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Jim Christopher
Web Page: http://www.somersfield.bm |
| Profile: Dr. Jim Christopher is currently the Head of Somersfield Academy in Bermuda. Somersfield is a pre-primary to MYP school with a combination of Montessori and IB programmes. Jim was formerly the Executive Director of both CAIS and CESI and has been an independent school Head in Quebec and a public school Principal and Superintendent in Ontario. Jim Christopher has been a school and district-wide administrator for over 25 years. | |
Posts by the author:
The Culture of Learning
A number of years ago, in another professional life, I was engaged by the Japanese Ministry of Education to review the delivery of their educational programmes, their teacher training, and their five year plan for moving forward. I spent a month touring schools; meeting with teachers, parents and students; consulting with university and Ministry personnel; and sitting in dozens of classes.
One experience during this time still stands out for me. I was in a classroom in a university laboratory school in Hiroshima. At the front of the class was a senior mathematics teacher – his back to the room – scribbling formulas on the whiteboard and muttering fairly incomprehensibly about what he was doing. At the back of the class were ten student teachers furiously copying down everything that he wrote so that they could someday use it in their own classrooms. In between were forty Grade 12 students who were paying no attention whatsoever.
There were lots of conversations going on, some outstandingly artistic doodles being created, and a number of people catching up on an obvious lack of sleep – but no-one was actually learning mathematics. In my post-class focus groups, I discovered two things.
Who puts the “smart” in Smart boards?
As I was droning on in a meeting the other day about what we are doing in technology, one parent stopped me and said: “I don’t want to appear uninformed, but what are these “smart” boards that you keep talking about?”
It was a great question, and the kind of one that educators need to hear more often. We tend to get so immersed in our own world of jargon that we sometimes forget to stop and make sure that our intended 
audience knows what on earth we are talking about!
SMART Boards (actually a brand name that has become synonymous with the product – like we used to always say “xerox machine”) are interactive digital whiteboards that work in concert with the teacher’s computer to run simulations, store written discussions, and provide a myriad of hands-on learning experiences for students. Over the past year, with the support of a local reinsurance company and our PTA, we have installed eleven of these electronic marvels in our P5/6 and MYP classrooms.
But, does the addition of these kinds of resources guarantee a better educational experience?
Back to School
Summer always seemed so much longer when I was a child. The days were endless, the weeks seemed to stretch out forever and I really cannot remember a time that wasn’t sunny!
I have always loved summer.
This July my family took a few weeks away from our home in Bermuda to spend at our cottage on Georgian Bay. Between swimming and sunning and climbing rocks with the boys, I spent a good deal of my time rebuilding a major section of our docks. The job involved prying up old planks, hauling rocks and timber, and sawing and levelling and shimming to give at the least the illusion of being square. But, as with every job like this, most of all, I hammered. More »