Embedded Files
Connections
Connections
In the week between Monday December 6th - Friday 10th December, Global Jaya School is hosting its inaugural Global Connections event. The event, a collaboration between alumni, the parent association, teachers, Britcham and local community members, is designed to support year 10, 11 and 12 GJS students as they plan towards their future career pathway. Global Connections is all about connections; connections between students and their future; connections between students and other community members and building connections between information.
Livingwell, an Australian mental health service, state that, “When it comes to wellbeing, other people matter. Evidence shows that connecting with others and forming good relationships - with family, friends and the wider community - are important for mental wellbeing.”
This has never been more true than in current times, where each of us is emerging from behind our computers in order to tentatively begin to reach out to others again. Since being back on campus, several students have told me about how difficult they have found it to build relationships with others. Building relationships is a skill and, as is the case with other skills, if you don’t use it, you lose it.
In light of these extraordinary challenges that our students are facing, we hold a social connections event once a month. On Monday 29th November, we created a treasure hunt for students who were campus based on that day. We also provided an online challenge for those students who were learning from home.
After participating in the online social connection challenge, Aulia 10A said, “I think that the idea of social connections is good ... it was a fun experience and the prompts made us think and communicate as a group.”
For the campus based social connection activity, students were placed in mixed year level groups and had to scan QR codes in order to find clues left for them around the school. Once they had found the clue, each group had to photograph themselves in a pose that reflected the learner profile attribute that was connected to that clue. Groups were asked to add their group photos to the padlet wall (see right) as evidence of having completed the corresponding clue.
Jazell, a year 7 student said that the treasure hunt, “ … was a fun activity where I can meet with my friend and get to know the other students from different year levels. The activity also made me ready for the class afterward because I walked a lot during the event.”
Rayhan, a student from 10A, participated in the campus activity and reflected, “I also think the idea of social connections is good. As I was on campus during the social connection event, I was able to do the activities that were planned out for us. The scavenger hunt was great and I am looking forward to partake in more social connection activities. I think it's a good idea to get people together to do activities like this, especially offline and face to face.
Whilst it is fair to say that there was some residual awkwardness amongst some groups, the event did support the development of relationships for some students that were outside of their usual year and friendship groups.
Our intention behind the social connection events is that we build and strengthen the sense of community at Global Jaya. This research paper describes the ways in which a sense of community can have a profound and positive impact on reducing bullying, levels of engagement in school, social skill development and academic achievement.
Brian Solis, a digital analyst and principal at Altimeter Group says that, “Community is much more than belonging to something; it is about doing something together that makes belonging matter.”
The GJS pastoral team is committed to enhancing our sense of community and is already planning for the next Social Connections event where we will have students do something fun together.
Contact vicki@globaljaya.com if you would like to get involved in organising events that connect our student community together.
Human Rights amidst COVID recovery
Human Rights amidst COVID recovery
2021: Equality - All Human All Equal
2021: Equality - All Human All Equal
Human Rights Day is observed by the international community every year on 10 December. This day is based on The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which sets out a broad range of fundamental rights and freedoms to which all of us are entitled. It guarantees the rights of every individual everywhere, without distinction based on nationality, place of residence, gender, national or ethnic origin, religion, language, or any other status (OHCHR, 2021). It resonates perfectly with this year’s theme of Equality: Rebuild better, fairer, greener.
Continuing last year’s theme of Recover Better, we are still amidst the recovery phase after the COVID-19 pandemic. People are still struggling, trying to get back on their feet after almost two years of lockdown. We are adapting to the new normal, with wearing a mask comes as natural as wearing clothes. Masks become part of our daily necessities, something that might be alien for many of us prior to 2020.
2020 is a year none of us will ever forget. A terrible, devastating year that has scarred so many of us, in so many ways. It brings a terrible impact on countries’ economies and on employment, income, education, health and food supply for hundreds of millions of people. But at the same time, it also shows the determination of mankind to survive, which is shown from the aid given from one country to another, the progress of vaccine development, the support given to the healthcare personnel in each country, and so on. While being on different boats, we are facing the same storm. However, vaccines alone cannot resolve the pandemic or heal the damage it has caused. Since the damage affects a broad range of areas, we sometimes feel unable to do anything.
With this year’s theme of Equality: Rebuild better, fairer, greener; we are once more being reminded, that we -- more often than not -- forget that there are people being discriminated against just because of their ethics, nationality, religion, gender preferences, skin colour and many other things. While being under the attack of COVID-19, we still have time to go against each other instead of creating global solidarity to cope with the situation. Because of the discrimination, those people were the most vulnerable during the pandemic. They might be over-exposed to contagion due to their nature of work, which is related to health industries, logistics, or other kinds of work that could not be done from the comfort of their home. They were also under-protected because of limited access to health-care and social protections, such as sick leave and a bigger chance of unemployment. Due to inadequate living conditions, they also had less ability to isolate themselves once infected. This meant that the virus could spread more easily within their communities, and back into wider society (Bachelet, 2021).
Even when the world is now recovering from the pandemic, it leaves the community and its members vulnerable and strained. Children struggle to catch up with their education, some people have become unemployed and are struggling to support their families. Stress levels are high, people are sensitive and angry and mental health problems have arisen at a significant rate. Everyone suffers but only fewer people care. This year’s Human Rights Day is one of the opportunities to reaffirm the importance of human rights in re-building the world we want, with global solidarity, interconnectedness and shared humanity.
When it comes to education and school, we saw many schools and educational institutions had to close down during the pandemic. It has enormous implications for students. In line with other schools in Indonesia, Global Jaya had to close the school gates in early 2020, before opening up the gate to ‘Home Based Learning’ (HBL).
HBL was a solution to an extraordinary set of circumstances, however not everybody thrived in this new learning environment. Many students found themselves encountering barriers such as distraction, procrastination, family conflict and a deterioration in mental health.
Rick Riordan, an American author, wrote that, “Fairness does mean that everyone gets the same. Fairness means everyone gets what they need.” Embracing this approach to equality we worked hard to put support systems in place for those students who were struggling with this new approach to education.
Adjustments were made for attendance, deadlines and also progression policy. To ensure that students’ socio-emotional needs were met, the Head of Years, Advisors and Counselors worked together to provide the support that was needed.
A wellbeing thermometer was put in place in order to monitor and support students’ wellbeing; check-in and counselling sessions were provided by the counsellor, while HoY and Advisors became the “first responder” when students encountered difficulties. This collaborative effort ensured that every student had equal access to their education.
Now that we have reopened campus based learning, we continue to collaborate to ensure that students have the support that they need in order to be successful at school.
Rebuilding and recovering from the pandemic will require everyone to receive the necessary support, no matter how small, to help us to recover, re-energize and rebuild.
The solutions that this collaborative approach has produced has proven that putting the support in place, with equal access for everyone, and for students and teachers alike, has helped us to create our “new normal”.
Source:
Bachelet, M. (n.d.). Human rights key to build the world we want. OHCHR. Retrieved November 17, 2021, from https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/Human-rights-key-to-build-the-world-we-want.aspx.
OHCHR | Human Rights Day. (2021). United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. https://www.ohchr.org/en/aboutus/pages/humanrightsday.aspx
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