Patana News Volume 20 Issue 25 by Bangkok Patana School

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NEWS Patana

Friday 23rd March 2018

Volume 20 Issue 25

www.patana.ac.th

The Importance of Happiness Page 2

2017/18

Also in this issue

STEM Challenge 2018 / IB Geography Field Trip / Year 7 Fire Safety 23/03/2018

Bangkok Patana School News

Bangkok Patana is a not-for-profit IB World School, accredited by CIS, NEASC and ONESQA

The Importance of Happiness James Penstone, Cross Campus Principal

hen I joined the end of the Key Stage 2 assembly last Wednesday, the entire Primary Hall audience was in fits of laughter. Proper belly laughs. They were watching that scene in the classic 1964 movie, Mary Poppins, in which Uncle Albert and Bert sing “I love to laugh”. You’ll definitely remember the scene if you have ever watched it. The more they laugh, the more they float towards the ceiling. The children, Jane and Michael, join in...giggling their way up to the rafters. Eventually Mary Poppins’ disapproval subsides as she, too, is won over by the infectiousness of the others’ laughter and starts to float upwards. And if only this were a real thing, all of Years 3 through to 6 would have been bobbing off the ceiling like 700 chuckling human helium balloons.

that it would not be a very human experience if they were happy the whole time - neutral and negative emotions are inevitable. Things like boredom, discomfort, frustration and anxiety can have positive outcomes because they can help motivate young people to develop and grow from the experiences which those feelings are associated with. But we don’t want our children to be unhappy for most of the time. Indeed, it should be our utmost priority to support them in whatever ways we can to be happy overall.

We want a number of things for our children. One fundamental hope is that our children are happy. We know

leads to happiness. However, I find a simple argument put forward by Shawn Achor – who advocates for positive

Defining happiness invites debate. Personally, I like the definition given by Dan Gilbert, a psychologist at Harvard University, who sees happiness as “frequent positive feelings accompanied by an overall sense that one’s life has meaning”. Linked to this, it seems sensible to say that all our This was one of Miss Claire’s perfectly chosen preludes students should feel valued and respected - vital ingredito the Primary School’s Smile Day dress-up on Wednesday ents of happiness. this week; a very colourful, and of course fun, event. The We often talk about learning in our school. But we need day was designed to raise awareness and funds towards to talk just as much about happiness. Without it, there will Operation Smile. It was partnered by the lunchtime activ- be no good, lasting learning taking place. There seems ities of our Secondary student CAT club dedicated to the to be a common philosophy the world over, in homes, same cause. The day was a good way of being reminded schools, and businesses, that you need to work hard to of just how much positive energy can be brought into our be successful. Because when you are successful, you will community by moments of shared happiness. achieve happiness. Notice the order of things: success

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23/03/2018

psychology - to be compelling. He says that it is the other way round. Those who are happy – experiencing positive feelings and feeling valued - are more successful than those who are not, as shown by a whole range of metrics. Supported by research taking place in the fields of psychology and neuroscience, it is becoming ever clearer that positive states of mind affect the chemical state of the brain, allowing people to learn better and perform better. In a way the Mary Poppins scene illustrates this – the happier you are, the higher you can reach. (For an easy way into this theory, Shawn Achor’s light-hearted TED talk is a simple introduction if you don’t mind the pace of his delivery).

So, what does this mean here at Bangkok Patana? First, it means we need to design the right conditions for our young charges to be happy overall. And this doesn’t simply mean providing fun stuff, although that certainly helps a lot. It needs careful and intentional provision of pastoral care, something that my colleagues who have direct responsibility for student welfare throughout the school work tirelessly on. Secondly, we need to ensure that any changes we make to increase academic success do not compromise students’ happiness and wellbeing, as this would surely undermine the good intentions of the former. Thirdly, it also means we need to monitor happiness and wellbeing just as much as we monitor learning outcomes. This is not easy, because happiness and well-being are complicated and difficult to measure. However, there are ways. For example, Matt Jones, Head of Year 11, is leading whole-school research on student attitudes to school. Year 5 through to Year 10 have already taken the Schools Attitude Questionnaire Internet (SAQI) survey. This yields student views on their motivation levels and self-confidence – both of which are important indicators of happiness. Matt is busy interpreting the data to identify key recommendations to support our students’ wellbeing in the medium to long term. We look forward to more such research findings in the future.

5 pm

Wishing you all a very happy weekend and remainder of term.

23/03/2018

Bangkok Patana School News

IB Geography Field Trip Athena Intanate, Year 12

“What are you going on a trip for … colouring?” A Brief Recount of the Professional Colouring Geography Trip Think of a river. A silver expanse of water: torrential, swollen, snaking across sand and earth. Verdant vegetation, sprawling on both sides. Gently sloping riverbanks. The hushed trickling sound, water running over boulders and rocks. An eyot in the distance. Riffles. You’re probably looking at a stock image, aren’t you. While the Chaophraya definitely does not look like this anymore, the Mueng Nam in Chiang Rai has retained its natural beauty, and remains relatively pollution free. It was in this river that we waded and dug and measured and sprained backs for two days, under the sun can you imagine, collecting evidence that we’d use to eventually compile into what we call the Geography IA (Internal Assessment), a part of the IB Diploma.

While pebble collecting is a riveting past time, we weren’t offered the luxury of doing this for fun: this was some hard-core, top-notch stuff. As a result, we give it a much more pretentious name: bedload measuring. The caliper is to a geographer what a shield is to a knight (the sword would be colouring pencils), and we wielded this mighty tool with fine-edged precision as we hunted for sedimentary baubles (to you common folk, that’s pebbles). Since Mr Wright knew that we had to sacrifice our precious math lessons for this endeavor, he struck a deal with Dr Tooley: we had to integrate mathematics into this trip too, and hard math at that. Even though it was challenging, I can now gladly say that I am adept at counting from 0 – 9 thanks to measuring river widths, as well as depths at every 0.2 meters (converted, that’s 20 centimeters). Further mathematical genius was then demonstrated as we calculated the CSA (Cross Sectional Area) from data we copied off one another individually collected, using the equation width x depth. Well, it was mainly our calculators that did it for us, but we had to punch in the Wright numbers in the first place. Not only were we given the opportunity to showcase our various mathematical skills in the river, Ms Ferguson also arranged for all of us to fulfill (in some cases) much needed CAS hours by helping out at a local school. Since it is bulking season after all, the boys were granted the opportunity to dig two metre holes for toilet installations in order to achieve those 50cm biceps they most fervently desired. While this was, unfortunately, never completely achieved, for two metres is quite a substantial amount to dig in an hour, as a school we also helped to clean and paint the metal beams which would then be used to construct a new building for the school. While it “didn’t feel like we did much”, according to a lot of

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23/03/2018

students, Ms Ferguson reminded us that every bit of help we give, whether small or substantial, was all leading towards a greater goal. So, lads, keep eating your protein. We’ve got more holes to dig.

Nevertheless, an open apology must also be issued towards the underground residents of Mueng Nam. The numerous mosquito/sand-fly/red ant/assorted larvae lives we have taken on this arduous adventure of our own will always be remembered. For those whose lives were lost in the valiant battle against the army of Havainas™ under Generals Nike© and Adidas©, from the great one centimetre depths of Site 1, to the sand-fly empires of Sites 9, 10 and 11, a memorial service shall be held shortly in Hum307 this week in your honour. And because Mr Hume asked me ever so nicely to, a further accolade must be dedicated to the raging bonfire we were treated to on our last night. Or at least it was raging at some point, just not when we were sat around in a ring, eating the stars because 7-Eleven ran out of our promised marshmallows (the curse of capitalism. Or is it just a supply-and-demand thing? Forgive me – I’m a Geography student). At any rate, that’s what Mr Hume said, and I don’t doubt a word of it.

Whilst, some of the mathenatical skills may have been basic whilst out in the field, these will no doubt get more complicated back in the class room such as calculating the hydraulic radius and performing a Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient test on our data in order to test our selected hypotheses. All in all, it was a very lovely (yes, lovely, such a word exists in the oppression we know as IB) trip, and although we did not get to do much colouring, I say truthfully on behalf of the rest of the Grad19 Crayola Artists that we are very thankful indeed for everyone who made this possible. An extended thank you must also be given to everyone at the Mae Kok River Resort, for being so accommodating and helpful on our expedition.

And, finally, the Professional Crayola Masters: Mr Wright, Mr Hume, Ms Steciuk and Ms Ferguson; you all deserve a large applause (which, under normal circumstances I would give, but seeing as I’m writing this through a computer screen, is not possible). We know how much work goes into these trips, so thank you for all your time, help and patience. From helping us fabricate extrapolate data, demonstrating how to use lightsabers as ranging poles (or was it the other way around?), and, perhaps most importantly, teaching us that crocs are NOT water shoes, we have all emerged as better artists. Or was it geographers? I’m not too sure.

Despite my light hearted approach to reviewing the trip, we did learn a number of key skills, find the data we needed to complete our investigation and had a lot of fun on the way. 23/03/2018

Note to the reader: On a more serious note, this is a caricature of a trip, and therefore not an entirely accurate representation of the subject. Certain intellectual liberties were taken, and as much as I appreciate a good accolade, I appreciate the subject of Geography much more. Knowledge is a powerful tool, and I say this with a hand over my heart, the work we had to do is very empowering indeed. So thank you, Geography, for all your enlightenment.

Bangkok Patana School News

Year 7 Fire Safety

Gerard Tennant, Secondary Science and Biology Teacher

ast week, Year 7 experienced what it is like to fight fires in their Science lessons. As part of their current unit of work, Chemical Reactions, they were challenged to use their knowledge of the fire triangle in order to extinguish fires.

the roof of the Science Centre to demonstrate to the students the different real-life safety methods used to put out some fires. The Year 7s got to see how a fire blanket should be used to smother a fire and then how effective a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher is.

In this lesson, the students tested three different methods of extinguishing fires and compared their results to find out which method was best. In order to do this, they built mini fires in the lab and timed how long it took to put the fire out using sand, water and a foam mixture as the extinguishing methods. This practical was particularly challenging as they had to manage equipment in a very safe manner to be able to get the fires under control. As a result, the students witnessed how easily a fire can spread, and how much smoke is produced in such a short amount of time.

“I learned suitable ways to put out fire using a fire blanket and a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher” Pa “I feel like it taught us about real life, and how if there was a fire we would know how to handle it” Lara “I enjoyed it a lot because I never usually get to “play with fire” and it’s good to know how to take out a fire” Kenny

“When we did the fire safety lesson enjoyed it because it was super fun doing all the experiments and it was helpful Once the practical had been completed, we headed to to know what works best to put it out.” Clara

Bangkok Patana School News

23/03/2018

Bangkok Patana School News

Regent’s STEM Challenge 2018 Dr Miles Ellerby, Chemistry Teacher

team of five students from Year 10 attended the STEM Challenge at Regent’s International School last week. Ten schools were invited to compete against each other to come up with the best solution to a current global issue that we are facing: plastic waste. The teams had to come up with a solution to reduce plastic waste, incorporating aspects of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). After a long day of research and teamwork, the team had to propose their idea to a panel of judges, and had to convince them that their idea was the best. In the end, the Bangkok Patana team came second out of the 10 schools, but with a tiny 1% difference in scores between the two strong leaders! “It was amazing to be able to tackle such a serious, current issue, yet be able to be as creative as we wanted with our ideas. Although it was not real, having what felt like a huge power in our hands was so motivating and really made us work hard to accomplish what we wanted.” Clara Boucher

“I liked how broad the challenge was because it allowed us to be as creative as we wanted and think of different ways to solve the problem. There was a lot of freedom as to how we solved the problem, which made the challenge really interesting.” Fasai (Prin) Pulkes “Being able to represent Bangkok Patana at the STEM Challenge was a wonderful opportunity. We got to express our knowledge from various subjects, not only Science: we had to apply our math skills for calculations, and English for our presentation. However, whilst this was without doubt a great learning experience, being able to contribute, coming up with a possible solution, and realising that people are actively working to solve a global issue was what made the day memorable.” Yunnan Dumnernchanvanich

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23/03/2018

“This STEM challenge was an experience to remember. We were allowed to research and explore all the different ways we can save our planet which is quite enlightening if you think about it. It also helped us realise the many people that work hard each day and are currently trying to solve this global issue. It is an inspiring journey and an honor to play my part.” Lyela Malik “By participating in the STEM challenge, I was able to use my creativity and knowledge of science to tackle a global issue, which was very rewarding. Additionally, my teamwork skills improved, and working with a wonderful team was a great opportunity. The topics we discussed are very important and serious, and it is good to know that students have recognised this and are trying to solve our world’s problems.” Charles Golsby

Upcoming University Visits UNIVERSITY / COLLEGE

“Hollywood Comes to Bangkok” at EduExpo in Bangkok 2018 School of the Art Institute of Chicago University College Cork The University of Applied Sciences, Rotterdam University of Cambridge King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang

COUNTRY

US US Ireland

REP

Jackson Moore Gearoid McCarthy

Netherlands Hyam Falconi UK Thailand

Northeastern University

Dartmouth College Harvard University Stanford University Wellesley College University of Leeds

US US US US UK

Claire Canning Dr Ittipol Changchad Lauren Melaugh Nicola Smith

LOCATION

DATE

TIME

Westin Sukhumvit Hotel

25.03.18