Today, I am speaking with Thomas Oliphant. Tom is the Vex Robotics Australian Teacher of the year for 2021 and a finalist for the South Australia STEM teacher of the year too. It is not hard to see why. Tom runs an extracurricular program which brings 60 students from all year levels and thirty percent girls back to school twice a week to design and build robots. Working together three of his teams qualified for the world championships last year and two of those teams are back again this year.
What an inspiring teacher Tom is.
Thanks to Tom for the chat!
About the Bridge Building Podcast
“This is the place where we dissect and then discover the many ways ITD teachers all over this country are using their passion to create passionate students. We talk of measuring and manipulating a multitude of materials of design and divergent thought, of creation with our minds and with our hands. And most of all, we talk of growing great young people because of course that is what we do.”
So what does that mean other than I like to show off my alliteration skills? Since coming back to teaching a few years ago the thing that strikes me most, and frankly scared me most is how lonely this job is. How little we know about what is happening in our subject area. The classroom next door, a class in the next school, let alone the next town are a mystery to me. I know there are teachers out there doing incredible things and this (the podcast) is a way for me to find out and be inspired. I would like to invite you along to listen and learn, to be inspired by some of the sensational teachers I speak to on the “Bridge Building Podcast – from technology to the trades”
About the Podcast Host
Stephen Anderson is a Design Technology, Trade Training and accidental Science teacher at a small high school 2 hours North West of Brisbane.
Over To You
To keep this podcast going, I need your help.
If you know someone who is doing something spectacular or just great fun in design and tech or in trade training, I would love to know about them.
Contact me through my email osaerial@gmail.com
Music by:
Viola Pink
My favourite busker from the Nanango markets.