What exactly is Global Grit? It’s an annual event where we highlight the different aspects of Grit that we instill in our students. To get a clearer picture we must first understand the meaning of Grit.
“True grit,” n. : firmness of mind or spirit; unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger (Merriam-Webster)
Five characteristics of grit
1. Courageous: ability to manage fear of failure
2. Conscientious: careful and painstaking; meticulous; committing to go for the gold rather than just show up for practice
3. Driven by long-term goals: practice has a purpose
4. Resilient: ability to reappraise situations and regulate emotion
5. Strives for excellence: does not seek perfection (external perception) but strives to be excellent (consistent attitude)
Grit is something that we teach and train our students to have because their stay in our school is very difficult. A Global Academy Diploma is earned through blood, sweat and tears and this is not something we take lightly in the school. We believe that our greatest achievement is our product, which is our Alumni.
Having said that, we showcase our chefs and students’ grit by having them take on our Inter-branch Culinary Competition that we call, The Battle of the Brigades. This is where each of our 4 branches(Pasig, Timog, Alabang, Makati) face each other to compete for the coveted title. This year we have added the Golden Toque trophy that is to be placed in the winning branch of the said year. The branch that has this signifies its triumph over the 3 other branches. The Chefs of the branches serve as mentors to the new batch of students that they have that year in their branch. This is no easy feat as some of the students have only been attending school for a couple of months and the expectations are quite high. Not everyone can take the pressure that’s why people are already eliminated during the qualifying rounds and only the best pair of each branch is allowed to move on to the championship round.
Apart from the competition, we also make each branch participate by making them compete for another award that represents team unity which is the Branch Spirit Award. This is where we see how everyone in the branch is able to show their support by wearing their branch colors and by doing all of the challenges that we have tasked each of the branches to do that year. Just like the kitchen, we want to show that we cannot work alone and that everything is always a team effort.
We also update our milestones every year to highlight the things we have done well in the previous year and it’s nice for us to see the new things we are able to do as a school for our students and the industry.
I will be uploading more photos of what happened this year so stay tuned for that!
abl@globalacademy 