>Tom Boasberg has served as superintendent of 4,000-student Singapore American School since July 2019. SAS is one of the world’s largest, most diverse, and academically innovative international schools.
>That’snotable and creepy
TRANSPARENCY: A CATALYST PROJECT
Didi Hari Krishnan
January 13, 2021
Singapore American Schoolhas always had a strong foundation of students who have been not only academically motivated but also actively engaged in the desire to pursue areas of interest or passion projects. The Catalyst project gives students the opportunity to pursue their own paths of exploration in an academic setting while demonstrating their readiness for university learning to the fullest extent of their enthusiasm, autonomy, capacity, and complexity.
Four months ago Junior Jay Prakash set in motion a project that he is massively proud of today. The driving question:“To what extent can I research and produce a documentary to educate and foster discussion about transphobia at school?”
After reaching out to people that could potentially help with the project, Prakash found a mentor who was able to help him throughout this project. His mentor, Christopher Khor, also a filmmaker and one of the leaders of TransgenderSG helped guide him throughout the process. Khor asked some valuable questions and this encouraged Prakash to think more deeply about his intentions of producing this documentary. With Khor’s experience in the filmmaking industry, he was able to help Prakash plan and refine content that would appeal to the intended audience.
There were multiple challenges that threw a wrench in the works for Prakash. The original plan was to talk to some residents from a shelter in Singapore but he was advised against it as that could trigger the residents who have gone through various traumatic experiences in their lives. However, Khor was able to introduce Prakash to two other transgender women, Quen and Olivia, who were both really easy to talk to and helped give him ideas about the content of the documentary. Prakash also reached out to the high school dean of student life Renee Green and the conversation helped generate more ideas.
“I want to get people thinking about their words and actions, and I want students to be able to look beyond stereotypes that have prevailed as a result of media influence, to really understand the extent to which issues like this affect so many people, especially some of their peers,” says Prakash.
Prakash also conducted some research of his own by creating an anonymous Google form to gauge the community’s awareness on the topic. He received almost 200 responses and the results were very telling—the majority of the respondents fell into the category of “ basic or minimal” understanding and awareness. In the free response section that asked about misconceptions and stereotypes that they have heard as well as questions they had about the topic, the results show that some people did not know enough about issues surrounding the transgender community. “I got a much better understanding of where our community stood in regards to understanding and awareness. I was able to accordingly refine the focus of the documentary to incorporate the more essential/urgent elements,” recalls Prakash.