Our Year at the Green School:

One of the primary reasons we moved to Bali was so that my son could attend the Green School, an international school in the middle of the jungle whose goal is to create green leaders of the future.

I first heard about the school through a friend of mine who once lived in Singapore. It was generating a lot of buzz among expats living in South East Asia, she said.

The school was opened in 2008 by John Hardy, a Canadian who moved to Bali and created a wildly successful eponymous jewelry company with his wife.

As the story goes, he was galvanized by Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and decided to do something about the climate crisis. His solution was to start the Green School. As he recounts, in his Ted Talk, he is an undiagnosed dyslexic who had a hard time at school in Canada. His hope was to make school an immersive, inspiring and fun experience.

In 2017, the New York Times published a fawning article about the Green School titled “The School Prepping for the Apocalypse”. Ban Ki-moon spoke there! So did Jane Goodall! The Beastie Boys’ Mike D sent his kids there!

The author said he wished his daughter, who was attending a New York City public school, could go there. I could relate. At the time I read the article, my son had just started first grade at P.S. 87 on the Upper West Side. It’s one of the top public schools in the city with hyper-engaged parents and wonderful teachers. But it also had fencing all around the windows and a full-time security guard. It was far from the idyllic school immersed in nature described in the article. We applied to the Green School and quickly learned there was an available spot. We paid the tuition and bought one-way tickets to Bali in February of 2020. The pandemic derailed things, like it did for so many. So we deferred. Twice.

To put it mildly there was a lot of hype surrounding this school in the jungle by the time my son attended the fourth grade in 2022. But a lot has changed since its founding. For starters, it’s no longer owned or operated by John Hardy. During the pandemic, the school was bought by Education in Motion (EIM) a company started by a family living in Shanghai. The firm now owns several schools around the world.

The school year is coming to an end. I have many thoughts about our experience. Here’s my take on the pros and cons of the Green School.

PROS:

Stunning Campus: When you enter the grounds of the Green School, it’s hard not to gasp. The structures made of bamboo are simply breathtaking.

The middle school building, known as the “Heart of School”, is, as Hardy says, like a cathedral. The outdoor gym looks like the sails of a Viking ship.

The classrooms are without walls and there’s a constant buzz of cicadas and other jungle sounds.

There’s a rushing river with a gorgeous bamboo bridge. There’s no question that the whole place is an architectural marvel and a feast for the eyes.

Focus on Nature: There is a strong emphasis at the school to be fully immersed in nature. At recess children are free to forage rambutan and passion fruits. They can swing from a zip line, chase each other on the soccer field or just roam amid the campus.

It’s also a magnet for local animals. There’s a beloved and well-fed neighborhood cat named “Dexter”, who has made the campus his home on weekdays. On weekends, he heads back to his real home down the road. He knows a good thing when he sees it.

There are also dogs that swing by the classroom for a visit. And that’s not all. There are bunnies to pet and snorting pigs. A rogue monkey once chased my son and his friends through a mud pit. There have been multiple snake sightings.

Going to class is a totally immersive experience where you become one with the jungle. Its inhabitants are like fellow classmates.

Immersion in Balinese culture: One of the most beautiful memories I have of our time in Bali is watching my son play the rindik, a traditional Balinese percussive instrument, in a sarong. It brought me to tears. He was so at ease and confident in his local attire playing this foreign instrument. And the sound was mesmerizing.

He also learned to play the gamelan and the gong, among many other Indonesian instruments.

I also loved seeing him be a part of the ogoh-ogoh parade, an annual event where the Balinese make giant monsters out of papier-mâché before the start of Nyepi (a day of silence where everything – including the airport – shuts down).

He learned to speak a little Bahasa Indonesian and engaged in some traditional mud wresting.

Cultural Diversity: The students at the Green School come from all corners of the globe. In my son’s class, there were students from Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, the U.K., Poland, the U.S., and the Netherlands. My son now wants to learn Dutch because so many of his friends are from Holland. I would have preferred Spanish but I’ll take any attempt to learn a second language at this point! It would be nice to see more Indonesian kids in the class but at least many of the teachers are Balinese.

The cultural diversity of the school is celebrated in an annual event called “Bamboopalooza”. Families prepare booths representing their countries along with their native foods. It’s a colorful and delicious affair with a bit of a competitive edge to keep it interesting. Who had the best display? The French, I say! The men did the can-can and they were the only ones to serve wine…

Supportive Community: Being a parent at the Green School gives you instant entree into expat life in Bali and in some ways an instant family. Some are new to Bali. Others have been living on the island for years and they are more than happy to help you make the transition to island life. There are countless WhatsApp groups to help you navigate everything from finding a villa to knowing who to call if you have a bad case of the Bali belly. When my son sliced his head in a pool, the Green School WhatsApp group responded within seconds to tell me where to go and what to do. I’m forever grateful.

The school also assists you with visas, opening a bank account and more. There’s a coffee shop for parents called “The Freak” where you can hang out and mingle. There are also countless talks on everything from conscious parenting to sustainable farming to starting a business in Bali at the Bridge, the co-working space for parents. It’s like a Ted Talk for parents.

Every second Friday there’s a “Spirit Friday” – a mixer for parents and children where local vendors sell their foods and goods. Overall, the school is a highly social place, which can be loads of fun. But I can also understand how it might be overwhelming for introverts.

Focus on Sustainability: It’s called the Green School so it’s a given that the school is heavily invested in promoting sustainability. It’s embedded into what’s taught at the school. There are visits to mangroves and beach cleans. School projects are focused around what students can do to make the planet a cleaner, more ecologically friendly place.

There’s a recycling drop-off station on campus, the toilets are compostable. Yes, you read that right. One kid described it as going to the loo in a kitty litter box. There’s a school bus powered by bio fuels.

CONS:

Weak Academics: Before starting school, we were told that our children would have no problem transitioning back to schools in their home countries. For us, that’s not true. I recently had my son assessed for math, a subject he excelled in at his school in Vermont. The result: he’s at a grade 3 level. He’s a year behind where he needs to be to enter grade 5 in the U.S. I’m not alone. I have since heard from many former Green School parents that their children had lots of catching up to do when returning to a more traditional school system.

Many parents at the Green School are happy to supplement their child’s education through tutoring feeling the benefits of the school outweigh the downsides. Others are not happy about having to spend more money after paying roughly 15k USD per child in tuition.

I don’t blame the teachers for the weak academics. I think they’re doing the best they can given the circumstances. It’s not easy to teach math, science and literacy to a student body coming from such diverse educational backgrounds with varying degrees of English language skills. But I also think part of the problem is the school doesn’t seem to have a well-defined curriculum making it difficult to hit certain benchmarks. They also don’t seem to allocate enough time to the nuts and bolts of math and writing because they are so focused on teaching through projects, which is more time-consuming.

Some parents believe learning math is no longer necessary in our world where computers can calculate complex problems much faster than humans can. I’m not convinced. I think math is ultimately about problem solving and challenging yourself mentally. My son, who enjoyed math said he was ultimately bored by the math curriculum.

There’s also no test-taking, grading or homework in fourth grade at the Green School. I know a lot of parents like that. I’m not one of them. I don’t want two hours of homework a day at his age but I do see the value of SOME homework to teach him about time management and deadlines. I’ve come to realize that my son thrives in an environment where he has to prove himself academically. Testing and grading is part of what incentivizes him to push further. He’s now committed to spending 30 minutes a day this summer on math on the IXL app so he’ll be ready for 5th grade. He’s actually enjoying it. I wish I had started it a year ago.

Inconsistent Approach to Discipline: We had a bit of a bullying problem when we first arrived at the Green School. It can happen at any school, I know. But what was disconcerting was to find out that the bad behavior was not only directed at other kids but also at teachers. I heard of multiple instances of students disrespecting their teachers with their language and by being generally disruptive. My son is no angel and has a naughty streak but he knows not to be verbally disrespectful to teachers. He was shocked by some of the behavior and expressed his view that there was a lack of consequences for that behavior.

To be fair, when my son was misbehaved, one of his western teachers was very good at communicating with me. I appreciated the feedback. Despite this, my sense is, given what I’ve heard from my son and other parents, bad behavior is somewhat overlooked. I suspect it could be partially cultural. The Balinese generally avoid confrontation and don’t like to complain.

Lots of Device Usage: Before we arrived in Bali, my son complained about going to playdates and seeing kids on gaming consoles. “It’ll be different in Bali,” I said. I don’t know what I was thinking! Maybe it’s a fourth grade thing but the device use is on steroids here. Most kids on the school bus have devices and play video games. My son doesn’t have a device but at a certain point I had to cave and let him use my phone to play video games because all the kids do and it was a way for him to connect.

Perhaps I unfairly held the Green School to a higher standard. Just because it’s a school in the jungle, I shouldn’t have assumed the kids would be less attached to devices. It’s quite the opposite.

Some Greenwashing: There is a school bus powered by cooking oil called the bio bus. It’s dirty. It’s bumpy. But it’s clean – ecologically. Problem is the majority of the children are driven to and from school in a gas guzzling SUV. Many of those cars sit idle in the parking lot with the A/C on. The positive spin on this is that it’s a job generator for locals. That’s true but it’s also not a good look for a school that calls itself the Green School. I think more should be done to encourage families to use the bus and/or carpool.

I know many parents who are fully-committed to the Green School approach. Listening to the kids present their final year projects gives many parents the confidence they need. I get it. These are thoughtful and impactful projects presented by confident children thinking outside of the box. But I also think no school is perfect and there’s room for improvement on the academic front, especially if kids want or need to transition back to schools in their home country.

We are returning to the U.S. and have some catching up to do. Nevertheless, I’m 100% happy with our choice to spend a year at the Green School. It’s a magical place and I feel fortunate that we got to experience it. We made wonderful friends and immersed ourselves in a beautiful and culturally rich campus. We also learned more about bamboo than I ever thought possible. Most importantly we had loads of fun.