A Global Meeting of the Minds at GFS

Students From Across the Globe met at GFS to Investigate Truth

A World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report released in January 2025 cited dis- and misinformation, and the technology that enables its spread, a significant threat to political, economic, and health systems worldwide. 

With today’s AI- and social media-fueled proliferation and speed of information, how does one sort out the truth? Answering this question is a mighty task, yet a group of 20 students from 10 countries across the globe recently spent six months virtually and one week in person diligently probing its depths as part of the 2025 Montgomery Bell International Symposium hosted by Germantown Friends School. The differences in the Symposium participants’ backgrounds—growing up in Mumbai, Bogotá, and Bratislava, and bringing many different faiths, beliefs, and cultures together—drove surprising and moving scholarly and personal discoveries. 

Now in its 15th year, the MBIS brings together students, teachers, and heads of school from 10 member schools that take turns hosting. Following a six-month collaborative virtual investigation of a central theme—this year it was “The Future of Truth in a Digital Age”—students gather for a week to work in person with the friends they’ve made and collectively explore their topic in depth. 

The MBIS participants included two GFS students, Kate Mardeusz ’27 and Panyan Yan ’26 and several faculty members, including John Henderson, Head of IT and computer science and digital media faculty member, Andrew Malkasian, history and Quakerism faculty member, and Rob Goldberg, Head of the History Department (GFS has been a member of MBIS for six years). 

Truth in News Media

Throughout the week, student teams took turns presenting their findings from personal projects that examined an aspect of truth and information in their home country. Those from Colegio Claustro Moderno in Bogotá, Colombia, and Gymnázium Jana Keplera in Prague, Czech Republic, took the stage on the first day to look at truth in the media. 

Manuela Llinas and Manuela Ramirez, the students from Bogotá, Colombia, shared several news stories on páramos, unique ecosystems in the Andes Mountains of South America which supply 70% of the drinking water in Colombia, to practice discerning perspectives. Through careful reading—focused on the tone, what was and wasn’t included, and which sources were quoted—students surmised whether the viewpoint was that of a farmer, an environmentalist, or a tourist. 

“We asked: What changes the mind of a person? And we realized [through our work] that it was their reality and context,” said Ramirez.

To determine whether information creators in the Czech Republic, including both satire writers and the news media, understand how their content is interpreted by consumers, the students from Gymnázium Jana Keplera in Prague conducted surveys. They found that most creators claim neutrality, even if they are crafting information with a point of view to appeal to a specific audience. The survey also revealed that, around certain topics, consumers often lack confidence in the truth of the information they are hearing and reading. 

Something in Common

Towards the end of the Symposium, students reflected on their “lightbulb moments” from the past week. Mardeusz and Yan, the GFS students, were surprised by how much various cultures overlap and how much students actually had in common. 

“Those commonalities allowed us to connect and then explore our differences,” Mardeusz said. “That was really special.”

Hers was a common refrain as one student after another marvelled at the multitude of backgrounds and perspectives that coexist with the shared realities of being a teenager in 2025. 

“Our countries are different, but we’re still kind of the same kids and we can talk even though we could have nothing in common. That was very cool and surprising,” said Tai Wiesner from the LEAF Academy in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Watch the video below to hear from the MBIS student participants on what they learned.

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On the final day of the Symposium, students, teachers, and administrators gathered for the reading of the final Accord, the culmination of students’ time together and how they now see the future of truth after concluding their scholarship. 

Key recommendations centered on exploring the greater use of AI in health diagnostics to expedite medical treatment; political figures taking more time to validate information sources before sharing with the public; individuals conducting their own verification of sources and utilizing multiple sources to ascertain truth; and establishing and relying on independent fact-checking bodies.

This isn’t the end for this year’s cohort however. Young, who has been involved with MBIS for 10 years, has seen students become lifelong friends both with their class and with those students who came before them. It’s because they all now share an incredible experience, one in which perspective creates possibility. 

This is how Hatim Eltayeb, CEO and former Dean of the African Leadership Academy, sees it after also participating in MBIS for many years.

“When students from very different communities with very different experiences encounter each other around a shared purpose, a shared question, a shared sense of curiosity, they can discover new ways of seeing the world and through that, hopefully discover new ways of being themselves,” he said.