Crisiss? Crises? Crisea?... Lots of Problems.

This is it. This is what the entire project has been building towards. The all hallowed, crazy important, slightly scary, Crisis Document. Now that's what I want to call it, but I have a feeling that the children will give it their own name, in the same way the "Resource Record" became the "Selling sheet" pretty darn quickly.

So, what IS the crisis document? Let's not forget that although this idea was partially inspired by gaming and ClassRealm, its primary inspiration came from John Hunter and his World Peace Game. I've watched and listened to John's TED talk countless times now I can actually quote parts of it. Hunter's describes his crisis document as a series "of interlocking problems so that if one thing changes everything else changes"

Hunter had fifty different problems for his World Peace Game. I have come up with a mere 25 so far, but I really worked on it so that every issue is thoroughly integrated with each other. For example: Global Warming can affect weather, specifically droughts in some areas and colder temperatures in others. The freezing cold/drought can cause a famine. One potential solution to famine is to create more farm land, and thus deforestation occurs.... which worsens Global Warming, which worsens weather, which worsens famine, which speeds up deforestation, which means no kid will grow up with a tree house. Ever.

I built this one when I was 10. You can't tell, but the wood is made of old pallets and the windows out of old feed bags. 

What Actually Happened

So you get the idea. This Crisis Document is important. This is the crux of everything. This is what all of the build-up has been about. It is finally time to unleash the children onto their world.

If I was to describe this lesson in two words?

Utter Failure.

If I was to describe this lesson in four words?

Complete and utter Failure.

To be fair it did start off quite well... The children became very excited when I took out the scrolls from the previous post, and they really enjoyed reading it. In fact one of the three boys (No that is not a typo, there are three boys in my class of fifteen.) read the scroll in a very cool accent. I asked would he let me record him to share here, and he agreed!




So all in all, it was off to a great start. I gave a short tour of the Crisis Document, but it was quick and not at all in depth. I said to the children to read through the document, and solve the problems contained within. Then I sat down, and said:

"You have seven weeks, and this week you have 45 minutes left. Your time starts now."

It was around here that I expected the children to read through, start rushing around, possibly have a fight or two(just a verbal one, I didn't want an Irish version of Battle Royale). I wanted them to feel overwhelmed, but with just enough of a hope of success that they would strive towards it. Instead I got this:

"But Sir where are the problems?"
"Is this what real politicians do? I don't like it"
"How do we answer the questions? Where ARE the questions?"
"Sir can you just tell us the answers?"
"I just don't GET it sir"

My heart broke. It turns out, they've been so indoctrinated to school they couldn't handle this at all. In school you always know exactly what an answer looks like and 'problem-solving' has clear questions and looks like this:

Strangely enough, the problems have nothing to do with an invasion of cycling aliens.

That blinkered view of "problems" has altered the children's thinking skills so much that they couldn't handle, or even attempt my Crisis Document.

This is the bit where I'd love to say "But it was okay, because Seán and Mary TOTALLY got it and explained it to everyone else and the end." But unfortunately no child got it, there was no-one to explain it, and I don't even have a Seán OR Mary in my class! (Something quite rare in Ireland.)

I was at a total loss. The children were at a total loss. The entire lesson, and point of the lesson, was at a loss. I did a complete 180 on the lesson and started reading through the document and tried to explain it, constantly explaining that the entire document was linked to itself. However, my lesson ran out of time and I then realised that the children were completely and utterly bored. Now usually I'm okay with that, I am a teacher, not an entertainer. Boredom happens sometimes, and sometimes it can not be avoided. But this was a drama lesson. This lesson was supposed to distract from the humdrum of everyday teaching, so why was I continuing.

It was during my first ever TP (Teaching Practice) that I learned an extremely useful and important lesson. When teaching, it is perfectly okay to just drop the lesson and move onto something completely different. When I was a student teacher, that seemed like a sin, or even a fail worthy offence, but now I know that the children's learning (and in the case of drama, enjoyment) is more important. So I moved onto Maths, and then PE and analysed what went wrong.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

First of all, I know that this is partially my fault. The document is too big, too difficult and just too intimidating. This is tough. As I see it, I have a few options.

• Read through the report with them in the next lesson, and try to chunk it down, encourage them to write notes on it etc. 
• Rewrite the document and try to make it even simpler.
• Tell them to put up with it and really push them to work it out themselves.

I have to figure out which one is best for the class. Should I allow them to rely on me? Should I say "tough luck, figure it out yourselves."

Its not easy!

Most Importantly...

I messed up. This lesson was a waste for the kiddles, but it really helped me. I wanted the children to learn independence, develop problem solving and learn how to invest time into a project. Instead, I have learned that there is such a thing as pushing them too far to be independent, that I have to directly teach problem solving skills, and that I can fail, and it's not that big a deal.