Teaching physics to international students on a granite island in the Indian Ocean was not something I planned for, but here we are.
Vijay International School sits on Grand’Anse Praslin — the quieter, greener side of the island, away from the tourist beaches. The classroom has a view of the ocean. I am not going to pretend that is a hardship.
The curriculum is Cambridge International, which I know well enough. What’s different is the context. When we talk about wave properties, we can talk about the actual Indian Ocean outside. When we do optics, we can talk about why the water here is the colour it is. Physics becomes less abstract when the examples are literally outside the window.
Mostly, that students are students everywhere. Curious when the content connects to something real. Switched off when it doesn’t. The challenge of making physics feel relevant is the same challenge it always was — the setting just makes some of the answers more obvious.
The best physics lesson I have taught so far involved a turtle. We were doing projectile motion and one surfaced right outside the window at exactly the right moment.
More soon.