Working Holiday Part 3 : Changing Roles

My foot: looking worse,
feeling better

Today's session at school began and ended with improvising and plotting out scenes.  The group all took on roles in the story and have developed their characters throughout the day.  We've seen a real growth in confidence and performance!  This is very pleasing, as is the lack of any further growth of my swollen foot, which seems to have stabilised and has been much more walkable-on today.  So, no wheelchair required after all.  For the middle section of our day, we split the group; some opting to work on music with Rich and the others developing story with me.  We've asked them to bring in costumes tomorrow. I think that dressing up is going to help the group feel more at home with their characters, and to make their performances bigger and better.




After the session I joined my family, who had
made their way to the Victorian Village at Blists Hill.  What an amazing place!  They had already walked the green way, changed their holiday money for old money, tried candle dipping and stilt walking, taken a horse and cart ride, and visited the confectioners.  All before I got there!  It's a huge site, and with all it's period buildings, many of which have been transplanted there brick by brick, is reminiscent of the Avoncroft building museum in Bromsgrove.  The difference is that Blists Hill's buildings are peopled by a great number of role-playing Victorian staff who, along with many working exhibits and rides, really bring the place to life.  We got back and sorted some accommodation for Thursday, ate a very good bean chilli at the YHA cafe and visited the Shakespeare Inn so that the boys could go crazy in the play park that they have in their beer garden.




Experimental observations today:  I notice a that it takes a good couple of hours to switch from work to holiday mode.  BecauseI work in a way that is very flexible and reacts to the needs of participants, I am used to spending time after a session reflecting on what has happened within it, and devising approaches for the next one.  I'm reluctant to rush on to the next thing in case I might miss something about the thing I've just done.  All the same, I can't envy Rich all that reflection time he gets during his long drive home.


Links:
Avoncroft: Museum of Historic Buildings
Blists Hill_Victorian Town

Working Holiday Part 2 : Home from home

After a lovely lunch with my family, eventful only in the spillage of a my pint of Guiness over Four-year-old's magazine by Seven-year-old, compulsory palm readings from Nine-year-old with palmistry book from library, and the sending back of a cheese and bacon burger on the flimsy premiss that it contained no cheese or bacon, we are now installed at our home for the week.  Or, as it turns out, our home until Thursday as we only booked three nights and they are now full up.  Not to worry, I'm sure we'll find a space somewhere.  We've had a great evening exploring a little of the local area and the children have been able to meet and play with lots of children staying nearby. 


It's not all holiday though, and Rich and I had a good first morning at Hadley Learning Community with our summer school group of soon-to-be-year-sevens.  This is a transition project designed to give next year's intake of students a chance to meet and work together before starting in September.  We watched some short movies, played out a couple of silent movie scenes, created some music in garage band and sketched out a story.  Once warmed up, the group were bursting with ideas, and if I tell you that our film looks like being about a lonely, alien teacher flying into space to start a new life, but instead becoming embroiled in a murder mystery in which the suspects include a superhero who is married to a jellyfish and kleptomaniac robot singer, you'll probably be able to name several similar films that you've already seen.  Or not.


All in all, a great first day to the experiment.  I really can't imagine that this could have worked out any better...


Except that on Saturday evening I got an insect bite on my foot.  Not normally a big worry, you might think, but me and this particular bug have history.  Around this time of year back in 2000, it got me at our allotment.  On that occasion the foot swelled up over three days to the point where it was impossible to walk on.  I had to call on my then-employee, Steve Ryan to help me to A and E for treatment and crutches.  Twice since it has struck, and each time the result has been the same.  Except the bit about Steve who enjoyed his visit so much that he now works at the hospital but sadly no longer provides the informal ambulance service.


So I've been lying down quite a bit this evening.  Elevating the foot and watching it slowly swell up.  Taking a cocktail of drugs and regularly applying the antihistamine cream.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to find a wheelchair from somewhere and become your friendly, neighbourhood push-along camera-operator, until this subsides.


So in summary; work good, holiday good, insect not so much.

My foot.  Notice innocent looking tiny red dot next to ankle

I love the expression 'free o tread', but it's costing me pain!

The Great Working Holiday Begins!

What kind of a fool comes to school in the holidays?  In my case, it's the kind of fool who's teaching a film-making summer school at Hadley Learning Community.  For reasons which may or may not be interesting, I do a fair amount of educational work in Telford schools, and for jobs of two or more days I am faced with a decision: to commute or to stay over, that is the question.  If I commute then I spend at least two hours a day driving, if I stay over then it's time away from my family, which I don't much enjoy.


This week, for the first time, I am attempting to have my cake and eat it.  Moving the family to Ironbridge for a 'working holiday'.  They'll be able to enjoy exploring the area while I work during the day, and in the evening I'll have a very short drive home.


My co-worker on this summer school is the 24/7 working powerhouse that is Richard Shrewsbury.  Trombone player with the Destroyers and arts in education consultant, who has just arrived and ordered coffee.  Gotta work!

Why stealing ideas is good for creativity

You're right to advise your pupils against copying the answer of the person sitting next to you, of course, as it might be wrong. They might as well make their own mistakes. But what if you're attempting to stimulate their creativity, where there is no right and wrong? Then your biggest obstacle is the blank page.

One quick way to generate a new idea, is to take two, unrelated stimuli and combine them. I am a designer. I look out of my window and see a a football out in the garden and a car passing. I think: could I create a form of transport based on a rolling ball? How would passengers get in and out of it? How would it be steered? Is the driver inside the ball? How will they see out? I grab my sketchpad and off I go. Or I'm a writer. I begin a story. A child holds a football between her hands, feeling it's texture, examining it's stitches in minute detail. Her world is the ball, and the view outside of the car window flashes by unseen. Where has she come from? Where is she going? Who is driving? A story has begun.

So, when you begin a film-making project with young people, start with the question 'what do you watch' rather than 'what do you want to make'. Find out what engages them. You'll usually find a programme that just about everyone in the group watches, or that the group will split into two groups, each insistant that their favorite programme is best! Allow them to explain the program's format to you. See if you can build up an understanding of the format from your student's explanations, don't lead them. This is easier if these are programmes that you've never seen before so if you are familiar with them, pretend that you're not!

The format is your first stimuli, and in school the second is likely to be your curriculum objective. But now instead of trying to convince your students that presenting Ancient Egypt as a news programe is going to be fun you'll have students champing at the bit to make 'The Only Way Is Egypt' or 'Mister Maker Mummifies in a Minute'. No, I haven't made either of these and yes, you're welcome to.

Deep and independent learning begins with the student's interest, so start with something they've told you they're interested in!

What are we doing again?

As CCE claim that Creative Partnerships will come to an end next year and the Arts Council insist that no decision has been made, I find myself thinking about the impact my projects are having, and whether it will last longer than the funding does!


I talked to a teacher today who described their enquiry as a 'Beautiful process' despite the onerous paperwork. There are many teachers out there who have benefited from CP support over the last eight years and will, as a result, be better equipped to apply creative approaches in school, and to encourage creative approaches in their pupils. I guess there are also some who have been unimpressed. There are a huge number of children who have been involved. Will we be able to pick them out as they grow and move through the education system and beyond?


I believe in creative learning. If CP is discontinued, creative learning will continue. What it is will no longer be what CP thinks it is, but the sum of what all those children, teachers and practitioners think it is.

It begins again...

Welcome back after the break!

After a few meetings last week this is my first day in school with pupils. Ninety year-sixers or thereabouts. Its about Maths, its about Ancient Greeks, its about film-making.

Pupils have heard a greek tale, solved a SATs maths problem, and then incorporated the problem into the tale. They have set the puzzle in physical space for other pupils to solve. Not all groups or pupils have produced the intended outcomes listed here, but many who have not, have worked creatively to produce other outcomes of good quality.

Going forward, the three groups will be doing further work on the myths and legends of ancient greece before commencing the main body of project work. They will be asked to create a resource pack, including DVD, for a year-six client group, that will help them explore different areas of maths through stories of Ancient Greece.

Pupils will also have the opportunity to work with other artists with specialisms of script-writing, model-making and maybe more.

Shine on you crazy parents

Way back last September when I was involved in a very enthusiastic planning meeting for the second year of Paganel's 'Change School' program we talked about lots of ideas that involved parental or community engagement. So why is it that today, on my final session at Paganel this year, I find myself for the first time actually working with parents? The short answer is that those parental and community engagement activities happened, but didn't involve me.
Today's session with four parents and one member of staff was a real joy! We were creating a video record of Paganel's 'Shine Day' and all the activities that the pupils were getting involved with. We started by watching the shine day film I helped year-six pupils to make last year. We went on to a whistle stop run through of video production, interviewing skills, visual composition and story-telling before going to work. It's that incredible mix of skills, all running in parallel that make film-work so powerful as an educational process.
The group worked very hard throughout the day and produced a rush edit that was shown in a whole school assembly at about 2:30. They were all enthusiastic and remained so throughout the day, and they all want to come back to finish the edit after summer.
Just as well today ended on a high as I then got a phone call from a member of staff from another school regarding a DVD that I'd worked all hours to get ready in time for their end of year show. Not to thank me, just to point out all the ways in which they felt the work fell short of their expectations. You know, if they'd have been telling me that the children weren't happy with the work, I would have felt much more concerned.