A Globally Zooming IB Choir

At 10.00pm (AEST) Friday 15 May or 2.00pm on Thursday 14 May (GMT-6), Year 11 IB students Lilliana Swainson and Helena Hagan attended the first virtual IB choir via Zoom, organised by CAS co-ordinator Mr Molina from Yorkín School from Costa Rica. This was such an amazing opportunity to connect with IB students from all around the globe.

The goal is for students to make their own recordings of the song We Are The World which will be edited to make a video which showcases international connectedness by IB students. The song has been modified by composer Mr Izmael Pacheco for this CAS project to be more inclusive of all people from around the world.

During this session, we listened to the backing track, spoke of the particulars of our recordings and final goal as well as listened to Mr Pacheco play the song live. A total of 160 IB students and CAS co-ordinators participated in this session. After practising and discussing the project, we were assigned break out rooms on Zoom to meet with other IB students. Helena and I met with IB students from India, Singapore and Mexico, just to name a few. Students were from their first and second years of IB and reflected with us on their experience with the programme. We discussed our favourite subjects at school, how the current worldwide pandemic has affected learning at school and also the kinds of topics that we study at school. We all laughed about how we spoke the ‘IB language’ with acronyms such as EE, IA and CAS. We also found that we were all studying Chronical of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez in our Language A classes with some of us studying the book in its original language. We shared our contact details in the hope that we can again connect throughout this CAS project.

When returning to the original group, the other teachers from different countries reflected on this amazing opportunity for IB schools worldwide to connect and how many opportunities this could lead to with further interconnectedness. Helena and I got a special mention as being the furthest away in the world and I had the opportunity to thank with Mr Molina for organising this opportunity and of how amazing it is to meet like-minded students from across the globe.

I look forward to sharing with the school the final video in the hope that it demonstrates the IB mission – ‘developing inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect’ especially through these uncertain times.

Thank you Mr McLaughlin for sharing this amazing opportunity with us.