By: Rohin Ariff
We sat down with BISB's Geography teacher, Mr. Higgins, and gained insight into the transition to the new STEAM Center, which opened its doors to students for the first time in early January. The building's main purpose was to provide High School students a place that they could call their own, a place dedicated to learning that felt mature and well-suited to the upper ages of the school. During our brief interview, Mr. Higgins expressed his overall teaching experience in the STEAM center, giving us insight into the teacher's point of view.
Mr. Higgins, what was your experience like moving to the new building?
"The transition to the STEAM center was actually pretty easy in the grand scheme of things. Now, I mainly attribute that to a lot of the work that went behind the scenes. You know, to name a few people who were crucial to refrain, Mr. Johnson spent weekends and holidays coming in to set up all the internet to make sure everything was ready so that we could just walk in on that Monday and start teaching. Ms. Sarram, the librarian, coordinated moving everyone's belongings from their classrooms in the main building over to here. Mr. Nicholas worked with the main office to create the new timetable according to everyone's schedule. Everything else had been done beforehand to make it [the transition] pretty easy."
So what is it like now to have your own space and resources?
"I mean, everything's a little limited because of the virus, but to have my own designated space where I can store all of my resources and have consistent lessons, helps me because I have a little bit of time in between lessons to prep stuff to make sure everyone's ready when they come in, rather than me running around rooms. But I'm really excited for what I will be able to do next year in terms of having a consistent space [for] geography."
Are you happy with the amenities in this building? Like the teacher's lounge?
"We have a great lounge. We have more access to bathrooms in this building, though it would be nice if there's a few more office spaces for staff to work in. We had a certain number of classrooms that we wanted to build, and that was one of the big limitations of the old building; we didn't have enough classrooms. When we had students wanting to come to the school, we couldn't fit them in. So increasing that capacity is huge."
What did you find that's better in this building than the other one, and vice versa?
"I think it's been nice. And [high schoolers] might be able to answer this question better than me, but I think it has been nice for high school to have their own dedicated space, to feel like they have ownership of a part of the school. Also, to be honest, the view is magnificent. I think that adds to the learning atmosphere. We also have the black box theater, the dance studio, the music rooms, and Mr. Johnson's new computer science lab. There are a lot more dedicated spaces, which we never had before. I think collectively having those specialized spaces for students to utilize for their subjects is huge."
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