In two days time, the Primary School I have been working with is
going to have a 15 minute assembly for the whole school to introduce the Grade
4’s campaign for the Lets Stand Together -
National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence. Then the Grade 4's will be running sessions for each grade.
In the space of 4 weeks we have created a campaign board in
the corridor and two different lesson plans - one for the older kids, and one for the younger. Our slogan is:
Stand up for Friend CHIPS!
Caring - Helpful - Include - Positiveness - Smile
For the last four Tuesday afternoons Sam, the Principal, and I have worked with the
Grade 4 cohort on this project, drawing them out of their usual classes.
Although we had a sense of what we wanted to cover, the material has very much
been emergent. We have listened to what has come out of the student concerns, their suggestions and their misbehaviours! We
have learnt a lot about what is important to them, how they frame what can go
wrong in relationships and how they see solutions.
The project has had the following stages:
LESSON 1 - Orientation
Valuing the positive
- What makes friendship? Sam showed some up-beat music videos about
friendship as an opener asking students to reflect on what makes friendship.
What do you do or how
do you talk to friends? Sam put students into pairs of one girl and boy and
they worked together to create wonderful posters of friends talking or doing
things.
When students did a world café style rotation around the class to value-add
each other’s drawings a couple of kids
drew or wrote inappropriate things. This provided material to look at the
feelings of the students affected (shocked, disgusted, sad) and for me to
reflect on how to model the restorative approach I would like students to be
able to take.
Framing up the
project – Grade 4’s leading a program
for the whole school around building good relationships. We told them that there was an opportunity for what they developed to also be used nationally. Students very
excited, in particular in running lessons for the GRADE 6’s!.
LESSON 2 - Tuning into Issues
Community of Practice
guidelines – How will we work
together on a sensitive issue? students brainstorm and I add privacy and
right to pass.
Tuning into feelings –
dramatic exercises.
This went completely pear-shaped – students not sticking to
their assigned groups, moving to friendship ones, then changing again, some
students without a group, then being silly, loud, not listening, being rude. I
then used “I messages” about feelings – “I
am not happy, I am shocked at this behaviour – let’s sit quietly and remember
we are here to explore how to build good relationships… ” It provided a
wonderful segue into the next bit. Later I reflected on whether this showed the
natural habitat of fraught friendship relationships – like musical chairs, in
this game there will always be students without friends standing alone.
What do we hope for? – How can we build good relationships
when things go wrong? What does each person hope for to get a good outcome?
This was the BIG IDEA to get the sense that we need to have
good outcomes for everyone. Using the example of people writing inappropriate
things on others’ drawings, students
came up with a list of what they would hope for if they were harmed, and if
they were the one who did harm. This was a serious and thoughtful discussion
where students shared times when they had done things wrong and how they felt
and what they wanted for it to feel right. I thought this was the pearl of
learning.
What do we hope for when things go wrong?
The person who has been harmed in some way hopes for:
I would like honesty by the person who did the harmful thing – I would feel better if they owned up
If I don’t know who did it, I would like to find out – there should be an investigation
I would like the person who did it to say that they won’t do it again
There should be a consequence for the person who did it
The person who may have caused harm hopes for:
I don’t want to be blamed, I don’t want to get into trouble
If I wasn’t aware that I caused harm, then I would like to be told – so I know
I would like an opportunity to explain, to apologise, to fix it.
I would like help by others when it is too hard to fix, especially when I feel sick and worried and can’t see what to do.
I would like to feel that people like me again
Naming the issues - Brainstorm what can
wrong for relationships such as sister/brother, teacher/student, friends,
teams, parent/child, peers.
The students created a very interesting list of issues which you can see here. Bullying came
out several times, and habitual fighting a major one in families.
What are you personally concerned about? Write a personal letter
of concern to the Grand Pooh Bah unicorn of Wiseness. (a puppet)
I was keen
to get some indicator of their concerns and issues so this could be a basis to work from. I thought also these would provide a useful
resource for parent discussion. There were some very thoughtful and empathic
letters and some silly ones. Even though we had considered a variety of relationships and issues that could go wrong, at least half the students wrote of problems with
friendship. There was only one letter specifically about bullying. Sam and I then used these letters (and
their indicator of emotional maturity) to decide how to allocate the students to the
two groups to work with the different grades.
What students were concerned about:
Breakdown
of a friendship group – people fighting or upset. Not a happy place to be.
Being right in the middle of it. Confusion over whose side to take. Wanting to
get things back to how they used to be.
Feeling
left out – no one cares for me. Being excluded from activities.
Trying to make friends. Wondering if something is wrong with me. Wanting to
have a friend I can trust for life.
Bullying – having
constant fear it could happen again. Wanting to feel safe and no need to think
about it.
Friends
moving away – feeling sad, hoping they still think of you. Wanting to
see them and connect with them again.
Being
concerned for a friend who is acting different - is something wrong? What can I do to help?
Reputation
– how others see me – Doing something wrong in front of people and having
them think you are horrible, even when you have put it right. Wanting
forgiveness and to be seen as a nice person. To feel normal again.
TRIBES reflection-
students held the unicorn puppet and reflected on what they had learnt. Some
very thoughtful things. Some students passing and then asking for the unicorn
back.
LESSON 3 – Coming up with Ideas – Student ownership
Brainstorming ideas for the campaign - Sam was keen for a whole school
activity that encouraged people to be positive and say something positive about
others. The students brainstormed ways to make this work. The students also
brainstormed some general ideas for the lessons - Gender balance in presenters,
mix groups so not friendship, read book, scenario for bullying. We then broke into two groups and let students explore
possibilities. (Logos, games, reading a
story, dramatic scenes.)
My group spent some time in a committee meeting format
brainstorming how they could create a dodge it ball game with mean red balls
and positive white balls, each person building on another in a very excited
way. This seemed like a completely
different group to before – appreciative of the opportunity to come up with
their own thing. It started running around in circles a bit so I suggested we
have a break and then ran a couple of dramatic milling exercises (look at
someone and smile, look away, discuss how that made you feel) and some freeze
frames.
One boy then asked if they could work in friendship groups to come up
with their own skits. “Sue, it would go a lot better if you didn’t try to
direct us and just let us come up with something in our friendship groups.” The
students put on their skits to each other. In a closing circle they said this
lesson was the best, it was awesome, they were excited but scared about running
lessons for others. They were very pumped. It seemed like I had handed them
over the keys to their learning.
EXTRA DAY – task completion
Creating the campaign
board – I came in last Friday and Sam
said we were beyond student ideas and needed to give them specific tasks – so to
pull small groups out of class. I had up to 12 students coming into the art
room during the day at any time, and a number volunteering their time over
recess and lunch to work on posters, logos and 3D objects. They asked to stay, they were so keen. There was a terrific energy and commitment about the day - I guess this is not something they usually experience - the real sense of collaborative effort to a deadline.
I had a sense of what could go on the board
based on the work they had already done, but the students when presented with
the empty board or what others were doing kept making terrific suggestions.
The centrepiece is that
every student in school to write a sticky note where they say something
positive about another person. LOGO – FriendCHIPS – Caring, Helping, Including,
Positive, Smile. Students suggested a bowl of chips with words on the “chips” to
remind people to be positive, caring etc. We ran out of time to put it up but students
stayed behind holding up posters and really keen to see the whole thing
through. There was an enormous amount of ownership and excitement.
This day was an opportunity for me as an outsider to relate to the students in a
completely different way, gave time for desultory but very important conversation
about bullying, anger and meanness. I
asked a few students what was it they wanted to change at the school and they
said MEANNESS.
Students would like to see less MEANNESS and more friendly behaviour.
My group of students were also very keen to put on their
skits, and then when got feedback asked for time to practice them in their
groups without direction from me. It showed
me how important it was for them to feel they had control and could improve
things themselves.
LESSON 4: Task oriented
Developing the lesson
plans – building on student ideas,
giving some structure, practicing, developing further, rehearsing, listening
for the emergent understanding.
Within my half of the Grade 4's each group had created a
little dramatic skit, but had yet to see how it might sit in an
interactive lesson. One pair had one boy punching another who was down, then PAUSED,
REWIND and PLAYED a new version of helping. A group of girls, excluded a
girl in a mean way, then NEXT DAY the girls recognised that they were mean, felt
bad about it, and went over to the girl, apologised and she said in a very
forgiving way “lets play”.
Another boy demonstrated a conversation to make
friends. And the last group showed a bullying situation over food, but the
others didn’t think it was mean enough and wanted it to be meaner. It was very interesting seeing these as
an indicator of what the students had picked up.
I could see the potential for these skits to be broken in
half, with a narrator asking the audience to come up
with what they thought could make it right. Then the actors could show what we thought could make it right. So I suggested that we did that for the four scenarios and the
students got it straight away.
I guess I took on the role as the director,
though everyone was making suggestions and creating their own characters. One
boy acted as narrator for three of the skits. And he found a mantra – a shortcut
as a result of doing it again and again –
“That isn’t right.
What do you think they are feeling?
What could make it right?”
I think what he created is the
essence of a restorative approach with very simple formula. The hothouse of the dramatic moment seemed to
create this. We all felt a bit under the bump to get the sequence to flow, the
narration to work and to ensure all the performance issues of sound clarity,
facing the audience were being met. I was worried I had taken away some of their
ownership and there were periods where students who were not acting were
restless, but when I suggested they broke into smaller groups there was a
period of energised silliness around the classroom and they all came back to
central mat where the narrator was practicing.
The last scenario was the most difficult with five
characters - a ‘bully”, a person being bullied and three bystanders. For this
scenario we were going to show a solution that was not helpful – the three
bystanders going up to the ‘bully”, saying “bully, bully, bully.” Then the
narrator would say that this isn’t right and ask the participants to go into
groups and come up with a solution that could make it right. They could then act it
out.
Our solution was going to be, at my suggestion, the bystanders going up to the bully and
saying “That’s not right, what could you do to make it right.” But no matter how
much we practiced it, one of the bystanders said accusingly “That isn’t right. How do you
think he feels? You need to give it back! You need to apologise!”
What is wrong with this?
Well, in a restorative approach
telling the bully what to do is not helping to break the cycle of power dramas.
It is important to give him control. I guess my blinding insight a day later is
that saying calmly to the bully “That isn’t right. What do you think XXX is
feeling? What could you do to make it right?” the mantra of our narrator, is
actually the restorative way – giving control to the bully on what they do to fix things. I
realised later that the task for the audience is to come up with a solution
that is right for everyone. This is
something that the group is still developing an understanding about. Understanding such nuance is a big ask for Grade 4’s, yet they are so close.
The narrator
said he would look at writing some notes to help him - we need to fit in the bully definition and have yet to work through how we will set up the other activities that we want to do. I decided I needed to write a
script based on what we had developed - afraid that the words that they had come up with might get lost. I am not sure if the students will use it. I think that the students have created something that will work really well on
video for classes around Australia to consider.
It is very hard running lessons and capturing what happens via video and
photos while you are doing it and I am keen to get some behind the scenes interviews with some of the
students to find out their thinking. Could this be done by a school without outside help?
EXTRA REHEARSAL - tomorrow
NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION – action and implementation - Friday
Assembly, lessons, media
invited to the school, take video
FOLLOW-UP – maybe the week after next
Reflection, getting feedback, deciding what next,
videos?
