Our next cluster meeting will be held over zoom to allow anyone from around NZ to participate. All welcome – very informal – BYO cuppa and afternoon tea! The focus will be on preplanning in Mantle of the Expert with teachers from Kawaha Point school sharing a recent example.
If you’d like to attend, please email mantleoftheexpertnz@gmail.com and ask for the zoom link.
If attending in a group, please use a separate device per 2-3 people so we can see individual faces – THANKS!
In term 2 and 3 2020, the Dramatic Inquiry team at Knighton Normal School in Hamilton collaborated to create these lovely teaching resources based on the book Wooden Arms by Sarah Johnson.
The team rose to the challenge of using the same source material (the quality picture book) to create a collaborative play-based experience for New Entrants / year ones AND a full-blown Mantle of the Expert experience for more senior students. The results are something to be very proud of – exploring themes of identity and belonging in the context of New Zealand history.
Those new to dramatic inquiry will enjoy the detail in the planning, which include step by step instructions and questions etc. Those more experienced in the approach will appreciate the use of various finessing tools including the three teacher voices, the dimensions of dramatic imagination, the teacher compass and a range of drama conventions.
Many thanks to the teachers Jacki Paea, Chrissy Cottingham, Katie McLean, Nicole Antoniadis, David Hannah, Diane Cooper & Whakarongo Tauranga for generously making these resources available. Thanks also to Sarah Johnson who gave her enthusiastic support for this planning.
Very excited to announce this PLD opportunity which runs 16th July – 19th August and can be accessed by teachers from all over Aotearoa.
Tim Taylor, Viv Aitken and Whakarongo Tauranga are producing a five-part podcast series exploring different aspects of Mantle of the Expert.
CLICK HERE to read more about the presenters
The weekly podcasts are available on subscription. Each will be supported by reading material, an interactive google doc, and a live zoom discussion (dates as below). Participants will be encouraged to try out new strategies in their classroom, with an opportunity to reflect and ask questions within a supportive environment of the zoom hui. We’re really excited about this format. It’s not a ‘course’ – there are no ‘assignments’ – just lots of invitations to dialogue, reflect and try new things. You can take part as little or as much as you wish.
The podcast series has something for everyone. For beginners, there’s a once-off introductory session with a follow up zoom hui ($20+GST), while more experienced practitioners can sign up to an additional four podcasts and zoom hui to look at specific teaching tools in more detail ($100+GST). Special price for school groups of 6-10 teachers ($500+GST).
For further information about how it all works, have a listen to this short audio clip:
Here’s the link to the enrolment form: https://forms.gle/pQ8u6xUsJUAHdE8w5
And here’s the email address if you have any other questions mantleoftheexpertnz@gmail.com
It’s a great pleasure to share this slide show (see link below). It’s an overview of a Mantle of the Expert – inspired adventure called Dog Squad. These slides represent the culmination of an incredible team effort over the last few months. Inspired by the work of Tim Taylor and exploremore, the planning for Dog Squad was originally written by Renee Downey (Otaika Valley School) and Viv Aitken, trialled by Renee in her class, and then further developed by teachers from Hillcrest Normal School.
Dog Squad was originally developed for use during lockdown – to support home learning in levels 4 & 3. We wanted to see if we could provide ‘distance learning’ with the qualities of Mantle of the Expert – and encourage children to learn through imagination, embodiment and creativity away from their devices. As you can see from the samples of work on the slides, it was a great success with buy-in from a large number of children and their families. Children responded in all sorts of highly creative ways – the level of commitment and self-directed work was amazing! I think everyone involved would agree that the experiment brought home the potential for Mantle of the Expert in the digital age.
Hillcrest Normal School has continued to work with Dog Squad through the transition back to face-to-face learning – so this version is hot off the press! Slides and examples of children’s work are shared with permission – these are only a small sample of the many creative responses that have been produced.
The collaborative process of working on this resource has been unforgettable and wonderful. The story deserves telling in much more detail – and will be in future. And there are other adventures still in development that I hope we can share in time (I’m looking at you Fossil Hunters team!)
The generous teachers who created Dog Squad are happy to share the slides they created for each episode on a case by case basis – so please email on mantleoftheexpertnz@gmail.com if you would like to request access to those.
For now, here’s a small taste of what has taken many hours of hard work from passionate and committed teachers – and their students.
Enjoy…
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1r1f6o5FgtPQXrZp-4B1JRtB-hvaoCZcPVeKisGgFpAs/edit?usp=sharing
Here’s a wee drama written by the Dramatic Inquiry team at Knighton Normal school in Hamilton (Jacki Paia, David Hannah, Diane Cooper, Nicole Antoniadis, Whakarongo Tauranga) with support from Viv Aitken. This group of teachers has been working to support children in their transition back to face-to-face schooling, with experiences in dramatic play, process drama and Mantle of the Expert.
The drama is based on the picture book Lessons of a LAC by Lynne Jenkins. The story is all about two groups who live on opposite sides of a mountain: the Little Anxious Creatures and the Calmsters. These two groups have a long history of battles. But then one day Loppy the LAC learns some useful strategies from his new Calmster friend and they start to consider a new kind of relationship…
The team felt this story was a good way to begin a conversation with children as they process their feelings about the Covid-19 pandemic and the return to school. The use of drama and the imagined world of the story provides a safe, frame-distanced and enjoyable way to explore some important questions of wellbeing.
Teachers have been trialling the drama this week and it’s gone really well. Now they want to make their planning freely available for others to use. THANKS team for your generosity.
Please post a response below if you use this planning in your class – we’d love to hear how you get on!
We were due to have a cluster meeting for teachers in Wellington this week, but this has been rainchecked what with one thing and another. We will definitely get back into face-to-face cluster meetings in due course.
Meanwhile, how about a zoom hui / zui cluster? The advantage of this is that colleagues can join from anywhere within Aotearoa (or indeed beyond!) What a great opportunity to reconnect with like minded colleagues and to share what we have tried – and learned – from the experience of teaching over the last few months… both during lockdown and in the transition back to school. There have been some terrific initiatives, so plenty of great stories to share in an informal setting. BYO cuppa!
We have scheduled a zoom meeting for Thursday 4th June at 3.30pm. ALL WELCOME.
Just email mantleoftheexpertnz@gmail.com by 4pm on Tuesday 2nd for the link.
The University of Auckland, NZEI, the Principals Federation and the Sir John Kirwan Foundation have partnered to create www.teritotoi.org an online resource to support teachers to return to school through the arts and wellbeing.
This is a very valuable, and very attractive resource with lots of inspirational ideas for using drama and other arts. The resource was specifically designed for use in the first few weeks after lockdown when we finally return to school.
The activities include several really lovely process dramas – and three connected units of work focussed on Hā Ora. These would be a great way to lay the foundations for the longer term cross-curricula learning in Mantle of the Expert once you are back with your classes.
Highly recommended!
Coming up VERY SOON, Drama New Zealand is offering two FREE workshops for primary and intermediate teachers looking at dramatic inquiry for home learning / distance learning. These will be held over ZOOM and facilitated by Viv Aitken and Renee Downey. Further information below (including full flier and facilitator biographies)
There has already been a lot of interest in these workshops, and they are almost full, so please contact Drama NZ to register your interest (links are shown below). Depending on demand, we may repeat the workshops again in the near future.
I’m writing this on the final day of March. It’s incredible to realise how fast things have changed from just a few short weeks ago, when our response to Covid-19 was limited to teaching the kids to sing “Happy Birthday to you” twice over as they washed their hands. Now the world has flipped. We are in lockdown. Schools are closed and we’re home in our ‘bubbles’. Our communities are responding to the challenges of carrying on – if you’re an ‘essential worker’ – and staying home if you’re not.
Perhaps the most mind-blowing thing in all this, other than the ever-present concerns over health, is the slowly-dawning realisation that this is not temporary: even when the state of emergency is lifted, effects will remain. Economically, socially, personally, nothing will be ‘the same’ again – in life or in education. That’s a huge thing to grapple with.
What does all this mean for teaching and teachers? Well, in the short term we know that schools will remain closed for some time to come. We’re hearing a lot about how we need to ‘take teaching online’ (from early years to tertiary) by 12th April. The Ministry is devoting all PLD funding to this. And already there has been a dizzying amount of activity and energy expended by teachers and others to facilitate this shift. I’ve been blown away by how generous and generative teachers have been – sharing apps, resources, advice about different learning platforms and so on. The sheer quantity of information on offer on social media is amazing. It lifts my heart and I’m sure for classroom teachers, it’s great to have so many tips, resources, videos and other gems. I imagine it must give a very welcome sense of control to have so many possibilities to draw on. At the same time, I suggest, it’s important to take stock, consider and think about what we are doing here, what really matters and what’s really happening. This article from Aisha Ahmad really resonates for me (she’s writing for academics, but the points she makes are just as true for teachers, business owners, parents, all of us!)
First of all, let’s remember what children – and teachers – need right now. We’re in a state of crisis. First they – we – need a chance to process and cope: to have physiological, social, and emotional needs met, as Maslow would put it. So this is where teaching must begin. This link from Sally Hart gives some practical ideas for teaching activities focussed on building hauora and wellbeing. It’s not ‘cheating’ or ‘stalling’ to focus on these right now – it’s the only possible starting point. And remember, the NZC emphasises key competencies, relationship and wellbeing so it’s still ‘curriculum-based learning’ if we encourage our students to undertake tasks that build and practice these things. Until the foundations of wellbeing are in place, no cognitive learning will be effective anyway.
Secondly, let’s not rush! I’ve had a bit of experience in getting to grips with online teaching and learning, including transitioning a degree from face to face to blended delivery: the process was time-consuming and challenging even without a national crisis to navigate at the same time. The main thing I learned was how different teaching online is, and how it takes time to learn to do it well (at least four years in my case). Let’s not diminish the specialism of this kind of teaching by assuming we can do a great job of it in 14 days. And let’s remember that the future we are heading into is unknown. This is about entering a responsive mode in which we adapt to a constantly-changing scenario, not flipping a switch into a new mode of ‘delivery’.
Thirdly, let’s ask ourselves what we mean by teaching online. In my view, the phrase is a bit of a misnomer. What most of us are doing, certainly in the next few months, is setting up for ‘home learning’ for children who are in various stages of lockdown during a national state of emergency and a global crisis. Our job is not to come up with magnificent new online courses. Our job is to set up opportunities for children to learn in their homes. Some of the learning may happen online (watching video clips, reading, feeding back responses, sharing ideas with peers etc) but an awful lot will happen offline (exploring spaces in around the home, drawing, writing by hand, building things, carrying out experiments, taking on roles, mulling over ideas, reading, making sounds, moving the body, debating and dialoguing with family members, and so on). Instead of ‘online teaching’ can we focus on the idea of ‘supporting home learning’ through digital means?
Fourthly, let’s not compromise on the things we really value in teaching and learning. If, like me, you’re passionate about authentic learning, embodied and active strategies, using quality questioning, taking time for reflection, exploring shifts in power and status, making learning fun and engaging then let’s keep these things in mind as the criteria for quality in the learning opportunities we are setting up now. We may need to rethink some of our ways of working and create some new resources, but let’s not lose sight of our kaupapa.
And finally, let’s not assume that drama-based teaching is impossible in the current environment. Sure, drama is all about ‘bodies in a room’ and live, real-world interaction. But it’s also about opening IMAGINED WORLDS (not the same as virtual worlds), shifting power, taking on roles, exploring story, solving problems and working with others. I’d suggest that many of the things we do in dramatic inquiry (not all – but many) can be achieved in home learning too. Check out this resource created by Tim Taylor in the UK, which shows how this can be done. There are already teachers here in New Zealand exploring how resources like these can be developed around local contexts.
What do you think? Can we find ways to support our children to continue learning through dramatic inquiry as part of home learning? I look forward to continuing this conversation over the weeks and months to come.
Kia Kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui
Thinking of you all – Viv x
He waka eke noa
In early March, a group of teachers with a passion for Dramatic Inquiry travelled from all over Aotearoa to attend a two-day hui in Wellington. Our purpose was to begin the process of establishing a not-for-profit Charitable Trust. The Trust will produce resources, provide courses and provide support so that more teachers in Aotearoa can learn about Dramatic Inquiry (which includes Mantle of the Expert, process drama, drama for learning and dramatic play).
The hui began with an opening session on cultural responsiveness facilitated by the wonderful Rawiri Hindle. For the rest of the weekend, we established some goals and agreed first steps to achieving them. While covid-19 has intervened and put things on hold for a while, the passion is there – the waka is launched – and there’s no doubt this work will continue when the time is right.
The Trust is committed to working from a culturally responsive foundation and already this is leading to some significant and exciting ways of organising ourselves and conceptualising what we do. It’s very exciting!
More details about the goals of the Trust, and future offerings including courses, resources and workshops, will be shared in due course. If you are interested in contributing in some way to the work of the Trust, please get in touch.
Many thanks to all those who committed their time, energy and resources to make this hui possible – you’re incredible. There are so many individuals around Aotearoa who contribute so generously to leading Dramatic Inquiry in their schools and regions; supporting colleagues and sharing their passion. It’s fabulous to know that there will be a sustainable network to support this mahi in future.