“I’ll Speak As…” - From Engagement to Investment

Working with children in schools around the country in recent weeks, I’ve been a lighthouse keeper, a farmhand, a Mayan nobleman and a tree.

Yes, a tree.

Let me tell you why.

I’ve been working on getting primary children invested in their learning. I can easily get them engaged. After all, almost thirty years of teaching experience (including learning how not to do things) really help on the engagement front.

Never Enough

But I want more than that.

Engagement is just a meeting of adult expectations around student manners.

I want investment. I want the children to really care about what we are exploring.

I want botheredness.

One way to achieve this is to immerse children in a context. As teachers we can really make this work for children of all academic abilities and backgrounds (as a travelling teacher I’ve seen them all).

Doing COASTS?

Introduce the lighthouse keeper on his final shift and get the children to ask them questions about their relationship with the sea.

Doing ON THE FARM?

Introduce the children to the down-on-their-luck farmer who is wondering how he can make the farm great again.

Doing the MAYANS? Introduce the nobleman looking out on the ancient (to us) city. Let him tell the children about all that he sees. The markets selling fruit, the fields growing maize, the King on his pyramid admiring the folks queuing to appease Chaahk, the God of Rain.

Doing FAIRYTALES, RAINFORESTS or even LOCAL HISTORY?

Be the mighty, ancient tree that has stood for millennia and tell the children what you have witnessed in your long life.

Three Little Words

One more tip.

How do we transform ourselves from a stressed class teacher with a curriculum to cover into a lighthouse keeper, Mayan nobleman or, yes, that ancient tree?

Three little words.

“I’ll speak as..."

No dressing up, no funny voices, no gurning, no acting. Just mean it. [ITL]

Hywel Roberts