FIONA PIGOTT
“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” Socrates
Having lived in Cambodia for five years, Fiona is delighted to return to the land of silk and spice to act as your theroksaa m’teay, or group custodian, assisting you to have a comfortable experience, navigate cultural issues and engage deeply in professional learning whilst visiting this enchanting country. A passionate and experienced krou bongrien, Fiona has taught other educators in a diverse range of settings including simple Khmer government classrooms, local village halls under mosquito nets, well-resourced international schools, conference rooms in Bangkok, by the banks of the Shoalhaven River and in staff rooms of NSW Department of Education schools.
Fiona’s hands-on workshop Know thyself embodies Kolb’s experiential learning theory enabling participants to consolidate content covered in Ian Luscombe’s presentation by engaging in practical activities and professional reflection. Using traditional Cambodian rituals and cultural artefacts, participants will be given the time and space to contemplate what they have seen and heard both in the seminars and during local excursions, integrate it with their existing expertise and apply this new learning to their home context. We will engage in experiences that act as protective factors against workplace stress and teacher burnout, and can reduce anxiety and aggression in students. A conference paper will be provided that grounds the workshop in current psychological, educational and neurological research. As leaders in education, participants will utilise the session’s practice and theory with the teachers and students they work with each day.
Fiona is a research practitioner, who works both ‘at the coalface’ supporting students with additional learning needs, and contributes to the knowledge base that informs evidence-based interventions in schools. Fiona examines how creative and responsive pedagogies (what we do) interact with the physical and emotional learning environment (the world we create around us) to enable students to successfully engage in quality learning. She is currently an Assistant Principal and Learning & Support Teacher at Nowra East Public School, NSW, where she supports teachers, students and their families thrive within a challenging environment.
Along with teaching at the International School of Phnom Penh, her consultancy work in Cambodia included writing and delivering a teacher training program for the country’s first educators of deaf students; evaluating a nation-wide UNICEF intervention using quality teaching practices to increase student attendance; and working in remote communities with CARE Australia to implement literacy programs with ‘at-risk’ youth. Fiona’s Masters of Education thesis examined the impact of the physical and emotional learning environment on student’s neurological ‘readiness to learn’. Her most recent publication is Lasting lessons in outdoor learning: a facilitation model emerging from 30 years of reflective practice. (Gray, T. and Pigott, F., 2018) Ecopyschology. 10, 195-204.