Mantle of the Expert

Mantle of the expert is considered a revolutionary approach to education.  A drama guru Dorothy Heathcote developed this approach for nearly half of a century, from the 1960’s onwards. Heathcote has had many careers from a university lecturer to a well- known author of how drama can be used to benefit and deepen the knowledge within the classroom.  

‘Classroom drama, at its simplest, harnesses our human ability to play together for curriculum purposes’ (Edmiston, n.d).

Why use it?

The mantle of expert technique can be used to explore topics across the curriculum by using creative methods like drama, which empowers the pupils by allowing them the opportunity to undertake specific roles which highlight responsible roles and decision making skills. Currently, many schools are adopting the Mantle of Expert approach to teaching.

Treating children as responsible experts within a field is one of the key aspects of the Mantle of the expert. Enabling children to initiate their own learning will increase their confidence and engagement with the activity. These ‘fields’ provide the children with the knowledge and skills that can be applied to their everyday lives. The mantle of Expert encourages the pupils to be creative, communicate, think critically and compromise.

 http://dramaresource.com/images/stories/videos/StepByStep.flv

The children will become a team of leading experts on a specific subject using imaginative role- play in order to explore the issues within their enterprise. The children will be involved in role- play type activities, research, discussions in which will lead to the success of the enterprise. It can lead to real outcomes of writing letters, selling products and creating leaflets or posters, which ensures that the children are still learning the three ‘R’s’; reading, writing and arithmetic. The role of the teacher is to guide the ‘drama’,delivering encouragement and positive feedback to the experts of the field (Farmer 2013).

The purpose of inquiry is seeing that the curriculum has more to explore and offer than to just deliver. Children are active agents in the curriculum process, they need to work together and explore with other children and adults in order to fully develop their knowledge skills and understanding. The didactic approach to teaching will never be enough to fully develop their minds. Drama for learning is about using theatre’s view and story to create a new and exciting way of learning in a classroom. Both pupils and teachers work in unison to invent scenarios that ‘give meaning’ to the curriculum. Using drama in learning allows the children to make up rules and invent what will happen next. Thirdly the mantel of expert is an approach of teaching and learning whrre the class create a scenario and adopt an expert point of view. The mantle is the different responsibilities, roles and duties which lie within the scenario, (Wordpress, 2014).

References 

Wordpress (2014) Retrieved 30th of April from http://www.imaginative-inquiry.co.uk/what-is-imaginative-inquiry/

David Farmer (2013) Retrieved april 30th from http://dramaresource.com/strategies/mantle-of-the-expert

Dr, Brian Edmiston, (n.d)

http://www.mantleoftheexpert.com/studying/articles/BE%20-%20The%20MoE%20Approach%20to%20Education.pdf

How school kills creativity?

I believe that creativity does exist in schools, but it is extremely restricted. Subjects like art, music and drama are the only subjects that I believe  ‘allow’ a limited dose of creativity. Through experience, a pupil being creative, for example, by displaying his/her work differently were not seen as being creative, but were perceived as being disruptive and not conforming to the rules. I believe that children are restricted from being creative, due to creativity sparking curiosity, which can lead to the questioning which society does not want to encourage in schools.      

Sir Ken Robinson is a world-renowned leader in the development of creativity. In 2006, Robinson’s TED talk on ‘How schools kill creativity?’ became the most viewed talk in TED’s history. He was listed as “one of the world’s elite thinkers on creativity and innovation” by Fast Company magazine (Robinson, 2006).

                                        http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity#t-1141052

Ken defines creativity as a ‘process of having original ideas that have value, which comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things’. (Robinson, 2006)

Ken believes that creativity should not be seen as inferior to core subjects like Mathematics and languages but should be treated as equals. 

Ken suggests that the education system has a hierarchy of subjects, which are;

• ·     Core
• ·     Humanities
• ·     Arts

      There is even a hierarchy within the arts;

• ·     Art and music - acceptable in society
• ·     Drama and dance – People believe that there is no use for drama and dance in society. 

Ken believes that ‘Arts’ should be taught with the same respect as core subjects due to  its  creative influence on society.

‘Creativity is as important as literacy and we should treat it with the same as importance’ (Robinson, 2006).

Ken believes that the basis of creativity is the fearlessness of being wrong. He believes that creativity stems from trial and error, thus if you are not prepared to be wrong, you will not come up with anything original. Although, by the time the children grow up and become adults, they are frightened to be wrong due to companies and colleagues stigmatising mistakes.

Trial and error is what it takes to create new ideas and inventions that have brought us into the technological 21^st century. We are socialized to believe that mistakes are the worst thing you can do, but without mistakes nothing can improve. I agree completely with Ken, when he suggests that education educates people out of their creative capacities.

“Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up.”- Pablo Picasso (Robinson, 2006)

Ken believes that the only hope for a better future is to rethink our national curriculum and change the ‘fundamental principles’ in which we are educating our children.

The task of the current society is to see the children as the hope they are, and that it is our duty to help them make something of it.

References 

Sir Ken Robinson (2014) Retrieved 21^st of April 2014 from http://sirkenrobinson.com/?page_id=10

Csikszentmihalyi’s model of creativity

To the right is Csikszentmihalyi’s model of creativity. He believed that the creativity process uses the ‘dynamic interaction’ of three distinctly individual systems.  There is no instigator within this model, as each system effects the other. One system contains the individual (person) with their unique talent, or idea, the second system being the domain, (culture) which entails the rules and practices, and then thirdly the field (society). Simplified, the individual must have the cultural experience to create an idea then, the domain must accept the idea as being original and worthy of being sent to the field. If the society accepts the new idea created by the individual then it can be created within the domain. (Carr, 2003).

Whilst researching Csikszentmihalyi and developing my knowledge on creativity, it is clear to me that creativity is an important aspect of developing society and the education within. I have come to this conclusion after discovering numerous amount of research completed, regarding creativity and its value in the community.

References 
Abbott et al (2014) What is imaginative-inquiry? Retrieved 12th of April from
http://www.imaginative-inquiry.co.uk/what-is-imaginative-inquiry/

What is Creativity?

One of the priorities in 21^st Century education is to promote the importance of creativity. The Foundation Phase emphasizes the importance of creativity within a child’s education (Welsh Government, 2008).   The children should be continually expressing their creative minds across the whole curriculum including core subjects like mathematics. Children should have the opportunity to explore a wide range of stimuli inside and outside of the classroom. The Foundation Phase emphasises the importance of expressing these creative ideas, and the significance of the children reflecting on their ideas (Welsh Government, 2008).

I believe that creativity is the most important quality that we have, hence its underlined importance in today’s education.

This video expresses a number of people’s views on creativity, and what It means to them. This video is proof that creativity has different meanings to a variation of people and cannot have a single definition.

In my opinion, creativity is what further develops a society. Those who are creative use their imagination to invent and communicate new ideas, which benefits the development of countries. Some children are lucky enough to have their creative imaginations nurtured by their parents and teachers to form strong thinking abilities. Having their minds nurtured through childhood and receiving positive feedback, the children gain self- esteem and confidence, which benefits their future ability to create extraordinary ideas.  Creative thinkers are needed in nearly every business; scientists, business entrepreneurs, artists, illustrators, fashion designers or even educators are all creative thinkers. Without these creative thinkers, no new ideas would be invented. For example, cars, aeroplanes or computers would have been less likely to be invented without creativity, therefore we would still be living similarly to our ancestors.

‘Those with the ability to "think outside of the box" will lead the future and make special things happen.’ (Crayola, 2014)

References

Crayola (2014) Retrieved 12^th April 2014 from http://www.crayola.com/for-educators/resources-landing/parents-and-teachers-as-partners-landing/importance-of-creativity.aspx

Welsh Government (2008) Retrieved 12^th April 2014 from http://new.wales.gov.uk/dcells/publications/policy_strategy_and_planning/early-wales/whatisfoundation/foundationphase/2274085/frameworkforchildrene.pdf?lang=en

Alan Carr (2003) Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness and Human Strengths London:Routledge