A Graduation Speech
I was privilege to be selected by the graduating class of 2021 as their speaker for their graduation ceremony. I was selected in part because I too was closing out my time at the International Community School of Addis Ababa. I've been doing a lot reading this semester related to the field of positive psychology for a PE class I've been teaching called "Personal Well-Being". This reading, together with my own experience of life-transition, mixed all together with the reflections that come from a year of a global pandemic, contributed to the below speech: Reflections on the Disney Pixar Movie, Soul.
Economics of Climate Change
In 2nd semester of the 2019-20 school-year, I was assigned to teach a one semester economics course. In the fall of 2019, youth-led action on climate change protests garnered a lot of attention globally. On my school's campus, students organized a class walk-out and march around the campus to draw attention to the need for more climate action. In the follow up of that, a group of students and teachers started meeting to explore ways in which the school could take more action, and a student and teacher committee was formed to explore the school's carbon footprint. In view of this student attention around climate action, I decided to focus the economics elective course on the economics of climate change.