In her book, Seven Myths of Education, Daisy Christodoulou is a little dismissive of the use of Mantle of the Expert as a means of getting children into learning. She refers to the Outstanding Ofsted reports of the Bealings School and offers this as an example of how progressive Ofsted are and how misguided teachers are in insisting that children use role play in their lessons. She is not alone in assuming that drama related activities lead to what is commonly being called the “opportunity cost” of knowledge – one blogger even questioned the role of drama in the study of Shakespeare. But such critics of these techniques are often blind to the knowledge that is required in order to conduct MoE well and to the myriad of additional skills and competencies that the children develop in their quest to solve the problems that drama creates.
A couple of weeks ago I was asked to work with a Year 4 class while members of the primary team watched to see how this kind of learning might work. Two of the observing teachers were on the Teach First programme. The class had read the book “The Ice Palace” by Robert Swindells with its cover portraying wolves as scary and fearsome creatures. Over the course of the day, we set them up as an animal rescue centre, specialising in the rescue and conservation of dangerous animals. Why would we do this? Where is the learning?
In my view, one of our responsibilities as educators is to get children to consider situations from multiple points of view – to create pivots through which their opinions, beliefs and values can be reframed and reconsidered. This capacity to view situations from another’s point of view is a critical skill in conflict management. In addition, building a collective enterprise in which responsibility is fostered is key to developing responsible behaviours in children. What responsibilities do we have to these animals? What responsibilities do we have to the human population?
In creating their enterprise, the children have to consider the roles that people working in the organisation might have. As part of this element of the work, they generate jobs and in doing so consider the myriad of possibilities for work in the adult world – developing aspirational thinking. They grapple with complex vocabulary – some of the words generated in these initial discussions were:-
Psychology
Pathology
Forensic
Carnivorous
Venomous
Omnivorous
They had to consider the skills that people working in this place might have and then they completed job applications and CVs – looking at the processes by which adults enter the world of work. None of these tasks are undemanding or pointless. There is no opportunity cost. But neither is there yet a purpose, client or problem to solve. So we needed a hook. It came in the form of an email to the children from a lady living in the Ural mountains. There was to be a cull on the local wolf population. The wolves had been accused of attacking a child who was now missing. The lady was concerned that the wolves were being blamed for something that was not their fault and expressed concern about their loss of habitat. In order even to decide whether or not to help, the children need to know several things:-
1. Where are the Ural Mountains?
2. What is the climate/flora/fauna?
3. Why are the humans and wolves in conflict?
4. Can humans ever live safely close to wolf packs?
5. What is habitat and in particular what is wolf habitat?
6. What can we find out about wolves (including how they communicate)
In order to learn these areas, the children had to explore maps, to read about the encroachment of mining on the natural habitat of the animals in the area. They had to understand the severity of winters there and how this causes food shortages and how the people and wolves hunt the same animals for food. They had to understand that in some parts of the world, humans and animals live in competition for space and food. This is knowledge with rigour and depth – becoming part of a responsible team means knowing stuff.
The children decide to travel to the Urals to find out more. Happily, one of our Teach First trainees is a Russian speaker and he teaches the children some key phrases. We Skype Olga, our client using a hot seating convention to find out more information and make the decision to go. There’s just one problem. Four boys in the class don’t want to go to Russia. They absolutely refuse. So we set up a lab at home and tell them that we’ll send evidence back to them to investigate while we are away. They are happy with this compromise.
You have to understand that they know and I know that they are not really going anywhere. The Russia team and the UK team will still be in the same room, but the children suspend their disbelief. The boys have pushed at a boundary and found that the boundary was simply an alternative door. The fiction is intact.
The work is not without play – we decide to interview a wolf cub by Skype. We agree to imagine that we can understand the language of animals. I cut a hole in a cardboard box for a screen and put a glove puppet of a wolf on my hand. “We have a Skype call from a wolf cub” I announce. “Who can speak Dog?” Twenty hands shoot straight into the air. I howl, growl, whine and bark and a story comes out of our translators:-
“A woodcutter killed my father in the forest”
“He said my father killed a little girl, but he would never do this.”
“My pack is being hunted.”
We decide what we will need to pack and what our safety procedures will be in the forest. How do you capture a wolf? How will we engage with the Russian authorities? How will we conduct our investigations? If we do rescue the wolves, how much food will they need? They check their fact sheets and discover that an adult can eat up to 20lbs of meat in a single feeding. How many wolves will there be? How much food will we need to buy? How much will it cost? How will we transport it?
At the edge of the forest, we consider what we might find –
“What might we be hoping to discover in here?” I ask
“Toys!” yells one enthusiastic child.
“Ahhh, if we were children we might want to find toys,” I say, “but we’re adults remember, we’re conservationists trying to protect the wolves, so if we were adults, what might we be hoping to find in the forest?”
“A nightclub!” he shouts.
The hands of the adults shoot up to their mouths to stop the giggles while the other children patiently explain that we are hoping to find the wolves alive. They help their friend to engage with the fiction, but his comments remind us of the reality of his life and his experience of what adults enjoy doing in that life. All the more reason for us to take him to a completely different kind of experience and hope.
Sadly, we find the body of a wolf in the forest – presumably the body of the father of our wolf cub. We will have to conduct an autopsy to find out how he died, and crucially whether or not he is guilty of the death of the child. I lay the wolf onsie on a table. They don’t flinch or complain that it is clearly not a wolf body – they are happy to imagine. 
The children mime putting on their gowns and gloves so that no evidence is contaminated. With tweezers and empty evidence bags, they construct the imagined evidence, removing the contents of his stomach and carefully labelling the bags ready to send back to the lab:- “It’s a piece of fur or hair – I can’t tell if it’s human or not” 
“It’s a sock”
“There is something that looks like skin, but it might be paper.”
Slowly the children collect their evidence and send it back to the four boys for analysis. The boys decide that the skin and the hair are animal – probably rabbit. There is no evidence, other than the sock, that the wolf had eaten or attacked a child. 
As our investigation continues, the children interview other witnesses – a squirrel, an eagle, the woodcutter himself and they discover and conclude that the woodcutter has a lot to gain from a wolf cull. He can claim the right to land that may lie above a potential mine. They decide the wolves have been framed. And then they have to create a report making their case and recommendations to the Russian government – what can be done to protect the habitat of the wolves and yet ensure that the human population can thrive? Should the wolves be relocated? Should there be fences? These questions lead to deep discussions about the rights of humans and animals. There is no opportunity cost here – these are important questions for society and our world as a whole.
Drama is not an add on to a curriculum – not a ‘fun’ activity to offer as a tit-bit reward for proper work. It is a form of expression that has evolved with humanity as a key survival and communication strategy. To imagine the world from another’s point of view – to interpret life through narrative and character is one of the ways we as a species have found to connect and survive over millennia. It is no coincidence that the Arts are to be found in every civilisation as a key component of community life. To teach without them; to offer a curriculum that belittles them is to reduce human experience and capacity. And that is an enormous opportunity cost.
Thank you so much for this Debs – it makes wonderful reading.
I am proud to be the Principal of this school and wholeheartedly value Mantle of the Expert- the results have been transformative on so many levels.
When I introduced MoE as an essential driver of our new creative curriculum in 2008, I was told that ‘our children have no imagination’ ‘this is fluff’ ‘our children’s behaviour is appalling they need structure and this will make it worse’ etc etc. I was absolutely adamant and suggested that those teachers who couldn’t agree with our vision for transforming our children’s education could take a look in the tes and we’d happily provide a reference – 5 teachers took me up on this and were successfully appointed to posts in schools that were more suited to their philosophy – they have done well in those schools but I wanted, and ‘our’ children needed, dynamic and innovative teachers.
But a little background. Our academy serves a community of disadvantaged white working class children – the very children who perform badly nationally. Children join us well below the level expected – speech and language delay is a significant problem and aspiration is very low. The class Debs worked with are 68% PPG and most of the rest are the children of ‘working poor’ families. These families are really struggling in the current climate of cuts and social housing issues. Illiteracy and innumeracy are a key challenge and too many of our children walk through the door from a stressful home life.
When I came to the school I was shocked to find that our children were reluctant to speak, were expected to walk round in silent lines and even eat their dinner in silence – the result being a stressful environment where children had stand up rows with adults, threw furniture, stormed out of rooms and wouldn’t even say hello to me – boys faired particularly badly. The ‘nice girls’ had their education ruined by these rude boys after all.
Fast forward to now and none of this is true – the 68% cohort are on track to ‘perform’ above National Expectations’. More importantly they we confidence, articulate, deep thinking and most importantly – they love and feel comfortable with a challenge and are not afraid to get stuck or find something new difficult.
Whilst Mantle of the Expert is just one of the reasons for this transformation and part of a strategy that involves talk for writing, celebration of success and performing arts, it has been a high impact driver for learning. We are lucky in that we have excellent teachers who are highly skilled at allowing children to lead their own learning, pitching opportunities to a challenging level and planning subtle differentiation.
Read Debra’s blog and just seen how much of what she describes is high level, deep learning, how much drives aspiration, look at the opportunities for making decisions, making mistakes and planning their own learning and developing rich vocabulary. Now think of the writing this produces and what fantastic ambassadors our children are – I love choosing a group to show round visitors and listening with pride to the way our children can talk about their learning with a sense of wonder and excitement. These children with no imagination can captivate visiting dignitaries with their knowledge such topics as Andy Warhol and the Pop Art movement – in Year 5. Now they’re wolf experts!!
Thanks again Debs for reviving MoE and helping our newer staff see the benefits…
Well that brought a tear to both of my glass eyes Helen. I love your school, your kids and your vision – always a treat to come in.
The NHS is in trouble , staff cannot cope with what is expected of them. So many come to see me as a GP unable to cope anymore with the rules and regulations and the need to comply with the demands of the managers
and their “tick box approach” to management. Many of my patients choose to be “off sick” with “work related stress disorder” rather than face just one more day of working in the NHS. Just like the school that demands obedience from the children with teachers demanding that children “follow the rules” disruptive behaviours that challenge the status quo appear. . And yet just before reading this piece I watched Don Berwick on a video at The Kings Fund in London ( our best and most thoughtful institution in the UK that puts forward good ideas for the future of the NHS ) explain, just a few days ago, to an audience of senior NHS managers that above all else , for the future health and wellbeing of the NHS , we must encourage imagination and deep learning and move away as quickly as possible from the approach to management that demands “compliance” with rules and regulations . Don argues that within the NHS , at all levels , we must work in teams and “learn to love learning” – he argues that “the NHS must develop a learning environment” . I am not sure how it can be done but this blog / this story needs to be shared with and understood by the Senior Policy people at The Kings Fund. The creative arts need to be supported for so many reasons – not just in schools but also in the NHS – not least because “the arts have the power to teach us to care for one another”. Over past years so many patients and carers have suffered so much from the great divide that separates NHS GP and Hospital practice from those who have learnt to love learning and have the knowledge ,skill and ability to know how to share their passion for learning with others. Somehow we must understand that our “silo” mentality that keeps separate people who “love learning” – and know that the arts can very powerfully stimulate a love of learning – from ” health and social care practitioners” is doing us no good at all. “Health” and “Education” need to be married and become “an item” . Thank you Debra for sharing this work / play / drama with us. Truly Inspirational .
Thank you Malcolm – such interesting parallels between education and the NHS.
Debra – the activity which you describe will have had a deep impression on the children. They’re likely to remember it forever and the lessons they absorbed will also remain.
One of my most successful Business Studies activities was similarly structured. I wanted the pupils to consider ethics in business – something that wasn’t discussed much in Business Studies textbooks. So I set up the Baby Milk project. The pupils had already studied the 4Ps of marketing (product, price, promotion, place) and I set them the practical task of marketing baby milk in a fictitious developing country. This was in pre-internet days – the pupils were told TVs were scarce in villages but every village had a radio and access ti health workers (these were given gifts to distribute free samples and earned a bonus when a certain number of mothers chose baby milk formula). I provided costings in the local currency. The adult population had low, if any, literacy.
The pupils in groups had to prepare a presentation saying how they would market the baby milk. These were shown to rest of the class at the end of the first lesson with full costings.
And then came the crunch. At the beginning of the second lesson each group found a letter on their tables. It was from a global health organisation explaining that marketing baby milk in the third world had claimed the lives of a million babies (I gave the exact figures from WHO). The letter explained about lack of refrigeration, the high cost of baby milk which resulted in mothers diluting the milk with unclean water, difficulties in sterilising bottles etc.
They were shocked. Some of them actually took it personally. They were then given the task of deciding what action to take – whether to stop marketing or carry on.
In retrospect I could have added further problems at this stage – for example, reminding the groups that as a company their first responsibility was to their share holders. This might have resulted in a response that share holder value would be dented by adverse publicity and could result in a boycott (like the Nestle boycott).
This activity brought home the ethics of business far more effectively than just telling the pupils. How far should companies go in pursuit of profit? Does making money and maximising shareholder return override all other considerations?
Wow Janet – that sounds amazing and has the deep, pivotal moral power that I think a lot of our education lacks. Thanks for sharing it. I’m really looking forward to reading yours and Melissa’s book this half term too.
Enjoyed this, Debra. It reminded me of a Dorothy Heathcote session I was privileged to observe in the 1980s.
Thank you Jill – she was an amazing woman.
Reblogged this on 25 years in education.