, he battled on, searching for the light in the darkness, and in the process he found poetry.

“I had the power of choice,” he said, “The power to fight, or to die.”

He found solace in poetry: he was able to express his deepest feeling and emotions through words. This did not make them go away, but gave him strength to face them. The great thing about Kosal, is that when he performs his poetry, he performs for himself—so unaware of his surroundings, that he touches the depths of a poem. And in that blissful process, not only does he

rediscover himself, but he also takes the audience on a sensational journey through poetry.

“There is no umbrella, or ceiling to poetry.

There is nothing new under the sun. There are ideas everywhere, so all you’ve got to do, is take what’s out there and make it your own. When one commits oneself to poetry, there is magic.”

So what can we learn from Khiev? We can learn to reflect on our past—it is not about what happened, but the important thing is how we learn from it, and how we become better people.

Poetry teaches us empathy, and with that, we can turn sympathy and pity, into compassion and kindness. We can learn to stand up for ourselves: if life

hurls us down, it is always possible to get back up, every time, stronger than before. And we can learn to embrace our fears, like Kosal said, “Courage and bravery cannot exist without fear, they go hand in hand. Every time you take a risk, you overcome a fear.”

The power of literature

By Urja Gaurav Grade 9 East Campus Take a moment, stop taking selfies for Snapchat, or checking Facebook for your friends’ recent updates and try and remember the last book you read. What do you remember about it? Which character was your favourite? Did you enjoy it? Who was the author? Can you even remember what it was about?

In our world today, technology has taken over. It’s in everything, smartphones, televisions, cars, iPods, Kindles, laptops, microwaves, even some toilets are computerised.

Many young children, instead of going outside or reading a book, are glued to their television screens or phones. While we are blessed to have automated voices telling us the latest sports updates, children, especially teenagers have gotten lost in the interwebs and have forgotten what a good book can do for them. Fictional writing takes you into a different world. At least that’s what it does for me. I remember, when I was little, I had a bookshelf and it was completely stacked with all of my favourite books.

I loved them. The words captured every part of me and the illustrations sparked images in my mind that no TV show or YouTube video has ever done. I spent every spare moment on the couch, reading. Even today, after hearing an author, Alison Jean Lester talk about how she fell in love with writing and everything that literature

has done for her just reminded me about how powerful it is.

There’s nothing not to love about reading—its complexity, its smell, its feel, everything about it. It’s so close to magical. Everyone gets one life and in that life, you follow your own story.

Your life is a story but every time you pick up a fictional piece of writing, you get the chance to explore another story, explore another life. It’s just that a bright screen is a lot more inviting than a small beige page with words on it. The problem is, easy access to computers and the incredibly knowledgeable side of Google has caused a decline in reading habits …

different characters that this author has come up with. Follow along with the crazy plot and brace yourself for every twist and every turn. Savour the feeling of the smooth pages between your fingers. And remember that the book you’re holding has an entire world inside it.

To read more of the Grade 9 persuasive writing pieces, please visit eDunia.

“Literature is the reflection of human experience”, every literary piece is based on an experience that someone goes through and experiences are different through different people’s eyes. It is a tool that lets writers and readers go back in time and relive big and small moments that for some reason or another, changed a life or two.

It is a tool that lets people see the world from a different perspective. It is a tool that gets people to think, feel and live through the imagery of the words the author uses.

Literature is one of humanity’s most powerful tools. It has been around for centuries and is the foundation of our entire world. Writing, reading, these are skills that a lot of people want to be able to do, and are skills that a lot of people can do. So try it! Stop watching TV and pick up a book. Learn about the 7

Inspiration is entirely individual

By Brian ÓMaoileoin Primary School Principal Dover Campus In our Writing Workshop lessons, students are encouraged to do what real writers do and write about what interests them. Before we introduced this model, though we never told the students what they had to write, we did often tell them what they had to write about in terms of subject matter—we integrated our writing with our humanities studies, for example. The quality of the language in the children’s writing since has improved immeasurably.

Ask any writer and they will tell you that generating ideas for writing in the first place is very often the hardest part of the entire process, and our students are no different. When students are stuck for ideas, which happens often, they are reminded to think of a place or a person or a feeling that had recently struck them. Every unit begins with generating ideas and the students keep track of these in their writer’s notebook and choose them to elaborate upon during the weeks that follow.

Whereas in the past, sending students back to their desks to revise a piece of writing gave them a clear message that it was because their current efforts were not yet up to standard, now our message 8

is that real writers will only devote their energy and their skills to pieces of writing that they think are good enough to revise. It’s a very different lesson for the students to take on board and a far more positive one. Real writers will tinker with a piece that is worth tinkering with; the rest goes in the bin if they feel they can never take it anywhere.

Freedom

This poem by Avi is a lovely example of a piece of writing inspired by an idea which resonated with him. Avi may look at it again and decide to revise it and we may even encourage him to do so. The difference will be that if we do, Avi will take that as a compliment to his work rather than as a criticism. Well done Avi for experimenting with a form of writing that was new for you as a writer.

When I wrote a poem for a first time I thought all poems had to rhyme and have a happy thought behind it. After I studied poetry in class I realised that I could write a poem about anything, anywhere. The idea came to me when the poetry unit was coming to an end, and I started writing poems.

By Avi Asthana Grade 4 Dover Campus When I think of South Africa I think of all the greenery, space, blue skies, my friends, safaris and the museums.

I was inspired by Nelson Mandela, the Apartheid Museum and South Africa.

Apartheid and the freedom struggle are a part of every museum. The exhibitions in the Apartheid Museum were very informative and interesting. They kept answering questions that I asked or thought.

I wrote a poem, Freedom, during class after I had just come back from a holiday in South Africa. It was decided soon after that holiday that we will move there for a few years. When I wrote this poem I was mostly thinking of how people were treated and how much struggle there was for freedom. I wanted to tell everybody who read the poem how things changed and how much effort went into it.

Freedom, Protests, Arrests, Segregation, Apartheid, Jail, prison, political freedom, Prisoners, death, Freedom, freedom, freedom, Struggle, struggle, Hard.

Nelson Mandela and South Africa continue to inspire me. Freedom means different things to different countries and their people. Freedom to me is what brings people together.

“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” – Nelson Mandela, former UWC Honorary President Readers and Writers Workshop methodically and strategically teaches students to read and write in a critical way. Researched and developed by the Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University, the programme was adopted in the Primary School in 2011. Supported by the UWCSEA Foundation, the College has run a tailored professional development programme for staff with visiting specialists from Columbia University and expanded the model into the Middle School. More details can be found on eDunia.

Aryan speaking on the ‘True Value of Fun’ at TEDxUWCSEAEast on 27 February. Photo by Aaryan Natali

Through his magnifying glass “I love writing, as I can share my thoughts that can help others to look at things differently.”

Aryan Shanker, Grade 6 When UWCSEA East opened in 2008, Aryan Shanker was among the first intake of K1 students. He and his peers are now Middle School students in Grade 6. Over the course of his years in the Primary School, Aryan discovered a love of writing—along with a mission to always have fun. As mentioned in the previous article, Writers Workshop encourages students to write about their interests and passions. As Aryan learned about the UWCSEA profile, he began to notice everyday experiences at school that helped to develop and reinforce the qualities and skills, and started writing them down. Eventually the compiled stories and anecdotes— organised around the qualities and skills—became a book. In Through My Magnifying Glass, Aryan ‘zooms’ into moments from his primary school years that illustrated or deepened his understanding of particular qualities or skills in the UWCSEA profile.

Following are two excerpted stories from the book.

Commitment to care: Willing Hearts

This started a whole new journey of cooking at home.

Willing Hearts is a soup kitchen where volunteers help to make meals for people in need in Singapore. It is a lot of hard work and it is worthwhile to participate in different food preparation activities. This also helps the students to improve their kitchen skills and collaboration skills.

Critical thinker, creative and collaborative: Songwriting

My school has chosen this organisation for the Grade 5 local service project as 22 pairs of extra helping hands can make a big difference. When I went for my first visit, I saw a very big kitchen.

There were other people making food.

I looked around and saw a peeling and chopping station, egg cracking area, scooping and packaging area, and cleaning area.

I imagined myself in a big restaurant … and was reminded of the mouse chef in the Disney movie Ratatouille, and the crazy kitchen there as well. I felt like a little chef on a major mission. I love to eat but cooking is a lot of work. I was assigned to the chopping and peeling station and given a small chopping board and knives and peelers to use …

I cut zucchini and cucumbers and almost cut my finger. Phew! … The cleaning station was a lot of hard work too … This environment was a tough place to accept and to get used to.

After my first visit, I was eager to tell my Mum all about the experience … I told her everything, and she smiled at me. I thought she felt proud. But she had a mysterious smile … I knew she had some other plans for me.

On the weekend, she got me into the kitchen and told me to chop the vegetables for a minestrone soup. WHAT?!

All my learning of music has come from school. Through the years, it has been fun to learn to play different instruments like the Balinese gamelan, samba drums and tambourine, and to perform on stage. Over the years, Music class helped me to become more creative and explore new things.

In Grade 5, a big assignment was to do songwriting independently. I was surprised, and thought it would get tough. I was no musician, but it was amazing to learn the chords on piano and work hard to do the lyrics and the melody. It was a difficult journey for me but I made it in the end.

My Music teacher showed us how to make a short piece of music. It was a process that I had to follow. It made me go through different stages of songwriting like brainstorming the idea, choosing chords and writing lyrics that made sense.

I continued to experiment more and try out new things in my song … I felt powerful that I could really create something out of nothing.

Aryan’s book was published through a company sponsorship and the paperback is available for sale in the College Shop on both campuses with proceeds going to support I-India and the UWCSEA Annual Fund. A Kindle e-book version is also available online.

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Asian Arts and Culture Week Focus 2016: Cambodia

From 1–5 February, East Campus’ annual Asian Arts and Culture Week (AAC) celebrated Cambodia’s rich history of traditional art forms. Now in its third year, AAC aims to deepen understanding of a specific Asian culture by providing multiple perspectives on the arts of that country. Respect, empathy and a connection to the country are fostered through participation in activities such as workshops where students work directly with visiting artists from the focus country.

Layers of Cambodian culture were uncovered and explored through arts workshops, talks, demonstrations, games and performances. Workshops introduced students to a range of art forms including the kramas dance, lotus flower folding, pin peat music, coconut dance and, for the whole of Grades 1, 4 and 7 shadow puppetry art. Grade 9 and 11 arts classes were led by two visiting troupes: Epic Arts and Cambodian Living Arts (CLA).

Through performances by Epic Arts and CLA in assemblies across the schools, students had the opportunity to witness some beautiful physical and creative performances. The impact of the performances, which not only brought to life traditional arts such as shadow puppetry but also showcased a creative and thoughtful representation of Cambodia before and after the Khmer Rouge, was deeply felt. In addition, the libraries had educational displays and collections of books about Cambodia available, and the plaza was a hub of activity with lunchtime performances as well as stalls for raising awareness of the many Cambodian Global Concerns groups and their NGO partners.

The focus on Cambodia was particularly meaningful because of the deep connections our community has through our Global Concerns and NGO partners. It also provided an opportunity for the Cambodian students at East Campus to take pride in sharing stories from their childhood as well as their thoughts about the future of their country. They also shared culinary skills, talks, photos and hosted the visiting artists with kindness, patience and respect. Following, a Grade 12 Cambodian scholar who has been at UWCSEA East since Grade 8 writes about the experience of celebrating her culture through AAC.

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Sharing my culture

By Kimheang Chham Grade 12 East Campus This year’s Asian Arts and Culture Week focused on Cambodia. It was definitely a highlight of the year for all of the Cambodian students at East Campus, especially for two of us who got to see it before we graduate in May. I was fortunate to be involved in part of the organising process and was incredibly proud to be able to share my culture with the UWCSEA East community.

There were so many moments that just took my breath away.

We had the privilege of having the Cambodian Living Arts (CLA) NGO on campus to run some workshops with students and to give several beautiful performances of traditional arts. On Tuesday, they performed Cambodian shadow puppetry for my grade’s assembly. That brought me to tears as soon as the music started, which reminded me so much of the beauty of Cambodian culture and how much I miss it. I couldn’t describe the feeling during that time; it was a mix of pride that my culture was being

shown abroad to my classmates and of reminding me of the spirit of who I am and where I come from. I was amazed by the performance. It was also very special because many Cambodian traditional arts are in decline or are already lost after the Khmer Rouge; and it was my first time seeing a Cambodian shadow puppetry performance.

Nobody in my hometown knows how to perform this art anymore and in the whole of Cambodia, being able to see such a performance is a luxury.

On Thursday of AAC Week, I presented my personal story about rural Cambodia and where I come from. During the mid-term break in October, I brought a group of friends from East Campus, who come from all over the world, back home with me to Cambodia. It was an incredible trip, both for the fun we had with my family and also hearing my classmates say that they had never seen anything similar before and that they all learned a lot.

It was very nice to tell more people in school about the specific area where I come from, which is representative of life in rural Cambodia. I was so excited

to tell the story during AAC and was also nervous. It was amazing to be able to share about where I grew up, which left me with such great memories, but I was also nervous to do it wrong because the town means so much to me. It was great to have support from friends, staff and even Junior School students at the talk.

On the last day of the celebration week, we had some Cambodian performances from CLA, Epic Arts and Cambodian students in the community along with some other students. It was another incredible moment to share our different types of music and dance. One of the best moments was when I started singing a folk song and a member of CLA joined me (I was very honoured to sing with him). Then many others from the audience and CLA joined us with dancing to show their support. That moment reminded me so much of what it is like when we celebrate arts and music back home in Cambodia. This shared musical celebration was an amazing way to end a very special week.

To see more photos from Asian Arts and Culture Week as well as the slides Kimheang shared during her presentation on life in rural Cambodia, please visit eDunia.

Third photo at the top by Kit Ling

11

TO FIB OR NOT TO FIB

By Cathy Jones High School Vice Principal East Campus What happens if your family relocates just as you are about to start Grade 10? Or if you want to begin the IB Diploma Programme but you’ve never experienced inquiry-based learning that requires you to be self-motivated and independent? At UWCSEA we are lucky to be able to provide an answer to these questions: you enrol in the Foundation IB (FIB) course. Designed to provide both breadth and depth of learning, the one-year FIB provides both a perfect introduction to the UWC mission and learning programme and a solid preparation for the rigours of the IB Diploma Programme (IBDP).

The FIB group is typically highly diverse. Students come from a range of educational systems and cultural and national backgrounds and many of them come as boarders. All are new to the College. Most speak a number of languages, with English often a second or even third language for them. They are looking to share their experiences, extend their thinking and prepare themselves for the IBDP academic programme. Their positive approach 12

and new perspective make them an important part of the Grade 10 cohort.

Students tell us that some of the academic challenges of the FIB courses are connected to new ways of learning.

Critical thinking, independent research projects, working collaboratively, or creating new solutions and knowledge are sometimes new skills to acquire.

The ability to devise research questions of their own, to use a wide range of sources and analyse data are all essential skills for the IBDP. FIB courses are designed to build these skills.

One student said, “At my last school teachers told us what to think but in the FIB programme my biggest challenge has been to understand many new perspectives and think critically about my own.”

FIB students also have the opportunity to focus intensely on two defining aspects of the College: the UWC mission and the UWCSEA profile.

Students develop the skills and qualities of the UWCSEA profile, while focusing on all five elements of the learning programme. For many students it is the first time they have been involved in an outdoor education trip or service activities. This introduction to the UWC mission and the learning programme is also excellent preparation for both Project Week in Grade 11 and the Creativity Activity Service (CAS) component of the IBDP. Most importantly, the specific FIB service learning and outdoor education programme has a significant impact on students. On East Campus, this programme involves working with fishermen on Bintan, who are members of the Panglong community. This

community used to be a sea people but they have had to transition to the land, and now need to develop an income that’s land-based. Students work with them to develop ideas around how they might tap into the tourist industry on the island. Helping them to set up, advertise and market a tour and appeal to tourists visiting the area is a new venture for both the community and the students. It requires students to not only understand the challenges faced by the community, but also to adapt their academic learning to a ‘real world’ situation.

One FIB student described the learning that took place through the Bintan project: “Before this trip, we were discussing what we could do to solve it or we were creating goals that we thought were right. But when we actually visited this village, it appeared that some goals or solutions might not work, because we had been thinking theoretically … When we went there we saw real life and different situations require different solutions and goals.

So it helped to understand the problem from inside, to see it and how a solution would need to work.”

This ability to adapt their thinking, to apply academic learning to practical situations, to collaborate and to stretch themselves beyond what they believe they can achieve are critical for success in Grades 11 and 12. The FIB year is intense and challenging but students finish with a deeper understanding of themselves as learners and as members of the UWCSEA community.

EXAMINATIONS An adrenaline inducing opportunity for growth

By Danny O’Connor High School Principal Dover Campus Examinations are a necessary and important part of the High School years, as students strive to achieve internationally recognised qualifications that are widely accepted by higher education institutions and employers around the world as evidence of academic achievement. However, if there is one thing students dread most, it is the thought of having to sit examinations. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to teachers and parents and I’m sure the distant memories of entering an examination hall will still bring about physiological changes akin to running up a flight of stairs. The pressure of exams influences people in different ways and for some it can result in high levels of anxiety and an inability to think clearly. It takes time and practice to perform well under pressure and the exam process in the High School has been carefully planned to help students develop the essential skills and qualities that will prepare them for their all important final examinations in Grade 12.

The first set of examinations in the High School takes place near the end of Grade 9. For the majority of students, these internal examination are the first time that they will experience sitting in the Exam Hall, surrounded by up to 300 other students. The key focus for this first set of exams is to experience what it is like to work under exam

conditions and to learn how to revise properly. An extensive study skills programme is taught as part of the personal and social education element of our learning programme. Students are guided through all aspects of the examination process, which educates them on how to develop a revision plan, identify effective revision strategies, deal with exam related anxiety and to learn from the feedback given to all students following their examinations. Having the opportunity to practice using different revision strategies is essential, because many students have misconceptions about the most effective strategies to help them remember information.

Several memory strategies1 have been found to be effective and this first set of examinations in Grade 9 allows students to practise proven revision strategies and to discover what works best for them.

Mock examinations for Grade 10 students are the second set of examinations that students experience in the High School. On Dover Campus, they are scheduled in the two weeks immediately after the December break. The break allows students time to relax with their friends and family at the end of a busy term, whilst also providing them with time for revision.2 The mock exams mirror as much as possible the type of experience that students will encounter in their final external examinations and it provides them with an invaluable opportunity to use the revision strategies that they’ve developed in Grade 9. Research indicates

that mock exams are an effective way of improving a student’s subject knowledge and their ability to recall information.3 The timing of these examinations provides both students and teachers with ample time to address areas that need improvement before the final external examinations in May. The exam schedule for Foundation IB, Grade 11 and Grade 12 students is very similar to the format used for Grade 9 and 10 (I)GCSE candidates. It is worth noting that results from any internal or ‘mock’ examinations are not included on grade transcripts for university applications. This alleviates some of the pressure associated with this process and encourages students to view these exams as a learning experience.

The Personal and Social Education programme in Grade 11 and 12, building on the work done earlier in the High School, focuses on developing resilience.

By the time students sit their final IB Diploma examinations in May of their final year at UWCSEA, they are equipped with the revision strategies necessary to be successful and they possess the skills to deal with the pressure of high stakes examinations. However, the learning that takes place throughout this examination preparation process doesn’t just benefit students in these final examinations; it helps them develop knowledge and skills that will benefit them at university and in life beyond UWCSEA.

http://www.innerdrive.co.uk/Release_Your_Inner_Drive/maximise-memory/ On East Campus, these mock examinations are held immediately prior to the December break, in order that the students will have time to relax over the break. Both approaches have proved effective.

3 http://learninglab.psych.purdue.edu/downloads/2006_Roediger_Karpicke_PsychSci.pdf 1

2

13

Annual Report highlights The 2014/2015 Annual Report was published in February 2016, providing up to date statistics on the College learning programme and operations.

Charles Ormiston, Chair of the Board of Governors, remarks in his opening message that “the annual report reflects our commitment to transparency about our achievements and our shortcomings, so that we have no alternative but to improve … it is a clear demonstration of our desire to be a global leader in international education.” As such, the Annual Report plays an important role in the College’s reflection process and provides the community with clear and detailed information on the previous year’s activities, allowing anyone to raise concerns or provide ideas for improvement.

As Charles Ormiston is coming to the end of his tenure as Chair of the Board, he took the opportunity to reflect on both the 2014/2015 year and the changes at the school since he succeeded Kishore Mahbubani as Chair six years ago. In his opening message, Chris Edwards paid tribute to Charles’ achievements, remarking that he “led with a blend of compassion and precision such as I have seldom seen. Under Charles’ leadership things changed at the College: quickly, significantly and for the better.”

Included in the report are sections on student achievement in each element of the learning programme; information about our community, including the results of the survey; the business report incorporating HR, Admissions and the financial statements for the College; and a summary of the activity in College Advancement. The report includes a large number of statistics that describe the breadth and depth of the programme. A selection of those statistics is below.

Read the full report online at www.uwcsea.edu.sg/AnnualReport. If you would like a printed copy of the report, please contact Farhani Alias, Communications and Marketing Officer (farhani.alias@uwcsea.edu.sg).

Financials Teachers salary and Central admin – 1% benefits – 65% Marketing and Communications – 1% Boarding salary and benefits – 1% Boarding expense – 2% Educational resources – 4% Maintenance and operations – 5% Dover Campus Administration salary expenditure and benefits – 5%

Teachers salary and benefits – 65%

Central admin – 1% Marketing and Communications – 1% Boarding salary and benefits – 1% Boarding expense – 3% Educational resources – 4%

East Campus expenditure

Depreciation – 4% Administration salary and benefits – 5% Maintenance and operations – 7%

Depreciation – 6%

Educational support salary and benefits – 9%

Educational support salary and benefits – 10%

Total endowment

$5,825,007 Available-for-sale bonds $2,385,125

Cash in bank $3,439,882

Outdoor Education

Service

691,416 82,416

$1,292,339

Student hours spent 14 overseas

Staff/parent hours spent overseas

Total money raised for Service programmes across the College

College IB Diploma results

Activities

(May 2015) Students

Leadership

498

Music ensembles Enrichment Sports and fitness

Average IB Diploma score

36.2

30.1

UWCSEA

125 80 2,157 94 1,028

281 71 40 438

Activities

Dover Campus Average number of activities

8

7

6

7 6

5

5

5

5 4

4

Pass rate K2

G1

G2

G3

G4

G5

9

9

9

G6

G7

G8

G9

G10

G11

G12

East Campus

98.4%

79.3%

UWCSEA

10

Average number of activities

7

Worldwide

7 6

5

K1

5

40–45

5

5

42.0% 18.1% 23.4% 28.3%

30–34

<25

G1

3

G2

G3

G4

G5

G6

G7

7.8% 31.6% 0.2% 15.2% UWCSEA

G9

G10

G11

G12

Worldwide

Human resources

60

Student nationalities

UK – 49.7%

Others – 5.3% (14 nationalities) Netherlands – 1% India – 1.5% China – 1.5% Spain – 1.9% Ireland – 2.1%

Teaching jobs advertised

3,410 Applications received

Community

91

G8

26.5% 6.8%

35–39

25–29

K2

Sports teams

6

3

IB Diploma score comparison

Academic extension

The average number of activities that students in each grade took throughout the year. Students in all grades are taking full advantage of the offerings from the Activities programme.

8

7

K1

Visual and performing arts

Participation

9

Worldwide

Clubs

25

Nationalities among full-time teaching staff

New Zealand – 7.9% USA – 7.9%

Canada – 8.9%

Australia – 12.3%

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

5,389

Students on both campuses

344 Boarders

Overall NPS

53% From parents

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ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP AT UWCSEA: Inspired by the UWC mission toward a ‘sustainable future,’ and the College’s commitment to ‘environmental stewardship,’ the UWCSEA leadership saw the development of both the East Campus and the Dover Campus redevelopment as opportunities to embed principles of sustainability within the building designs to ensure the campuses would be as ‘green’ as possible. As one of the cornerstones of a UWCSEA education is raising consciousness of an individual’s impact on the environment and awareness of how to minimise harmful impacts, so too would the developments be consistent with these values. These ambitions were pursued throughout the building process and continue to be maintained today.

Simon Thomas, Director of Operations and Facilities, was Project Director for the building of East Campus and the redevelopment of Dover Campus, each of which have a footprint of approximately one million square feet. The resources required to run these facilities in tropical Southeast Asia are substantial, and Simon and his team have worked hard to reduce the environmental impact.

Both Dover and East Campus have been awarded the prestigious Green Mark Platinum certification by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) of Singapore, the highest level of award given to sustainable buildings 16

in Singapore. Green Mark Platinum buildings must be able to demonstrate at least 30% savings in electrical and water consumption when measured against normal building codes and standards.

This is a significant achievement particularly on Dover Campus where 25,000m2 has been added since 2009, but total energy costs have been reduced.

Buildings are responsible for 38% of energy usage in Singapore. Making a design change that allows us to reduce the need for air conditioning and thus the overall usage offers substantial environmental benefits and also utility savings. All of the savings that we are able to make are reinvested into the school, and thus benefit the entire community.

Dunia sat down with Simon to discuss environmental stewardship at UWCSEA.

Dunia: How are the facilities being used by students?

Dunia: Can you give us some insight into the UWCSEA facilities and buildings?

Simon: The UWCSEA buildings are unique in the region and last year we had over 9,000 visitors from external companies from all across the world come to visit our campuses to learn more about our energy and water efficient building systems. What we do is so much more than putting solar panels on the roof—it is a system of looking at the entire design of the building in relation to the environment, with the goal of firstly lowering resource need and secondly, resource use. We think very carefully about what contributes to the best possible building environment for learning. For instance, minimising east and west facing facades not only reduces the cooling load but also allows us to maximise daylight which has a proven link to occupant wellbeing.

Simon: What’s unusual about our buildings is that they function as a living laboratory for modelling environmental stewardship. Not only do we share with many outside organisations how we have made significant savings and maximised environmental benefits through technology and design, but we teach students about the innovations within the College curriculum. Recently, I gave talks to East Campus Grade 3 and 5 students about water usage, and about how their behaviours on campus can impact energy use. As part of the Grade 5 unit of study, Energy, students visited the chiller plant facility to see the technology in action.

Our electronic dashboard displays and meters make it easy for students to make the connections between lighting, electricity and water consumption and environmental impact, and how they can take direct action to reduce their collective and individual impacts and

MORE THAN GREEN BUILDINGS make positive changes. Students can also use the buildings to learn about other topics such as physics and engineering, and I’m looking forward to developing more units about this in Term 1 next year. Overall, this has been done in a very deliberate and forward looking manner, which is probably very UWC!

“I learned that I can use water in many ways and not just once; such as washing dishes and collecting the water in a tub and then I can reuse it for watering plants.”

Giles Flint, Grade 3 Dunia: The size of Dover Campus was substantially increased, but the environmental impact was decreased. How did your team manage this?

Simon: A really important part of the Master Plan was retrofitting our older buildings that were from the 1950s and also upgrading and relocating the ‘heart and lungs’ of Dover, the chiller plant. This was a complicated project but the move and a retrofit, a step clearly in keeping with the overall principle of reduce, reuse, recycle, has brought about an efficiency improvement of 40% (for the engineers out there, improving from 1.05

“If you take water from a cooler or tap, you should only take the amount you need, so you don’t waste any.”

Milana Hill, Grade 3 kW/RT to <0.60 kW/RT). I was really pleased that the government recognised the improvements that we made and awarded the entire campus, not just the new High School block, Green Mark Platinum status. In the future, Green Mark Platinum will be a benchmark for other buildings to meet, rather than a special award, and so we will need to work hard to continue our position of leadership in this field and have many more interesting projects in the pipeline.

Dunia: Thank you, Simon, for talking with us. UWCSEA continues to strive for more sustainable campuses—and for a sustainable future for all.

“When they built East Campus, they didn’t just strive for perfection, they strived for a sustainable school, promoting the green society, inspiring change.”

Maya Sagnak, Grade 5

GREEN DESIGN FEATURES ON EAST CAMPUS The East Campus has been recognised for both sustainable and universal design, receiving BCA’s Green Mark Platinum status as well as their Gold award for universal design and accessibility.

The buildings on East Campus were designed to consume around 40% less electricity than conventional buildings of similar size and function without any compromise in functionality.

Opened in 2011, the campus also has a solar-powered air conditioning and hot water system, the first of its kind in Singapore and one of the world’s most energyefficient air conditioning systems.

The buildings were also designed with measures to increase water efficiency and to reduce consumption through special fixtures and fittings. In addition, a rainwater capture system passes rainwater from a football field sized section of one roof through a special student garden which serves as a natural filter before recycling the water for nonpotable use.

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ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP AT UWCSEA:

By Nathan Hunt Director of Sustainability UWCSEA

often feel our ambition to be leaders in the field is way ahead of our current practices.

Central to the aims and values of a UWCSEA education is a commitment to environmental stewardship, not only to reduce our negative impacts but also to help restore and enhance our natural environments whether at a local or wider scale. In rapidly growing Southeast Asia and especially in affluent Singapore, this is a major challenge for us—one where we

However members of our community are showing that we can work towards these ideals through their efforts on our campuses. Those featured are just a small selection of the many involved, as virtually every student, parent, teacher and support staff has played a role in their daily work or in special events, with many making considerable, often unrecognised contributions.

Environmental stewardship can be a misleading term, implying somehow that we as human stewards stand above and separate from nature like caring parents of a precious child. In truth, all of us are intimately connected to all parts of the ecosystems around us from the air we breathe to the waste we create. Thus the work carried out by these stewards encapsulates what we mean by a commitment to care as this is as much a care for ourselves and for others as for the environment.

The Upcycler Andy Tan, Head Gardener, Dover Campus Despite the considerable upheaval created by the Master Plan building works in the last few years, the campus remains an oasis of greenery and floral colour largely thanks to the work of Andy Tan and his team.

Andy says the most enjoyable part of his job is supporting the student gardeners but his skills are not limited to the caring of plants; he is also a talented carpenter and has redefined the attribute ‘green-fingered’ by creating innovative uses for waste timber.

Andy’s upcycled pallet-planters are in great demand by the many gardening groups at Dover. Not only do they increase valuable growing space on the campus, but they serve as an excellent example of the creativity that is necessary to reduce waste—one of our major environmental stewardship goals at the College.

The Professional J.David Neidel, parent volunteer We are fortunate to have a professional expert in our community and even luckier that he generously gives of his expertise and time to the College. David is the Asia Programme Coordinator for Yale University’s Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative and a Senior Research Fellow at Yale NUS College; the majority of his work supports reforestation partnerships throughout Southeast Asia. A UWC-USA alum and East parent, David has provided invaluable assistance to both campuses through his involvement with the Rainforest Restoration Project. From preparing soil mix with students in our tree nurseries, to refining our research experiment with Yale-NUS, to giving guest lectures as part of our student training programme, David’s knowledge and guidance has been invaluable.

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A COMMUNITY AT WORK The Partner Shoeb Syed, UWCSEA Site Manager, Sodexo UWCSEA’s partnership with Sodexo is yielding many opportunities for developing campus environmental projects, much of this due to the enthusiastic engagement of our Site Manager Shoeb. Two of the College’s biggest stewardship success stories, Vegetarian Wednesdays and kitchen waste composting have been the result of Shoeb’s work with Student Councils and Environmental groups. More recent initiatives have included partnering with the Junior School on both campuses for Sodexo’s global Wasteless Week, offering discounts on drinks as part of the Bring-Your-Own (BYO) Mug initiative and working with our gardening groups to use campus-grown fresh herbs in the canteen.

Sodexo are consistently recognised in global sustainability indexes for their commitment to environmental stewardship. The sustainability of food systems is a huge global challenge, especially in land-poor Singapore, but Shoeb and his dedicated team are proving valuable partners in putting our shared vision into practice at UWCSEA.

The Supporters Andy and Mei Budden, supporters of UWCSEA Foundation Andy, a Trustee of the UWCSEA Foundation and his wife Mei, are long–standing supporters of environmental stewardship at the College. They initially established the Budden Environmental Initiative in 2012 to help finance student–led projects such as composting on Dover Campus and have recently expanded their support to fund the appointment of five teachers as Environmental Stewardship Coordinators over both campuses. Andy and Mei’s vision is that practical engagement with environmental issues should be part of every child’s education at UWCSEA. With this generous gift, their vision is now being implemented as the teacher coordinators have dedicated time to support the expansion of projects through the school.

The Activist Samay Bansal, student leader, Dover Campus For as long as anyone can remember, Samay’s has been the voice of the environmental movement at Dover Campus. After 14 years at Dover Campus, Samay will graduate in a few months, but he can be confident that his years of campaigning have made a lasting difference to attitudes and behaviours at school. Samay is an ideal activist: outspoken and committed, he nevertheless frames his campaigns around positive action and uses a healthy dose of humour to engage students and staff. And these are not the popular or more glamorous environmental campaigns such as saving endangered species; Samay has been tackling our own bad habits around eating and waste. Even as mock exams loomed this year, Samay was marshalling the VIP line he designed for the BYO Mug scheme. Samay’s ideas come a mile a minute, but the success of this and his other campaigns (which have included No Drive Day) has rested on the fact that his actions have spoken just as loudly as his words.

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The Expert Technician Ramar Subbaih, Assistant Head of Facilities Services, Dover Campus For many of us our main efforts towards energy conservation and reducing our carbon footprint might revolve around changing our behaviours like remembering to turning off lights or air-conditioning. However behind the scenes at Dover, Ramar and his team have been quietly and painstakingly upgrading and retrofitting the electrical systems across the campus to make energy consumption as efficient as possible. The constraints of having a mix of old and new buildings, a campus in use 24/7 and the expectations of students and staff to work in comfortable surroundings at all times of day and night have been very challenging. However, Ramar has somehow managed to overcome these challenges and it is his less publically celebrated efforts towards energy conservation that have had the greatest impact on the goal to limit the carbon footprint of the Dover Campus.

The Organiser Dena Lim, Head of Facilities Department, East Campus Dena’s hard-working Facilities team is responsible for a wide range of services that enhance the physical learning environment at East Campus. But it is Dena’s leadership and personal enthusiasm that has really helped drive progress by engaging staff, students and parents in her team’s work.

Dena leads the Campus Improvement Team (CIT), a weekly student activity that works on projects such a promoting waste reduction. She has also recently facilitated a local partnership with the Buddha Tzu Chi Foundation to make better use of the campuses’ recyclables by linking the process to their community development projects. Dena is also responsible for designing and driving the Adopt-a-Tree Programme at East Campus.

A greener, shadier and more botanically diverse campus will be the legacy of her caring and proactive environmental stewardship.

The Systems Thinker Om Manghani, student leader, East Campus Few students on East Campus are as involved in everything as Om Manghani. If there is a Middle School environmental initiative happening, you can bet that he is somehow connected to it. Om dives into every task with enthusiasm, loves a hands-on challenge and will doggedly see the job through to completion, ignoring any and all distractions including heat, humidity, biting insects and the voices of his teachers telling him that it’s time for lunch. Om is also very skilled at thinking in systems: he sees important connections even when they aren’t immediately obvious and is able to find creative ways to achieve his groups’ objectives. Last year Om’s team directed a bumper crop of papayas from the Middle School gardeners to the Fresh Fruit Fridays team, a Local Service that provides fresh fruits and vegetables to a Bangladeshi migrant worker dormitory. During the Haze Focus Week he designed a powerful audio-visual presentation using the Iceberg Model to show the often hidden connections to our own values and mental models. This combination of hard work and smart thinking are helping Om contribute to meaningful change at the campus, local and global levels.

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SOS (STUDENTS OF SINGAPORE) CAMPAIGN AGAINST HAZE in all their products from 2016. I also spoke in the grade-level Middle School assemblies to create awareness about products to purchase.

By Gauri Shukla Grade 8 Dover Campus Last year’s appalling haze crisis in Indonesia and its neighbours in Southeast Asia was the result of around two million hectares of land in flames in order to clear land for palm oil plantations and pulpwood production.

A stark example of the environmental impact of this regular land clearing is that one century ago, there were approximately 315,000 Sumatran orangutans but today there are less than 60,600. But not only has the rich biodiversity of Indonesia been adversely impacted, the fires also exposed 50,000 Indonesian citizens to air pollutants that caused respiratory illnesses. Let alone the damage to the economy caused by disruption to business and services in Indonesia and neighbouring countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. And while the worst of the effects of the haze have subsided, the underlying problem has not been solved.

An annual event since the 1980s, the haze has progressively worsened as the demand for products containing palm oil has increased.

I was inspired to look at the deeper causes of the haze, and my research made me realise that essentially, we as consumers are responsible for the haze, as our demand for products containing palm oil continues to grow. I think that it is necessary for us to act, and so I have launched the SOS campaign to educate people about the causes of the haze, and help them find ways to reduce their usage of products from unsustainable sources.

The blog I launched contains information on the causes of haze, links to information on sustainable palm oil and paper products, and alternatives. There is a ‘pledge page’ where to date 232 people have committed to using sustainable palm oil products. In invite you to join us by pledging to address the root cause of the haze by taking action to change your consumption.

I also looked around our campuses.

A popular snack in the canteen, TwoBite Brownies, contained palm oil from unsustainable sources. I lobbied the manufacturer with assistance from Sodexo, and we received an assurance from Give&Go that they will shift to using certified sustainably-produced palm oil

My research encourages use of sustainable paper, because the haze also occurs when farmers burn down trees for pulpwood production and paper manufacturing.

I have identified alternatives in Singapore that are from certified sources. I looked at the different papers used at school and found that all the A4 paper used is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). However, we are unsure about large formatted paper like A3 and coloured paper; at the time of writing I have contacted our suppliers regarding their certifications, and am awaiting their response!

The haze is our problem to solve too.

Although the haze is temporarily absent, we can’t wait for governments to take action, or for someone else to make the change. All of us need to pitch in to work towards sustainability, by addressing the crux of the matter. By changing the products we use, and switching to sustainable palm oil products certified by the Roundtable Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), and by using paper certified by the FSC, we can get one step closer to our ultimate goal: sustainability. The more I learn, the more passionate I become, the more ideas I have for my project.

I invite the UWCSEA community to come together to help end Southeast Asia’s most pressing humanitarian and environmental issue.

I would like to thank Mr Hunt, Mr Hirons, Mrs Araneta, teachers, friends and Sodexo, for supporting me with this campaign, and all who have signed the pledge. Join me on my campaign at my blogsite and take the pledge: http://hazecampaign.blogspot. sg/2015/10/sos-students-ofsingapore-campaign.html 21

FIND A LIVING THING

By Frankie Meehan Head of High School Service Dover Campus “If you want to learn how to deal with life,” says the American poet Thomas Lynch, “find a living thing and deal with that. Find a baby or an old person who needs their diapers changed or their teeth flossed or a meal cooked. That’ll teach you more about life than sitting under a tree contemplating the great beyond.”1 Wise words, I believe, and they are relevant to a challenge we face as a College: how to turn noble ideals into real, sustained action and learning.

Our Guiding Statements ask us to ‘be compassionate and morally responsible,’ ‘embrace challenge,’ ‘help other people’ and ‘take an interest in … people of all cultures and backgrounds.’

We all nod approvingly when we read these words, but how can we bring them to life?

Our K–12 Service programme is designed to ramp up gradually the level of challenge encountered by students.

Thus, for example, K2 children spend weeks preparing to host nursing home visitors for a Lunar New Year classroom party; Junior School students play and learn alongside children with intellectual and/or physical disabilities; Middle School students commit to half a year playing games with domestic helpers who have been victims of employer abuse; and High School students spend as long as a full school year doing learning activities with children from low income families, or conversing and playing with the elderly, or offering companionship to AIDS patients, or coaching disabled kids in swimming, tennis or horseriding.

important that service should become a habit—ideally, something that students will choose to do long after UWCSEA— but at the same time it should not become an unthinking chore or part of a ‘tick list.’ A recent report by the Harvard Graduate School of Education2 asks admissions officers to ignore ‘brag sheets’ of shallow, short-term service projects and instead look for evidence that applicants “immersed themselves in an experience and the emotional and ethical awareness and skills generated by that experience.” Harvard, like UWCSEA, wants depth of commitment and learning.

Recently, a High School service group that works with children in care was beginning to feel overwhelmed by a series of logistical problems. It would have been easy to give up or turn cynical. Instead, the group turned their challenge into an opportunity. They arranged a meeting with the director of the home and that then resulted in a changed approach to the weekly visits. The students now take a far more active, assertive role in planning and implementing sessions; the activities are more varied; and the whole experience is more meaningful for both the young residents and our students.

That is just one example of how our abstract idealism can be forged, through difficult immersion, into practical compassion and sustained learning. Let us never forget the ideals— they are touchstones to guide us—but they will be worth nothing if we don’t find a ‘living thing’ and get on with the messy business of helping.

Ideally, students take on increasing responsibility as they rise through the grades—creating materials, planning and leading activities, problem solving, reflecting on successes and failures. It is 1 2

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Hegarty, Shane. “The Dead Don’t Care and I Don’t Either.” The Irish Times. 5 April 2010.

Harvard Graduate School of Education. “Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good through College Admission.” 2016.

MEMOIRS OF THE PIONEER GENERATION “Our conversation was very interesting, and it stuck in my mind for quite some time. He was telling me about his profession: Seahorse breeding for pharmaceutical purposes.

I didn’t know much about any of that, so I simply listened as he told me passionately about how it worked. When he asked where I was from, I replied, “Germany.” He proceeded to tell me how Germany would benefit from the use of seahorses in medicine.

I agreed, because I wasn’t quite sure what to say. He continued by asking me about the state of the country, given the refugee crisis and all. He showed great understanding of the situation, and seemed very interested in hearing about my perspective. What made this conversation stick in my mind, however, was when after we left, I didn’t just see the world differently—now full of seahorses and secret businesses— I saw the quiet faces around me on the MRT and in the hawker centres differently too. They were all full of stories.” – Helena Kotschenreuther, Grade 11, East Campus Memoirs of the Pioneer Generation is a student-led High School local service initiative on East Campus, designed to capture Singapore’s oral history. The original goal was to find a way to recognise the contributions of the pioneer generation to building Singapore during the SG50 celebrations. At the same time, the service provides residents of retirement homes with mental stimulation and helps them learn about each other.

Students start by building relationships with the elderly residents through weekly visits. While engaging in friendly games and discussions, students jot down the thoughts and experiences of the residents. These notes eventually transform into stories that are published in many different forms (with the permission of the subject)—as posters on the walls of the elderly homes, online and via social media.

Ryan Wimalasena, a founding student in the service says, “Playing Jenga and checkers may be good for the older residents, but I know that it’s helped me, too. I don’t see my grandparents very much because I’m living abroad. I live in a world of students my age. This service changed that for me. I also feel more confident about interviews— both as a subject and as an interviewer.”

To read some of the oral histories captured by the Memoirs of the Pioneer Generation project, please visit eDunia.

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SERVICE LUNCH MENU: HOSPITALITY, RESPECT AND SUSTAINABILITY

By Claire Psillides Chair of Service and Head of Middle School Service East Campus The East Campus service groups hosted their annual Chinese New Year luncheon on Thursday, 18 February.

Students welcomed 150 guests from Sundac, St Johns Home for the Elderly, Willing Hearts, Tampines MINDS, COH and Happy Lodge Home for the Elderly.

These local service partners represent some of the community relationships that form the backbone of our Local Service programme, involving student groups from all grade levels in authentic service interaction.

Each division of the school from K–12 has a structured and spiralled connection with their local service partner to ensure student empowerment in project design, implementation and reflective readjustment and ensuring that client needs are identified and met through the interaction.

As such, the Chinese New Year lunch is much more than a festive meal—it brings together students from across grade levels to organise and host the event, with sustainability at the forefront of their planning, and to ensure guests feel welcome and enjoy themselves. While the event is a special part of our Local Service programme, it involves students from all three parts of the Service programme—College, Local and Global—as well as student performers from Chinese and Music classes, and many teachers, support staff and parent volunteers.

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For Primary School students, the Chinese New Year lunch gives them the opportunity to reconnect with some of the friends they have made through their local service, and they take responsibility for serving food and drinks to our guests on the day. Primary School grades have local service partners attached at each grade level, so that classes can rotate through all year and have consistent sessions for the partner organisation.

at their sustainably-run events in order to fully understand the systems involved. They were delighted to use their growing expertise at the luncheon.

Middle School students were charged with food distribution systems, set up, clean up and resource use for the event.

They liaised with local companies, the College Facilities team, the Parents’ Association, the Greenfingers College Service group and the Music and Chinese departments to ensure a smooth running system on the day. Student leaders from the Middle School Service Executive Committee applied principles of sustainability into the event planning to reduce the amount of waste generated.

They also welcomed and reconnected with guests who they have built relationships with through their local service. It is always a delight for guests to see a fondly remembered student ‘all grown up’ wearing their green shirt.

The Parents’ Association also contributed significant support including donations of red packets, mandarins and snacks. They helped with event preparations, arranged for a Chinese calligrapher and served the tea and coffee, which gave them an opportunity to interact with the guests and to see our students in action!

A highlight was meeting some of the people their children interact with, as well as the music and dancing.

High School students from Greenfingers helped make the event sustainable.

They have planned and sourced a stock of materials that allow them to reduce plastic and single use items at large events by washing and reusing all cutlery and dinnerware. They also minimise food waste by composting effectively. Greenfingers have been working closely with Buddha Tzu Chi Foundation in Singapore, volunteering

The High School Global Concerns (GC) group Smiles of China, who support medical care for children at Starfish Centre in southeast China, planned cultural activities and dances to entertain the guests. It was great to see the GC, College and Local Service programmes intersect.

For students, the experience of being involved in such a significant event is very rewarding. Their efforts made sure the lunch went smoothly and that the guests enjoyed themselves. But more importantly it allowed them to apply what they are learning through their service to create a warm, welcoming and respectful celebration for guests from the local community.

EXPECTATIONS STEREOTYPES MEDIA BOYS GIRLS MACHO GIRLY MASCULINE FEMININE BULLYING HARASSMENT ABUSE BODY BREAK THE SILENCE CHANGE EQUALITY SUPPORT UNITY SOLIDARITY EXPECTATIONS STEREOTYPES MEDIA BOYS GIRLS M AC H O G I R LY M A S C U L I N E FEM BULLYING HARASSMENT ABUSE B O D Y A CONVERSATION FOR CHANGE BREAK THE SILEN CE C HAN GE EQ SUPPORT UNITY SOLIDARITY EXPECTATIONS STEREOTYPES MEDIA BOYS GIRLS MACHO GIRLY MASCULINE FEMININE BULLYING HARASSMENT ABUSE BODY BREAK THE SILENCE CHANGE

G E N D E R JUSTICE

STUDENT-LED FORUM ADDRESSES GENDER-BASED ISSUES The Gender Justice Youth Forum in late January was a student-led project run jointly by UWCSEA East and We Can! Singapore. The partnership was forged through a couple of previous events starting with a Because I Am A Girl (BIAG) GC event where a speaker from We Can! spoke about the plight of victims of acid attacks in Pakistan. BIAG and We Can! then collaborated on a Forum Theatre event to look at the roles that youth can play as peer supporters when challenging gender-based violence, and some UWCSEA students also participated in a We Can! youth and gender issues arts event. The BIAG students were keen to engage with local Singaporean youth on gender issues and to help break through the social barriers they sometimes feel exist between local teens and teens in international schools.

UWCSEA also seeks to build connections with our host community on important issues like this. Thus the Gender Justice Youth Forum was conceived. Following, an East Campus student and member of the organising committee writes about her experience and perspective on the forum and the value of creating a safe space for youth to connect and discuss gender-based issues.

By Tanisha Pande Grade 10 East Campus “I’ve been told my sexuality is a phase.”

The words fill the silence for a moment before a hum of agreement ensues, warm and knowing. We understand, each of the teenagers present seems to say as they step forward, we’ve been through this too.

At 9.30am on a Saturday morning, 30 teenagers deemed ‘Changemakers’ huddled into a large conference room on East Campus for a unique and powerful gathering on our little Red Dot: a Gender Justice Youth Forum. This combined group of local and international students came together to address topics about sexuality, gender roles and more. A student-led initiative, the forum was conceived by UWCSEA students and led by a student organising team of four local youths in addition to four UWCSEA students.

The ‘Crossing the Line’ activity started off the programme on the first day, setting the tone for the entire two-day forum. As participants stepped one by one into the circle, sharing their experiences on gender and encounters with ignorance about sexuality, a sense of comfort and trust prevailed as we built a haven where youths could talk without fear or restraint and help expand each other’s perspectives.

This sense of community persisted throughout the forum, resulting in insightful discussions about gender stereotypes and thoughtful questions after a range of speakers including a victim of dating violence who started her own campaign and a student advocate from Yale-NUS. I was amazed by the sense of respect pervading the event, be it while participants shared their opinions after a spoken word display on intersectional feminism or debated about the concept of beauty in our society. Respect, while deemed important, is lacking in society, including our school communities. Events like this forum have the potential to combat

ignorance and increase self awareness and respect for others.

The cooperative environment fostered by the attendees allowed them to share freely their stories and passions. From Anusha, a genderfluid tomboy whose honest message of acceptance and labels struck a chord with many, to Darren’s persistent advocacy in his college despite his own family’s protests, the individual stories resonated with the student participants. However, as Aakruti­—a body positivity advocate in Singapore— spoke about her work, the importance of the forum dawned on me. Events like this not only inspire but give voice to those in our societies deemed undesirable.

Yet the true gift of the forum lay beneath the debate and the poetry, underneath the laughter and nods of understanding.

The true gift lay in the beauty of human connection, a feeling which seized me during one of the ‘Tell Me Why’ speeches which had the room near tears. It made me realise how much we (youths) need stories which empower us, guide us and move us in safe places that can come from events like the Gender Justice Forum. Gatherings that are for youths, by youths can foster solidarity, learning, self discovery and peace.

As we again formed a circle at the closing of the forum, the afternoon sun dappling our cheeks, I knew that we all realised the gift of the solidarity, respect and community that characterised the forum. There are some things one cannot vocalise, but they resonate within us and carry us toward change, ready to spring forward and transform the world around us as we know it.

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The Laramie Project

By Ayesha Domingo Grade 10 Dover Campus Partaking in the gripping play The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman was an eyeopening experience that continues to influence me. The documentary play, revolving around the murder of gay university student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998, is beautifully scripted and authentically portrays and conveys the feelings of the individuals involved.

I played the role of three different characters: a prosecutor, a car mechanic and Reggie Fluty, the policewoman who found bloodstained Matthew Shepard tied to a fence.

Portraying multiple characters is not an easy feat. As an actor, I wanted to successfully communicate the feelings of the three characters whose backgrounds and connections to Matthew differed so greatly. The moment I went onstage, I did not want to be seen as an actor, but as who I was portraying and speaking naturally, as if I was truly living their life. From swapping between the mindsets of each character to rushing to change my costume onstage, it was an especially fulfilling experience to play more than one character because of the challenge it brought up—both physically and mentally.

The experience had a great impact on my life in UWCSEA overall. As a new FIB student, my involvement in the play really helped with my integration into the College. My participation has not only led me to encounter numerous people who are just as passionate about the arts as I am, but has also helped me understand the school itself better. Apart from that, it solidified my newly found passion for theatre.

Becoming attached to characters, immersing myself in the roles and seeing life from their perspective has been a very eye-opening experience.

In the end, The Laramie Project was a thought-provoking play imbued with feeling and commitment from start to finish, with its zealous actors peaking at just the right bits—which is never a guarantee. The wonderful thing about theatre is that no two performances are the same. From my first production, I finally came to understand Alan Rickman’s words, “Actors are agents of change. A piece of theatre can make a difference.

It can change the world,” just as participating in The Laramie Project has changed mine.

Playing Cyrano Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac was performed 20-22 January by East Campus Grade 9 and 10 students. Matt Lulu, who portrayed Cyrano, reflects on the process of bringing the iconic character to life.

Matt Lulu Grade 10 East Campus From slapstick comedy, to enthralling action sequences, to eventual poignant tragedy, the raw entertainment of this play is undeniable. Playing Cyrano, I felt a genuine duty … in truly absorbing the audience in this story … the themes and emotions of this story are so relevant and familiar to so many people.

The rehearsal process did not prove to just consist of the after school rehearsals, as I found myself spending more time as Cyrano than as myself. From repeating lines in different tones to a mirror, to unconsciously stating lines in everyday conversation, I grew attached to this character. I think that for many actors, who hold a responsibility to bring a character to stage, this attachment is unavoidable. Perhaps it is because we are envious that they speak with such inventiveness, and after a taste of that, we yearn to have that for ourselves. Perhaps when we are captured in the moments of the characters, we become touched and scarred by their emotions. Through the role of Cyrano, I unexpectedly came to learn that true acting is not acting at all; it is being, which only developed my love for theatre even further.

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A great day out at the Dover Campus Community Fair The Community Fair, held on 30 January, involved hundreds of members of the community to make the day a success. Parents, staff and students volunteered their time in many different ways, whether it was helping with the set up or clean up, manning the stalls, donating food or clothing, and by coming along with their friends and family for a great day out.

This year the Community Fair raised just over $69,000 which will be split up between the Initiative for Peace and Global Concerns. The Community Fair is an initiative of the Parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Association Dover, and one of the highlights of the school calendar. Thank you to all the volunteers, Parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Association, staff and students for making the 2016 Community Fair one of the best yet.

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Dunia is published by UWC South East Asia. Reproduction in any manner in English or any other language is prohibited without written consent.

Please send feedback to dunia@uwcsea.edu.sg.

Editors: Sinéad Collins, Kate Woodford, Courtney Carlson and Molly Fassbender Design: Nandita Gupta Photography: Sabrina Lone and members of the UWCSEA community 064COM–1516

Printed on recycled paper with environmentally friendly inks.

UWCSEA Dover is registered by the CPE CPE Registration No. 197000825H | CPE Registration Period 18 July 2011–17 July 2017 Charity Registration No. 00142 UWCSEA East is registered by the CPE CPE Registration No. 200801795N | CPE Registration Period 10 March 2011–9 March 2017 Charity Registration No. 002104 MCI (P) 125/04/2015

Dover Campus High School Art Exhibition 17–26 February The theme this year for the 44th Annual Art Exhibition was ‘Transformation,’ representing not only the transition of the annual show from the Main Hall to the new Gallery space, but also reflecting the prescribed theme for the Grade 10 art and photography mock exam.

While paintings dominated the show, there were noticeably more sculptures, digital works and abstract approaches this year. Many Grade 11 students worked with the theme and wore their artwork on their heads as they served canapés to the hundreds of attendees at the opening night.