It is with great pleasure we congratulate Oded Ben-Horin with his dissertation “Improvising the Bridge” today, and his new official title: Doctor! Oded is one of the “founding fathers” of the GSO, and led the production of the first operas. He is still the visionary coordinator of the GSO and much of his doctoral work is connected to it. The rest of the team continues to learn so much from him.
Mid-May he will be the speaker at the GSO online session about music.
From January 2021 Giedre Straksiene, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher in the Global Science Opera, in the context of HVL’s University project. She came from Center for Studies of Social Changes (Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities) at Klaipeda University (Lithuania). Her main research area focuses on development of communicative competence; various teaching/learning drama methods which are applicable in development of communicative competence; aspects between information visualization and communication, and relationships of this phenomena for contemporary art-science context.
She also has over 10 years of experience as a drama teacher. “Working with students, my priority is to involve them into creative learning process, reaching to improve their knowledges and skills. It is important to allow students purposefully go through the creative process within certain specific tasks”.
Giedre is a wonderful and strengthening addition to the GSO-team, and we are so glad to have you with us!
The link https://www.hvl.no/person/?user=Giedre.Straksiene
Welcome to Felicia Calmuc, a new member in our GSO-community. She teaches English and French in a public school in Craiova, Romania. Her school is one of few that offers extracurricular activities to students between 4 and 19 years. Part of this offer will now include creative STEAM-work. She is part of the main team who will introduce GSO in Romania and produce a scene in Thrive.
Welcome also to Elisabeta Ana Naghi, a mathematics teacher, with a teaching experience of over 35 years and 15 years in school inspectorates and the Ministry of Education.
She is currently working in the Control Body of the Ministry of Education, the main attribution being to verify the observance of the legislation in education in the entire national education system.
She loves science and art, which is why she is now Romania´s alpha-contact!
Three major global drivers in education, necessary for meeting the challenges of the 21st century, are: education for sustainable development, demographic change, and technological advances. Without addressing the demands of these drivers, our education systems are, most likely, rooted in narrow, robotic learning, blinkered to what is happening around us in the world, focussed solely on knowledge for knowledge’s sake, producing young people without the imaginative, creative thinking, problem-solving skills required to make the 21st century on planet Earth a positive and secure one for all its inhabitants.
The philosophy and aims behind the Global Science Opera initiative is one example of education meeting these demands. Starting off with one idea, one theme, one thought – for 2021, this being ‘ecosystems’ – educators, teachers, students and children all across the world are beginning to think, create, and ponder germs of ideas that will eventually grow, develop, change and blossom into what will become an entire opera called Thrive, on the subject of ecosystems. This journey began with one word, ‘Ecosystems’ at the end of the 2020 opera, Energy. Like throwing seeds across the world, these seeds have landed and will be watered over the coming months by individuals and communities on every inhabited continent. Creative thinking is taking place, thoughts are turning to how to protect ecosystems, artistic creativity is exploring how we can represent and explain these themes within an opera through words, singing, music, dance, art, science, expression, technology and more.
Global Science Opera is about much more than an opera you can watch online each November. It is about changing minds, producing creative thinkers and imaginative problem solvers, widening expectations on what is possible, raising awareness of sustainability issues, showing what can be achieved through the powers of technology and working together, and reaching out across the world affecting the schools, communities, parents and families of the children, students and teachers involved. And, most importantly, it is open to all. Any country, any child, any age, any background – everyone is equal, and every single performer is just as important as all the others.
What’s the cost? Oh yes, it’s free. What’s the benefit? A better world and a supreme example of an education project fit for needs of the 21st century.
Jonathan Harris
UK Alpha-contact, Global Science Opera
Head of Music, The Premier Academy, Bletchley, England
22 January 2021
The poster for Thrive is ready!