AGC 7th Grader Featured In Behind the Docs Interview Series

“I believe we’re all going to have an open mind and we’re going to have different views of the world and how to help it.” – Tavaris West, AGC student

 Today, Microsoft Office published an interview with AGC 7th grader Tavaris West, about how Powerpoint helps him organize his independent research and share knowledge with his peers. “It felt good to teach other kids something I enjoyed and it seemed like they enjoyed it too,” Tavaris said of his presentation. Read Tavaris’s full interview here. This interview was in conjunction with Microsoft Office’s #behindthedocs series, a celebration of Microsoft Office’s 25th anniversary.

We are so proud of Tavaris for his poised and thoughtful interview, in which he brilliantly reflects the spirit of the Academy for Global Citizenship and The International Baccalaureate Programme. Tavaris is “such an amazing mentor to the younger kids,” says Angela, whose son is in 4th grade, “and an excellent representative of our school. [We] watch Tavaris at breakfast high-fiving the table of 4th grade boys, as many as he could get to! He’s a natural leader and the kids truly look up to him!” 

At the Academy for Global Citizenship, we work to create a learning environment that fosters mindful leaders who seek knowledge and understanding as a path to positive change. In service of this mission, the community of AGC parents, teachers and staff encourage students to embody the International Baccalaureate Learner Profile. The IB learner profile helps create a common language shared by students in 140 countries around the world as they strive to create a better and more peaceful world. 

From the time they set foot in our halls as Kindergarteners, our students learn to be: inquirers (to be curious and independent researchers), knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled (to act with integrity, justice and honesty) open minded, caring, risk-takers (to approach uncertainty with forethought and determination, to be resilient in the face of challenge and change,) balanced, and reflective. 

Tavaris and his peers have been using these terms to shape and describe their experience at AGC. These words empower students to hold themselves and their fellow students accountable for their role in our peaceful community. It is common to hear young students in the lunch room encouraging a younger sibling or peer to try an unfamiliar food item with the phrase “Be a risk-taker!” or to applaud a peer for being “knowledgeable” about a toy or game. 

Students at our bilingual school learn these terms in both Spanish and English and, in early grades, get help from associated hand gestures and songs, like this adorable example from our Dual Language 1st grade class, set to the tune of Gagnam Style. 

“Open minded kids don’t laugh at others / open minded kids are cool at all hours/ open minded kids try new things/ open minded kids are the thing.”

“Open minded, I recommended it for a better world… open minded, let’s make a better world.”

 

Week One “Dream School” Campaign Update

One week ago, we launched the first phase of a campaign for our Net Positive school building on the crowd-funding site IndieGoGo.com. Our hope was that we could spread our campaign out from the heart of AGC – from our families, faculty and friends – to share our vision with extended family, fans of our mission and create an organic outward flow.

As a community of dreamers and risk takers, we entered this campaign with sky-high expectations and our community rose to meet those expectations. And then some.

In the first two days of the campaign, we raised $17,453 through donations of all sizes from 244 people.

Our ever-growing tree of love: Cash and phone donations by Pod at our K-2 building.

This early spike was achieved through an incredible union of our entire extended community; parents, staff and committee and board members sent emails, made countless phone call and flooded social media with news of our launch. As a result, we were featured on the IndieGoGo homepage by the third day of our campaign.

When our students started donating their own money, dollars earned through chores or raised in innovative ways, our high expectations were, once again, met and exceeded.

We’d like to take a moment to share some beautiful moments and notes we received from families from the first week of our campaign.

Moment #1: Kindergarten parents, one of whom  worked all night, camped out in our “campaign room” from 7:30 AM- 1:00 PM, calling friends and family for donations and sending calls-to-action out through every form of online communication imaginable. The least we can offer them was what their son enjoys every day: a freshly prepared organic meal by fellow AGC parent, Chef Eddie.

Note #1: The honor is mine, to see how much the teachers at AGC love our children.  Thank you for all of your dedication, it is truly impressive and admirable.  GO ORCAS!

Moment #2: An AGC parent emails a friend who works her Mosque on a whim and ended up being invited to meet with the spiritual leader, who had high praise for our school and this parent’s incredible devotion to it and agreed to donate on behalf of the religious community.

Note #2: The gift is our way of supporting AGC’s mission as I see my kids, thriving not only academically, but socially.  They live and carry themselves as true “global citizens” and it’s just amazing!

Moment #3: A teaching assistant offers to match the next 10 $5 donations.

Note #3: My husband and I are grateful for all the staff at AGC; they are  a great example of character to them.  Its a blessing and a privilege to be part of the AGC community.

Moment #4:  A 7 year old girl comes to school with $20- the chore money she has been saving for months in anticipation of a trip to Disney World.

Note #4:

That’s not just any slide, that’s a rendering of the energy-generating playground we hope to build in our dream school. Why did a 7-year-old donate $20 of her own money? “Because I’m a global citizen and its the right thing to do.”

Moment #5: Ms. Salas’s 3rd grade class spontaneously founded a company, “the Cup Creation Club,” and starts selling crafts made from non-compostable snack cups at the open house. “All we needed to do was collect all the cups that we used for snack and then we washed them and created things! We made bobble heads, maracas, bug catchers and ant farms.”

Note #5: What inspired this? We asked the representative from CCC.  “Just knowing that my sister and I can go to the same school.”

Our campaign on IndieGoGo.com is now up to $21,348, one week after launch, but we still need “all hands on deck” to keep the momentum going so we can raise the $28,652 left to meet our goal.

This is more than a school; it’s a vision for a Net Positive future: one where schools give more than they take, both through generating more energy, through geothermal, wind and solar sources than they use in a given year, and through giving back to their community by serving as a hub of community resources. Please help spread this vision to help realize our community’s dream for a Net Positive future.

Invite friends, family, coworkers and fellow visionaries to join our campaign at www.indiegogo.com/agcdreamschool.