10 November 2023
How would you feel if you went to school and the teacher told you that for one day your water usage was going to be rationed to a 250ml bottle and with this you would have to manage your entire water intake for the day including; washing, brushing your teeth, drinking and cooking? Most people’s first reaction would be to panic, and then they would start thinking of ways to manage the task, which would have them really thinking about how much water they consume in a day. Real-life problems like this is how Dwight School Dubai begins teaching Grade 3 students about important subjects such as the economy, water and migration.
Interested to learn more? Hit the link to listen to Dubai Eye’s interview with Sara Sankari, Associate Head of Lower School. Sara explains how we use Provocations to fire up curiosity and how it creates independent learners.
The idea is to fire up the students with provocations in the classroom that spark curiosity, and as a result create independent learners. Rather than listening and regurgitating facts, Dwight School encourages its students to be problem solvers, by setting up real life situations in the classroom, which they then have to solve.
An example of how Dwight School helps its students learn about migration, is by creating real-life situations that spark debate and discussion. This has previously been done through an exercise that saw a Grade 5 class moving into a Grade 2 class with no notice. They told the Grade 2 students that this was due to a problem with the air conditioning and that they had to move to another classroom. In the same unit about migration, the Grade 2 class were told that they needed to move classrooms due to problems with their class and were tasked with choosing what they could take with them to make the other classroom a place they could use. They had a limited time to decide on the items they could take, as well as the number of items they could choose to take with them.
Mr. Highcock, Grade 2 teacher said: “We were really shocked to be told to leave our classroom with no notice. But it sparked conversation and really made us think about migration and what it means when people are displaced and how they have to deal with this.”
These real-life activities help prepare Dwight School students for real life scenarios and problems which traditionally are not taught at school, and helps students develop the confidence they need to solve problems in the real world, as well as have the confidence to seek advice.