Opening the mantle 

Tuesday 24th July

The first 'real' mantle session with room 17 began at 11am after morning tea.

We gathered on the mat and I asked children to recap what we had done yesterday - the ideas of imagination, a 'yes let's' attitude, safety and signals for attention were mentioned as well as a bit of chat about yesterday's adventure 'down the hole'... I also added one more bit of information: "One more important thing about Mantle of the Expert is that instead of having you be children and we be adults, we organise things as if everyone is a grown up - OK?" I noticed some responses from children to this idea - several made noises of approval, and sat more upright. I have noticed in the past that signalling this intention to shift the power is something that children really respond well to - and 'being a grown up' is often the main thing mentioned by children in their reflections on a mantle experience.

I decided to start with a quick 'getting to know you' activity to bring the student teachers into the group. We formed a circle and played the simple game where one person says something about themselves and steps forward, and others in the group step in too if what was said is true for them. For example, I started with "I have two eyes".... this got everyone stepping in to join me... The game went on for a while, with some children trying to pick things that made them unique "I'm half chilean" and some picking things that would get lots of people to step in "I have brown hair"... Not everyone had a turn but by the end, children were inviting student teachers to have a go - so I felt that some connection had been made.

When one of the children made the statement "I have a toy" - this was too good to miss. So after we had stepped in, I invited the group to stop the game and have a think about toys. We organised into groups (mixing student teachers and children together) and sat down. I invited everyone to think about a special toy that they own.... to close their eyes and picture that toy in their imagination.... to think about what made that toy so special.... (I made a quick check that everyone was with me by asking them to fold their arms if they had a picture in their heads - everyone did)..... Next, I invited them to imagine that the special toy was in their hands.... Hold it, feel the weight of it, open your eyes and see it in your imagination...  Then, in the small groups of 3 or 4, children and student teachers described and demonstrated their toys, talking about what made them so special. Some children shared their toys around and had a 'go' with each others'.....

I felt there was a nice energy in the room at this stage - although I noticed one of the children (I'll call him D) who is identified as having special needs was saying "this is boring - I want to do something else".  I made a point of thanking him for his patience and for bearing with us given how he was feeling.

The group was still sitting together on the mat. One of the things that can be tricky about the opening of a mantle is how much is conducted as a whole group. It's important to build the identity of the company - or team - collectively, but the danger is that the process can feel rather static and slow at times. Given this, and given D's comment, I hoped that the next part would be OK....

We cleared a small space in the centre of the room and invited everyone to turn around and look at the space. I said we were going to imagine another toy now. I shifted to a 'storytelling' type of tone of voice, and told the story of my friend David - grown up now - whose Dad had been very rich and had bought David the most wonderful toy - perhaps the most amazing toy ever made....  This toy, I said, was quite large and it stood here in the space before us... I can't remember the words I used but I asked the children to tell us what it was that made this toy so amazing. [I had thought about this story a bit in advance of the lesson - I deliberately wanted to steer the children away from computer games to more old fashioned toys - which was why I mentioned it being a toy that used to belong to a friend. I thought the figure of David would add human interest and of course David is, in time, going to be our client - not that the children know that yet!]

Children put up their hands with ideas for what the toy might be like. The first boy mentioned lasers - so I asked him to stand up, move around the toy, and point out where the lasers were produced. (I was deliberately pressing for detail - where was the switch? What colour were the cones where the lasers shone from?) And then I folded these details into the story... "And just before he went to sleep at night, David loved to lie in his bed and watch as the lasers played on the wall and made amazing patterns".... The second child mentioned legs - 6 of them - and a key that allowed the toy to scuttle like a spider - or rather a crab - across the floor.... There were more lasers, that projected images of animals and dinosaurs onto the ceiling (this suggestion came from D - the young man who had previously said he was bored...) .... As descriptions were layered on, the children walked around the imagined toy and quite reverently pointed out its features. They listened to each other and were very enthralled. Finally we learned that the toy had another feature - when you rubbed one of the legs, it folds down to a tiny size, such that can fit into a little boy's pocket.

I felt that by now the central concern of the dramatic world had been conjured up and now it was time to ease the children from the "I" (individual play-based activity) towards the "we" - a collective concern, taking responsibility for the toy.... Often this shift can be a bit tricky but it felt effortless on this occasion...

I continued the story, telling the children that David had always kept his amazing toy a secret - an only child, the toy was his greatest treasure and he never told anyone about it. But now, as a grown man, he felt it was time for his toy to be shared with others... and he was looking for a place that might look after his toy, care for it, and make it available for others to see.

I had questions in my head such as "what places are there in the world that would care for treasures such as this?" But they weren't required. One of the children (it was D again) said - "Museum!" straight away - so we were away.... Very quickly, children were using the "we" register and talking about "our" museum. It seemed to happen by itself!

To slow things down and encourage thoughtfulness, I asked if anyone had concerns about David's toy being put in a museum. One of the children responded "What about when he wants to pass it on to his child? Will he be able to get it back?" Another said "We wouldn't want people to break or take it - we'll need good security". These questions were pondered over and recorded on the whiteboard - it is possible we can pick up on them later as directions for our inquiry ....

Just to make 100% sure that every child was aware of the shifts into the expert frame, I did make the invitation into the fiction explicit: "So, I am wondering whether we might be able to imagine ourselves as the people who run the museum where David's toy is kept... " I was conscious of learners such as T, who seemed to take a little longer to catch on to 'offers'. At one point T came up to me quietly and said "Are we going on another adventure?" So I replied "We are on it - this adventure is about running the toy museum". As teachers we need to remember that we are taking a whole class along with us - and to think about the quieter ones, as well as those who clearly "get it"... My hunch is that quieter ones such as T are helped into belief by more tangible steps such as mapping the office and making a name tag...

Some children were keen for particular roles - One boy said "I'll be in charge of security" and others started talking about particular jobs they wanted in the company... I think it's a tricky one for teachers here... the instinct might be to embrace children's individual interests and allow them to take on a specialism within the team. The danger, though, is that you end up with little cliquey groups. In terms of the learning, too, it can be limiting as essentially you get a whole range of mantles running at once and the breadth and depth of curriculum engagement is not as great. It's important, I feel, to say things like "It's great to know we have specialists within the team - when we need security advice, we will come to you... and of course we are the sort of team who mixes things around so I know we can depend on you when it comes to toy maintenance as well"...

We spent quite a bit of time starting to think about a name for our Toy Museum. Back in their small groups, children and student teachers discussed options and each group proposed their favourite. I deliberately lingered over this process, inviting people to mull over and discuss the meaning and implications of particular words and think about what the choice of language would tell the world about our museum. For example, what does the world "ancient" mean to you? And why was there a little 'buzz' around the room when we heard the suggestion "Mystery history toys"? Rather than rush the process of choosing a name, I left the class teacher Ms P with the task of helping the group select one over the next few days.

As well as having a well thought out name, and identity, it is always important with a mantle enterprise, that it is has an implied past. We do not 'build' the company 'from the bottom up' - but enter it as fully formed, experienced experts. To encourage this, I invited the students to think about the kinds of things museum workers do and the kinds of equipment they use to do these things. Students created individual 'statues' showing an important task they carried out in the museum the day before - and showing the equipment they used for the job. A simple version of 'spoken thoughts' was used, where students reported back this information. We saw people mending toys "I am holding the teddy in one hand and with the other picking off the bits of fluff", cleaning "I am using a mop to clean the entrance", conducting tours "I am taking a tour around the museum and this is my map". We also had quite a lot of security-based images "I am handcuffing the thief - and talking on my walkie talkie to tell the other security guard I've caught him".

A small number of the children (mostly boys) had taken on roles as security guards and were interested in enacting images of violence. I think their enjoyment of these images was quite understandable and I'm not against this kind of thing per se - but here I thought it showed these children were not yet in the "we" zone of responsible guardianship of the toys... I drew attention to this (I hope respectfully) by taking the image of the hitting very seriously and saying "What on earth could have happened here to make an employee of this museum take this kind of serious action?". I was even more directive when it came to guns and shooting. I said something like "We will not, of course, be seeing any guns or shooting here because if those kinds of things happened in our museum they would close us down". Not very subtle - and not a case of inviting children to work this out for themselves.... I may have to think about this and perhaps use some DFL (drama for learning) to encourage the children to explore this ethical territory for themselves.

We also including the opening stages of a mapping exercise. I have found that it is an important element of Mantle planning to establish a shared sense of the physical space of the company very early on.... I guess this is where Mantle planning aligns with socio dramatic play and the elements of drama.... The first two elements are ROLE and TIME AND SPACE and when children play imaginary games, they seem to need to establish these two elements first. Our planning in Mantle echoes this by allowing plenty of time to be spent on establishing WHO we are and WHERE we are before getting into action. To this end, I invited students to describe the office spaces at the toy museum and we started a bird's eye plan on the whiteboard. Children added some details (a tea corner, an oval shaped meeting room - oval because we have so many people to fit in, offices, a storage room etc etc). Children will continue to work on this map over the next few days.

The final activity was an individual one. Important, I think for every child to 'make a mark' symbolising their step into the imagined world. Children were invited to return to their offices (desks) and on a piece of paper draw the equipment that was on their desk at the moment. There was a high level of engagement in this (I noticed that several children, unprompted, started shifting their desks away from other people to create their own office space. Several others asked whether they could enlarge the picture to draw their whole office). I saw lots of images of computers (One child N urgently whispered to me "I have got the latest model - Toshiba"), piles of maps, cleaning equipment, security screens and also more personal features added, such as photos of the family and bars of chocolate. It was quite difficult for children to come away from the drawing task and gather in the 'meeting room' (on the mat) to conclude the session.

All in all a fantastic start I thought. It is golden times like this that make teaching in Mantle so worthwhile!