The final morning of the Charney Conference 2023 had lots more really helpful sessions, including some of the most useful and interesting of the weekend.
Alan Bedford spoke about his journey as a new Principal and how he got to know his students and staff and community. He mentioned a book called Knuffle Bunny which he used.
Emma Till talked about the issues facing ITE departments currently and the need to reaccredit courses which had been offered for many decades with great success and without such external scrutiny and goalpost shifting. She also reminded us of Rachel Bowles' phrase that some people are "born with geographical genes".
Another important session was from Fran Martin (a former GA President) and her colleague and collaborator Fatima Pirbhai Illich from the University of Regina in Canada. They were speaking about de/colonising geography.
Their work involved some seminars for educators which were described as "an imaginary" to explore hierarchies of power. They used Lifeworlds materials. I liked their non-extractive research methods. There was a great deal to unpack here.
Alastair Owens was here for the final day of the conference and spoke about the forthcoming GA Conference - make sure that you have your tickets.
Ben Mallon spoke about his use of camera traps on the university campus. There was quite a lot of useful information with regards to the ethical issues around permissions and labelling cameras so that the public were aware that filming was happening. They had to be tagged despite the need for them to be ideally be unobtrusive.
There was a presence - absence survey carried out first. There was also discussion of invasive species such as grey squirrels.
He also mentioned the Irish Biodiversity Map.
This is useful for the new GCSE Natural History developments. Have you seen the new(ish) blog I am writing about that?
Sandra Austin spoke about a residency that a Primary school had at a local museum which ended up with a curated exhibition. She had borrowed Sharon Witt's pigeon templates from a session I attended at the GA Conference. More on that work here. (PDF download)
There was some excellent work produced at the National Gallery of Ireland. Students interacted with the work and were based in a room which they called a 'nest', and put on a final exhibition. For some of the parents who came it was their first time in the gallery.
She also shared some of the pictures that students had been responding to, including Gerard Dillon's 'Little Green Fields' and Jack B Yeats' 'Liffey Swim'. There was a lovely story involving a medal won at the Paris Olympics associated with the painting.
She also referenced the painting by Alice Neel called 'Cityscape' from 1934. This was used to help discussions around living in a city.
I'd not seen this painting before, but it's excellent.
Image: Flowers at Charney - Alan Parkinson - shared under CC license
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