Clontubrid NS Microsoft Award
The word ‘curriculum’ can raise the hackles and conjure other words such as ‘limitation’, ‘discipline’ and ’conformity’ to the front of the brain. The accompanying image is peopled by schoolchildren sticking rigidly to a predetermined course as their individuality, creativity and curiosity wilt on the curriculum’s restrictive vine.
Nonsense.
Tommy Maher, principal of Scoil Naomh Fiachra, Clontubrid, has just been awarded the Microsoft Worldwide Innovative Teacher of the Year Award for taking the objectives of the curriculum and allowing his 4th, 5th and 6th class to let their imaginations and their love of learning run free.
“The new curriculum promotes the integration of all the subjects learned in Primary School,” says Tommy, as he sends his class out for their morning break to play in the crisp, bright Autumn air. “The emphasis is on combining Science and Mathematics with language, literacy and the visual arts. We have been working with robotics in the school since 1999, so we asked the question, ‘Can we use robotics in language?’
The children had already recreated the Siege of Troy, the tale of Cuchulainn and a staggering episode of The Simpsons entitled, ‘Earthquake in Springfield’ using the Lego Robotics Invention Kit when a trip to the Butler Gallery earlier this year to take part in animation workshops for school children acted as the catalyst for their latest project, ‘Don Quixote: Impossible Dreamers’.
“Louise Allen, the education officer with the Butler Gallery organised ‘Freeform’ which took some of the works in the gallery and allowed the children to work on the images using animation software,” says Tommy. “There was an etching of Don Quixote on the wall of the Butler Gallery depicting the scene where Don Quixote and Sancho Panza tickle the feet in the forest,” says Tommy, before going on to explain that in order to determine whether the feet dangling form the trees in the forest were the feet of thieves who had been hanged for their crimes or the feet of hiding thieves, the book’s heroes decide to tickle them and see. “Later in the year, we were trying to come up with an idea for a project to enter for the Rolls Royce Science Prize and one of the children remembered the Don Quixote sketch. So we read a few chapters of the book, watched a few film and musical versions of it and chose the episode where Don Quixote and Sancho Panza attack the windmills.”
This choice led to days of researching the design and workings of different windmills and studying the Spanish landscape through which Don Quixote and Sancho Panza would have travelled. For those who are unfamiliar with the tale of Don Quixote, it tells the story of country gentleman, Alonso Quixano from La Mancha who, through reading one-too-many stories about chivalrous knights, imagines himself to be one, renames himself Don Quixote and convinces his squire Sancho Panza to join him as he sets out in search of adventure. Along the way, he also becomes convinced that windmills are giants and must be slain.
On a table along one side of the bright, airy classroom, there is a Lego Don Quixote astride a Lego horse and next to him, a Lego Sancho Panza astride another Lego horse. The two men are on their way to a windmill at the top of a hill, through a painted Spanish landscape so real one can almost smell the Orange Blossom.
Tommy switches on a laptop and the final film as seen by the judges appears on a large screen at the top of the classroom. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are approaching the working windmill. As the windmills’ sails turn in an anti-clockwise direction and Don Quixote gets nearer and nearer on his trusty horse, the out-of-sight pupils provide the soundtrack, building the atmosphere as they warn Don Quixote of the foolhardiness of his actions. Their warnings, of course, go unheeded and the deluded hero is lifted off his horse and onto the sail of the Lego windmill amidst the children’s screams.
“The children had to work out how much strength the gears would need to lift Don Quixote off his horse,” says Tommy. “They learned all about different types of gearing and how to co-ordinate his approach on the horse with the turning of the sails.”
The project became an all-school affair at one point with Mary Maher’s class of Junior and Senior Infants turning out model windmills of all shapes and sizes.
Having filmed the entire process in sections and submitted it for the Rolls Royce prize, all fingers were crossed tightly in Clontubrid as students and teachers waited to hear what the world-famous engine manufacturer would think of the results of their six months’ work.
“We knew they would pick the top 30 and award each of those £1,000,” says Tommy, who had ear-marked the prize-money – should they win it – for more equipment to continue with their projects. “We made it into the top 30 and we were delighted but then we heard we had been chosen as one of the 9 finalists. We couldn’t believe it. We came third overall and received £5,000 which all went on buying more equipment.”
“We had travelled to Skerries in Co Dublin to see the windmill on the coast there,” says Tommy, clicking the large screen again to start the film of the students’ visit to the Skerries windmill. As the children in the film take notes, the guide takes them through the process of turning grain into flour.
“The trip to the Skerries windmill and our involvement in the Green Schools Project sparked a great interest in how mills work and the children decided they wanted to construct a mill,” says Tommy, pointing out a mill made from Lego standing next to the Don Quixote set on the table. The mill, which is operated by Lego Robotics, is staffed by a group of the pupils calling themselves, ‘The Millers’. Those involved in the Don Quixote project were called ‘The Giant Killers’ and included pupils from last year’s 6th class and this year’s 5th and 6th classes.
Building the mill and studying wind and water power led the children on to wind turbines and a visit to Airtricity’s wind turbine plant in Wexford. In the film, the guide switches off the turbines and allows ten-year-old John Brennan from ‘The Millers’, to turn them back on again.
Following this trip, the pupils built their own Lego wind turbine and a new group was born; ‘The Generators’.
A ‘phone call from Dr Deirdre Butler at St Patrick’s Teacher Training College, alerted Tommy to the fact that Dr Kevin Marshall, Academic Programme Manager with Microsoft Ireland, had come across the Don Quixote project and wanted Tommy to enter it in the Microsoft Innovative Teacher of the Year Award.
“We entered films of the children making the mill and the wind turbine as well as the Don Quixote: Impossible Dreamers film,” says Tommy. “We also had to include a virtual classroom tour. Out of the 82 projects which were entered by schools from all over the world, 24 semi-finalists were chosen. There were three categories: Community, Collaboration and Content. We came first in the Content category.”
On October 26, Tommy flew to Helsinki where he received the Microsoft Worldwide Innovative Teacher of the Year Award. What will Clontubrid National School do next?
