31 minute read
As Mark Staker observes, there have been some silver linings as a result of the global pandemic, with the pivot to remote learning leading to growth, knowledge and collaboration
pressure on teachers, I wanted to make sure that my professional development was relevant and could be easily adapted to busy teaching lives. I also wanted to build the teachers’ confidence and inspire them to explore technology further. Before the TeachMeet, I’d pre-recorded instructional videos and created a series of templates, which I emailed to participants. It was rewarding to receive feedback afterwards about how useful they’d found these resources, enabling them to confidently prepare and distribute digital worksheets that were easily accessible by students.
Because I already used a ‘driver face-to-face’ model of blended learning in my classroom, it was easy to ‘pick and lift’ my resources and techniques into the ALP. Also, my students were already used to working in this way, so we lost very little momentum in our units of work.
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However, remote learning helped me to understand that having students physically present does not equal engagement and progress. It forced me to examine the ways in which I collect evidence of student participation and progress. And it also prompted me to explore how to make my Canvas navigation clearer and more visual. While I might be technically-minded, I am not aesthetically-minded! I have since devised a new visual framework for my courses that I can build on moving forward.
One of the more thrilling aspects of this journey has been transforming assessment in Stage 4, moving away from scored summative assessments to a grade scale. This has made the day-to-day work more meaningful for students. It has reduced their anxiety (and mine!) because we can focus on what demonstrating success truly looks like in languages. It’s not a single point in time on a test, but rather the growth and skills they exhibit in class through their ongoing speaking, writing and comprehension tasks. It supports a growth mindset by helping students to strive towards an end goal rather than a meaningless score out of 100.
STAFF AWARDS
The following staff members received an award at the Board of Governors Dinner in May 2019:
Going Beyond Award
Lisa Broad (Communications and Publications Manager) Jasmina Hazrolaj (Laboratory Manager) Sonia Brennan (Director of Foundation and Community Engagement)
Commitment to Improvement Award
Stephen Colyer (English Teacher) Rolfe Kolbe (Digital Learning Leader) Mark Devine (TAS Teacher)
Stepping Up Award
Linda Macqueen (Science Teacher) Reza Jalili-Baleh (Director of ICT)
Behind the Scenes Award
Amani Rdiaan (Senior College Team Administration Assistant) Andrew Leake (Chief Operating Officer) Yvonne Grisaffe (Quality Assurance Manager) Ann-Marie Osborne (Head of Sport K-12)
Outstanding Commitment to the Teaching Profession Award
Kimberley Peck (Junior School Teacher) Andrew Douglas (Languages Teacher) Nicholas Amato (Junior School Teacher) Bridie O’Mahony (Junior School Music Coordinator - Acting)
Commitment to Staff Development Award
Patricia Davis (Director of Studies) Joshua Clark (Assistant Head of Science) Graeme Hutton (TAS Teacher)
Promoting a Culture of Care and Support Award
Michelle Bollard (Teaching Assistant)
Leadership of Learning Award
Justin Newall (Head of Mathematics) Janet McNally (Head of TAS)
Equanimity of Spirit Award
Wendy Wickham (PA to the Principal)
Ut Prosim Award
Catherine Seale (Director of Community and Service Learning)
FELLOWSHIPS
ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE
Leaving comfort zones behind to embrace the joys of physical theatre
BY TIFFANY CRITTLE
HEAD OF DRAMA
A desire to help her students explore movement, led Head of Drama, Tiffany Crittle to apply for a Wenona Teaching Fellowship. It took her on a thrilling journey across New York, Paris and Amsterdam, where she immersed herself in the aesthetic rigour and radical purpose of physical theatre. It was provocative and joyful, and it has been transformative for her teaching.
I’m standing in a studio full of mirrors in Rochester, New York, wearing the tights and t-shirt I bought specifically for this occasion. We’re about to begin the first of our two-hour, warm-up sessions and I’m terrified. Lithe 20-somethings are limbering up around me, all looking impossibly fit. They seem to carry themselves with such confidence, while I’m trapped inside my head panicking about how awkward I feel. Suddenly, our instructor, Darren enters the room. “Lie on the floor!” he barks. For a moment, I freeze. Then, I take a deep breath and shift my focus from my fear to my purpose for being here: to learn more about physical theatre from one of the most exciting companies in the world. I join my classmates on the floor and a new lease of creative life unfurls within me.
So begins my first day with the PUSH Physical Theatre Company…
Let’s get physical
As we know from the ancient Greek chorus, commedia dell’arte and Japanese noh, movement has been an integral part of storytelling since the earliest days of the theatre. Physical Theatre is a type of performance that puts an emphasis on movement, placing the human body at the centre of the storytelling process.
In 2000, Darren Stevenson and his wife Heather founded PUSH Physical Theatre in Rochester, New York, working ‘outside the box’ in an exciting hybrid of theatre and dance. At PUSH, acrobatics collide with circus skills, head-spinning leaps, dance, gesture and mime to cleverly expose how stories morph and mutate to lend meaning to our lives. The company has received international acclaim for its work, smashing the boundaries of theatrical conventions to create a strikingly visual form of storytelling.
From the moment I came across a video performance of PUSH, I was captivated by its emotional eloquence. It was visceral, raw and invigorating, yet there was an undertow of tenderness that touched me. I knew immediately that I wanted to attend one of PUSH’s three-week Summer Intensive programs so I could help my students at Wenona explore and extend their physical acting skills. Before I’d had time to second guess myself, I’d successfully applied for a Wenona Teaching Fellowship to go to New York, before going on to learn more about physical theatre in Paris and Amsterdam.
However, as my departure date drew nearer, I started to watch the videos of past intensives with a rising sense of panic. When I first enquired about the program, I was assured that it catered for all ages and fitness levels. Yet the past participants seemed so much younger and more supple than me, whirring across my screen in travelling spins, undulating fluently between floor and air to create human sculptures with their bodies.
I always tell my students to step outside their comfort zones. After all, that’s how we learn. And yet, the doubt lingered. Could I do this? Was PUSH a step too far for a 50-plus woman with fluctuating fitness levels? In June 2019, I travelled to Rochester, New York to find out.
Finding my core belief at PUSH
As with any change in life, the first step is the hardest. And once I have joined my fellow classmates on the floor of the rehearsal studio at PUSH, I start to relax.
Darren, PUSH’s Artistic Director, seems tough, but fair. For our warm-up, he focuses on developing our core strength. For the next two hours, we contract our stomach muscles and pull in our arms and legs in a repetitive sequence, while Darren barks instructions and clicks his tongue to help us keep time. It feels odd at first, but each movement is designed to help the body maintain different postures and improve our performance. Every day, Darren adds a more complex movement to our warm-up sequence. After two weeks, we can execute a series of core strength and body isolation movements, and we can do ballet jumps and mime sequences in unison. While I’m far from the best in the class, I can perform the entire sequence with ease and have a new-found awareness of my body and the space it inhabits.
Acrobatics and Mime
After our warm-up session, the hard work begins. Some days are devoted to acrobatics. At the start, I struggle to do a forward roll, but by the end I can spring from standing into a one-armed roll and do a headstand unaided. And to my delight, I learn
to ‘fly’ over a partner while they lie on the ground, supporting me with their upturned legs.
Perhaps the exercise that resonates most is a ‘push and pull’ routine inspired by Frantic Assembly, one of my favourite physical theatre companies and among the most influential British companies for movement. It gives me a whole new toolkit of techniques to use on stage at Wenona.
During the intensive, I also discover that there’s more to mime than Marcel Marceau, the so-called poet laureate of silence, whose white face and stripey top is forever etched in my mind. We spend the day submerged in a wordless world as Darren teaches us the vocabulary of Corporeal Mime, which has been described as ‘the art of the thinking body’. We learn the seven steps of picking up an imaginary flower. We lean against imaginary walls. And we learn to walk on the spot, which proves a lot harder than it first appears. Then Darren treats us to a performance from his oneman show, The Soldier. We watch in awe as the dying soldier’s life flashes before his eyes. There are his childhood memories of playing baseball and his final farewell to his family as he heads off to war. Beneath the technical virtuosity of Darren’s performance, there is a poetic quality that hits at a deeper truth. The effect is both breathtaking and profoundly moving.
Each day, we finish in the studio at around 5pm and head back to our accommodation at Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester. After dinner, we reconvene with our instructors for a presentation and feedback session. It’s a critical part of our learning curve, an opportunity to reflect on our day - what worked, what didn’t - and to gain a greater understanding of the theory and dynamics behind different movements.
Fright night in New York
After nearly three weeks of training with PUSH, I feel ready to put my new-found technical knowledge of physical theatre to the test. Sleep No More, by British theatre company Punchdrunk, is billed as an immersive retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, with shades of Hitchcock and film noir. The performance takes place across six floors of New York City’s McKittrick Hotel. It puts the audience at the heart of the action by allowing them to follow roving actors at their leisure, selecting which scenes of “double, double, toil and trouble” they want to watch.
I’ve been allocated an arrival time, so I wait in the foyer of the McKittrick Hotel. It’s dark and there’s a haunted house vibe, which is unnerving. By the time I’m summoned to go in, I’m feeling a little like Macbeth and Banquo when they first encounter the witches. I join a group of people in a small room lined with black velvet. I’m given a white mask to wear with a long beaky nose. While it’s not exactly Wes Craven’s Ghostface, it’s just as creepy. As we step into an elevator, we are given three instructions: don’t take the mask off; don’t touch the actors; and don’t talk. We ascend in silence. The door opens on a random floor.
My sense of space and depth are already compromised by the mask, but stepping out into the dimly lit corridor, I feel like I’m entering the sludgy aura of a nightmare. Disturbing music adds to the sense of menace. “Out damn spot!” I think to myself. Then, to my horror, I notice my fellow audience members have started to run down the corridor. Terrified at the prospect of being left alone, I follow them. They stop at an open doorway. In the gloaming, I can see a couple getting dressed into beautiful 20’s clothing. I know they are actors because they’re not wearing masks. The man, handsome in his dinner jacket, suddenly looks at his watch and strides towards the doorway. We stand aside for him and he sets off at pace down the corridor. Some people follow him. I hover behind, curious to see
what the woman left at the dressing table will do. To my dismay, she starts to sob.
Sleep No More is a nerve-shredding journey through a maze of rooms, corridors and stairwells, where vignettes of Macbeth wordlessly play out. I wander into a sanitorium with eight beds, each adorned with a patient’s chart and a crucifix. One bed is filled with potatoes. In a graveyard, I watch as Lady Macbeth floats silently in a bathtub, while blood-soaked letters flutter across the floor. In the psychiatrist’s office, I read notes from a therapy session with Lady Macduff. And in the witches’ lair, the floor is strewn with hair, leaves, and crumpled papers scrawled with spells. There are bird carcasses, headless baby dolls and a spine-tingling Birnam Wood. Despite my fear, I marvel at the physicality of the actors as they spiral past, slithering down staircases, climbing walls, and contorting into spiky shapes that almost defy gravity.
While it’s hardly a relaxing night at the theatre, the detail of the set is unbelievable, and the acting is sublime. However, for me, the performance is as terrifyingly claustrophobic as any horror film, and as I head back to my digs on the Upper West Side, I am plagued with such existential dread that I feel sure I will ‘sleep no more’!
Pilgrimage to Paris
I find the Cartoucherie in a deep, dark wood in the depths of Paris’s Bois de Vincennes. This former munition factory is home to Ariane Mnouchkine’s Théâtre du Soleil, and as I approach its pretty façade, I’m filled with awe. For me, this journey is something of a pilgrimage. In France, where Mnouchkine is the reigning matriarch of European theatre, she is known simply as ‘La Reine’ (‘The Queen’). Since founding the Théâtre du Soleil in 1964, Mnouchkine has become one of the most influential directors in the world, fuelled by her ability to meld the art of improvisation with her unique theatrical vision.
I’m here to see a performance of Le Chant Du Pied, Voyage en Kathakalie. I’m aware that as an audience member, I am required to put in almost as much preparation as the actors, so I’ve done my homework. Mnouchkine herself trained with the legendary French physical theatre teacher, Jacques LeCoq, and her actors undergo intense physical training. They often spend up to six months rehearsing, refining and incubating their ideas. Their performances draw from a rich mosaic of international influences, including commedia dellarte, bunraku puppetry and Javanese gamelan.
Mnouchkine refers to her actors as ‘mécaniciens foux’ (‘mad mechanics’) for the way they pick up different theatrical tools and use them in creative ways. Kathakali, which this performance draws from, is an ancient form of Indian classical dance and storytelling, originating in Kerala in southern India. It combines extravagant footwork, gestures, music and mime, with age-old martial arts movements. It is typically enacted outdoors by male actors. Voices chant the storyline, which the dancers perform, often accompanied by ear-splitting drumbeats and cymbals.
As I arrive at the entrance to the Cartoucherie, I’m handed a poster of ‘Le Chant Du Pied’ (‘The song of the Feet’), which features three sets of legs and feet. There are no reservations, so I find a place on a communal bench. It’s hot. I waft the beautiful woven fan I’ve been given in front of my face. Three women appear on stage and begin to speak in French, raising their hands and pressing their thumbs and pinky fingers together. They look like statuettes of Indian gods. I notice that the audience are mimicking their gestures, so I do the same. Then one of the actors starts to grimace, moving her eyes from left to right in an exaggerated fashion. Even with my schoolgirl French, I can pick out ‘à gauche’ and ‘à droit’, so I start to move my eyes, still gesturing with my hands. The actor begins to chant faster and faster, until my eyes feel like they are rolling around in my head like ball-bearings. It’s discombobulating.
The blistering heat. The chanting. The crowd of strangers. But just before it all becomes too much, everything stops. The lights go down, the audience is quiet, and the show begins.
Mnouchkine says, “You should go out of the theatre stronger and more human than when you went in.” And I do. I find myself deeply moved by the show in a way that I don’t fully understand. It’s in the very fabric of a performer’s art to make it look easy. But as I watch the actors move with grace, using stylised gestures and facial expressions that take us on a magical journey through India, I marvel at how exceptional their ability is. It dawns on me afterwards, that the audience participation at the start of the show was all about them generously sharing their knowledge with us.
As I leave the Bois de Vincennes, I realise I’ve left my poster behind. My precious souvenir of Mnouchkine’s theatre is lost. When I get back to my hotel, I send a tentative email to the Théâtre du Soleil. Do they have any spare posters? Could I come back to pick it up? Their response encapsulates the spirit of the company. No problem. If I give them my home address, they will send a new poster to me in Australia. Which they do. Free of charge!
The Amsterdam Stomp
No mobile phones in the rehearsal room. No food. No alcohol during the week. Don’t come to class if you are sick. Don’t be late to class. In fact, arrive 15 minutes early so you can warm up your body and voice. Oh, and the door to the rehearsal room will be locked five minutes before class starts, so any latecomers will have to sit out the morning session! This is our welcome address from Dr Lynne Bradley, co-founder of Zen Zen Zo Theatre Company. Wow, I think, this woman would make a great high school teacher!
Founded in 1992, Zen Zen Zo melds ancient Asian dance-theatre traditions with European avant-garde theatre and contemporary pop culture to produce radically different spectacles of light, sound and movement. Here audience members are literally pulled into the production, adding another layer to their performance and blurring the very notion of what it means to be a spectator.
The irony of travelling to the other side of the world to work with an Australian physical theatre company - Zen Zo Zo was on a teaching tour of Britain, Amsterdam and Turkey - is not lost on me. But the weirdness doesn’t end there. I discover that Lynne
is a Wenonian, having attended our Junior School. And her mum was the former Head of Mathematics at Wenona! Not that any of these connections help me when I hit the floor for a week-long training program with Zen Zen Zo in Amsterdam.
The program follows the Suzuki Method of Actor Training, which was developed by theatre director, Tadashi Suzuki. It’s a rigorous and highly physical method of acting training, designed to push the actor’s concentration, endurance and balance to the limit. Suzuki argues that it is this point of extreme focus, where an actor finds his essential truth. Each day begins with the ‘Suzuki Stomp’. We must bend into a position that is almost like sitting on an imaginary chair, keeping our knees and ankles, together. While Lynne plays vigorous ‘stomping music’, we must lift our knees up and down, almost to waist-height, as we stomp around the room in time with the music. Lynne is like a terrier, snapping at our heels and barking instructions. Look up! Keep your knees level with your hips! Don’t slow down! We stomp to the back wall and drop to the ground. Then we rise, taking care to use our core muscles, and turn slowly towards the audience, arms raised. We are reborn!
Our days take on a prescribed pattern. After morning tea, we perform exercises inspired by Butoh, a Japanese form of dance-theatre that arose in response to the horrors of World War Two. It’s like nothing I’ve ever done before. Its fascination with the dark side of life, make it both ugly and beautiful, and strangely liberating. After lunch, we explore ‘The Viewpoints’, which is a technique of theatrical composition that explores the use of movement, gesture and creative space. I’ve used it with great success in the classroom, so I’m keen to learn more. Lynne takes us through different elements of this framework, before we move into improvisation and composition. I lap it up, hungry to absorb her knowledge and insight.
But it is the ‘Suzuki Stomp’ that almost breaks me. It’s half way through the week, and I’m tired and sore. The thought of starting yet another session with stomping feels overwhelming. I really don’t want to do it, but I do. I barely make it through the exercise, and the next day, I feel sick at the prospect of doing it all over again. But then a strange thing happens. As I start to stomp around the room - trying to keep my eyes level, my hips down and my ankles together - I realise I can do it. It’s not easy, but I can do it. Tadashi Suzuki’s rigorous training method has pushed me to my limits, but in doing so, it’s shown me that I am able to do more than I believed I was capable of. When the music stops, I drop to the ground and I feel a new-found confidence blooming within me.
REFLECTION
According to Noel Coward, the art of acting is simple: “Learn the lines and don’t bump into the furniture.” Of course, as any Drama student will tell you, physical theatre is anything but simple. It requires immense skill and discipline to transform yourself into something else. Just as professional musicians must practice daily to perfect their technique on an instrument, actors must undergo rigorous training to capitalise on the dynamism of space, and use the physicality, strength and dexterity of their bodies to express complex ideas and emotions.
My Fellowship took me on a worldwide quest to learn more about physical theatre. It was rigorous and intense. At times, it was confronting, but it was always inspiring. It’s enabled me to strengthen my physical capabilities and develop a much greater awareness of how the body can be used to communicate powerfully and with precision. But more importantly, it’s had a profound effect on my teaching for which I am truly grateful.
Working with some of the best theatre directors in the world has reignited my love of physical theatre: the collective energy and the sense of connection that allows you to unleash your imagination and explore your creativity.
I’ve learnt so many exciting new techniques and exercises to put into practice at Wenona. This has reinvigorated my classroom teaching and accelerated my students’ learning, giving them a whole new arsenal of tools to develop the physical life of their characters on stage. And it has opened my eyes to the exciting possibilities that physical theatre offers when I’m directing plays.
But above all, my Fellowship has shown me what it’s like to be a student again; to walk in their shoes. I will treasure the times that I felt frightened, elated or confused. When my students perform in front of their peers, I immediately recall the fear I felt when I stepped into the rehearsal room at PUSH for the first time. Moving out of my comfort zone was hard, so I have a new-found respect for my students when they move out of theirs.
On my return to Australia, I conducted a series of physical theatre workshops with Middle School students, as well as a playwriting workshop with award-winning writer, Lachlan Philpott. It is my hope that the students will continue to work with Lachlan to devise an original script for a physical theatre performance that will be staged at Wenona in the future.
PYP: A A slice of PYP I first encountered the PYP program during my Master of Teaching degree at Melbourne University. JOURNEY A placement at the International School in Hong Kong gave me a window into inquiry-based learning. Asking questions is a central part of what it means to be a child, and I was struck by the way PYP cultivates the TO NORTH natural curiosities and capabilities of children. By expertly guiding their enthusiasm for exploration and challenging them to pursue their own ideas, AMERICA teachers at the school empowered students to think critically, solve problems and deepen their knowledge. that line the horizon, this K to 12 school is elevated by My interest in PYP was further ignited while teaching in Victoria, where I had the privilege of learning from Exploring how learners experienced teacher, author and university lecturer Kath Murdoch. She was engaged as part of an Artistinspire learners in-Residence program to help the school embed an inquiry stance across their teaching and learning. This reinforced my conviction that by fostering a genuine BY NICK AMATO spirit of inquiry in our classrooms, we equip students JUNIOR SCHOOL TEACHER with the space and freedom to grow intellectually. So, imagine my excitement when in 2018, Dr Scott flagged her intentions to introduce PYP to Wenona! I knew immediately that I wanted to play a role in Wenona’s decision to become a candidate for supporting its implementation in the Junior School.
the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme was the catalyst for Nick Amato’s Visiting Vancouver
successful Wenona Teaching Fellowship Arriving at Mulgrave School last year, it was evident application. His journey across North America has that this is a learning environment where curious brought innovation and inspiration to Wenona, minds thrive. The school opened in 1993, introducing helping to improve the education experiences of PYP in 2007. In that time, Mulgrave, with its rich, our students. varied and outward-looking curriculum and its restless Framed by slopes of cedar and spruce, Mulgrave thought leadership for PYP. In 2019, it hosted the IB School boasts a striking vista of Vancouver. From the Continuum Schools and Districts Global Conference, island-specked water below, to the glittering glass sharing best practice IB teaching and learning ideas towers of the city’s skyline, to the majestic mountains across the local region. pursuit of excellence, has become a centre of the dramatic landscape that surrounds it. But Mulgrave During my visit, I had an opportunity to attend staff also enjoys a reputation for being one of the world’s meetings, listening in as teachers planned and best International Baccalaureate (IB) schools. And evaluated their work. Engaging in collaborative design it was Mulgrave’s inspirational approach to the IB’s for inquiry-based learning requires a blend of thinking Primary Years Programme (PYP) that first attracted ahead while also being responsive to the interests me to Canada. and needs of students. Visiting different classrooms, I was interested to observe Year 4 working together In July 2019, I travelled to Vancouver to visit Mulgrave on a writing task linked to a transdisciplinary unit. It and other leading PYP schools in New York as part of my was a stimulating class, with students leading and six-week Wenona Teaching Fellowship to explore best contributing to discussion. Before students began their practice PYP teaching and learning in North America. writing task however, the teachers still took time to
There has been an IB World School since
1978
PYP Programme currently offered by
136 Schools
158
countries offer
5,278 Schools
offer IB programmes
reiterate the key elements that make up a good story: setting, characters, problem, climax and resolution. It was great to see that explicit teaching still has its place in PYP, helping to scaffold and guide students’ ideas and interests.
In Vancouver, I also visited Fraser Valley Elementary School and Stratford Hall. Fraser Valley, a coeducation school that opened its doors in 2007, introduced PYP in 2017. With its small classes and nurturing environment, the emphasis here is on encouraging students to take ownership of their academic progress. The PYP Learner Profiles are prominently displayed around the school and the teachers consistently referenced and discussed them with their students. I had the privilege of attending the students’ end-of-year PYP Exhibition, which was a showcase of student-led investigations and inquiry into topics or issues that interested them. It reinforced to me how passionate and engaged students can be when they are given the voice, choice and agency to lead their own learning.
With its split campus and its proximity to the city, Stratford Hall - one of the few Canadian schools that offers a complete Kindergarten to Year 12 IB programme - has striking similarities to Wenona. It is proudly counter cultural and offers a rigorous liberal arts curriculum that compels its students to challenge assumptions and think for themselves. One of the main differences was its open plan learning spaces. To my surprise, these spaces were not as noisy as I’d expected, but instead engendered a high level of conversation, cooperation and collaboration. What impressed me most about Stratford Hall was their focus on developing research skills. Given our IB programmes
students have more information at their fingertips than ever before, having the fluency to find and use information successfully is becoming increasingly important to all aspects of life.
New York, New York
It’s been described as a city on steroids and after the natural beauty of Vancouver, New York was something of an adrenalin shock to the system. I quickly understood that with its compact streets crammed with people, traffic and skyscrapers, school space is at a premium in New York City. It was also interesting to note that while the Australian education system is widely respected here, teachers grapple with similar concerns: high-stakes testing, a crowded curriculum and time constraints.
The first PYP school I visited in New York Global was Charter Community School in Harlem. I was astonished to learn that the school had only gained PYP accreditation in 2017. Student work was proudly displayed across the school, along with task objectives, marking criteria and colourful Learner Profile banners. The school has 400 students from diverse backgrounds, including African-American and Latino. Nineteen percent of students are English Language Learners and 21 percent of students have disabilities. This means that across every grade, there are co-teaching classrooms for students with individualised learning plans. With no outdoor space, students use an indoor gymnasium on a rotating basis for their recreational play time. At Wenona, our physical environment is part and parcel of how we teach and learn, so the lack of space here made me reflect on how lucky our students are to enjoy fresh air each day.
I spent time in a very inquisitive Year 3 classroom, who were presenting a research project on different countries. They were excited to have an Australian present and asked me lots of questions about Australia. Again, I was fortunate that my visit coincided with the school’s end-of-year PYP Exhibition, themed around the transdisciplinary unit ‘Sharing the Planet’. Students had chosen to tackle complex global issues such as animal rights, child abuse and immigration. It was inspiring to listen as they passionately articulated their central idea and their lines of inquiry, responding to questions thoughtfully and eloquently. It highlighted how important it is for teachers to support young people to explore, develop and express their own values and opinions, while respecting other points of view.
In New York, I also visited the International School of Brooklyn and the Brooklyn School of Arts and Science. Both are PYP schools and both reflect the vibrant diversity of New York’s population. The International School of Brooklyn is a French and Spanish immersion school. Along with bolstering intercultural understanding and international mindedness through their approach to languages, the school also actively encourages students to champion sustainability initiatives. Building sustainable cities and communities will play a major role in our world’s future, and the students have found innovative ways to promote greener practices. This includes recycling waste, composting and cultivating the school garden.
The students also produce their own sustainability blog to inspire action in their communities, allowing them to generate their own ideas for improving the places in which they live and learn.
With a high proportion of Spanish speakers in its student population, The Brooklyn School of Arts and Science teach classes in English and Spanish on alternate days, so that students are fluent in both languages. Transdisciplinary teaching lies at the heart of PYP, so I was particularly inspired to see how the school integrated maths into their curriculum in ways that were exciting, engaging and relevant to the students. Achieving a captivated and interesting class can open the door to a deeper understanding of maths, so I learnt a lot from observing how the teachers forged meaningful connections between curriculum areas.
IB Conference, New Orleans
After watching Hurricane Katrina decimate New Orleans in 2005, I was nervous to hear that Hurricane Barry was mooted to hit New Orleans at the same time as the 2019 International Baccalaureate Conference. Fortunately, apart from some flooding, New Orleans largely escaped the hurricane unscathed and everything went ahead as planned. The IB Conference brought together IB educators from across the globe, and the atmosphere was one of excitement, hope and passionate enthusiasm as we brainstormed new concepts, teaching methods and best practices.
Over the past year, the Junior School at Wenona has worked tirelessly to implement PYP, working with specialists to build a Programme of Inquiry (POI), which provides a framework for the six transdisciplinary units across each year level. We have taken a rigorous approach to planning to ensure that we incorporate all aspects of this new program across K to 6. The conference was a fantastic opportunity to learn from other PYP educators about their approach to planning and programming. It highlighted the importance of having a coherent vision, and how critical it is to set aside regular time to collaborate, communicate, reflect and evaluate as a team.
A dynamic session about nurturing student agency gave me lots of practical tips and strategies about helping to engage the passions, wonders and curiosities of young learners. And I also derived a lot from a session about incorporating maths into a transdisciplinary framework, supporting students to interrogate information, develop critical thinking skills and apply their thinking in different contexts. It helped me to better understand how an inquirybased approach to maths can fit into a world where standardised testing and a focus on ‘back to basics’ can make it challenging to try new things.
ITSE and PBL
My Fellowship journey ended with the three-day International Society for Technology in Education (ITSE) conference in Philadelphia, followed by a Project Based Learning (PBL) workshop in Boston.
The rapid evolution of technology has highlighted the need to advance how education is delivered to young people. With tech giants like Microsoft, Adobe, Google and Apple in attendance, the ITSE conference was nothing short of mind-blowing. There was an opportunity to learn from those at the cutting-edge of ‘edtech’ and see how the latest apps, platforms, tools and games can improve the educational experiences for all students. As teachers, we have a responsibility to guide the next generation of digital citizens and I was excited to see the transformative classroom potential of the latest in virtual reality, augmented reality, 3D printing, Microbits and coding with robotics. Overall, the ITSE conference gave me lots of practical ideas, skills and resources to enrich the learning environment, which I was able to put to good use in my teaching when I returned to Australia.
I finished up my PYP journey in Boston where I attended a Project Based Learning (PBL) workshop with other educators. Together, we explored how to better use online platforms and resources to promote learning. As a teaching method, PBL is closely related to inquiry learning. Students are challenged to reflect on real, tangible problems, using technology to find relevancy and purpose in their learning and gain a more conceptual understanding. The workshop had a great energy, with lively discussion about how to integrate different platforms to drive student agency, engagement, motivation and learning. We also developed PBL units of work together, using real-life situations for children to explore and solve.
