Reaching for the oxygen
For Angelo Castelda, if you are going to help others effectively during the ongoing pandemic, you have to make sure you look after yourself as well.
Community
The lessons of the corona crisis in Denmark
Kevin Goggins, Head of Skt Josef’s International School, Denmark considers how the Danish experience of the pandemic may point the way to more lasting educational change.
Helping Uganda Schools
Set up to provide a great education in self-supporting schools, HUGS is a model for the development of low-cost, sustainable learning, as Dr. Richard Bircher reports.
New FOBISIA inter-school event takes off during lockdown
Andy Homden looks at a competition for international schools that simply would not have happened without lockdown, and seems destined to grow quickly.
Get them outside!
Covid has brought home the value of getting outside. Nicholas Chaddock looks at why reevaluating the importance of outdoor education is so important for all of us in 2021.
The importance of sport to a school community in 2020
Far from being marginalised, sport moved centre stage at this UK day and boarding school during a difficult year, as Ed Buck, Director of Sport reports.
Art and wellbeing
Becoming totally absorbed in painting increases a sense of wellbeing, but there may be more to it than that writes Peter Hudson.
Supporting military children in school
As a result of frequent relocations and long periods of family separation, the children of military personnel need empathetic support in school, writes Louise Fetigan.
Learning synthesis
Holly Warren describes Think Tank, an innovative studio environment in which children learn to synthesise their learning experiences as new design and art pieces.
The Think Tank environment.
The Think Tank (Warren, 2015) is an immersive, interactive studio setting (atelier) designed by students and an atelierista (art studio teacher) to celebrate, stimulate, enhance, and develop creative thinking patterns that connect children with a range of other experiences, both inside and outside a school. The concept was initially inspired by the educational approaches of pedagogues Loris Malaguzzi, Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner and Kieran Egan, which allow a child to express ideas, interests, concepts and theories by creating visual narratives without restriction. This approach sets the ground for exploratory adventures that will tell the story of a child’s research and findings and has evolved into what the children have described as “the place where your ideas come true.”
The Think Tank never requests, it proposes, shares, presents, and inspires its community to create art pieces that are expressive of their own experience. A constant inter-action with the students’ environment allows an ongoing dialogue of the parts. Think Tank therefore embraces and celebrates the different environments in which the students work, whether at home or at school.
Materials
Designing and making activities in Think Tank draw on materials which are readily available and are sourced locally either at school or at home. Recycled, repurposed and natural materials are valued, while the language, movement, and sounds that are part of the materials are used to enhance, document, and create narratives.
Think Tank is also a research hub for children’s ideas, concepts, and interests. As a child-centred learning setting it documents the ever-changing processes and themes the children spontaneously engage in.
How experiences unfold.
During Think Tank sessions, the mentor meets small groups of 6 to 8 children in a Pow Wow format to share ideas and thoughts. These can be experiences, recollections of past explorations or new proposals. If needed, a quiet moment of recollection/thinking is proposed as a way of linking with the students’ self. Then the group creates a dialogue and decides how to proceed. This is the three-step process of visible thinking that accompanies the experiences.
The environment is set up with a selection of materials that the Think Tank mentor proposes in different areas of the room. These could be glass bead on the light table, a video installation with sounds and an area for exploration with light such as light pebbles and fairy lights.
Having welcomed each other, participants start a conversation about a continuing project or make an initial exploration of something new. Beads can turn into spaghetti in a make-believe restaurant, the video installation might become a walk in the woods or the lights may turn into a fire requiring firefighters to design a new generation hose.
Recently, due to the requirements linked to the pandemic the students have been given working and exploration areas that are not shared with other classes but are still trampolines of inspiration.
Links with class work and the curriculum
The Think Tank is its own setting, created with the children’s input. It is dynamic and changes according to the moment, the situation and the projects involved. This requires a space that can morph and adapt easily, but its salient characteristic is the mental space needed to create it.
However, there are strong links to what children are learning elsewhere, and which they bring to the studio quite naturally. Think Tank enables them to talk about these ideas and skills in a new context, which is invaluable. Surface learning becomes embedded into deep learning as the children make connections that are meaningful to the projects. Think Tank discussions therefore involve personal know-how and knowledge acquired in class from all areas of learning. Literacy, numeracy, knowledge and understanding of the world, social and emotional skills and predispositions, fine and gross motor skills, creative thinking and problem solving meet in the Think Tank, demonstrating the uniqueness of each student that becomes a vital element in the creation of projects that celebrate multi-perspectives:
“Nothing of me is original, I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve known.” (Palahniuk, 1999)
Celebrating community.
Think Tank therefore celebrates and brings together the school as a learning community. Parents become partners in exhibitions and performance art pieces when everyone adds to the outcome. During the lockdown parents themselves became Think Tank mentors themselves by stepping inside the experiences and working with the children to produce family pieces in a process of incredible educational value.
Student perspective
The richness of the Think Tank experience is best expressed in the words of the children themselves, as in the poem spontaneously presented by a seven year old participant to her parents as a gift:
The Think Tank is full of ideas,
If you listen with your ears, just peer through here,
And maybe you will see a pear,
You will see oysters and monsters.
But don’t worry you don’t need to say sorry.
Now watch this film (Ripples) and you will be surprised
With what your child has learnt.
Holly Warren is an atelierista, or art studio teacher, working in an international school in Italy. She is the creator of Think Tank – a new project environment that links the creative process of art with Montessori, Steiner and Reggio Emilia educational methodologies.
To learn more about her ideas see:
Images kindly provided by Holly
Renewal time
Reviewing a school’s medical insurance can be a technical, painstaking business. Rachel Thorpe looks at how to compare apples with apples and secure the best cover for your staff.
Achieving deep awareness
For Felicity Gunn, enhanced intercultural mindedness, when practiced by the whole community, can take any school or business to new heights.
Picking up the baton
It’s been a long time since Ken Robinson’s famous TED talk in 2007. Andy Homden asks whether the baton of the learning revolution has been picked up by a new champion who is already putting ideas into practice on a large scale.
Singing in a global choir
Young people in schools around the world are fighting back against Covid-19 with music. Laurie Lewin invites your school to join in.
What lies beneath?
Matthew Savage, creator of the #monalisaeffect® approach to personalised learning and wellbeing considers what other masks children will be wearing in 2020.
Don’t judge a book by its cover
Gwen Byrom thinks we need to see school-home communication from a parent’s perspective to avoid problems arising from our own misconceptions.
Community based teacher training in rural Nepal
Fionna Heiton looks at how a new approach to teacher training is beginning to make a difference to the lives of children in a remote district near Pokhara.
Understanding exponential growth
Understanding exponential growth has never been more important. Professor Marcus Du Sautoy explains the mathematics behind the spreading of a virus.
A global mission with International School roots
Matt Harris Ed.D. reports how a significant gap in safeguarding training for schools is being filled by an innovative group of international educators.
Who are we now?
Elly Tobin, senior consultant at Consilium Education, has been listening to teachers and students talking about their experiences of online learning.
Medical insurance in schools post COVID-19
Covid-19 has challenged so many assumptions about teaching overseas. One pressure point is the provision of adequate medical insurance, as Rachel Thorpe reports.
Transforming Early Years education in the Himalayas
When they were living in Nepal with their twin toddlers, it was difficult for teacher Fionna Heiton and her partner Durga Aran to ignore the challenges faced by local schools. Fionna takes up the story.
Dipping into online learning as an adult
Having had a long and very happy association with distance learning, Professor Helen Bilton of the University of Reading suggests it opens up new worlds for adults as well as for children.
Parents and students in lockdown
Janice Ireland talks with Henk van Hout, Global Head of Shell Education Services, about how students and parents are coping with lockdown and the demands of remote learning.
Safeguarding during the lockdown
Jason Tait, Director of Pastoral Care and Designated Safeguarding Lead at TASIS, The American School in England suggests that maintaining student wellbeing during the lockdown is possibly even more important than a school’s online academic programme.
A contagion well worth catching
It’s official – laughing is good for you, and as far as Dave Keeling is concerned, the more we use humour in class, the better our teaching will be.
Coping with stress – tips For educators
While school and teachers provide a cornerstone that offers a daily structure and routine to many children, it is also important to look after your own well being. Leah Davies gives us a few points to consider.
Tricky – but necessary?
Making the most of being at home with a family during the lockdown may depend on getting everyone into a new routine. Easier said than done, but not impossible, thinks Orla Redmond.
Collaborative music recording project for children around the world
Laurie Lewin has been organising the international charity music project Voices Around the World since 2011. Over 7,000 students took part last year. He’s hoping for even more schools to join in when Voices Around the World launch their new song for 2020! Here Laurie tells us what is happening now and what’s in store for the future.
The experience of school closures
An enforced school closure can be sudden and present a range of daunting problems. James McDonald looks at what he learned as a Principal during two periods of crisis, one in Japan and another in Thailand, when he had to close his school.
Providing effective learning and support for young learners
Stephen Walshe and his colleagues Alexis Bucher and Michelle Sun describe how the Fortune Kindergarten in Shanghai is providing distance learning for very young learners during the Covid-19 epidemic.
Understanding dementia
Sally Flint talks to ITM about her new book ‘I Love My Grandpa’ in which she explores dementia from a child’s perspective.
Encouraging parent involvement in school
Since parent involvement relates positively to student achievement, Leah Davies discusses how to encourage parents to participate in their children’s education in a variety of ways both at home and in school.
Parents and librarians working together
For School Librarian, Sally Flint, a great library is a living and breathing organism, filled with users’ laughter, love and thrills. Parents are an important part of the mix.
Widening the base of safeguarding training in international schools
Matt Harris Ed.D., Mike Pelletier and Angelica Nierras talk to ITM’s Andy Homden about providing effective safeguarding training for all members of an international school’s community.
Taking the plunge in Hong Kong
Do you remember your first time? Dipping your toe tentatively in the water. The feeling of trepidation, of exhilaration, the palpable sense of fear because you did not know how to swim? Chris Jay tells the story of how Splash is helping a wide range of adults to take to the water.
The importance of empathy for school leadership
Empathy is a formidable confidante which allows educational leaders to build collaborative communities which influence, innovate and enhance student outcomes. Melissa Etherton explores empathy as a leadership tool and how it can have a positive impact on a school community.
Music, therapy and motivation
When the going gets tough, we often turn to music. According to Curtis Dean, recent research confirms that music can motivate, energise and soothe.
7 ways that sleep impacts your productivity
Sleep affects us in all ways, including how productive we are. If we get too little sleep, we find it harder to concentrate and give our all at work or at home. Lisa Smalls lists seven ways that sleep affects us that we should all be aware of.
Creating a culture of well-being and character
Natassja Williams believes that student well-being depends on a strong, values-based culture at the heart of a school, created and defended by a committed team.
Breaking the cycle
Homelessness seems to becoming an increasing global problem and children are inevitably involved. Leah Davies looks at how, as a profession we might address the issue. One thing is for sure – it cannot be ignored.
The importance of home languages
Much has recently been written highlighting the importance of a child’s mother tongue (or “home language”). Susan Stewart, describes the advantages of putting home languages at the centre of a school’s curriculum.
Managing the media
Children learn not only through real life experience, but vicariously through media exposure which defines our culture and shapes our norms. Exposure to television programming and video streaming profoundly affects how children view their world. Leah Davies advises us to take control.
The key to collaborative planning and decision making
Listening, rather than talking, is the key to making an effective plan of action for a company or school, according to Peter Hudson. The trouble is, most people are not very good at it. Here Peter looks at five key ideas that will help the members of a team improve as listeners, and therefore as effective collaborative planners.
