COMPANY PORTFOLIO / TITANIC RESEARCH

The museum have asked us to bring a portfolio about our company when we visit them so they can examine our credentials! I asked the company members what we might put in a portfolio and we began to recall al the things that we were proud of in the history of the company as well as information like training certificates, job descriptions, ohotographs etc. They were full of lots of ideas and soon began to talk about dives, restorations and other events from our company history. I showed them the folders from the filing cabinet that contained a wide range of information and asked if a group of office workers if they could sort these out and give the appropriate information to the teams concerned. A child who is often on the sidelines has established himself as an important member of the office team - his role being the supervisor of the office noticeboard! His job is to remove or pin up items as he thinks necessary - nobody is allowed to put things onto the noticeboard until he has looked at the information and given them permission - he has really blossomed within this role and takes his job very seriously. At this moment he proudly volunteered to help oraganise and distribute the information.

We also talked about how we would present our information - plastic wallets were chosen to put in papers which would then be presented in a special folder. We then organised ourselves into different teams who discussed the information they would put into the portfolio. The ofice workers gave out relevant documents from which the teams chose samples to present and they also began to produce their own pieces of information, focussing on events that they were really proud about from the past.

The finished portfolio was impressive, containing a range of information about the company ready to present to the museum.

Our next job was to beginto research information about the Titanic so that we can show the museum that we have background knowledge for when we begin to look at the artefacts.
The company members chose to make thier own books of facts. We had some great resources to help us: a great CDRom especially produced for MoE work (given free to all conference delegates!): some excellent websites, particularly www.encyclopedia-titanica.org which has complete paseenger and crew listings with information about each person: some good children's inofrmation books; excerpts from the feature film (carefully censored!) and an interacive CD Rom where the children can dive down in the Nautile to explorea virtual Titanic wreck.

The children are fascinated by the story, particularly the human element, so we will use the passenger and crew list to get into some really deep explorations of the tragedy at a later point. This commission is huge and will definitely take us to the end of the academic year! In the meantime they have put together some great information books to take to the museum and are busy at home doing extra pieces of research. Parents are reporting frenzied Titanic interest! I'm sure that the depth (ha ha!) of their involvement and understanding has been greatly increased by the whole build up of the Salvage Company and all the drama and related tasks that have preceded what is going to be our first commission since we formed the company in September. I'm glad we didn't launch into a commission nearer the beginning of the work as the whole background we have explored together has created such a powerful context from which to begin this new phase of our work. I would really recommend the frame of a Salvage Company / The Titanic to anyone wnting to engage and motivate the children - beats Florence Nightingale hands down!!! (Sorry Florence - nothing personal.)

EPISODE 20 MUTINY!!

After a lot of thought and advice from a colleague I tackled the situation of the child who wanted to quit the company. His initial reasons were 'because it sounds boring - just looking at a lot of old stuff'. He is also a child who likes to be the centre of attention and often 'plays up' to a situation for effect, so I wasn't sure how serious he was about it all. Two more important things - he is a bright, motivated child who has really enjoyed the work so far - and he was the one who emerged as the leader of our reknowned 'bones team' and took this role very seriously - all things in our favour I felt!!

We had a company meeting to discuss what should happen in the case of somebody quitting. They wanted to know how it would work in a real job, so I explained about my job: interviews, contracts, giving notice etc.They quickly decided that this member's contract would stipulate notice - ! month to be exact! Someone also mentioned that he might find it hard to get another job if he had just quit another one - someone else said he would be letting down the team. This atmosphere of condemnation, though, soon changed as other people began to say things like 'you're our bones expert - we need you'. At this point I thought it might be politic to go round the circle giving everyone a chance to say something to him about how they felt. Everybody had their say - a couple who passed first time asked me to come back to them - and every person int he circle asked hiom not to quit because: 'you're great at your job', 'we won't be able to find another bones expert like you', 'you're a good friend', we'll miss you', 'we've got so many discoveries and adventures ahead of us', 'we stick together in our team' etc etc - very moving actually - I asked C how he felt at the end, but I knew from the expression on his face as his colleagues were saying their bit. 'I feel special' - he said. (At this point, coming out of the drama, I also reminded him that if he did quit, we would have to find a whole load of alternative work for him to do for the rest of the year!!!)

Then something very interesting happened. He explained that there was a bigger reason for him wanting to go. It was his disappointment last term when we agreed to let Alison Davies have her Great Grandfather's bones. I suddenly remembered that. as head of the bones team, he had been adamant that we should hold onto the bones. He now said that he had been very upset about this - when reminded that we had voted on our decision and gone with the vast majority he was still unhappy, saying that voting is not a fair way of coming to a decision. I waqs amazed that he had been holing onto this for all this time. I said that it was a very serious issue and promised to have a full discussion of it if he decided to stay. We all decided, at theis point to let him go off to think about it and let us know later. At this point we stopped the session and began our Golden Time. After about 5 minutes C came quietly up to me and said that he'd changed his mind and would like to stay. I asked him if it was OK to tell the class and he said yes - of course a huge cheer went up at the news!!!

I think it was OK the way we handled it - with another, less robust character I might have chosen a different tack. It also shows how important it is to listen and give time to issues - if I had just dismissed it all or handled it differently I might never have heard his strong opinions and feelings about the bones dilemma. If anyone has had a similar situation, I would love to hear what you did!!

We decided to give him some time

EPISODE 19 - LETTER FOM THE MUSEUM

The company have recieved a letter from the local museum asking for their help. (Our local museum service are very keen to support MoE and we have liased with them to create this scenario). The museum have recieved some objects salvaged from a shipwreck in the North Atlantic Ocean. They would like our salvage company to come and examone them as they believe they might come from The Titanic, but are not sure. If we are interested in helping them we will need to bring a portfolio about our company and some background information about The Titanic to show we are equipped for the job. ( When we visit the museum the children will handle the 'salvaged' Edwardian artefacts and write up reports on what they have discovered from them. The museum will then commission them to go to the Atlantic to finish the salvage operation.)

The class were pretty excited about this - some of them had already been talking about the Titanic and some had seen the recent film. The problem here was sorting out the real world from the drama world. I had to explain that we would really visit the museum and we would really handle the old artefacts, but they would not really be from the Titanic. Again I used the phrase 'I think it will feel real' - which they seem to relate to and understand. I also needed to explain that the museum staff will be in role in our drama and they will be behaing as if these are reall Titanic objects. Further confusions happened when the children talked about the film, so we discussed how most of the events depicted actually happened, but the love story was imaginary. We talked about how the film director would have re-created how he imagined it would all look using sets and actors.. As the children have already been working with British Film Institute materials I felt this really helped with their understanding of how films are made. I really want to use footage from the film over the next few weeks so we can discuss more of these issues, particularly interpretation - also so the children begin to get a feeling for atmosphere, personal stories of those on board and the emotional impact of the disaster.

HOWEVER - at this point one of the children declared they were not interested in the museum's request and was going to quit the company. This came out of the blue and I was a bit taken aback, as were the rest of the class! I didn't want to detract from the interest the others were showing so I asked him to just keep that on hold for the moment and we would discuss it properly a bit later - i.e. a bit of stalling so I could think through how to deal with this!!

The rest of the company agreed that they would spend the next few weeks researching information about the Titanic and working on a company Portfolio to present to the museum. we will use information books, the internet, an excellent CD Rom produced specifically in relation to MoE work , the feature film and a brilliant interactive CD Rom where the children can operate a submersible to look at real footage of the wreck, examine artefacts etc.