"This is nothing like school. In school everything runs quite smoothly… You learn a lot more [this way]. I never knew how hard it would be to fight for your own job."
These are students talking about a student-driven project around the theme of a soap opera, whereby they had to create a non-scripted soap opera production, with the story of a paper plant about to go bust. It was initiated by the art teacher, but encompassed much of the business, language and creative side of the curriculum. It's fleshed out in the video above.
The genius part is that their art lesson, rather than being a prep for recording the soap opera, became the "art club" of the bust company that in which they were playing their roles. Their choice, not that of their teacher (and, I'd argue, not something that a teacher would come up with in isolation were (s)he to be forward planning like crazy).
Alison Ferguson, the teacher, puts it like this:
"You're not teaching in isolation. You're teaching in a much more natural way, as you would if you were bringing up your own children."
This is part of a series of new videos the Scottish Government have produced to try to help parents understand how learning and teaching is changing to better equip young people for the future. I'd argue that they're ideal for those teachers who are struggling to see what it means, too, and more effective than the thousands of pages of 'guidance' and 'advice' given with the Curriculum for Excellence so far.
My other favourite in this series is Pimp My Trolley, with more on the Learning and Teaching Scotland site.
I hope we can see more of these 'first hand' accounts of what a vibrant learning environment looks like - so much more powerful than the rhetoric or PDF hell we're used to.
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