What has COVID-19 Taught Us? Green School Teachers Reflect
Our focus on lifelong learning and being willing to “bend like bamboo” has without a doubt served our community when it came to navigating the many challenges we faced over the past two years. Now, as Bali re-opens and our school begins a new, post-pandemic chapter, we take time to reflect on the lessons COVID-19 has taught, asking faculty from across our learning environment – Early Years to High School – to share their most impactful lessons.
“Our graduates over the past 7 years consistently rate their ability to move through the world with resilience as ‘Very to Extremely High’…This is our gift to them. And this is a gift that will keep on giving, over and over throughout their lives and for the good of the world. Perpetually adaptive lives – when you think about it, that is all we are ever doing. If we look back into the past, we see adaptation as not just a function of evolution but as a driver of change. When we look forward, the ability to adapt will decide how future generations live on this beautiful planet” – Sal Gordon, Head of Teaching and Learning
“For me personally, this pandemic taught me how to slow down and be more calm, understanding, and compassionate towards others. I have learned to see that everyone has their own issues and struggles, and we are all experiencing some level of anxiety or stress. We need to come from a place of understanding, and practice mindfulness and empathy towards others.” – Kenny Peavy, Primary School Teacher
“This experience forced me to take a step back, and realize it’s not about ‘how am I going to teach?’ it’s ‘how are my students going to learn?’. And then the focus is what am I going to do to help them learn and learn HOW to learn. Because kids today really need to learn how to learn if they are going to face challenges like this in the future.” – Francis Mollet, High School Literacy & Language Teacher/Founder of SOAP
“The pandemic really revealed how relationships are the foundation of our community here, and how important it is to have spaces – both physically and virtually – for students to feel accepted, acknowledged, and valued as well as safe to make mistakes. I really feel our parent-teacher conferences were an essential touchpoint during this time to nurture those relationships, not to focus on student proficiency, but to have a group discussion – with parent, student, and teacher – about how a student is modeling Green School skills and values” – Michael Spicer, Primary School Teacher & Co-creator of Green School Anywhere
“COVID-19 taught us to make health a and even bigger priority – both the health of our students (which is always a priority at Green School), but also our own health as teachers – both physical and mental – because we need that time to get strong, to reflect and to be with our family so that we show up better for our students.” – Rahayu Kusuma Pratiwi, High School Maths & Science Teacher
“Believe it or not, this has been a positive experience. COVID-19 provided me with a great opportunity to innovate and solve problems creatively. It pushed me to fast-forward my digital know-how, as I have to continually improve my digital communication skills and adapt quickly to new systems to work with my students. My work-life balance improved as life slowed down. I have found ways to stay connected with loved ones, friends, neighbours and others in the local community – even if just virtually.” – Desak Putu Ratmini, M.Pd (Ibu Dee), Primary Physical Wellbeing Teacher
As our principal, Sal Gordon says, “When designing a new paradigm for what a school should be, in this radically changing world – one of the most important things our children must learn is the ability to adapt.” At Green School, we lead by the excellent example our educators have shown on how to adapt to not just survive by THRIVE in the face of change.