By Katelyn Lu and Charlotte Lai
Original Publishing Date: April 12, 2024
When recalling their leadership experience at SAS, many students may remember the JUMP! Leadership Retreat as a core memory. To some, this three-day event brought lasting friendships and lifelong lessons, but to many others, it felt unpolished — “a school bonding event instead of a leadership conference” — as an anonymous student quoted.
To learn more about the much-disputed success of the JUMP! initiative, we sat down with Ms. Grace, SAS’s Global Citizenship Coordinator, and Mr. Ian Standard, the head facilitator of the JUMP! Leadership Retreat. Together, these two directors took us through their JUMP journey, exploring topics from the origin and vision behind the organization to feedback-analysis from previous conference sessions.
The Origin and the Vision
Founded in 2006, the JUMP! Foundation strives to “make transformational education accessible to all.” The founders, like you and I, were international school students — aiming to create a culture of experiential learning in schools like those they had studied in.
When talking about the history of JUMP!, Ms. Grace explained her connection to the organization.
“Back in 2010, one of the principals at my school was talking about how she was so proud of her former student whom she had taught years ago”, she shared. “He came up with the idea of starting the Jump Foundation, and I think it has grown significantly since then.”
The JUMP! Foundation has built connections with many educators and schools. The close-knit circle of international schools offers a breeding ground for the organization to grow and branch out their initiatives.
“We’ve built these connections at the very, very start of things”, Mr. Standard explained. “International schools are a place where lots of educators are starting to implement progressive education, trying new things and instilling new forms of experiential learning as JUMP imagines. JUMP is still very new to a lot of people, and international schools provide a forward-thinking environment in which we can do that.”
“In schools like SAS, we envision experiential education as trying to help students connect their academic learning in the classroom with the real world, getting those rich experiences,” Ms. Grace added on. “International schools allow opportunities like this to happen. That is when learning sticks: when you live it.”
Today, JUMP! has achieved massive success and grew to encompass multiple sectors, with its leadership retreat existing only as a small portion of the organization’s projects. From in-school programs (J! Schools) and online programs (J! Connected) to outdoor adventure trips (J! Experiences and J! Adventures), the organization functions in many different environments, urging participants to develop personal, community, inter-community, and/or leadership skills.
“From my personal experience, JUMP! Experiences, for one, is where school groups come together and go out kayaking or hiking in Nepal and Thailand — focusing more on outdoor-based education and learning away from the classroom”, Mr. Standard exclaimed.
“We also have JUMP! Impact, where we work with underserved youths — primarily in Thailand right now, but historically, it has been all over the world — to provide them access to this type of progressive learning.”
Planning a Leadership Retreat
Whether the organization is working with underserved communities in Thailand or arranging a kayaking trip in Bangkok, a considerable amount of planning goes into each activity.
The JUMP! Retreat at SAS, in particular, had been the fruit of many back-and-forth conversations and meetings between Ms. Sun [GCC Coordinator at SAS PX], Ms. Grace and Mr. Standard.
“I have been meeting with Ms. Sun and Ms. Grace since last November, talking about what we wanted to get out of these sessions and the different kinds of things that we would love to see brought into this space”, Mr. Standard explained.
From bringing in a highly experienced facilitator team to organizing cross-campus interactions, Mr. Standard claimed “There’s a lot of work that goes into these sessions — that never really gets acknowledged. Before the third leadership session, for instance, [JUMP! facilitators from all over the world] sat in our hotel lobby all day and finalized the plan for the day, trying to get it to a place where it’s as good as possible.”
Assessing Student Feedback – the Positive and the Negative
After the first sessions in November, there were many mixed feelings regarding the retreat. However, when interviewing students during the January conference, many claimed to have a better experience.
“Today was much better than what I thought it was going to be. It definitely was more leadership oriented than before, which was a great improvement,” remarked Alicia, a G10 student at SASPD.
But, how specifically did the three leadership sessions differ from each other? And did student feedback from the previous sessions shape the events of the third?
Responding to this question, Ms. Grace explained, “I would say the feedback really showed me the importance of making sure that we reflect. We need to help students connect so it’s not just “oh we just played a bunch of games”. I think that we need to be reminded of the “why”? Why are we playing these games?”
As Ms. Grace acknowledged, many student leaders found a problem with the two sessions in November — particular their game-based experiences and lack of genuine leadership-building discussions or reflections.
“We sent out a survey to all the students asking for the types and aspects of leadership they wanted to learn and tried to build that into [the third] session as much as possible,” Mr. Standard admitted. “I did my best to look through all the surveys and feedback in reflection of the last program in preparation of today.”
It seems that the students’ voices had been heard. “We brought more facilitators here this time so we could have a wider, more diverse range of knowledge and experience to put into the program,” He added on. “Last time, people showed a desire to talk thoroughly and really dive deep into leadership discussion, so we wanted to provide more opportunities for that to happen.”
In comparison with the first two sessions, the January leadership retreat also aimed to build SAS’s values into leadership activities, creating a vision and mission that aligned not only with our school, but each student’s personality and aspirations.
When walking around the PDHS library, one can see students at Pudong and Puxi coming together, hard at work brainstorming vision and mission statements, examining different leadership models from successful corporations, and reflecting upon challenges in their own leadership at SAS.
“The big difference [between the third session and the last two] is that the school really would love to see at least the beginnings draft of one big mission and vision for what student leadership looks like at SAS,” Mr. Standard explained. “A clear vision and mission keep everyone on track and working towards the same goals.”
“We will also provide a lot of information regarding leadership models, and we will reflect on that and be able to adjust and accommodate to our own styles. My goal this time, to state simply, is to provide as many tools as possible to the students so that individual leaders can pick and choose, moving forward with the skills that fit them well,” Ms. Grace announced.
Reflections and Next Steps
The JUMP Leadership Retreat had not been without flaws. Planning a cross-campus high school leadership retreat is not an easy feat. Nonetheless, the JUMP! Foundation and SAS were able to effectively use student feedback, leading to improvements in later sessions.
Ms. Grace adds, “[The negative feedback] showed me a little bit about who you guys are. You all are great critical thinkers. You’re able to see the holes, see the problems. You’re able to deconstruct things really quickly, and that’s great. It is crucial to be able to identify what’s working well, what we can build on, what we want to hang on to!”
Through interviewing Ms. Grace and Mr. Standard, as well as attending the leadership retreat ourselves, we learned about the inner workings of JUMP!, their unique story, and their passion for experiential learning.
As Mr. Standard concludes himself, “[the JUMP! conference] should act as a beacon or a guiding light that allows [students] to reevaluate the actions they’re making.”
We hope that the JUMP! Foundation continues to grow, inspire, and guide students with their beacon of light, spreading experiential education to international audiences. As for us, we hope that our student leaders can reflect on the JUMP! Leadership Retreat and use the skills they have acquired to give back to our very own SAS community.