Dapto High — From Making of a Hoodie to {Mentorclass}

AIME
6 min readMar 4, 2022

In the middle of 2021, AIME attended Dapto highschool to run a MOAH podcast.

The Making of a Hoodie podcast puts high schools and everyone that makes up the school ecosystem on a stage, to tell their story both through the podcast and through the custom hoodie that is designed as part of the process.

The underlying message is to show that these students are not the problem they are the solution. We want the school and students to be sharing their stories from their perspectives. We want to bring the world into these local schools and give the students and teachers the stage.

Six months later we approached Lauren Beckinsale, Head Teacher HSIE to see if she would trail some of AIME’s tools and knowledge — something that we will grow into AIME’s {Mentorclass}.

Benjamin Knight (AIME Design Studio Lead) sat down with Lauran to talk about here experience and get some clues as to how {Mentorclass} scales to classrooms all over the world.

Ben:

What do you think of the AIME content and lessons? How are you using it in your class at the moment?

Lauren:

I’ve been using at the lesson, ‘Starting the Change Wave’ because students have just finished looking at rights and freedoms from an Australian Indigenous context and perspective.

I found that lesson very relevant and thought it would be a positive way for students to start thinking about their individuality

We’re also about to do that from the US perspective. Students can start thinking about issues that are important to them and where they want to make change. I found that lesson very relevant and thought it would be a positive way for students to start thinking about their individuality and how they have the power to make change in areas where they think there’s inequality or important things that they want to be involved in.

The other lesson that we are looking to use is the recognized campaign and ‘Uluru statement’ as a case study. That will also be occurring with students in the next two to three weeks. I don’t think we’ve had it in our programs before but it’s still relevant to our topic.

I’m going to get them to do a case study.

Finally we will complete a case study on Adam Goodes and we use the documentary The Final Quarter to look at, how, even though we’ve gone through the 1967 referendum and we have tried to work for better equality, we’re looking at it from a modern perspective that there’s still discrimination and racism that’s occurring in society today.

Again, using those lessons from that website have been really useful. I’ve downloaded the resources and the teaching and the learning documents. I have been impressed with the way the lessons come with the learning intentions and success criteria. As a teacher, every lesson that’s posted on Google classroom has that. I found that the structure of it fits perfectly with what we are already doing as well.

Ben:

What do you think the kids are really looking for when they’re learning about these topics? Do you feel like there are parts of it that they get more interested in or parts of it that they’re more engaged with?

Lauren:

Students have differing levels of experience with this topic and so different understandings of it. There’s a whole range of different abilities within my year nine class. I’ve found that breaking it into chunks of about 20 minutes works really well.

It could be a video and then some activities and then some research that they’re completing. Otherwise, they just start to get a little bit off track.

Videos are really good for the students and also anything that is hands on and gets them moving around. In the year eight course we’re trying to integrate some Indigenous art because we’ve found that they engage well when they can actually experience and immerse themselves in the resources.

Ben:

What do you think about the title {Mentorclass} for AIME resources? Do you think that idea supports teachers to understand how to teach like a mentor or learn more about how they can support their kids to be mentors? Do you think that’s something that is an important part of the teaching process?

Lauren:

Yeah. I think that is really important and something that would be beneficial.

I think the {Mentorclass} idea is fantastic idea. I know that my faculty would really be on board and ready to deliver this in the classroom.

I know that within my faculty I have three beginner teachers. This is possibly the first time they’ve ever taught this course and this subject. It is important because teachers of all levels of experiences and how many times they’ve taught the topic differs as well. This knowledge for some is brand new, for others they’re still learning and for others they’re quite experienced. I think the {Mentorclass} idea is fantastic idea. I know that my faculty would really be on board and ready to deliver this in the classroom.

Ben:

From your experience do you think AIME should be trying to marry it closer to curriculum or do we stay away from a close connection to curriculums?

Lauren:

I think that’s hard because I know the students at Dapto really engage well with AIME. So many of them have their AIME hoodies that they designed for the school and they’re really proud of all of the work that they’ve done. It’s a balancing act because particularly with remote learning last year, some teachers were really stuck. We are sometimes too focussed on covering all the points/ticking all the boxes whereas I think that there should be that balance between the way that the curriculum is presented. It doesn’t always have to be just a textbook, notes and a PowerPoint. I think finding those more creative ways of how we could present the content would be really good.

Ben:

I’d love to hear how it all goes and have another chat after it’s run to see what other content/resources do you think would be helpful?

Lauren:

I think that some of those students get the chance to lead these activities or lead us through some of the work.

I know there’s Indigenous students in my class that have an incredible amount of knowledge that can support teachers. It’s the opportunity for them to be teaching us about culture and country so it’s them that I really want to help with the confidence to present to the class and to share their experience. Reading their profiles, there’s a few students sitting there that can sing the National Anthem in traditional language or they can do the Welcome to Country. They’re sitting there with all of this knowledge and it’s time I think that some of those students get the chance to lead these activities or lead us through some of the work.

Lauren:

When I get back I’ll email you and we can organize another chat and I can get some student samples, work samples together and see how they’ve been going and give you a bit of a review of some of the lessons that we’ve been looking at as well.

Interested in learning more about {Mentorclass} and how to teach it at your school.

Send us an email at enquiries@imementoring.com and we can have a yarn.

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AIME

Working to support open thinking and discussion on how imagination is integral to building a fairer world