Summary of DAIS Beach Clean Up 2015

By Astoria Zhou

DAIS Applied Environmental Studies Student

            The Dalian American International School (DAIS) Beach Clean Up is an annual activity organized by students from Environmental Applied Studies class. This year marked the 5^th year that our students have donated their time to make our environment better and to help educate others about environmental stewardship.

            Participants gathered at DAIS in the morning and took buses to the private beach. Going down the muddy path littered with large pebbles on a hot sunny day seemed endless. However, there was no complaining but only cooperation. Participants helped to carry buckets of water and other materials enthusiastically.

Within a few minutes, the beach was in front of us. After receiving instructions, participants formed into several groups of four and were distributed data sheets, pencils, boards, gloves and garbage bags.  This beach which is located along the coast and nestled in a valley near a hillock is where the students picked up more than twenty bags of garbage.

This year’s beach cleanup was at a private beach and aquaculture enteprise near the school.  Our students are forming a partnership with the owner to study the local environment.  The beautiful location will be perfect for future field trips and the owner’s aquaculture business is perfect for the school’s sustainability studies. Before leaving, the more than 100 participants took a group photo and from their smiles we can tell the deep satisfaction of doing a great job. To learn more about this event and other DAIS Sustainability projects visit our website at http://daiseco.weebly.com/.

Students Teach Teachers about Sustainability at DAIS

Michael E. Baldwin

Students Help Teachers to Understand Sustainability

This summer eighteen Dalian American International School (DAIS) students took part in leadership training and then provided professional development for the entire teaching staff of the school on sustainability.  The leadership training which took place on August 5-6, 2015, was offered to students who demonstrated interest in leadership through summer internships or were enrolled in Environmental Applied Studies. On August 7, the students then taught the teachers about sustainability in their community using the Compass Sustainability model.

The students were trained in the Compass model and systems thinking through a variety of hands-on activities. After two days of training, the students engaged the entire teaching staff in thinking about how communities and individuals can organize and cause positive improvements in their environment.  The Compass model is a tool for thinking about community issues from the perspectives of nature, economy, society, and well-being.  This model helps us to have a balanced view of community and global issues that includes the important factors linking individual perspectives and group needs.  Through the use of this model we become better problem solvers and systems thinkers.

One teacher commented that “I believe it is an excellent model, and would serve our students well in the classroom” and another said “It is a good framework for understanding reality and the messy implications of interconnectedness”. Overwhelmingly, teachers have asked for concrete ways to implement the model in the classroom.  Presently students are planning how they can present the model to all the secondary students through the advisory class.  In the future the students hope to share these activities with parents and community members.

This student leadership and professional development opportunity is part of the DAIS initiative to become the Sustainability Campus for Northeast China. According to our project goals, the DAIS Sustainability project will permeate the curriculum, inspiring and empowering students to contribute to the local and global community. Our school will serve as a “lighthouse” and resource for sustainability practices and education for the greater China community. We will develop students who say “This is who I am” in the context of sustainability. 

The Compass Training was provided by Michael Lees and Robert Steele of Compass Education. We would like to thank them for bringing this internationally recognized program to our students and teachers. Our students hope to provide these exciting activities soon to our local community. Contact me if you would like more information about how students can become leaders at your school.

The Silence of the Crickets, The Silence of the Crickets

The Silence of the Crickets, The Silence of the Crickets is a great example of evolution in action.

Reflection on the Power of an Idea

Ideas can be both wonderfully dangerous and incredibly powerful.  Therefore as educators we must be extremely jubilant and at the same time cautious when planting our ideas because we never know where these ideas will lead. The beauty of teaching is that we as teachers are also moved and changed by these wonderful, powerful ideas.

Case in point, several years ago, my students were working on SMART goals for themselves when one of the students asked me what my SMART goal was.  After some thought and in all seriousness, I told the class that my SMART goal was to win the Nobel Prize (probably for science) at least once.

In clarification, my idea was not to win the award myself, but that one of my students would be nominated and win the award though their own efforts. My real goal was that my students would not only learn science but that they would be motivated to change the world.  I elaborated that I hoped the student would mention my name as being one of the individuals who inspired and shaped him or her. As she accepted her award, I expected another of the nominees would shout out incredulously, “He was my teacher too!!” 

Every year since that SMART goal session I have been sharing the same goal.  I am very confident that most of my students will do something great and if they want they will win a Nobel Prize. By planting this seed, I have set in motion an idea that is much more powerful than the skills and concepts I teach every day.  Though the skills and concepts are important, responsibility and aspiration for personal fulfillment is what is going to change the world. The probability that one of my students will accept a Nobel Prize is much more likely due to my suggestion.

As educators we must sow our seeds very carefully.  I am certain that the idea of winning a Nobel Prize somehow led to my place in the 50 finalists for the Global Teacher Award. This award is billed as the Nobel Prize of education for teachers and represents the highest public recognition.  Of the thousands of teachers who work with children all over the world, I am on a list of fifty who are being acknowledged. I am humbled and grateful for this honor. At the same time I am awed at the power of this idea and the other ideas I sow in my class. I wanted my students to know and believe that they could achieve great things. The idea that I planted grew very quickly and led to a result which wasn’t exactly the one I intended.

I want my students to take notice. Ideas planted are extremely powerful. Every day I work with my students to grow our ideas and realize important goals.  Presently we are working to build our school into the education eco-center for Northeast China.  I am sure that the results of this project will surprise me. This project will grow into something wonderful and meaningful, something that will change the lives of many individuals both in our area and beyond.  It is great to plant a seed and it is even better to see it grow and flourish.

As teachers and students, let us be very thoughtful about the ideas that we choose to plant. I would like to propose a few ideas to help shape our thinking about the world:

• Our understanding how the world works helps us make good decisions
• We should never hurt anyone intentionally and we should speak out about injustice and bullying wherever it occurs.
• We all deserve enough food to live. Nobody should starve.
• The ends don’t justify the means.  You shouldn’t do something horrible for the benefit of the greater good.
• Maintaining a healthy environment is essential for our well-being.

Furthermore, what we do and think is very important. Our actions should make the world a better place.  We should be careful about how we use resources and what we do with the things we no longer need. Just because we don’t see them anymore doesn’t mean our wastes are being taken care of in a sustainable way. Tread softly in this world.  Our ideas and actions are very powerful.

My students know they are not off the hook.  This is not exactly what I had in mind when I said that I wanted to be recognized with a Nobel Prize. Our ideas are powerful seeds and our potential for growth is limitless. I still am waiting for them to receive the official Nobel Prize; and when they thank me, they should wait a moment. Even if they don’t hear anyone call out, somewhere someone is saying, “He was my teacher too.”

Global Teacher Prize 50 Finalists

It was just announced! I am a finalist for the Global Teacher Award.
http://www.globalteacherprize.org/finalist/michael-baldwin

Michael Baldwin - The Global Teacher Prize

Michael has taught in both the US and China.

GLOBALTEACHERPRIZE.ORG

It was just announced yesterday that I am one of 50 finalist for the Global Teacher Prize, winner to be announced at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai on March 16th, 2015. According to the Varkey GEMS Foundation, the Global Teacher Prize is an annual one million dollar award given to a super-special teacher. I am honored to be chosen from so many great teachers. Since being nominated I have thought long and hard about what motivates me and what is important.

Global Teacher Prize Top 50 Finalists

For me what is most rewarding are the achievements that have been realized by my students and by those that I have influenced.  It is nice to get a job done, but it is fantastic to have inspired and molded hundreds of students who are themselves changing the world. For example, in 1987 one of my students in 7^th grade life science was a young lady named Elsa Barrientos. She went on to study biology, then became a science teacher, and is now a science specialist working with teachers and students in Texas. She and I, and the many educators that we have influenced are quietly helping others to understand our world and hopefully make it a better place for everyone.

I published my first science education article in 1994 about the concept of ecological niches.  Many years later quite by accident, I discovered that the article was referenced and used in the Save the Bay’s San Francisco Bay Watershed Curriculum. Since then I have published several journal articles and presented at many conferences, as well as taught education courses for practicing and pre-service teachers. Knowing that many of my former students are now teachers, and that these ideas are referenced, used, and lived by others, drives my enthusiasm for teaching.

As an educator, I realize it is not so much what I do, but how the people I work with are changed through my actions. So much of what I do as an educator is to create situations where students are challenged to examine what they know so that they can make these experiences part of who they are.  This role of teacher carries a huge responsibility to make sure every experience moves my students in a positive and constructive direction.

Encounters on Daheishan Mountain

Daheishan Mountain is one of my favorite places in China.  I have hiked the mountain at least 11 times.  I often offer to guide others on these hikes as it gives me an excuse to go back up the mountain.  Eanch time I hike Daheishan (Big Black Mountain), I discover something new or have a unique experience.  This past Saturday was no exception.

While hiking with a group of teachers on Saturday, one of the teachers hurt her knee.  We hiked to the first temples on the Southern side of Daheishan mountian and I went with her to the subway station in a taxi.  I then took the same taxi back to the bottom of the mountain.  From there I planned to hike up and catch the rest of the hiking party as they hiked down the Phoenix Canyon.

Sometimes it is really great to hike by yourself and this turned out to be one of those occasions.  On the way up, I ran into a group of hikers who asked to take a photo with me.  In China, the locals really seem to enjoy getting a photograph with foreigners.  After the photo I came to the first of the monastaries on the way up the mountain.

The guard reminded me that I could take photos of the buildings but that they preferred that I not photograph on the inside of the temples.  Upon entering the court yard, I found the complex pretty much deserted.  After turning the corner, I spotted  a well dressed monk in traditional clothing seated with a man and a woman.  The monk beckoned me over; placing a red cushion on a wooden stool for me to sit.  I joined the trio.  They started talking to me in mandarin.  I understood the word for American and nodded yes.  Many additional words were spoken that I did not understand.  The priest or monk pointed at me and made the sign of the cross.  I nodded yes.  I assumed they asked me if I was christian. the monk nodded as if to say "Yes, americans are christians".

The monk offered me some fruit and at first I declined. But the three were very insistent; so to be polite I took a banana that they had partially pealed for me. The priest explained through gestures that the fruit was very good as it was donations that people brought to offer to the various gods in the different rooms in the temple.  I ate the banana and then I ate a second banana when they insisted.  I also ended up eating two additional mandarins. They offered me cigarettes which I declined.

I showed my school ID which has the name and address of the school in mandarin.  I also have several family photos of Lenore and Katyann which I shared with them.  We looked at photos on my Iphone and had a quite lengthy discussion of which neither of us comprehended the other.  All in all, I would say I spent a good half hour to forty-five minutes hanging out in the taoist temple with the young couple and the monk near the base of Daheishan mountain near Kaifaqu China. In the end, my hiking buddies reached the temple where I introduced them to my new friends.

After Tripoli my life became very different.  We moved to a new country and took on a new job.  I now teach Integrated Science 1 (biology and chemistry for 9th grade), Integrated Science 2 (biology and chemistry for 10th grade), physics, AP Chemistry, and Applied Environmental Studies.  I also live in a country where using google is very difficult.  Nevertheless, my plan is to start writing regularly again in this space. Stay tuned for exciting stories and photos from teaching in China.