Meet Florence James : Our new Visual Arts teacher

Florence joins the Aga Khan Academy Hyderabad as a Visual Arts teacher. 

Zimbabwean by descent, Florence has been working at Harare International School where she has been teaching for the last 13 years. With a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Bulgaria, she has been a Visual Arts lecturer and teacher at university and school for over 28 years.

Seven years ago she attended a Primary Years Programme (PYP) workshop in Dubai where she met a teacher from the Aga Khan Academy in Mombasa. Inspired by the vision of His Highness, she started following the progress of both the Academies and the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). Coming from a developing nation herself, she found the notion of providing students with the opportunity to have a world class education on a means-blind basis and on merit extremely inspiring. With her strong belief in the International Baccalaureate, the sense of community and diversity at the Academy as well as the facilities on campus, it made her decision to move an easy one!

Her vision is to see Visual Arts being taught in a transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary form. She would love to see Visual Arts being part of the students' problem-solving strategies and project-based learning as well.

This academic year she hopes to establish a strong foundation of mutually respectful teaching and learning relationships with her students. She would also like to see her students, irrespective of their age, to know and understand their goals in Visual Arts teaching and learning. She believes with that once that foundation is laid down, the actual creative processes can only yield success!