Exploring Risks and Value

Morgan Stoodley, a current Year 12 Extension 2 student, was invited to introduce us to ChatGPT, exploring the risks and value to Mathematics teachers and students.

multiplication.

ChatGPT was also terrible at graphing a simple cube, instead drawing a series of points.

And yet, Morgan claimed that ChatGPT, along with Desmos and Wolfram Alpha, formed the “trinity” of tools available to mathematicians

ChatGPT was more successful with an investigationstyle word problem but should still be used with caution. ChatGPT can quickly create worksheets for teachers, randomised at each click of a button. In the end Morgan provided us with a useful summary.

Although it was not in Morgan’s presentation (as GPT-4 was only released on Pi Day this year, 14/3), these new tools solved almost, if not all, the limitations in the "ChatGPT is not good at..." column from his summary. This is because GPT-4 is much more powerful, and plugins allow the language model to talk to applications like WolframAlpha—truly a gamechanger. Unfortunately, GPT-4 is only included with OpenAI's subscription service, and to acquire access to plugins an application needs to be submitted and approved by OpenAI; realistically plugins are only attainable through larger organisations or universities.

Why so? For some more difficult problems, ChatGPT may not actually be forming a unique solution, instead just copying information found online. This means that ChatGPT is useful for providing correct solutions for problems that have been documented online but can be misleading in how it achieved that solution (as the standard ChatGPT seldom includes citations).

So, in summary, Morgan asserted that ChatGPT is a powerful tool to be harnessed by mathematics teachers and students, but is not a danger to the rigorous nature of the learning of mathematics. Much like the advent of the calculator, it will be useful, but the tower of mathematics still stands strong.

Allison Davis Assistant Coordinator Mathematics and Mathematics Teacher

A Showcase of Barker’s Creative Arts

Something big occurred on May 10 for Barker Drama - our annual showcase, Winter Playhouse.

This year, we focused on the wider Creative Arts at Barker; showcasing Drama, Visual Art, Design and Technology, Dance, and Public Speaking to really bring together the efforts of lots of different students. It was great being able to have the Visual Arts and Design & Technology showcase in the Cru room, which attracted quite a few audience members, and we’re hoping this wasn’t just for the free banana bread!

We were super excited to see so many students in the audience there to support their friends and siblings, as well as teachers and families there to show their appreciation and support for all the hard work that creative and performing arts students have been putting in this year.

The night started off with some Theatresports, which is an improv-based competition, and included other co-curricular Drama works such as extracts from the Year 10 and 11 plays, and Drama After-Hours performances from Year 7 and 8 students. We had some spectacular displays from soloist dancer Neve Parker, and the Year 10 curricular Dance class, as well as Year 7 student Izzy Wood informing the audience about euthanasia. As always, curricular drama produced monologues from both Year 11 and 12, and incredible Greek Drama group performances from Year 9, which demonstrated how different performances can turn out, even if they start with the same script!

Overall, the night was a fantastic success, and we are so grateful for all the supporters of Barker Drama and creative arts departments, as well as the students who make this all possible!

Kitty Anderson Year 12 Student

Year 10 Play

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most original and beloved plays. His fantastical world of magic and mischief sweeps us into a place of dreams, while his writing delights us with its wit, wordplay and vibrant characters.

It is, however, a fevered dream Shakespeare conjures, one that plunges us into a battle of the sexes. At the opening of the play, the seasons war as Oberon, the Fairy King, demands custody of a changeling boy from his Fairy Queen, Titania. Theseus, ruler of Athens, has captured the Amazonian Queen, Hippolyta, and must have her for his wife. The young lover, Hermia, is denied her partner of choice, Lysander, and must bow before her father’s preferred suitor, Demetrius, or else be killed or banished to a convent. Her best friend, Helena, has her reputation destroyed as she is revealed as Demetrius’ discarded lover. Everywhere, women are thwarted in their desires while subjugated to those of the men in their lives. While this seems more a nightmare than dream, it is in fact, much closer to the reality for an Elizabethan woman (and not them alone).

That Shakespeare was positioning his audience to examine their contemporary gender relations is evident from the opening lines of the play. Theseus, peculiarly tied to an unbending ritual of marrying only on the new moon, bemoans the power this chaste feminine deity holds to delay his gratification, “but, O, methinks how slow this old moon wanes! She lingers my desires like to a step-dame or dowager long withering out a young man’s revenue.”

His audience would have caught this reference to his patron, Queen Elizabeth I, self-styled as the “Virgin Queen”, who likewise played the aging arbiter to a realm of young men’s desires (as well as Shakespeare’s profits). With his parallel world cleverly established, Shakespeare sends his cast into the labyrinth of the woods to see what personal and social transformation is possible.

And so too has this wonderful cast of Year 10 actors and crew. Shakespeare presents the ultimate challenge to young performers, stretching their emotional range, intellectual understanding, and technical performance skills further than most playwrights. His depth of character, heightened language and physical vivacity require the performer to pay conscious attention to every aspect of their craft. There is no mumbled naturalism here! Equally, his rapid changes of location, swirling set pieces and unrelenting pace demand a focused, well-oiled crew. What these students are attempting is not easy. However, their energy, appetite for challenge and infectious joy in their work is catching. I could not be prouder of their work and thank them all deeply for their efforts.

Ed Lembke-Hogan Director