Sacred space (on preparing the children)

Our Australia Explorers have visited Uluru twice during our mantle. The second time was more successful than the first, and this is why.

As it happens, I have previously mentioned the children's first visit to Uluru but I left out one small detail... 

They destroyed Uluru.  

An Unfortunate Incident

The space was prepared in the classroom (the weather prevented the intended outdoor session), with orange cloths laid over some units to represent Uluru. The children were going to visit the landmark and read the information boards around it with the intention that they would learn more about the area and how to treat it. We imagined that they would be intrigued by the representation of Uluru and would explore the rock and the posters around it.

However, the reality was that the children had a bit of cabin fever resulting from the rainy weather, they burst into the classroom, became very excited at the changes in the room and a significant handful of them pulled the cloth off the units and waved it in the air. They paid no attention to the boards around the classroom. and were generally OTT. 




The reason I didn't mention this was I decided it was a small insignificant detail and an unfortunate incident to be put down to mantle experience. However, there was an Important Lesson to be remembered, so here it is. 

Before any session, children need to be prepared to enter the fiction. Luke Abbott once described it as 'warming them up' and the Uluru Incident reminded me of this. We'd assumed that changing the space would be enough - it wasn't. We needed to read the children more closely - to bring them in when they were ready. 

We thought and we pondered and a week-and-a-bit later and the children were going to visit Uluru again. 

An Improved Visit:

Yesterday, the children went to Uluru again. The focus of the session was on rock art. Over lunch time, we turned tables on their side and attached images of rock art from Uluru to them. We cleared the space and then covered the door entry with the same orange cloth we'd used before.  

As the children finished their break time we gathered them into a group on the field. They'd noticed the orange doorway so we started there - what might it represent? What did it remind them of? We established that we were going to Uluru.

I used a bit of twilight role (as usual, some wobbly attempts) as a member of the Anangu People to invite the children into Uluru to see the sacred rock art of my people. Out of role, we talked about 'sacred' and what this meant. We made some agreements about how we would behave in the sacred space:

"We have to be careful."
"We have to be gentle"
"We mustn't break anything"
"We must tiptoe"
"We should whisper"

I asked that they take their shoes and baseball caps off in order to enter 'my' special place.

The result: the children walked quietly and respectfully into the space. There was a hush and a sense of care being taken. They moved slowly and carefully, looking at the rock art and whispering about it. The actual images were hard to make out - they are thousands of years old - but the children were fascinated.

As they began to get a little louder and had seen as much as they wanted to, I handed out sheets showing Aboriginal symbols and their meaning - this re-focussed the children as they began to spot some of the symbols and become more interested in what the rock art meant.

Finally, I invited them to lie down in the middle of Uluru and listen - the rock might speak to the children. Every child lay down in the middle together, closed their eyes and listened. One boy even cupped his hand around his ear as he lay there.

We tiptoed out, whispering 'goodbye' to Uluru. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent happily creating rock art that might be found in Tjutirangu Puli - the Rainbow Mountain. 

Lesson number..... (?) : tread softly into the session, where softness is required of the children.