After two weeks of observing the 5 classes we will be working with I am starting to become familiar with some of the kids. It's really interesting how that sense of being overwhelmed and not understanding begins to recede and things start to emerge more clearly. I can see how the more time I spend at the school the more I will begin to understand how different students communicate and to interpret what they are saying. I am amazed and impressed by the dedication and skill of all the teachers and staff I have observed. Watching Anna communicate with her pre-primary students and persist in getting them to communicate back to her was very moving. The sitting to standing sequence in Bluegum was so interesting for me and really intersected with some of the Body Mind Centring (BMC) Developmental patterns work I have been engaging in. I also really enjoyed watching Bluegum's "Dinosaur cave" lesson last week and Sarah's storytelling with Room 2. It was striking how effective Rachel's approach of initiating engagement through play via the pterosaur puppet in Bluegum. I really enjoyed observing (and participating) in the music classes last Friday. The students and staff had a ball. Bec was having many "Aha" moments and we already started to see how we could adapt our performance to make it more participatory and engaging. The cooking class in Deanne's was also really fun. I began to trust that we will be able to conduct sessions effectively with the active support of Carson St staff. How the staff follow the lead of the person giving the class and model with the students participation is so supportive and effective. I asked Deanne if we could ask for assitance in preparing and gathering resources when we get to the stage of programming our ideas. She said yes. This will make an enormous difference to what we are able to achieve.

We had a great artist meeting yesterday morning. We decided to install a sensory walk in the assembly area next wednesday and invite everyone in the school to participate, including students, educational and ancillary staff. We think this will be a great initiation for everyone into the AIR project. We also decided that each class we are working with will get to plant a bulb as a kind of symbol of the mutual growth that we can all look forward to in this project.

Ideas starting to "ping" - Feels like we will still need to keep paring back on what we will have time to achieve while still being able to reflect and review effectively.
Ros
12/6/2011 12:59:13 pm

Welcome to the AIR Blog.

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