by Angie Briceño | Jul 11, 2020
Over the past few weeks, we have all gotten to know our 12th grade, and 2nd generation International Baccalaureate students, through Tuesday’s social media posts “Portraits of a Graduate”.
2020 is a very different year for the 12th graders, where what was to be a last year of memories together in class has ended up being an isolated experience in each of their homes, working towards a common goal of obtaining the International Baccalaureate degree. What we can conclude from these “portraits’ is that Futuro Verde has been not only a portal of knowledge but also a family, for this group of students. The relationships and friendships they have established at Futuro Verde will be forever carried in their hearts. Futuro Verde has been an extremely important part of their lives and they have been important to the growth and evolution of Futuro Verde. Many of them have been with us since elementary school, others joined us at the beginning of high school. We have seen them grow as students and also as people. We have watched their trajectories and we can agree that today they are citizens of the world and are ready to go out and give the best of themselves and contribute to making our world a better place. We wish them all success!
by Katie Chiaverini | Jun 6, 2020
Partners in learning? What does that mean anyway? I am now in my 4th school year as part of the Futuro Verde community; as a teacher, a coordinator, and also a parent. What do I love about Futuro Verde? I love the diversity that we have…nationalities, ethnicities, languages, cultures, socioeconomic levels, religions…in just one small school community. We join together with one major goal – we want a better future for our students, children, and our entire families. While we might have very different ideas and opinions on how to reach this goal, I see one uniting factor to achieve our purpose, which is much more evident during this worldwide pandemic, to become partners in learning.
Most societies and communities support the age-old saying “it takes a village to raise a child” but many just aren’t quite able to live and breathe this statement. Right now, we have the chance to pay attention to the small things, as parents, as educators, as community members, to spend time with our children, to support in their education, not just the academic side, but the development of life long skills that will help our children be happy, balanced and successful in their own ways. This idea actually has a term, “partners in learning”.
At Futuro Verde, our vision and mission statements both support the idea of life long learning and the development of a network of partners in learning. We strive for our students to become life long learners, as well as our staff. During the current crisis, we have taken the time to participate in online courses, webinars, and continual research on how to improve education in the current circumstances. We also want to extend this offer to our parents. Massiel, our school psychologist, has been offering parent webinars to involve parents as active members in their child’s education, focusing on holistic practices in education and parenting.
Some examples of past and future webinars for parents include:
- Emotions 911: Understanding and empathy
- Family hours and rules: Positive reinforcements
- Yes, the ideal family can be achieved: Family communication
- Affection in the family: acknowledging emotions: Attachment Theory and Communication
- Practice makes perfect: discipline and consequences: Constancy with the rules of family coexistence
- Two or more children at home: keeping the boat afloat: Sibling relationships
- School motivation and performance: Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation
Please be on the lookout for more upcoming webinar offerings by email and our website. We look forward to your participation as we strengthen the support system to our students, our families, and our community. Every piece of the puzzle is just as important as the big picture.
“Children are the priority. Change is the reality. Collaboration is the strategy.”
-Justin Billings (Washington State Superintendent)
by Khalida Lockheed | Jun 5, 2020
For the last several years, Futuro Verde has showcased student talent in the arts during the second half of June at the annual Futuro Verde’s Got Talent show which has also been compatible for students wishing to participate in the national Student Arts Festival (FEA) run the by Ministry of Public Education. This year, 2020, has disrupted many plans, however. With MEP cancelling the national FEA competition, we are no longer bound by the dates generally stipulated by them. Therefore, we all have more time to prepare!
Currently we plan on holding this event in early September, in conjunction with our IB Visual Arts Exhibit and Music Concert. This event may be partially virtual, depending upon the evolution of the coronavirus in our area and the impact upon in-person learning at schools. Whether we end up watching an event live in-person or virtually on Zoom or another platform, we are all anxious to share the creativity and talent of our amazing students (and staff!) The FVGT team invites students to fill in the enclosed form to indicate what talent they would like to showcase at our event. Join the fun!
by Javier Sánchez Cáceres | Jun 5, 2020
This coming June 8th we celebrate World Oceans Day. This day is a great opportunity to reflect upon the importance of these marvelous bodies of water and the effect our everyday activities have on ocean health. I would like to give you some information about the importance of our oceans.
There is a lot of talk about the importance of forests and its production of the oxygen we breath. But, in reality, more than 50% of the oxygen that we breath is thanks to millions of marine organisms, collectively called phytoplankton. Phytoplankton photosynthesizes, a process which produces organic substances (sugars) made of sunlight and carbon dioxide. One of the by-products of photosynthesis is oxygen. The oxygen produced is released into the ocean and into the atmosphere. For this reason we can be sure that the oceans are the real lungs of the planet.
Oceans have another important function, which is more important every day due to carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. It is estimated that the oceans absorb 25% of the carbon dioxide produced annually due to human activity. Therefore the oceans help to diminish the effect of this greenhouse gas on the climate of our planet.
Despite the capacity of the oceans to reduce the greenhouse effect, climate change is increasingly affecting different marine ecosystems. The 0.1 °C increase in the average temperature of the oceans over the last century may seem small, but considering the large size of the oceans it is impossible not to think that it is an alarming increase. This increase in the average temperature is evident if we analyze the signs that nature is giving us: bleaching of the coral reefs, increase in sea level, increase in the intensity of meteorological phenomena due to their capacity to absorb heat and the resulting effect on ocean currents and their influence on the different climates of the planet, among others.
As if all the above were not enough, overfishing is responsible for the decrease of approximately 10% of the planet’s fish population and not only threatens the planet’s well-being and balance and the global economy. In addition, every year the oceans receive 8 million tons of plastic, which contaminate the ocean waters and destroy the ecosystems and living beings that inhabit them.
Still, not all is lost. Every day more people decide to adopt more environmentally responsible lifestyles, participate in beach clean-up campaigns, reject single-use plastic and be agents of change through education. Next Monday, June 8th, visit our beaches within the established schedule and appreciate this wonderful natural resource while reflecting on the importance of conserving and protecting it. Remember to bring a bag to pick up trash and do your part to have cleaner and healthier oceans every day.
While it is true that every day we should be aware of the importance of the oceans, celebrating a day like this at a global level serves for us all to reflect on the sustainable management of the oceans and the importance of conserving them; they are home to thousands of species, many still unidentified, are a source of food and medicine and responsible for the dynamic balance of our planet.
by Lural Ramirez | May 6, 2020
As schools around the world transitioned to distance learning models in response to the novel Coronavirus pandemic, there have been milestones and moments that have been key, and as reported by the World Economic Forum on April 22, 2020, we have seen unprecedented global cooperation in response to the suffering and social-distancing efforts.
As the virus made its way to Latin America, Futuro Verde was weeks, and in some aspects years, ahead in our preparation for this required shift to online learning. The timeline below details our school’s response to this crisis and our preparedness efforts.
2014, over a period of months
Futuro Verde webmaster Khalida Lockheed spearheaded our application to Google to become a “Google For Education” school. Our application was accepted, giving us free, unlimited access to domain-specific @futuro-verde.org emails, Google For Education Apps like Gmail, Classroom, and the like. This step allowed all Futuro Verde board members, staff and students to have Futuro Verde emails and a controlled and safe shared domain for our IT needs.
How did this help us during the pandemic? All staff and students were already united under a common domain, which facilitated both more complex and collaborative online processes as well as an assurance that email server filters follow our students’ safeguarding protocols and policies.
2015, over a period of months
Futuro Verde webmaster Khalida Lockheed, in her dual role as webmaster and design manager, shifted our www.futuro-verde.org website to a content management system (WordPress), allowing for greater flexibility and collaboration.
How did this help us during the pandemic? Having the ability to quickly and easily link students and families to all of our online learning tools and resources aided in a smooth transition into a full online learning mode.
2016 school year
Secondary teachers began implementing the Google for Education Classroom app with more consistency starting in 2016. Students in upper secondary grades had become accustomed to having a parallel online platform which was initially used to document assignments and projects and to digitally receive student work for projects assigned.
This year as well, some preschool and primary teachers began to experiment with the Seesaw Platform, used then as a supplemental family communication tool.
How did this help us during the pandemic? As we shifted to online learning, Classroom and Seesaw became our main platforms for student online, at-home engagement and work. Our previous experience with both platforms made this new leap to larger use volume much more manageable and smooth.
2017-2019 school years
As Futuro Verde grew, we were able to acquire much needed, full-time support in IT and we began to purchase and systematically use several key databases, tools and programs that support student learning. Specifically, we acquired: Turnitin, a similarity detection tool to help students learn how not to plagiarize their work; EBSCO a database of reliable sources for information across a myriad of subjects and grade levels; Reading A to Z, a platform that provides independent level reading support for our pre-k and primary students; and IXL, a license we purchased for school-wide use to reinforce our students’ math abilities through an online platform personalized to their current needs and abilities and updated continually to meet their needs.
Additionally, from an administrative perspective, we purchased a school Zooom pro account in order to facilitate the confirmation of strategic university, governmental and private partnerships to benefit our students. And, perhaps most importantly, in 2019 we became a PTC member school.
How did this help us during the pandemic? Futuro Verde’s databases, tools and programs have been pillars in our instructional focus during online learning, shifting from the supplemental structures they once were to more integral and central tools for learning during our online program. Zoom Pro has allowed us to continue to effectively coordinate as staff and to maintain that high level of care and personalized attention our teachers and school are known for.
Via the listservs established by the PTC as a part of our membership status, PTC membership has meant that we have been kept at the forefront of the response by reputable international schools around the world. Furthermore, as I mentioned at the start of this article and as the World Economic Forum has confirmed, the unprecedented global cooperation between international and government schools has been invaluable to us at Futuro Verde. Our leadership team and governing body began receiving advice and updates from partner schools in China, then the rest of Asia, then the Middle East, Europe, Africa and now Latin and North America as the virus spread across the globe. The virus came to our continent last and we have benefited greatly from the lessons learned by our partner schools and we have modified resources eagerly shared with us by other schools who are weeks ahead of us in their response in order to best meet the needs of our unique student population. And please know that we have extended that same level of support in return, sharing our own best practice with other schools in the hopes that it might help them better weather this storm we are all in together.
This doesn’t mean we were perfectly prepared for everything though…
In the one day we took for teacher training on March 17th before immediately moving to online learning with students, we hurriedly got up to speed on Google Hangouts, for daily student check-in and accessibility for office hours with teachers throughout the day. We had always had access to this App as a part of our “Google For Education” status, but our first real use of the app coincided with the crisis. Luckily our amazing teachers are dedicated learners themselves and so they dove into this new challenge, and the others that have come, as we continue to innovate our approach and program as the weeks go by.
I sincerely hope this look back in time related to preparedness has helped further contextualize the value of investing in a high quality education for your child. Effective, coordinated efforts require time, in this case years, and they also require vision, commitment and determination. As Head of School, I am deeply appreciative for our fantastic staff who have contributed to our readiness for online learning, to our international school partners for their generosity and time, and, most importantly to our students and their families for their commitment to progressive, high-quality and future minded education on the Nicoya peninsula!
For more information on our specific programming, please visit our website which houses specific information and resources related to our online and distance learning program. And, stay tuned for new response to the crisis yet to come! The latest updates from our partner schools outside of Latin and North America is that most countries and schools are beginning to transition back to on-campus learning, with modifications and precautions new to all. So, if the pattern of this global crisis stays true, a whole new challenge awaits our community soon when Latin and North America also begin to transition back! If you know us well, you know we have been preparing for that for weeks now already…
by Angie Briceño | May 5, 2020
We all remember our last year of high school: a moment in each of our lives full of all kinds of different emotions like stress, anxiety, excitement, and happiness. High school seniors experience many feelings and emotions. That last year is a culmination of a stage in life, the line between starting to live an adult life and leaving behind the life of a teenager and high schooler. That is why it is such an important time in life to have unique experiences and create lifelong memories.
High school seniors around the world are living in a unique moment in history, and our seniors are no exception. This pandemic has completely changed their senior year in terms of tests, deadlines, and the uncertainty of what will happen next. Aside from academics, they are also experiencing a social change in their senior year with their friends, eating together, doing activities that would leave a lasting impact on their lives and on the school as well. Have you imagined what it would be like to be a high school senior right now?
Here is what 12th graders Alejandro Mora and Maya Reolon have to say about their experiences during the pandemic:
“For me the transition to online learning has been very difficult. It’s hard for me to stay motivated and concentrate on my work. I started doing schoolwork from home, but there were so many distractions like the TV, cell phone, etc. Things got easier once I had a good Internet connection, because I was able to contact my teachers more, and get my questions answered, but I still find online classes to be more difficult than in-person ones. What I miss most from being at school is socializing. I miss seeing my classmates every day. One good thing about this situation is that I can develop more self-discipline, which I have made an effort to do. I try to take more responsibility for myself and my things, and without counting on anyone to constantly supervise me, I can be more independent.”
– Alejandro Mora 12°
Life as a student, particularly as an IB senior, has been interesting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Us students, as well as teachers, are learning how to continue our academic lives by virtual means. Classes are now directed by Zoom meetings, presentations are now shared by videos, and so forth. This is all not as one would expect their educational year to be, but so far, it has gone well! When online learning began, all of us students in IB were worried if we would not have the motivation to continue our learning at home. Well, so far it has been over a month, and we have been working harder than ever. I am so proud of my IB peers and for the rest of the students, keeping the motivation up and working very hard during times like this. I am also very proud of the teachers, who are working very hard (if not harder) during this time of online learning. Personally, so far this year has been a learning curve. I am learning not only academic material, but I am learning patience and I am learning self-discipline. The teachers have been very supportive with us students, especially in IB. I am thankful for them, and I am thankful for my peers. I know that when school comes back, everybody will feel more at ease and happy to be in a classroom! Even though we are all physically apart, we are all united. Thank you Futuro Verde! Go class of 2020!
