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I
t was an obvious theme. Unity. The whole country is beg-
ging for nothing more. Unity. What else could it be in these
political bickering times?
It was decided then. The IC Calendar for 2007-2008 will fea-
ture student art work and short essays about unity.
But it was easier said that done. How do you get over 3,000
students aged 3 to 18 to visualize and depict the concept of unity
in their art work?
The Calendar Committee - made up of art and language
teachers – decided to draw on proverbs about unity. Twelve
proverbs, from Gibran Khalil Gibran to Mahatma Ghandi, were
chosen.
Each class across the entire school was assigned a proverb. It
was now up to the students to think and reflect.
What does it mean to be united? Can we unite despite our
differences?
And so the work began. The proverbs were discussed at
length. They were analyzed and debated.
“It was difficult,” said Samia Boulad, the head of the Art De-
partment and Chairperson of the Calendar Committee. “It took
a lot of thought and visualization for students.”
But somehow
they did it.
And did it well.
At the end of
June, students
presented their
drawings. Of
those, around
40 chosen to be
in the calendar.
“We always
try to incorpo-
rate as many
drawings as
possible,” she
said. “Some-
times we can do
this by having a
montage effect.”
The idea to start an IC calendar came about in 1991 during a
meeting of the Activities Committee.
“In the calendar there should always be an issue,” said Boulad.
“We choose themes that students should be aware of. We want
them to learn from them.”
The first calendar was issued two years later.
It was a fairly simple issue. It only carried students’ drawings
of the campus. Text was added a year later when a visiting envi-
ronmentalist, the late Ricardo Habr, gave a lecture on campus.
His speech inspired a ‘green’ theme for the year and the lecturer
was quoted throughout the calendar.
In the following years, students themselves – with the help
of English, French and Arabic teachers – submitted their own
viewpoints.
“The entire college was working on the calendar,” said Boulad.
In 1995, the calendar – now an academic one - began to take
on its permanent shape.
A new theme was chosen every year. So far, themes included
“Folk Tales in our cultural heritage”, “Children’s Human Rights”,
“Sports and Leisure”, “End of the Century in Lebanon”, “Global
Awareness”, and a four-year series “Glimpses of Contemporary
Lebanese Art, Music, Poetry, and Museums.”
Students researched and discussed each theme thoroughly.
Some themes required field trips. At times, local artists visited
the classrooms.
The unstable political situation presented even more challeng-
es. The theme of Museums came to an abrupt stop in 2005 when
Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated. Field trips to vari-
ous museums
were cancelled.
“And yet we
had already start-
ed the work and
already visited
some museums
we couldn’t just
stop midway,”
recalled Boulad.
The committee
met. They brain-
stormed. Finally,
it was decided
that students
will have to visit
the museums by
looking at their
websites and
reading the printed material. Not an ideal situation – but it was
better than stopping midway.
The students rose to the challenge and the 2006 was issued on
time.
But there was little time to bask in the success of the calendar
as meetings are already underway to find and discuss a new
theme for the 2008-2009 calendar.
Even our calendar begs for unity
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