Community
A shared sense of belonging occurs when people are able to negotiate and appreciate their complex and often messy differences.
7 October 2019
For our Grade 8 Entry Point introducing the Big Idea of Community, we made a trip to Co so Hy Vong (“Hope School”), a local school for students with hearing disabilities and downs syndrome, to make connections with other students in the community and together make quilled paper greeting cards in celebration of the upcoming Vietnamese Women’s Day on the 20th of October.
We spent the morning learning very basic Vietnamese sign language greetings and phrases related to gift-giving. Our Grade 8s helped guide Hope School students in quilling paper for Women’s Day greeting cards, demonstrating how to create different shapes and assemble them together to form a design or motif. Whilst the practical activity was art-related, our activities were mainly about connecting with others. Our students were so impressed to see their Hope School peers sing a song in sign language; and, to express their appreciation for the opportunity to work together, they donated milk boxes and left an extra supply of paper and quilling strips for Hope School students to finish off their cards.
This Entry Point made for an excellent opportunity for our students to gain hands-on experience in community-building activities with students in the local community with varying ability levels. Communicating with the deaf was challenging at first, but our students quickly learned how nonverbal cues can help bridge what is essentially a language divide. This off-campus excursion drew upon IMYC Personal Dispositions of communication, adaptability, thoughtfulness, respect and cooperation. And it also expressed two of our school’s core values: of developing “passion, gratitude and humanity,” and encouraging a “a deep sense of service and responsibility.”
