High School Update

NHS Induction Ceremony Welcomes 11 New Members

On Tuesday, February 4th, the AIS Lagos Tribe Chapter of the National Honor Society (NHS) welcomed 11 new members into the association. The students who were inducted were Samuel Saragoussi, Shradha Balaji, Tiaan De Klerk, Rhea Dinesh, Joseph Hobeika, Malika Iyer, Sia Karamchandani, Omar El Saiedy, Shilpa Harinarayanan, Muhammad Kamal, and Umair Mirza.

The Induction Ceremony, presented during a Morning Scholars period, included speeches by NHS President Lumo Ogunlowo and High School Principal David Schult. As part of the ceremony the High School Counselor, Mr. Doug Dworak, presented the NHS Honor Cords to the 12th Grade members, and Mr Heil and Mr. Wrzesinski participated in the lighting of the NHS candles.

The ceremony was followed by light refreshments and Mr. Schult was able to congratulate the parents of the inducted members.

NHS Advisor Mr. Mewbourn wanted to thank all those people who contributed their time and effort to making the Induction Ceremony a success. A special thank you goes to Mr. Scott Williams who volunteered to take photographs at the ceremony, and to Secondary School Assistant Bukie Edem for helping with the set-up and technical assistance.

CAS-L Wednesdays slowly moving students towards ACTION

Deep learning and the creative process of problem-solving takes time, especially when your aim is to really do it well and make a real, authentic impact on the community. That is the lesson both students and teachers are learning this year in service learning.

We have put the breaks on fast, immediately gratifying, jump-to-action service projects that usually end up being non-sustainable and discontinued. Instead, we are doing the best to replace them with sustainable, well-thought out and verified actionable solutions that will allow AIS students to continuously build upon the “last project” to level-up and continue collaboration with our partners, making not only the partnership a sustainable one but also the action projects themselves.

In grade 10, Dr. Obichi Obiajunwa, a trained medical doctor turned social entrepreneur, is our visiting expert in residence in social entrepreneurship and led an IDEATION session with our students. This is part of what actual professionals do when creating new start-ups and/or innovating new service, product or internal change. This work will be continued with all action groups and then students will be led into clustering by themes to arrive at a few viable, sustainable and actionable solutions to our partners’ real needs and challenges.

In grade 11, the students were led by our very own expert in residence, Karishma Chugani, in using The Design Thinking Framework within the 5 stages of service learning to create empathy maps and better understand who they are serving. Student groups are reaching out to their partners and beginning to finalize their action ideas.

THIS ALL TAKES DEEP, OUT-OF-THE-BOX THINKING &..... TIME.

Slowly but surely, students are moving towards zooming into the solutions they will propose and/or take action on. They will then jumpstart and begin to PLAN & PREPARE for ACTION.

Grade 11 Parent Forum Marred by Traffic Problems

If you were unable to make it to the parent forum help last Tuesday in the PTO Lounge, do not despair. Counselor Dworak’s reviewed the university search and application process, noting, “I am very much looking forward to working with everyone more closely over the next semesters as you embark upon this process of exploration and discovery.”

If you were unable to make it to the event, no wahala!. More evening programs are coming in the fall and parents are always welcome to attend any of the university fairs we hold on campus to give you a chance to ask specific questions to the universities themselves regarding their programs, admissions requirements, costs, and everything else you can think of!

For more information, please follow these links to the presentation given that evening.

Also, here are two articles that provide an excellent perspective on college admissions, written by Malcolm Gladwell:

• Getting In: The social logic of Ivy League admissions - MALCOLM GLADWELL
• The Order of Things: What college rankings really tell us - MALCOLM GLADWELL

And finally, we kindly request you take this survey to help the counseling office better understand your individual contexts and perspectives as we move closer to applications in the fall.

WAISAL Band Trip

We congratulate the members of our WAISAL band who travelled to Abuja this Wednesday. Best of luck and safe travels to Mia ADU-GYAMFI, Amish VARMA, John ZIADEH, Nathan BROWN, Kenneth JOHNSON, Karl Niat, Aleckson MOUSSOUNDA-GOMA, Mahek UTTAMCHANDANI, Shilpa HARINARAYANAN, Naman BHARWANI, Omar EL SAIEDY, Kabir Hathiramani, and John GIANNOPOULOS. We look forward to your return on Sunday, 9 February.

David Schult

High School Principal

hsprincipal@aislagos.org