, , , ,

Speaking truth to power

This short clip is something rather special. It was captured at the recent Te Aho Tapu symposium, in Hamilton (October 2016) and shows the climax of a teaching demonstration by Prof Peter O’Connor and a group of young people from Rototuna Junior High School. Peter and the children worked together over two sessions exploring ideas and moments from John Marsden’s Home and Away – a quality picture book about the experience of young children caught up in conflict and taken to a refugee camp.

The children were ‘distanced’ from the material by taking on a variety of roles and perspectives. Here we see them in role as advocates for Toby – a five year old boy whose application for entry  is being considered by the Minister for Immigration (Peter in role). See how Peter uses his high status position  to pose complex questions, model elevated language and press for commitment… and see how he trusts the silence – and the children. And look how well the children listen to each other, appeal for empathy and reach for poetic language to express their views… Some of the children said afterwards they were so absorbed in the moment they forgot about the circle of onlookers. Some also reflected how this experience had made them want to learn more about refugees and reach out to refugee families in their own community. Powerful stuff!

Thanks to Miguel Garcia who shot the footage and to Peter and the children for permission to share it here.

Click here for video

, ,

Useful books for Drama and restorative practice

Greetings colleagues

At a recent cluster meeting Sue Bleaken (Deputy Principal of Melville Intermediate School) was kind enough to share a list of books she has found particularly useful in planning drama for restorative practice in her school. Sue has provided us with a PDF of this list – attached here. Sincere thanks to Sue for sharing this useful resource.

Contact Sue via the school if you would like more information about her work bringing together drama and restorative practices. Sue also wrote a Master’s thesis on her approach, which can be accessed via the University of Waikato library.

Sue B’s books for drama and restorative practice

, ,

Intermediate teachers talk about MOtE

These natty little film clips have been created by Luke Willis from Melville Intermediate. Here you can see Luke, colleague Jacqui and the school’s DP Sue talk about their explorations in MOtE. As you will see, these teachers were blown away with the student engagement and with the learning outcomes from their first try at MOtE.

In the first clip,  Luke describes how he developed a Mantle adventure based on a movie /novel called “City of Ember”. Students were charged with designing an underground city.

Click here for link

Next, Jacqui talks about how she made links between her mantle (based on a fictional property development company) and the real world enterprise learning project, PrEP.

Click here for link

Finally, Luke has captured these teachers’ answers to my questions  about working in dramatic inquiry with intermediate students.

Click here for link 

Sincere thanks to Luke for producing these very polished clips in record time. There is very little information out there on Mantle at Intermediate – so this is very valuable material.

Enjoy!

, ,

City of Light MOTE with Intermediate students

If you only click on one internet link today – make it this one… Luke Willis from Melville Intermediate School (a decile 4 school in Hamilton) is 8 weeks in to his first attempt at Mantle of the Expert. His blog charts the amazing success he has had with these students. The journey has also included an impressive array of ITC – lots to inspire here including the innovative use of iphones and artwork to create animations (screen shot below)

To reach the blog click here 

Thanks, Luke for sharing this.

Screen shot 2013-11-29 at 7.29.50 AM

, , ,

10 possible MOTE ideas

Check out the new page just inserted into the website under ‘planning in MOTE – teacher resources’  Or click here.  On this page you will find 10 concept ideas for MOTE plans all very different and all with a distinctly NZ theme.

These concepts for Mantle of the Expert units of work were designed by third year students as part of their learning on TEAL 387 at Waikato University. My thanks to these students for agreeing to allow their ideas to be shared with other teachers. They are loosely categorized according to the main curriculum learning areas that they cover – though the ‘incorporated’ approach of MOTE means that each concept gives opportunities to teach right across the curriculum including opportunities for rich learning in Maths, Literacy and ethics / values. Key competencies are not indicated but are core to any MOTE experience.

Please note, these concepts provide only the broad framework for planning – naturally a great deal of micro-planning would be required for individual lessons and to ensure teaching for learning. It is important to note that the concepts as they stand do NOT include indications of drama conventions and other drama for learning strategies which the teacher would need to use.  And naturally, the direction of the inquiry would flex and change depending on the interests of the children in the class. Nonetheless, I think you will agree that these concepts provide a stimulating set of NZ based ideas for MOTE units – and we really need to start building a collection of those!