From the Head of School

Not Just Knowledge and Skills

If schools are just about knowledge and skills, it would mean we don’t have students but apprentices. And indeed before modern times that’s just what education was: you learnt to be a cobbler from a young age because your parents made shoes. You didn’t learn about other nations or the movement of the planets because that wasn’t relevant to you. Twenty-first century ISA is as much about how you learn as what you learn, about ensuring that “every child [has] every opportunity.” A Grade 6 science class I visited this week provided a good example of this. Students had been working on a project to “build the ultimate energy efficient house.” They all worked with a rubric with the criteria for success. They had to consider: location, building materials, energy generation, heating and lighting and appliances. Money was no object. The students would receive a group grade, so were required to work well together, and the groups were randomly generated so, just as in the adult world, they couldn’t choose their colleagues. Where the house was, what it looked like, how it was built and how they presented their ideas was totally up to them. Sophie, Rory, Lukas and Clement kicked off the presentations with a house on Blue Island near the Bahamas. Before they started, Ms Curnock reminded the class, “what’s your job as an audience?” “Listen, look, ask good questions at the end” they responded The group used slides to explain how they would use a hydro-generator to transform the ocean’s energy into electricity for air-conditioners and the energy efficient smart fridge. They couldn’t just prepare a set script because they had to be ready to respond to questions. A classmate asked, “Where would you get your food from?” Clement responded, “We researched that - there is a grocery store on the Bahamas just 30 minutes away by speedboat. And you can grow bananas and keep farm animals.” They had even considered desalination for their water supply! Iona, Max, Liam and Stepan’s group put their energy efficient house in the Philippines, a satellite picture showing exactly where. They would use local bamboo for building material. Near to a river and a field they could use hydro, wind and solar energy, switching between them if the flow of water slowed, the wind dropped or the sun disappeared. Dominic, Laila, Kirsty, Finlay and Nael had located their house in Yellowstone national park using geothermal energy from a nearby dormant volcano, and tungsten as a significant part of the construction. Rashid asked, “How would you transport the tungsten, it is one of the densest metals?” Kirsty replied, “We are getting it from nearby Montagna, which is a major producer.” Ara asked perceptively, “Can you build a house in a national park?” These Grade 6s were applying their knowledge of transformation of energy. But this project so much more than that: it required research and discussion, thinking things through, anticipating questions, dividing up tasks, considering how best to communicate and persuade. “It is the best thing we have done all year!” was a common sentiment, “We got to choose and really think about things.” Unlike the medieval cobbler’s child, our students don’t have a set destiny. We have to prepare them for a fast changing world with transferable skills.