Connecting the World
by Savannah Laux
Public map of student locations on NorthStar Academy website.
NorthStar Academy is a school known for its boundless reach. With students all over the world, NorthStar breeds a unique culture, perspective, and atmosphere. Students are provided the ability to understand the perspectives of those different and similar to them and make connections with classmates both in faraway lands and their own backyard. Despite the amazing opportunities, online schooling comes with its struggles; students can find it hard to connect with their classmates. At NorthStar, the opportunity to connect is there, but it can be hard to make that first step. NorthStar’s NSA Connections Team was created for this very reason.
Samantha Aquino, the 2019-2020 twelfth grade representative, created the team early this school year. She described the team and its function as, “a place on Microsoft Teams which is used to help connect students with other NSAers in their area. The Team includes a location Directory and an interactive map, a channel for people to plan in-person meetups, a channel where updates about (and pictures from) any events held by NorthStar Academy...can be posted, a channel where people can post elbow pictures, and a compilation of featured elbow pictures.”
The creation of the team was a process of ideas, collaboration, and recognizing needs explained Samantha; “My supervisor told me that a lot of supervisors were asking in the Supervisor Orientation how they could find others who lived near them, so I felt like it was something that was needed.” Despite this desperate want to form connections, many students at NSA live in sensitive locations and because of this, the connection team needed to work in a way that maintained student privacy and safety. A lot of work went into this process to protect students and their families. “Sharing the Directory outside of the NSA community is not allowed, and to further prevent this, only those logged into Teams under a NorthStar account have the ability to view the list directory or open a link to the map. Supervisors and staff are the only ones able to fill out the Directory submission forms...and the Directory is locked to editing...In addition, supervisors and staff only have to share as much information as they feel comfortable and safe doing - they can be as specific as city or as general as continent.”
The Connections Team highlights and utilizes NSA’s diverse body of students in both experience and location, the very things that make NSA such a unique school. Students are provided the opportunity to learn about the world in a way that is hard to find and those in unique situations can find classmates with similar experiences. Samantha shared her perspective, “One thing I think is really cool about NorthStar Academy is that it gives students who have left their home countries a place where they can connect with other TCKs [third culture kids] who have had many of the same experiences that they have.” She continued, “Even for those who live in the same area but don't get the chance to meet up, having a common location can help foster connection...I'm hoping that students not living in their country of birth will be able to make connections with NSAers in the country they're living in.”
Samantha implores everyone to utilize this source of connection at NSA; “Even if you don't end up meeting up in person, living in the same place as someone else can be a great conversation starter and a point of connection.” The NSA Connections Team was created to make forming connections easier and harness NSA’s unique potential. With the Connections Team, people in faraway lands are no longer so far away and neither is one’s neighbors.
Savannah Laux is the editor-in-chief of the Navigator and founder of the Navigator class at NSA. She is a senior and has been with NSA for three years. Savannah hopes to have a career as a lawyer and work in the area of human rights. Some of her hobbies are reading, writing, and music. She has a strong passion for writing that fuels her love for the Navigator.