The Dilemma.
I was pondering how to give the children's ideas the respect and status they deserved, while also attempting to head towards some specific curriculum-based outcomes. I have yet to find the balance between going with the expert team's ideas and ensuring that the children meet some curriculum objectives. Of course, having a specific outcome is not always necessary; the session with Luke Abbot was a marvellous Mantle time and the children were deeply involved in the fiction. The learning was deep and valuable - collaboration, problem solving, creatively making the required items, some initial map-making - but did not have a specific learning objective (and rightly so).
Later with Luke, Helen and Ben (other Mantle trainees) we discussed the work that could come out of the day; story writing, design and make projects, work around caring for wildlife and plants, lost and found posters..... which leads me onto today's post.
I wanted to plan a session which involved aspects of Mantle but did lead to a specific learning outcome. Two attempts ensued.
The not-so-successful Attempt.
I wanted the children to create some maps; the Year 1s to draw and name geographical features while the Year 2s added keys and compasses. A colleague of mine was in role as a National Parks Officer, reading an urgent email. * It told her to find the lost squirrel as quickly as possible. In role, she wondered how. I paused her and spoke to the children, who then wanted to talk to her so we brought the role to life **. They offered all kinds of help - but only one child suggested a map. Seeing their enthusiasm and hearing their good suggestions (while being determined to head away from another jetpack episode), I decided to allow the fiction to go where the children were taking it. They did a variety of useful and not-so-useful activities but, having been given the task by Louise with the urgency of finding the lost squirrel, *** they were all involved.
One activity they chose - making camouflage wildlife cameras - gave me the idea for the next attempt at planning for an outcome.
The slightly-more-successful attempt.I spent some time with Chapter 6 of Tim Taylor's Beginner's Guide which helped me to clarify my ideas. It reminded me of important things that I knew once but had since forgotten.
When planning:
- Put learning at the centre
- Consider how the context will challenge the children
- Ask yourself - what is the context doing beyond a normal classroom activity?
- Remember the importance of tension
- Ensure all activities have a purpose
With just me and 32 5-7 year olds, I had no choice but to do the 'adult in role' part myself. I used a badge to become Louise, our National Parks Officer, and pretended to be on the phone. Some of the children did not get what I was doing and started talking back to me. At times, this was hard to ignore ('stop shouting out,' my inner teacher cried). However, I continued, opening a video attachment showing a film of something captured by the team's wildlife cameras. It was a short woodland video I had found on Youtube. The children made the link between the fiction and their cameras fairly easily. Still in role, I emailed the team out loud, explaining that Scaredy Squirrel was nowhere to be seen on that camera but could they please send me any footage they had from their other cameras?
As soon as I stepped out of role it was... "we've got to find the squirrel! Let's go, let's make drones, let's make jetpacks"..... I sighed quietly to myself, sad that my role work had been so unconvincing, and supported the children to think through what they had seen. Once we did this, they became more focussed; after a bit of discussion I asked:
"I wonder what might be on the other cameras?"
This led to some discussion around a woodland habitat and how bears and gruffalos were probably not going to be found in our English woodland. I wondered whether we might be able to help Louise by sending her footage from our cameras. Though initially confused, the children liked the idea of creating some films, so we did.
It was very led by me and I'm not really sure whether it was 'right' from a Mantle of the Expert point of view (maybe not enough discussion/collaboration). However, I think it was a successful use of the fictional context and the client to give a curriculum activity meaning and purpose. In groups of 4, the children created (very simple) film clips using a green screen app - hopefully you can see one of them here, if it has uploaded.
To consider
- How to use the teacher compass to start a curriculum session more playfully. I remembered that I did this for one session last year and it sort of worked.
- Whether this session was led too much by me, or whether sometimes it needs to be, or whether I could have created a session leading to the same outcomes but in a more child-led sort of way.
Notes
* Convention 2, I think (the role framed as a film), and then...
** maybe 1 - the role present
*** Hopefully and example of tension
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