As my 13 year old son spends another day studying for his end of year exams, I have been pleased to see him engaged positively in the topics he is revising. Don’t get me wrong there is still a lot of moaning about the amount of work he needs to do and how unfair it is that his younger brother is out doing fun weekend activities.
I remember Grade 8 and the many hours spent hunched over text books at this time of year. Text books are now a thing of the past in this era of technological education. What amazes me is the innovative methods teachers are using to engage students in the classroom and the life lessons they are teaching.
One such example this term was when my son had to read Boy Overboard, the Play. This is an adapted version of the novel by Morris Gleitzman. Whereas the reading of the book may have been a little unexciting for some boys, the acting out of the scenes of the play got the boys out of their seats and immersed them in the lives of Gleitzman’s characters. The play follows the boat journey of refugee children as they make their way to Australia. The challenges these boat children had to endure are ones my son will never have to, but the story made him aware of the plight of other children in the world. The play was utilised by the teacher to impart script writing skills (the boys had to rewrite a scene from the play), drama techniques (by the acting out of the play) and some modern history knowledge (via the naval officer’s character who expressed regret that he could not do more for the boat people because of the political restrictions placed upon him).
This weekend I have watched Horrible History videos on the Aztecs and Incas which form part of the Year 8 history revision for next week’s exam. My son and I have laughed at the Aztec Priest Song “Ain’t Staying Alive” and at the PowerPoint presentation his history teacher has put together about the “awesomeness” of Francisco Pizarro (not so awesome if you were an Inca in the 1500s!). Again these techniques of teaching are proving in my house to be so effective and thanks to the humor injected into the history syllabus by my son’s history teacher, he has a new found interest in the subject.
These are only a few examples of how the teachers at my son’s school are injecting such enthusiasm into what they teach and this enthusiasm is translating into a similar enthusiasm for learning in my home. So thank you to the many teachers who we entrust our children to every day. You are instilling in our children knowledge and skills they will carry with them into adulthood and doing so in such a positive way.
