Day 4: King David School

On Friday I went to visit Milorad Cerovac at the King David School. King David is a private Jewish school in one of Melbourne's eastern suburbs. Becuase of time restraints, I only got to visit one class, but beforehand Milorad and I went out for coffee with Phil, one of his maths colleagues. That informal discussion was great- it was nice to talk to extensively with a maths teacher who focuses on specialist maths, which is equivalent to American calculus.

The physics class I observed was using what they'd learned about aerodynamics and applying it to a challenge: building the best paper airplane. There were three distinct performance categories: flight duration, greatest distance, and acrobatics. The students had been tasked to research paper airplane designs for homework, but the wrinkle that Milorad threw at them was that they had to use a different paper than they had expected. In this case, the official KDS paper was quite large, and the students were not allowed to cut it. The designs were quite creative and the competition was a huge success.

Milorad explained that in addition to giving the students a chance to apply what they'd learned about the topic, it was also a good way to end the week and turn a class that could have been a bit of a struggle because of the timing into something engaging. He also told me that he liked to give opportunities for students who might not be at the top of the pile academically to excel and experience success. I'd say that this endeavor fit the bill quite nicely- it reminded me of the physics olympics events I do with my own students.

I was so wrapped up helping out wit the competition that I didn't take a single picture! C'est la vie.