KARACHI: Flying planes without even stepping inside a cockpit is what the Paper Pilots Workshop for schoolchildren at the Arts Council of Pakistan on Monday was all about.

Dylan Parker, on whose life the movie Paper Planes has been based, flew all the way from Australia, well not in a paper plane, to share his beautiful hobby and art with boys and girls from the various government and private schools in Karachi as a part of the ‘Australia Day in Spring-2016 Engaging Youth’ celebrations.

Dylan with his old university friend James Norton and press attaché from the Australian High Commission in Islamabad Col David Burke, who happens to be a real pilot, all wearing flight suits engaged over 200 children to learn through play. “Learning through play is one of the most powerful teaching tools,” said Dylan while speaking to Dawn.

Following the screening of Paper Planes based on Dylan and James learning the science of flight while developing problem-solving skills to design the perfect paper plane with the help of a girl in Japan, also a champion paper plane pilot, the students were treated to an interesting talk and paper plane making workshop opened by Australian High Commissioner Margaret Adamson.

Different colour paper sheets distributed to the audience after a crease here a fold there turned into flying devices gliding inside the Arts Council auditorium. Watching and learning how to achieve accurate symmetry at intersections and add extra folds particularly at the nose and tip of wings to add some weight to make the planes glide more smoothly and for longer durations brought about awesome results that even the children were surprised to see.

Different designs behaved differently when thrown in the air. That done, the children were instructed to write their names on their planes before testing them in the breeze outside.

Dylan and James, who have taken part in the World Paper Plane Championships in 2008, and many other such competitions all over the world have now turned professional. “These competitions are for the young and young at heart but we cannot take part in them any more as flying paper planes is more of an amateur thing, and we have turned professional. So we get children interested in it,” said James, who is based in Islamabad now with wife Hannah Birks.

“You know, I find the children here behaving just like the kids in Australia when first introduced to paper planes,” said Dylan. “There, too, the girls are hesitant at first but then join in after realising how much fun it is to make paper planes and fly them.”

James then pointed out that the hobby taught science, technology, engineering and maths. “We call it STEM. You know ‘S’ for science, ‘T’ for technology and so on,” he said. “STEM is part of the national curriculum in schools in Australia.”

Meanwhile, Col Burkes in his camouflage flight suit could be spotted picking up the fallen paper planes from the Arts Council grounds. Seeing him do that, the children also volunteered to help. “We are not here to leave a mess. Keep Pakistan tidy,” he said smiling, helping the children learn another valuable lesson in responsibility.

Sharing their excitement with Dawn, Fahad Malik and Gaurav Kumar, both class-nine students from St Patrick’s High School, said that they would practise making all the designs taught to them by Dylan and James while innovating till they become perfect paper plane pilots.

Wardah Iqbal, a class-seven student from The Spirit School and Sadia Sultana, a class-eight student from the same school, also said that they would be practising more as soon as they reached their homes. “There is a bundle of A-4 size papers in our computer printer that I have my eye on for the purpose,” said Wardah.

“I’m expecting my younger students to be flying paper planes in class that would be crashing all over the place now,” chuckled Darakhshan Anjum, an English teacher at SMB Fatima Jinnah Girls Secondary School. “But they better not tear any leaves from

their notebooks,” she added, making a mental note to pull up any of her students who may resort to that.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2016