We treasure every day we have with our students and it is great to have them back on campus, well-rested after the break and ready for what promises to be a busy lead up to the end of the school year.
One aspect of ISKL that never ceases to amaze me is the variety of student-led activities that take place across our school each week. Our focus on empowering and encouraging students to explore their passions and take on new challenges is one of the characteristics of our educational approach that I am most proud of. There is nothing more inspiring than to hear our students share their views about learning and life and I am continually impressed with their insights, thoughtfulness, and ability to express themselves.
My congratulations to our Grade 5 Red Hats Ginerva, Raima, Amelie, Jacob, Nathanael, and Besho who shared their learning experiences earlier this week in the last of our three-part online series, Future-Ready Pathways. It was humbling to hear these ES students explain their learning and thoughts about inclusion, empathy, leadership, and innovation to the 80 plus participants and I was so proud of them. If you didn’t have the chance to join us, we will be sharing the recording in Panther News as soon as we can and I encourage you to watch. It was truly inspiring.
Another inspirational student-led event live streamed on Thursday was ISKL’s TedEd Club’s annual virtual TED-Ed event. Under the theme “Ikigai” – Japanese for “a reason for being”, 13 students from Grade 9-12 spoke with passion and thoughtfulness about topics that are important to them including wealth disparity, forced marriage, genetic modification, open-mindedness, and gender stereotyping. Their insightful arguments were well researched, critically reasoned, and communicated so effectively they were the very embodiment of our School-wide Learning Results in action. My congratulations to each of the presenters and to those behind the scenes. A huge amount of work goes into the TedEd Club and preparing talks of this caliber and the time and effort put into the event were more than evident. The Livestream link can be accessed here and again, I encourage you to take the time to watch.
Our round-up of student-led activities wouldn’t be complete without paying tribute to the work of our Middle School Student Council (STUCO) who organized today’s Tag day in support of World Autism Day. STUCO is another great example of agency in action, with students using their voice to share ideas and work collaboratively towards common goals – in this case creating awareness about autism and reinforcing our inclusive and empathetic culture. My thanks to all those involved in organizing the event and to those who participated.
With our Future-Ready: Alumni Black Box Conversations featuring alumni presenters from the Class of 1987 through to the Class of 2004, to look forward via Livestream on Tuesday, April 6, the learning truly never stops at ISKL. I feel very fortunate to be surrounded by students who inspire us and continue to do so long after they have left our school.
In partnership,
Rami Madani
Head of School
