PenDragon - the official magazine of Lyford Cay International School PenDragon Vol 3, Spring 2017 | Page 4

03 Spring 2017 STORY OF THE TITLE Pendragon is a traditional Welsh title meaning “chief dragon.” The name is associated with several historical kings, including Uther Pendragon, the father of King Arthur. The title carried great weight in the Middle Ages and still conveys leadership and achievement today. PenDragon is a portmanteau of the words “pen” and “dragon.” The pen symbolises writing, literature and knowledge and the dragon symbolises the spirit of LCIS through its mascot. May the PenDragon long herald the spirit and ideals of Lyford Cay International School and its students. INNOVATIVE TEACHING PRACTICES IN THE IB A RADICAL RETHINKING PRINCIPAL Dr Stacey Bobo EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Dr Joanna Paul O’Niel Bain CONTRIBUTORS Frances Hawkins Cathy LeGrand Rebecca Massey Ashley Newell Giles Pinto Britani Silvera Felicia Taylor Simon Townend Alecia Watson Eric Wiberg By Giles Pinto, Middle Years Programme (Grades 6-10) Coordinator & Dr Joanna Paul, Development Director PHOTOGRAPHY Cover photograph by Erik Kruthoff Additional photos by Scharad Lightbourne, Erik Kruthoff and LCIS Development staff Alumni news photos are shared by alumni DESIGN Sweet Olive Co. PRINTING We take our commitment to the environment very seriously and use a printing company with sustainable practices. PenDragon is printed on chlorine-free paper. While trees are a renewable resource, the dioxin used to bleach paper lasts forever. The vegetable-based ink used is gentle on the environment and produces bright, high-quality images. We use a water-based aqueous coating to protect our magazine’s content without any harmful volatile organic compounds. PenDragon is delivered in biodegradable packaging instead of petroleum- based foam or plastic. Copyright 2017 PenDragon is published annually for Lyford Cay International School families and friends. The contents of this magazine are accurate to the best of our knowledge. If you find any errors, please do not hesitate to notify Dr Joanna Paul at [email protected]. Updated contact information should be sent to the Development and Communications Office at [email protected]. www.lcis.bs 4 Meaningfully engaging young people in their own learning has required a radical rethinking of the educational approaches used when most of us were in school. Rather than mandating the rote memorisation of facts, International Baccalaureate (IB) educators seek to spark learners’ curiosity, hear their questions and link their studies to the big ideas underlying their schoolwork and life. Within the IB framework, this is achieved through inquiry-based teaching whereby questions can only be answered by using concepts drawn from multiple disciplines. To paraphrase Dr Tony Wagner, one of the world’s foremost educational thinkers and the co- author of Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era, in the past decade, content knowledge moved to the back of the bus. This insight drives the work of Dr Wagner, who is an Expert in Residence at Harvard University’s Innovation Lab, where he helps to foster student development by radically reimagining the work that schools do. At LCIS, this insight drives multidisciplinary learning experiences designed by the teachers and built around open-ended questions; in this way, the IB curriculum guides our students in developing the critical skills that young adults will need for 21st-century success and citizenship. More than a decade ago, Lyford Cay International School (LCIS) became fully authorised to offer the IB curriculum from Junior Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 12. By embracing the IB at LCIS, we expose our students to some of the most innovative approaches to teaching and learning while giving them a head start on success in the 21st century. They are learning that, in our information-saturated world, success comes less from what you know. It is more critical to consider what you can do with what you know or how you can possibly find answers to some of life’s biggest questions. STARTING WITH A QUESTION The seeds for inquiry-based learning find fertile ground in the earliest years of school as children are naturally curious and interact with the world through questioning. In the Primary Years Programme (PYP) at LCIS, the IB curriculum revolves around the developmental curiosities of young children, and builds units around the process of asking and answering questions. 5