By Flora Lepage, Y9
In all careers, as well as in general life, it is crucial for an individual to be able to apply knowledge and skills from different subjects into what they do. In many countries, the politicians that are elected often have different jobs such as lawyers, doctors, managers. When elected, they leave their old job to work their part in the parliament and as they continue to work they might even become ministers. These people often become ministers of fields that are completely different to what they used to work in and this can be problematic and cause many difficulties for the ministers to run their field properly. For example, there have been lawyers who become ministers of health. This is why transdisciplinary education is important so that these people can learn to incorporate their work with other professions so that it naturally becomes easier to run their field as ministers.
Here at LGB, students are lucky to have a day dedicated to mixing subjects and gaining new skills and knowledge which will be very useful later in life. Transdisciplinary Day was held on Wednesday the 1st of December. We were lucky enough to be able to speak to Mr. Osman for a few minutes, where he explained all of the thoughts and feedback behind this day and the activities that each year group did.
The teachers started this day as an opportunity for students as well as teachers to combine subjects and to think outside the box. Students often only think about the subject that they are studying in class and not how they can incorporate it into their everyday life. Therefore, teachers had the liberty to choose the way they wanted to teach the class for the day. The teachers were only told the basics of the project that they had to lead for the day, the rest was left to them to decide as long as the theme was related to something environmental or to a world problem.
Each year of the secondary school up to year 11 had different projects that kept them occupied for the whole day. Year 9 was divided into two different groups, the first group did a project where they used resources from the library and learnt how to cite resources but the project was in French and the second group did a project on biology and sports science. Year 10 was split into three groups, group one was occupied with performing arts and geography, group two did a project on visual arts and languages, and group three did chemistry and economics. Year 11 was split into two groups as well, the first group spent the day doing a project in English and maths and the second group spent the day doing history and physics. The students of Year 12 had a different program; Extended Essay presentation, overview of the IB program, CAS presentation and the opportunity to meet with subject teachers if necessary. Year 13 did not have classes at all during the day so that they could get the opportunity to study at home and work on their university applications.
This was the first year that Transdisciplinary day was done this way so the teachers could see some of the points that needed improvement for next year. A suggestion for next year is to make this project spread over two days so that the students can really work on this and learn more about the chosen two subjects together.
“When you walk down the street, you incorporate your knowledge of at least one subject without even realising.” – Mr. Jonathon Osman, ULP Coordinator
