Visiting Green School , documentary 11.24 min, HD, English
director Joo Peter, Indonesia, Germany, United Kingdom 2016, Green Yeti film production
Green School is an international school in Bali, Indonesia, famous for its spectacular bamboo architecture and innovative green school concept
full length 11.24 min here – 6 minute short version here – 2 min Trailer version here
Green School is a spectacular school project on the island of Bali in Indonesia. The heart of the school is a bamboo cathedral, inspired by the spiral movements of nature in the Fibonacci sequence.
the students learn in and with nature
John Hardy and his wife Cynthia opened the school in 2009 — a project of passion: “You have to be crazy to overcome all bureaucratic and cultural obstacles” as he states. The school is growing continuously, carried by a strong community spirit and an academically well-staffed board of school. Founder John Hardy likes guiding people through the compound, explaining the green vision with many examples: the natural open architecture, gardens and organic farm, the small hydroelectric plant at the river and the production of solar energy.
founder John Hardy on the construction site of a new complex for elementary school, 2015
building for music classes
Inspiration Waldorf School
In the beginning, John Hardy was influenced by the Waldorf schools, as he explained me, a lot of freedom for children. However, Green School developed it’s own unique concept.
Curriculum
Green School has found an own solution for the middle school: the morning is divided into three phases. The first two hours are focused on understanding the world with all senses: that phase is called ‘experimental hour’ — whether it’s music, dance, sports, arts or mud wrestling. The second phase focuses on the “fundamentals“: English and Math. In the third phase that lasts into the afternoon, called thematics, further topics are covered as History, Science, Enviromental Studies and more. Wednesday is project day: collective work on a practical, ecological project at school or in the surrounding communities.
The high school works modules (for a 6 week period) similar modern colleges. Focusing on a topic for six weeks is also a tradition of Waldorf Schools. Besides a core area of compulsory courses there are a lot of courses that are freely selectable.
A central part of the curriculum is the education to become an entrepreneur. So there are multiple guiding themes for the school: green (sustainability), community spirit, creative entrepreneurship. John Hardy supports ideas that he believes in with passion. I had the opportunity to have an interview with him and with teachers, parents and students: the community spirit of the school is really special. The green universe is growing further — a green camp was founded. Hardy has already the vision for a Green College. The school is half way between the capital Denpasar and the old king city Ubud. The language of instruction is English. The students can also learn Indonesian (and some Balinese).
Green School is getting a lot of attention nowadays. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the entrepreneur Richard Branson visited it. However it’s not a just social project, but an international school, that rather compares itself with a private school in Singapore or New York. One school year costs about 10000. — Dollars. John Hardy collects donations, so that local Balenesian children also have the opportunity to attend this school: currently ca. 40 of about 500 children. Someday it’s supposed to be 20%. In addition there are English lessons for over a hundred children in the surrounding villages. Green School as a non-profit organization re-invests all the revenue into the school.
The school is half way between the capital Denpasar and the old king city Ubud. The language of instruction is English. The students can also learn Indonesian (and some Balinese).
innovative architecture
In the beginning two worlds were colliding. Architects presented John Hardy their first model of the school: a grey box in a modern classical style. But how else can you build a school? If one is looking for different, local, natural construction materials, then you find bamboo. Many advised Hardy against bamboo: it attracts pests and decays fast. It was the building material of the poor. Then something happened that only true pioneers can achieve: his daughter Elora Hardy designed a small, light, visionary model with three connected spiral forms, they established an own construction company, that makes bamboo durable with a new procedure and thereby makes new construction forms possible. And they built the first bamboo cathedral in only 3 months, thanks to the Balinese tradesmen, that work with a fast and free construction technique for hundreds of years. They don’t need a plan. The small model of the daughter was sufficient.
Since then the new company Ibuku, literally the “mother“ company, develops bamboo solutions for house construction and for all conceivable aspects of interior construction: furniture, kitchens, sanitary rooms, ceilings, floors, doors.
The daughter, Elora Hardy, is a star designer nowadays and the star architect of the new bamboo world. A company from California developed the chemical that can make the bamboo durable: Bortex, a non-poisonous acid. The bamboo sticks are being impregnated in the acid for 32 hours at high temperature.
Near “Green School“ there is “Green Village“, a model village of the innovative bamboo architecture. Who thinks the he can find an ecological commune here is mistaken: Petrodollar millionaires from Malaysia have their bamboo luxury mansions built here. But there is also the Green Farm: Hardy’s son has built an ecological farm near the school, where students can learn the practical aspects of ecological agriculture. In the Green Camp one can learn about the green projects for a couple of weeks.
The roofs look like the keel of a ship that is upside down in some cases: they divert a refreshing air draftinto the interior and thereby make an air conditioner redundant. They are inspired by traditional roof forms that have a long tradition in some regions of the Indonesian archipelago. Widely protruding they provide shade and protect the construction from the monsoon rain.
There are regular guided tours for Green School, Green Village and for the bamboo construction company Ibuku. The construction technique can be learned in courses.
My documentary film on Green School:
Text,fotos and film by Joo Peter, copyright reserved, 2015/16
Interview with John Hardy
Green School, August 2015
Joo: Mr. Hardy, tell us about your vision how Green school could grow on. For example, conference meeting point, College, adult education or others….
Hardy: There are three parts of Green School that are really important. First, there is Green Camp, because hundreds of hundreds of kids can have a taste of Green School. The second one is a program we call „Bamboo You“. We have the highest and most sophisticated Bamboo technology in the world…and we are very,very interested in sharing that. So „Bamboo You“ now is a week course, but it’s moving to be a full-time experience. And the third part, we are working on is Green University. That will start — some kind of — as a higher programs MA…and over the next years will be working its way into a full university.
Joo:…and the topics to study will be green topics
Hardy: …yes, it’s learning by doing things which make the world a better place.
Joo: Did you hear about our Green School tradition in German with the Waldorf School?
Hardy: Yes…the roots of Green school came out of Waldorf. We didn’t have enough constituance to have a Waldorf School, but we have a lot of Waldorf energy and a lot of Waldorf beliefs in Green school. My kids, before we were in Green School, were in the Waldorf system.
Joo: Are there any signs the goverment here is catching on to implement some of your ideas in its normal school system, like aspects of your bamboo architecture, green topics…
Hardy: Well, the world is turning towards green. It’s just the matter of how fast. So there is awareness everywhere, there is movement everywhere — but are we moving as fast as the clima is changing, thats the real question.
(exerpt from the Interview with John Hardy, founder of Green School, August 2015 by Joo Peter)