Q:
What kind of professional training will IPC
provide? What type of training will Keystone’s
primary school teachers receive?
A:
We will invite trainers from IPC to provide training for
our teachers when they arrive in July. All teachers will go
through this core training, which will complement the wider goals
of Keystone. They will know the IPC fundamentals; they will know
how it works, how it is structured, and how it works within our
context. This said, so much of their understanding of the IPC is
going to be reflected back from their children - from what they
see and how they see it in operation. I will work with the teachers
before the IPC trainers come and after they leave. I will meet with
teachers on a regular basis to plan and discuss how the IPC can
be reflected throughout the school. So training will be ongoing
as well.
Gary Bradshaw at an office meeting
“The IPC is empowering and lends
itself to great opportunities for
learning.”
Q:
Who or what has had the most influence on
you in your career as an educator?
A:
I had a teacher named Mr. Williams who was my Science
and Math teacher when I was about 10 years old studying
at a boarding school in England. I look back on him really, really
fondly. People could ask him absolutely anything and he would
take the time to answer. We used to call him Mr. Williams, ‘Lord
of the hamsters and Lord of the lab’. That was because he was
our go–to person if we needed help with our pet hamsters. We
were in a closed boarding school so we could not go out, except
for the major holidays. We relied on Mr Williams to buy food for
our pets and also provide the science lab where we kept them and
observed them. Thankfully they were never part of our science
experiments!
We could do anything that we liked in the science lab. Mr. Williams
would be up there in front of the class telling us about biology,
and the students, myself included, would literally be inside of the
cupboards helping ourselves. We used to take lead from the roof,
bring it into the science lab, melt it down and make things. Most
of this happened when he was there. He knew exactly what was
going on, but I think he was saying to himself: Hey, these kids are
learning a lot by being creative. It was his understanding of kids,
and his compassion as a human being that made me connect
with him.
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