From the Principal

Getting to Know Mr Kent: Why Storytelling Matters

One of the things that Mr Kent has enjoyed the most about these first six months as the Principal at LCS is getting to know our students. By coordinating time with teachers and going into their classrooms to speak or share stories, this meaningful opportunity is taking place. 

Recently, Mr Kent was able to speak to our Year One students about his adventures in Africa, after pulling out some dusty photo albums that had been in storage for 20 years:

I love telling stories, and when I was first asked in to talk to this class about Brazil, they were very keen to see footage of a Jaguar, but I couldn't find that footage. So, I actually went and got two photo albums that I've just taken out of storage that have been in a box for the last 20 something years. These photos are from a trip that I took with a group of 20 students to Africa. We spent four weeks traveling through Southern Africa, and these are both my memories of that trip, but also a wonderful way to talk to students about God's creation.

We got up close with a lot of different animals on that trip, and it was amazing, but what was in these albums was more than just animals. There were also pictures of people and there were pictures of some of the adventures. This was an opportunity to bring a class into my world of international living and international travel with students, expanding their understanding of the world in a personal way. 

I think we all have a story, and we all want to tell our story. And if we look at the greatest story in the world, it's the story contained in the Bible. What a story. So, I think storytelling is a part of a foundational understanding of who we are. I have loved my time here at LCS, being able to tell my story. I want to encourage students to tell their story. This is just one little sliver of my story, but it really encapsulates a lot of who I am, that I have a bit of a wanderlust of what's out there.

I love to explore, so I think for me it's that that chance for kids to hear a story about someone's life, that has done some things that are pretty different. The next time I get a chance to share with this class, they're going to know a little bit about me, my love of animals, my love of travel. They're going to understand maybe a little bit more of what brings me joy and also how I see education. What is the role of education outside of the classroom? This was a school trip. This wasn't just Mr Kent going on a holiday with his family, but this was something that had educational value: from the people they were going to meet, the food they were going to eat, the animals that they were going to see, to learning how to be together as a sort of a mini community. We lived on a truck; we travelled thousands of kilometres off road through Botswana. There's just so many layers that this trip had for students. And I wanted to share this with the Year 1’s.

There was one little part of that trip that has resonated with me the most. We had a guide called Dempsey and he was an amazing Christian man. And on our trip, he asked all of our students to keep a diary - and he actually asked us all to hand our watches in. The idea of time is different when you're doing what we were doing. And not to be slaves to the clock was a big part of his approach. One day he asked us all to sit in a field by ourselves, I think it was for two hours, and to just look at nature and think about God. To take a group of 15, 16, and 17 year old Australian students and ask them to be still and to know that I am God was an amazing part of this trip. There are pictures in that album of kids just sitting in the field, and as an adult who was pretty exhausted running and organizing this trip, to sit in nature and to have a time alone with God…. it was just amazing! And I wanted the kids to know that they can do that here, in their own backyard.

In many ways, this is just one part of my shaping of cross-cultural understanding. How do we understand that not every child in the world is eating the same food as us, living in the same community as us, yet is still searching for the same things that we're searching for. That sense of purpose, that sense of fulfillment, and that sense of learning is cross-cultural in reality. And even these Year 1’s understood that by looking at my albums, and listening to my story. 

What an opportunity to show kids God's amazing creation. Tasmania's beautiful, it's gorgeous, but this trip gave me the chance to come up close and personal with a lion. There's a photo in there of me holding a baby lion club, and the kids loved asking questions about that. Questions like, how did you feel? What was the lion like? And there's a chance to tell the story of creation, for them to see this amazing God we have. When you put a lion next to a giraffe in two different photos, they're so different. God's world is beautiful. It's amazing. And it is not an accident in how it all came together.