Green School Revisited

CNN has been there, and even made a donation. ABC News did a feature. TIME as well. New York Times. David Copperfield came to visit. He thought it was magic! Donna  Karan’s been; ‘stylish’ was her verdict, of course, and just about every conservation and ecological organization you can imagine has sent representatives to Bali to find out just what it is these mad people along the Agung River are getting up to. When Tropical Homes visits, late one Friday afternoon, however, there are no VIP visitors, just us. The kids have all gone home, and peace reigns at the Green School. I am met by the director, Ronald Stones (OBE, no less) and Andrew Dalton, the principal, at the magnificent Heart of School building. It’s the largest bamboo building in Asia, possibly the world, a three storey structure of great beauty. If it didn’t sound so cheesy, I would call it ‘graceful’. A typical Green  School moment occurs early in our conversation. Andy: ‘This is the largest bamboo structure in Asia, you know. Maybe in the world.’ Me: ‘In the world? Wow! That’s so cool! I have to write about that.’ Ronald, sternly: ‘Let’s just say ‘in Asia’ shall we? We don’t know if it’s the biggest bamboo structure in the world, we only know it’s the biggest in Asia. Here at the Green School, we deal in facts.’ Andy and I stare at our feet, sheepishly, suitably scolded.

Here, I must declare several interests. First, John and Cynthia Hardy, who founded (and funded) the Green School, are friends of my wife and I, and John and I have done business together on occasion. Second, my cousin and his wife have just moved from Stockholm to Bali for two years with their three children, putting their careers on hold (and in jeopardy), in order to put the two youngest ones in the school. And third, I’m an unabashed fan of the Green School and what it stands for. So now you know.

As you may have gathered from the conversation above, one of the things that strikes you about the Green School these days is not how liberal and fuzzy it is, it is how conservative and old-fashioned it is in many ways. Although a lot of the courses are unfamiliar, and the surroundings are certainly unique, at the core of the Green School you feel one thing: learning. At his speech on the first day of the new term, Andy said something like this: ‘I’m used to conventional schools, so I need to change my way of thinking. And so must all of us. This is a unique school, whose purpose is to give you all the knowledge that you would learn in any other school, and something else besides. Here, you will also learn about building houses and creating energy, about the planet and about business and how to take care of our planet and each other. But make no mistake: here at the Green School, we’re going to be polite to each other, I want us to say please and thank you, to study hard and to work harder. We are here to learn, all of us.’ Does this sound like a bunch of hippies in mud field to you?In addition to Ron Stones, who has 24 years in South-East Asian schools behind him, and numerous honours and awards to his name, the faculty at Green School is highly conventional in its credentials; there are 21 teachers, including a certified Steiner teacher and a PhD. Seven hold Masters Degrees, one an MBA, four have postgraduate teaching qualifications and 17 Bachelor Degrees. It is perhaps more unusual that amongst these, all of whom are qualified educators, you will find also find engineers, psychologists, environmentalists, scientists, film makers and artists. Andrew Dalton, the Principal, for example, has degrees both in Electrical Engineering and Education. Susan Allen, the Creative Arts teacher, has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s in Environmental Studies. Katharine Lane, the International Primary Class teacher, has a Bachelor’s degree in English and Politics, and a Postgraduate Qualification in  Education. Joel Mowdy, the English Specialist teacher, has a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and Creative Writing, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. He is also a published author. It goes on and on like this; you get the picture.

As for the curriculum, it follows both the Cambridge IGSCE and the IB paths; you’re your basic Maths, English, Sciences and so on, are exactly the same as they would be if you were in Melbourne or Hong Kong. Some of the courses, however, are highly unusual, although, being fully accredited, not unique. The main one is Green Studies, which includes studying agriculture, energy, waste treatment, animal care, sustainable development and construction. Last year, the older kids built a club house together, all in bamboo of course. Staff from PT Bambu, John’s eco development business, was on hand to advise, but not to participate. The whole thing took two months. John Hardy says that when he now goes into an old church or a castle with his daughters, they immediately scan the roofs and arches for load bearing points and weight distribution, making knowing comments about proportions and light. It’s the same with agriculture; these children learn how to harvest rice, to build a dam, how to generate electricity. Here, the children don’t study how to build a house; they learn how to build a house, by building a house. This is why people come here from Singapore and Melbourne and Stockholm, resigning from their jobs and renting out their houses, as necessary, to give their children a year or three to experience the Green School.

I first met John Hardy almost four years ago, when he called me up and told me to buy a piece of land he owned on the Bukit. He didn’t ask if I wanted to buy it, he told me to buy it. So I went to look at it; bang on the ocean, a hundred and thirty meters of cliff-front, about an acre of land, stunning views to the South East, white sand beach below. Totally amazing. Normally you have to buy five hectares to get that much cliff front. I’d never seen anything like it. So I called him up and asked why he would want to sell such a unique piece of land unless he was bankrupt, which he clearly wasn’t. ‘I don’t want to sell it.’ he said. 'I have to sell it; I’m building a school out of bamboo in Ubud.’ Ah, but of course you are, I thought. Right. So I went up to the John Hardy jewelry center in Ubud, and attended a lunch for 400 people. This lunch was a daily event; everyone who worked there had lunch together daily, all eating the same lovely Balinese food on bamboo plates and banana leafs. Throughout the lunch, people would stand up to I am almost saying ‘bear witness’ but that is unfair; ‘tell a story’ is probably more accurate. About a community project they were doing, say, or an organic farm, perhaps. Bahasa Indonesia, English, French, Italian and Balinese was spoken all around me, we were surrounded by the beautiful Yew Kuan designed showroom and the terraced rice fields, the former filled with exquisite, breathtakingly expensive silver jewelry. Pretty hard not to be impressed. My moment of conversion came when the lady next to me, an ultra-elegant American lady, clad in Chanel from head to toe and with a coiffure that could withstand a Grade Five hurricane, leapt up from her seat and proclaimed: ‘John, daaaahling, having seen this ah-maazing place for myself, I want to assure you that Neiman  Marcus South-West is doubling its business with John Hardy next year!’ John flashed her one of his wicked-wolf smiles and said: ‘And so you should, darling. So you should.’ Then he turned to me and winked. Shameless, he is, that John Hardy fellow.

And so you get hooked on the Hardy’s. Everyone has their own Hardy story, but they’re basically all the same. You meet them, you get mesmerized, steamrolled, charmed and challenged, and you walk away either converted to their cause, or you decide never to come anywhere near Ubud again. Whiners and procrastinators are not invited back. Anyone who has made as much money and created a world wide brand the way the Hardy’s have done are bound to attract massive envy, especially on an island like Bali, where even the most modest achievement is regarded with suspicion. Some people even think I’m successful, for God’s sake! That doesn’t set the bar very high, I can assure you. So when the Hardy’s make this massive pile of moolah and then decide give away a very large amount, a huge amount actually, of said lucre, not simply by giving it to Oxfam, but creating something as totally unique as the Green School, well, my oh my. You could almost taste the sour grapes emitting from the clenched jaws of the Seminyak and Ubud nay-sayer brigade. But, you know what? What did doubting Thomases and fence-sitters and kvetchers ever achieve? Not very much. So sod them, actually.It is therefore with the utmost pleasure that I can honestly, truthfully and loudly report that the Green School is an unqualified success. It stands alone in its kind in the world, and is the result of the sheer bloody-mindedness and determination of the Hardy’s and the uncompromising vision of Ron Stones and the senior faculty and staff at the Green School, the huge enthusiasm of the teachers, the open hearts and minds of the students that study there, and to a very large extent the courage of the parents of these children, leaving their lives and world behind to embrace the bold and new and visionary phenomenon that is the Green School.

www.greenschool.org