From the Head of School

 

Self Directed Learning

Antoine Lavoier was one of the greatest scientists of the eighteenth century, laying the foundation of modern chemistry.  He recognised and named oxygen and hydrogen, predicted the existence of silicon and wrote the first list of elements.

At five years old, he had inherited a fortune and so had no real need to apply himself to anything.  But at school he had been inspired by a teacher to look into the natural world.  It was a passion that never left him.

Lavoiser could have led a life of passive consumption; it was not necessity that drove him to a productive and rewarding career, but love of what he was doing.

Few of us are lucky enough to have a fortune to pass down to our children.  They will have to make their own way in the world.  But should that mean that they study for future necessity or to find passions that will give them lives more than that?

In last week’s Thistle Talk, Angus Carmichael introduced Grade 9’s Self Directed Learning Projects.  You may have watched Julia’s video where she described teaching herself Italian.  It was not something she had just done this year, she said, but something she continues to do.  She wasn’t learning because she had to, but because she wanted to.  That’s pretty powerful.

Last night, many Elementary parents went to the Art and Science Fair. You would not have been subject to a barrage of facts, but instead engaged with lots of interesting questions about the world around us: ‘What is a scientist?’ ‘How can spinning motion be changed?’ ‘What happens when you put rocks in water?’ ‘What happens when fabric gets wet?’  ‘How does light behave?’  ‘What are the ideal conditions to grow chocolate?’  ‘How do we hear?’  

You would have seen rocket and lego challenges, circuits, refracting pencils, grapes becoming raisins and a model city made of 3D shapes.  What inspired Lavoisier was less the facts he was given than the questions they forced him to ask. Students are inspired by inquiring and discovering, by directing their own learning.  

From Monday’s incredibly entertaining elementary assembly to last night’s exhibition, students have shown an incredible joy in learning and engagement with science.

We need money to get by, but it was not his fortune that gave Laviosier a satisfying life; it was doing something he loved.  We can at least find ways to love what we are doing.