Always darkest before the dawn.

I was quite nervous getting ready for this week's drama lesson. After the absolute debacle that was my last drama lesson, my nervousness was well founded. I thought about my last drama lesson and realised that I had focused on the problems, the document, the elephant in the room. I took a step back and asked myself "What is the purpose of this project?" And decided to redirect my focus.

The entire point of this project is to push the children into real life situations, and get them to solve them. This project is developing their problem solving skills, NOT my ability to present a well written series of interlocking issues. 

So with that established; here we go. 

What Actually Happened. 

We started the same way I start every lesson, reminding the kiddles how the last lesson in drama went. As if to confirm my incompetence in teaching one child actually groaned and said "oh god, not those problems again!" Which only further convinced me that I was doing the right thing. I started off by putting the children sitting in a circle in the middle of the room.  As simple a step as that was, sitting in a circle will encourage them to listen and talk to each other far more. Add this to the fact that I purposely sat outside the circle to remove myself from the group, and the entire discussion will be totally theirs. 

I gave out the Crisis Document and  directed them to the content page. Here i asked the children to read the problems through and asked them to ask about ones they didn't understand. I kept these explanations short and clear. I didn't want to throw them off by just saying "read the document" like I did the previous week. 

Once the children had a basic understanding of the issues in the document, I asked them what they'd like to solve first. Unanimously the children decided to focus on Tsunamis(the problem being how do we predict them and defend from them). Clearly, they were going for the "cooler" of the problems.

Finally, I did the one thing that I felt could save the project. I handed control of the class to the children.

I chose two boys, who run the superpower Siena, to run the meeting. I gave them a speaking object, an orange ball, and reminded the class of the rules of speaking objects. This worked at first, but it started to hold the kiddles back from talking so I removed it altogether. It did serve one important cause though, and gave the Siena boys some power. It took a while for them to get started, and they gradually somehow drifted to talking about stopping deforestation, and that's where it REALLY kicked off. 

I recorded this conversation, and here it is transcribed.

The names I use are the names the children picked for their characters. Hulk and Greg are the two from Siena. 
Text in brackets like <this> are descriptions of anything going on that can't be heard. 
Italics are my own thoughts.


Riane: The government should just stop altogether cutting down trees but to make paper like eh write on... write on something else like leather or something. 

Leather is a pretty cool idea I must say!  
??: I'd still need paper.
Hulk: We are the Government.
Riane: I know, we'll write on leather or something else.
<"Roylat" had been waving her hand in the air for a while at this stage.>
Hulk: Okay. right whatever your name is down there... you... missy!
<Awkward silence.>
Roylat: Which one?! we're all missies!
<Laughter>
Hulk: You!
Roylat: Who's you?!
Everyone: Roylat!
This makes me laugh so much everytime.
<Some confusion and then...>
Hulk: Just just... whatever Roylat just go!
Roylat: Right. We need wood, we need paper and if we don't use trees how can we use wood and paper, how can we make chairs and tables
Hulk: That's why we're cutting down the trees!
Roylat: I'm saying we need to cut down the trees. 
Greg: Oh my god.
Eibba: We can't keep cutting them down because that's deforestation!
<lots of people talking over each other>
Yeslek: Alright. I'm the one with the best i-
Eibba: (using a real name) We don't talk when your talking!
Riane: Hulk just asked her to talk!
Yeslek: Right.... Why is everyone cutting down trees and causing deforestation. Why can't we just make things out of the same thing, but without using trees?
<confused silence>
Hulk: Okay... say that again, I have no idea what you said.
Yeslek: UGH! Right... Make things out of something that doesn't involve cutting down trees!
Hulk: Alright, you say what.
Yeslek: I came up with the idea, I don't know.
<laughter.>
Yeslek: Can't we just make an invention?!
Eibba: But we need trees to make an invention!
Hulk: Rolyat! Go on.
Roylat: Right. You should only cut one tree down every two weeks, and that will make it better.
Eibba: But that's deforestation!
Roylat: Yeah but ya need paper, ya need wood!
Eibba: But that causes deforestation.
Eolia: Then what can we use!?

Throughout the session, I coached the boys in leading the group: "We haven't heard from Sean... Mary's awfully quiet..." "What's Lucy's opinion?"  

There was one girl, Eolia as she is known in Bevelle, who was very quiet, and usually treats classroom discussions as something "Borin". For any non-teacher reading the blog you have heard of the teachers pet, you've heard of the messers, the difficult to teach and the difficult to control. But I can almost guarantee you haven't heard of Eolia, the one who "just doesn't care". This girl has such a negative attitude to school that everything I've done to get her excited about learning or interested in working has fallen flat on its face. She's quite impossible to work with. She doesn't even care about the Bevelle Project! Apart from today. I've been teaching this class since January 28th, and taught them all of last year. That last line "Then what can we use?!" is the FIRST TIME EVER Eolia has joined a classroom discussion willingly. So What I'm getting at here is "Bevelle works wonders"

Gradually discussion kept going in circles until Eolia herself asked someone to clarify what deforestation actually was. Riane offered to explain and defined it as "Cutting down a whole load of trees to use for wood and paper but not replacing them"

I pounced on this word. Replacing. That's what they needed to see. Replacing. I nudged Greg and told him to ask Riane to explain it again, and he caught onto the word "replacing". Straight away the whole class lit up! Of course! That's how we can keep using wood and paper! We'll just replace those that we cut down! 

Two children were chosen at random to write a law about deforestation, and the next drama lesson will start with the children signing it into law. They did it. 

Where Do We Go From Here?

Anywhere. They have finally figured out that they CAN solve these problems. It is possible, and they can do it by working together. The confidence boost they got from this will hopefully last for another few weeks, and theoretically this will be the catalyst of a whole onslaught of crisis averting!

Most Importantly...

Two things. 

The confidence boost that I recieved is invaluable. After last week I was convinced I had failed and had put too much pressure on their decade old shoulders. Turns out, they, no WE are going to be fine. 

Secondly; Eolia. I cannot emphasise enough how big a deal it is that she got involved. I don't care anymore if they solve no more problems or if the project fails. I got Eolia interested and involved. The project has succeeded in my eyes.