As creatives we take inspirations from all around us. A great colleague JenK often compares the creative process to cooking - what are the ingredients for your dish? And how are you going to make this dish? It takes the focus to the thought process, the decision-making instances, and the action of putting them all together. Teaching and learning then becomes this journey of finding and collecting the ingredients.


Looking into your pantry for ingredients - learning experiences.
How do you get a well-stocked pantry? I remember back at art school, on the night that I decided to 'sleep over' to finish my installation piece, another 'equally committed contemporary' checked in and commented "it's in you." I didn't quite understand what he meant but it was certainly encouraging.

Do you know what's in your pantry? Capitalism definitely helps us stock up, yet at the same time deprives us of the time - and almost the ability - to really see what's in it. Most of the time it isn't until when you have to cook and serve before you start scrambling through the pantry and looking for a good combination of ingredients. Back to my story at art school, it turned out that I got it in me. I only needed to search within, sometimes a bit more intensely than other times.

That is also what the education constructivists believe - we all have got it in us. And the mission isn't to shove more 'learning' down the throat, but to facilitate revelation - that is, to curate and reflect.

"We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience." - John Dewey, 1859-1952

Serving the food that you've cooked - metacognition.
In this day and age where we are all expert-consumers, what makes educators chuffed is empowering our learners to create. Helen, a Year 8 learner at OJC, reflected upon her lived experiences in the first half of 2020 and turned them into learning opportunities. Recognising her strengths in drawing, Helen incorporated original art into her virtual Restaurant of Learning using Google Tour Creator. This work exemplifies a learner-driven inquiry project and I am so pleased to have been on this ride together!

[Menu of Helen's Restaurant of Learning]

Click on the link to see the full menu at Helen's Restaurant of Learning. Served. Virtually. For real.
Draft One et al
Launch of Restaurant
This minimum viable product was launched at the OJC Virtual Expo. Stylish design with a beautiful flow. Congratulations to Helen for leading this incredible journey! Check out her other posts along the way.. 💖