Speech about being Courageous in Education at International festival of theatre and culture for early childhood

The summary of my presentation to La Baracca - Testoni Ragazzi. Bologna on Saturday 8th March at Visioni di futuro, visioni di teatro... International festival of theatre and culture for early childhood:

 Humanising Frankenstein’s Creature

“ ‘In that case,’ said Momo, looking dismayed, ‘our friends need help.’ “

 Momo, Michael Ende’s little girl in the book of the same name fights for the time people have to do what they want, to sit and listen to the sounds of the world, to playact adventures. She fights for the rights of children, and adults, to be themselves, to be storytellers and friends. She fights the grey men with their time burning cigars, that measure output, and trap people in a world were story is a waste of time, and time is all important. Before Momo’s fight she helps the local children to create a fantasy world in the ruined amphitheatre through acting out and creating the story of the scientific ship Argo setting out to discover what caused the Travelling Tornado. 

At Summerhill, the school I have worked at for over thirteen years, a group of four young children moved strangely in the pouring rain, hair and clothes soaked to the skin, imagining that they were deep sea divers and creatures. Summerhill is a place in which time to play, to be yourself, to make your own choices, to have time and space to create your own worlds, to express yourself, are the values shared with Momo.

Summerhill was created by a state school headteacher who had sat on his desk thinking about his school and its children at the end of a school day.  A.S.Neill 100 years ago this September, due to the start of World War I left a journalistic job to replace the village school Headteacher, who had gone off to fight. His thoughts were published in his first book, ‘A Dominies Log’.

The courageous in education and working with children are those who have sat at the end of a working day and considered what they are doing in terms of the life and dignity of the child. To think of the issues of what, how and why things are taught, and to let their children have the space and time to create themselves and their worlds, engaging with their communities and cultures, leading lives founded on the rights of the child.  ‘

The Wizard of Oz, our life’s quest to find friends, courage, emotions and learning, as well as home. 

In story, myth and drama, it is the journey that gives us, through its challenges, the wishes, the changes that we seek. The journey ‘home’, the journey to freedom, the journey to discover or create. Dorothy, in her journey along the Yellow Brick Road, has no adult telling her what she must do, making sure she is safe, telling her what is right and wrong. She travels with her dog, alone, and then makes friends along the way, a group of equals, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Lion. 

Harriet Finlay-Johnson, a primary school headteacher in the early 1900s changed her state village school to one in which the children would talk, share their views. Once they felt they were equal to their headteacher in expressing their opinions she started using drama as an activity for all her teaching. The children would act out history, geography, science… Her school was one of self-expression, of joy at learning and being yourself, or acting as someone else.  She wrote one of the first books on the use of drama in the classroom, ‘The Dramatic Method of Teaching’, 1910.

The drama of life, the world is a stage… but are there too many directors, too many script writers, too many people allotting us our roles. Do we stay as wooden puppets on the stage forever frustratedly only dreaming of being real children and real adults.

Yet our journey as children, through our lives at home, school and in our local community, how does it help us to reach our ultimate wish, to be ourselves?  Is our journey defined by one way streets, traffic control, traffic police to ensure we do not stray, and destinations that are not our own but have enticing pieces of sugar, chocolate and the best prize of all, certificates.

To be brave is to give the child a compass, to give them a map, to allow them to explore, to give them the possibility of meeting the wolf, of fighting the monster. To let them create their own selves and lives. To give them a society, community and culture that is based on children’s rights. 

Our greatest fears, of war, of famine, of poverty, of violence, of genocide, of environmental destruction are dwarfed by our fear of failing to educate our children, this fear sadly protects our children from the drama of being human. 

“Our friends need help.”