“You’re never going to have a perfect school. And I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to feel some pain. It gives us the ability to empathize a bit.” Christopher Corby, dean of students at the Metropolitan International School and the moderator of their recently held 3 B’s workshop.
On the Metropolitan International School’s walls you’ll find posters stating the 3 B’s norms: ‘Be Inclusive. No put downs or teasing. Compliments and kindness encouraged. Be open-minded. Drop the waterline/be real. Be the change you wish to see in the world.’
The 3 B’s workshop is designed to give students the chance to experience the aforementioned 3 B’s norms and values. The day is dedicated to engaging students through games and activities that can be quite entertaining, vigorously emotional, expressively cathartic and everything in between. This includes obviously enough ice-breaking games, but it also ventures into encouraging students to share the dreams they wish to realize and the apologies they wish they could make. All the while, Corby ensures students understand that they have the right to feel safe and not participate in something during the workshop that would make them feel uncomfortable.
Christopher Corby, the dean of students at the school, introduced the workshop for the first time in Egypt. But it’s not his first time. “I learned doing workshops like this in the US. I studied social emotional learning and I was a workshop facilitator for a company in the US. I also did workshops in South Korea for a school I worked at there. I got involved in it because, growing up, my mom instilled in me the passion of caring for others and I went to workshops like this as a kid. Workshops like these have been around for 20-30 years in the US.”
Via Metropolitan International School
But they’re a rarity in Egypt, if they exist at all. Egyptian culture is riddled with shame, guilt, toxic masculinity and emotional repression. It seems strange that such workshops are not considered more widely in schools countrywide.
“The power in something like this is that you’re doing it with people within your community. Being the person who helps students experience this for themselves with kids they’re going to school with every day. Knowing how difficult school was for me growing up and for a lot of people… it’s just a difficult time to live, so I hope I can make it at least a little easier,” said Corby.
Via Metropolitan International School
Adults also participate in the workshop just as much as the children do. This helps children see another side of adults. It provides them with a perspective on the mystery of growing up. “I believe this workshop is especially important for middle and high school students who had to deal with serious difficulties at home or with being bullied in general. Because this is the time when they build their characters,” emphasized Romario Adel, a discipline officer at the school and one of the people who worked on organizing the workshop alongside Corby. “You can give as many lectures as you like, but it won’t deliver the values we hope to instill in them as effectively as a workshop where they get to experience one another in ways they usually wouldn’t otherwise.”
Via Metropolitan International School
Working at a relatively new school is challenging enough. And Corby and his team have a lot on their plate already. But the workshop and all the supporting mechanisms of incentivization that work together to improve the students’ behaviors and beliefs is definitely worthwhile to them. It’s also good for business. “What schools often do when they’re new is that they welcome anyone in, right? They’re trying to get students into the school. So, now the school is at a point where they really want to help teach students how to behave and keep staff. The workshop for me supports the PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) model we follow and ultimately when all the components of our system work together, they will motivate students to take consequences for their actions and encourage positive behavior in general,” Corby explained.
