Green Day, Bali, Indonesia (Guest Post from Professor Gugick)
Today we visited the Green School, a non-profit, private, international, K -12 school set in the heart of the Bali jungle. The Green School’s vision is to educate students to become eco-friendly global leaders through innovative educational pedagogy.
From their web site:
The school’s mission statement: A community of learners making our world sustainable.
The Green School Way: We educate for sustainability, through community-integrated, entrepreneurial learning, in a wall-less, natural environment. Our holistic, student-guided approach inspires and empowers us to be green leaders.
Values: We believe in three simple rules underlying every decision: be local, let your environment be your guide and envisage how your grandchildren will be affected by your actions. The eight iRespectvalues that guide us are:
The school has its own hydroponics garden, regular gardens, and is nearly self-sustainable with its array of solar panels.
Each building in the entire school is made from bamboo. There are separate buildings for the pre-school, kindergarten, lower grades, and middle school, but the most impressive building was the high school. No rectangular spaces. No corners. An entirely open building concept.
Everything was made out of bamboo: bridges, auditoriums, and stadiums
The school was a bit too non-traditional for me. I would only consider sending children to the school for a year or two during their middle school years. There seemed to be a lack of rigorous studies for kids in high school.
Read more about the school at www.greenschool.org