My Account
Horizon students and staff heading to China, from left, Praise Meafou, Ashton Henderson, Principal Helen Pearson, Libby Keenan, teacher Tilda Rabey, Leah Waterhouse and Boaz Carstensen.
The head boy and head girl of Horizon School in Snells Beach will be among the speakers at a conference in China later this month discussing the future of education.
Boaz Carstensen, 13, and Praise Meafou, 12, will join other Horizon students, parents and teachers to attend The Future of Education Now conference at the Western Academy of Beijing.
Boaz will speak about how learning and teaching styles have traditionally played out in the past and
Praise Meafou, 12, will look at how they will likely develop from here into the future.
Boaz says the challenge for schools is to “embrace the opportunity to see what could be”.
In particular, he wants the role of teachers to change. Rather than having teachers being at the front of the class as an authority telling students what to do, they should be mentors, going around the class offering support and guidance as needed, Boaz says.
“Teachers need to be prepared to change their style of teaching,” he says.
Meanwhile, Praise wants to see students helped to develop time management and self-management skills, rather than relying on teachers to constantly feed them information. She also wants to see a change in students’ mind-sets going from, ‘I answered wrong, so I’m an instant failure’ to ‘I answered wrong, but I can learn from that’.
