For Nunana Nyomi, it is fear itself that holds us back from addressing diversity, equity, inclusion and justice issues in international schools. Two strategies can take us forward.
Thomas Kelley and Kathy Marshall propose that if we are to address the issue of poor wellbeing and mental stress in our schools, we must grasp a sufficient understanding of the way every person’s psychological life is created from the “inside-out”.
Despite the huge benefits of an international education, we know there can be a downside for ‘third culture kids’. Tanya Crossman looks at awareness and risk mitigation in schools.
Tash Hingston with news of an opportunity for the views of international school students to be heard by participating in the ISC Research student voice survey.
David Cole, Principal of the British International School Ukraine looks at how an online art project has kept the school community together during the country’s diaspora.
The unique programme of a school built in the grounds of a residential care home on Réunion Island is impacting the lives of young and old alike. Principal of Ma Kindy, Jade Amalou reports.
Do you suffer from risk assessment anxiety? According to David Gregory, you are not alone but you can master your fears!
A recent global survey by Tes shows international schools are meeting staff wellbeing needs pretty well, although more can always be done. Jon Romer-Lee reports.
According to Jim Knight, Rt Hon Lord Knight of Weymouth, dealing with Covid has come at a cost, but significant ways to improve teacher wellbeing are also at hand this side of the pandemic.
Chika Kumashiro-Wilms tells how a simple question asked at school led to a major logistical effort to assist with the vaccination of some refugee communities in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Supporting projects in low-income contexts can reinforce inequalities between ‘supporters’ and ‘activists’ on the ground. EduSpots is a project based in Ghana that aims to address post-colonial issues head on. Cat Davison reports.
If you want to find out how to change the world for the better, Margaret Rooke suggests listening to young people.
In the context of continuing uncertainty, Megan Flottorp asks service learning guru, Cathryn Berger Kaye how schools can develop their programmes for ‘21-‘22.
Rachel Coathup looks at the development of two video resources from ClickView for teaching Relationships and Sex Education, now available free to schools and parents around the world.
Sir Anthony Seldon reflects on five restorative practices that have a positive impact both on ourselves and on those around us.
Dietitian and international teacher spouse Breanna Baildon knows what it’s like for busy teachers – but that’s why our eating habits have to change.
Clare Taylor loved teaching internationally, but having seen what can be done in South Australia, she suggests international schools could become more fully inclusive.
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.
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.
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.
Andy Homden looks at a competition for international schools that simply would not have happened without lockdown, and seems destined to grow quickly.
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.
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.
Becoming totally absorbed in painting increases a sense of wellbeing, but there may be more to it than that writes Peter Hudson.
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.
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 (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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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
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.
For Felicity Gunn, enhanced intercultural mindedness, when practiced by the whole community, can take any school or business to new heights.
It’s been a long time since Ken Robinson’s famous TED talk in 2006. 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.
Young people in schools around the world are fighting back against Covid-19 with music. Laurie Lewin invites your school to join in.
Matthew Savage, creator of the #monalisaeffect® approach to personalised learning and wellbeing considers what other masks children will be wearing in 2020.
Gwen Byrom thinks we need to see school-home communication from a parent’s perspective to avoid problems arising from our own misconceptions.
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 has never been more important. Professor Marcus Du Sautoy explains the mathematics behind the spreading of a virus.
Matt Harris Ed.D. reports how a significant gap in safeguarding training for schools is being filled by an innovative group of international educators.
Elly Tobin, senior consultant at Consilium Education, has been listening to teachers and students talking about their experiences of online learning.
Covid-19 has challenged so many assumptions about teaching overseas. One pressure point is the provision of adequate medical insurance, as Rachel Thorpe reports.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sally Flint talks to ITM about her new book ‘I Love My Grandpa’ in which she explores dementia from a child’s perspective.
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.
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.