The camera frames Giacomo’s recycled object, a hanging flower pot, while his fingers point to the two hooks he attached on one side. “Can you guess what this was, Prof?” he asks me.

I know that shape far too well. “It was an ice cream tub - you finished the ice cream and did your homework after.”

Through the screen, the Grade 9s’ blurry faces, their responses coming in darts and leaps, the crackling voices due to faulty internet connections, all show excitement.

Finding connections to real life

Admittedly, at the start of our unit “The Earth: a planet to save”, when they were asked to put aside their own weekly rubbish, then take a photo of it, the students were not convinced.

After all, this was an Italian language and literature course. Why were they being asked to recycle and consider environmental issues?

But as they eased into this new routine, they started writing regular diary entries, where they reflected on the impact of their lives on the planet.

Some of them decided to focus on one specific aspect they wanted to improve to lessen their carbon footprint; others looked into the possibility of obtaining an eco-school certification.

The key thing was they were engaging in study with a relevance to the real world - the world as it is now, and the world as it may be in the future.

Taking on the big ideas 

In the International Baccalaureate system, each study unit starts with a big, universal idea, called the key concept, and its related concepts.

These ideas, such as perspective, communication, creativity and connections, are embedded into different global contexts, Globalisation and sustainability being one of them.

Throughout the unit, the students formulate different types of inquiry questions: factual, conceptual and debatable.

Teachers then facilitate students’ constant reflection on their learning by directly referring to skills such as thinking, research, self-management, communication and social.

I believe that when doing this we need to bring real life into the classroom by linking their learning to the issues outside the school gates.

Why hide the real world?

This should not be a bold idea.

And yet, some of us still become defensive when we talk about real-life learning, as we instinctively colour the idea with connotations that it should not have, painting a halo of pragmatism and strict utilitarianism around it, which seems to exclude all traditional content and assessment.

What really worries me about this is the vilification of the student, from passive receptacle of knowledge of contents to productive, smart-working machine.

But in a world of uncertainty we should try to form instead reflective, compassionate human beings who will become lifelong learners; in this process, their (and ours) struggles and difficulties can function as a source of inspiration.

As an example, during lockdown I noticed how the imposed seclusion was wearing on the Grade 10s particularly: so we agreed to capture some of their obsessive thoughts and behaviours as an opportunity to explore the fantasy genre in literature.

Buzzing students

At one stage, the students took photos of objects from unusual angles inside and around their house and swapped these “clues” with the other students in order to produce an uncanny story.

We used creative thinking skills and self-management to overcome the sense of dread and isolation.

For the Grade 11s, discussions on the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement encouraged us to examine the literary categories of fiction and non-fiction and the success of the “faction” genre.

For the Grade 8s, studying the poetry of nature from St Francis of Assisi to Giacomo Leopardi set them on a path to explore new perceptions of nature emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic: ideas of separation, group dynamics and even bullying.

Creating this real-world link to our study brings student engagement to life - as our environmental recycling work showed.

The students were soon buzzing with ideas: ‘Do you think we should encourage the whole school to do this activity?’” said one. Another said: “Could we organise a big recycled waste fair - a fundraiser for an environmentalist association?’ A third added: “We can name it ‘Every object deserves a second chance’”.  

And like that, I could see they were ready for an in-depth analysis of a chapter about lost property in Nabokov’s The Real Life of Sebastian Knight in our next unit.

Bringing real life into school can have a big impact - but we have to make it happen together.

Fulvia Galigani is an International Baccalaureate language and literature teacher at an international school in Italy