The Green School, Bali

April15th, 2011 by Edith Romero

Looking for The Green School was almost like finding a needle in a haystack. It was hidden by the beauty and nature of Bali.

When we finally arrived there it was more than I ever expected. The buildings were all made of bamboo, and the soccer field was huge! It was really beautiful. I noticed that the parents were visiting their children as there was a parents’ conference going on.

I talked to some students and asked them how it was to go to school there, and if learning was different from school in America.  They told me it was very different from any other school they had been to as they were exposed to a different perspective than normal. I asked them if there were gay students there, and they said that there was a gay student last year and everyone was very open and accepting of him.

One of the girls I was talking to ran to her music practice, so I went to watch. She was in a marimba band with about six or seven different boys and girls. I loved the music they played – instead of the R&B and hip hop that I normally listen to, it was nice to hear a different beat.

After the music finished, our guide, Ben, popped up to show us around. He was wearing a straw hat and a hard-working Hawaiian shirt. He had his 3-year old daughter with him whom he was taking care of as her mom, his wife, was on a yoga retreat.

He told us that the school has almost 300 students attending. 20 percent are local Balinese children and the other 80 percent are international students. He also told us that their main objective is to teach the children of the future to be eco-friendly and save our resources, because the world needs to pay attention to climate change. The school prioritizes using natural materials to create an eco-friendly environment. Roads are made out of volcanic rock, solar power and biogas are used as alternative energy sources, toilet waste is turned into compost and the buildings are made from natural and sustainable materials: mud floors, alang alang (reed) roofs and lots and lots of bamboo.

He showed us the classrooms and it amazed me how eco-friendly they were. They were all made of bamboo, including the chairs and the desks, the boards were made out of car-windshields, and there was a large bamboo book shelf shaped like a giant pineapple.

Ben showed us an organic garden where the children grow their own veggies. I saw tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots. Not only did they look beautiful, but the kids eventually ate them!

We also visited a huge aviary.  Ben told us that the first year the school was built, they had 37 Balinese starlings, and now they have 43. This is great as these birds are an endangered species in Bali.

My final thoughts about The Green School are that I wish I could have gone to school there from when I was young, because this school would have taught me how to use our resources wisely and to help save the planet little by little. I would have learned about living sustainably in an eco-friendly way from a very early age and carried this knowledge with me for the rest of my life.