Our Wildwood, Volume 50

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Wildwood Recognized as Founding Member of SoCal POCIS

Cuban Journalist Liz Fernández Visits Wildwood

How does your perspective of a story change based on your location? Your nationality? Your government? What effect do sources have on our understanding? These are the questions posed by Cuban journalist Liz Fernández, who visited Wildwood’s middle and upper campus this fall. Liz is the host of “Belly of the Beast”, a collective of Cuban and U.S.-based journalists that seek to tell stories about Cuba from a grassroots, independent perspective. “Despite Cuba’s outsized “” LIZ’S MESSAGE PROMPTS STUDENTS TO ADOPT A GLOBAL MINDSET WHEN impact on U.S. and world affairs, media coverage of the island is severely lacking,” Liz said. “The purpose of ‘Belly of the Beast’ is to help close this gap and bring greater awareness and understanding of the complex realities of Cuba and U.S.-Cuba relations through documentary journalism and films.” In other words, offering a different source for perspective. It’s a lesson humanities teacher Alex Cussen hopes his eighth grade students consider as they dive into their Into the Wild projects, an eighth grade capstone project that tasks students with creating an awareness campaign or invention to address issues in society—all while using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a framework. “Liz’s message prompts students to adopt a global mindset when considering their understanding of issues and stories, and think about the multiple factors at play,” Alex said. CONSIDERING THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF ISSUES AND STORIES, AND THINK ABOUT THE MULTIPLE FACTORS AT PLAY. —ALEX CUSSEN

This fall, Wildwood School was honored by Southern California People of Color in Independent Schools (SoCal POCIS) as part of its 25th anniversary celebrations, noting our 25-year membership in the organization. The milestone was made all the more sweet by a new induction to their Board of Trustees—Nicholas Smith,

Wildwood’s Director of Educational Technology.

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