TFS - Canada's International School

TFS 13 MUSIC IS, BY DEFINITION, A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE Learning and mastering French and English is the essence of a TFS education, and one of the most beautiful ways this is done is through music. As Amaury Suchon, music teacher at La p'tite école explains, "The main objective of a French school abroad is to bring French to life in class. Music is one of the vectors we use to achieve that, through activities and listening sessions that give a different context to the French language." M. Suchon teaches some of TFS' youngest students and sees first-hand their discovery and delight as school becomes a new part of their world. He introduces them to tambourines, showing them how to use them not as toys but as instruments. "To be honest, someone outside my classroom might hear a lot of noise, or see a bit of chaos," he says. "But when I show the children how they can make different sounds, and how that sound becomes music when we play them together, from that chaos is the start of creativity and knowledge." That knowledge – of composers, harmonies and musical epochs – becomes even more powerful when it is connected and revisited in other classes. He says that "TFS' major achievement is this clever melding of the French, Ontario and IB programs. We try to connect the dots of what they learn in other classes, so music is a way of deepening this learning." For Janvier Zagabe, who teaches technology in the new FabLab in the 306 administrative building, that interdisciplinary connection is vital to making the curriculum relevant to students. When he started teaching in the early 2000s, he taught technology and science together to Grade 6 and 7 students. As he started teaching the Level I students, the focus was purely on technology, first web design, and then moving to robotics. Now, as he teaches students who have grown up with technology all around them, the only thing missing at TFS was a dedicated space for them to explore it. "We can't do everything the students want in just one computer class," he says, "and so now students come to the lab to finish their projects from other classes, like art and science, using the 3D printers, and technology ripples through not just the STEM subjects, but in all their classes." Our students' comfort level with technology has changed everything, from what they study to how they are assessed. "Our students are no longer users of tech – they are creators," M. Zagabe explains. "As a teacher, I start with a syllabus, but then we help students use their critical thinking skills, and we guide them as they learn to organize, to be more effective in how technology is used as a tool." When assessment is based on creativity and the learning process, he says that some of the stress of testing is taken away because their motivation is different, as is their perspective. Our youngest learners discovering music.

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