Learning activities: something different // Bringing creative teaching into the young learner classroom. – Oxford: OUP, 2010. – PP. 37-38.

The LAST LEAF

Imaging that you are the main character. What will you do then?

Reading

I can evaluate and select creative reading activities.

The Story of the Brave Princess

A long time ago in a kingdom far, far away there were lots of happy

farmers. They plowed the fields and tended their cattle.

Their children didn't go to school. Instead they learnt by playing

with each other, helping their families and being told stories of

fantastic tales by their grandparents, aunts and uncles.

When they became older they worked on the farms or helped craftsmen

make beautiful things. One day they would become farmers or master

craftsmen too.

But things weren't always happy. At times they had no food and

sometimes great rains swept all the crops away. So sometimes they

wished of going to the distant cities and earning a regular wage.

So off they went to work in the new hustling, bustling factories.

As poor farm hands they needed to learn to read and to learn

numbers before using the big new machines. But nothing more, they

didn't need to learn medicine, big science or even to learn about

how money works as they were just factory workers. The factory

owners kept that for their own children who went away to

"universities."

But the farmers soon became too many and the factory training

couldn't keep up. So the government decided to make "schools."

There the children could learn what they needed to work in

factories. Numbers, spelling. That sort of thing. And to keep them

in line when they started work, the first thing they were taught at

school was how to sit in straight lines, how to be quiet, how to

do what the teacher told them. And of course never to talk back or

ask questions. That would never do!

Their parents wondered "well it's different from how we learnt,"

but I guess that's what they need these days, they said.

So on this went, day after day, year after year.

Until the factories started closing, moving off to some far away

oriental land. And the skills the factory workers had didn't

prepare them for this new life.

But still the teachers kept on. Kept on standing at the board. Kept

on keeping the children still and sat in neat little rows. For they

had forgotten how the children used to learn. They had forgotten

about playing and watching and all those "why" questions that

children used to ask.

Luckily a brave princess began to notice that the children in her

class weren't concentrating. They didn't really like the textbook

or tests and worst of all she realized that what the children were

supposed to be learning really wasn't that useful anymore.

She thought this over and over in her mind, wanting to change. But

the school, the parents, the "system" kept putting her down. She

knew something had to be done. But how?

Then one fine day she read an email. It got her thinking

about why schools were started in the first place, about the farms

and the factories. What she thought school "had to be" really

wasn't "had to be" at all. It got her thinking about what she could

do for her students. She had the strangest idea that she, one brave

soul on her own, really could make difference.

That day was a magic day for she forgot just thinking. She decided

to do.

She shared the blog on Facebook and twitter. And she decided to

make her schools how they should be, where children learn with

smiles on their faces and joy in their hearts.

That brave princess saved us all. And it all started that day.

And because of her courage and deeds we all live happily ever

after, safe from the evil witches, the grievous ghouls and the

specter of factory based schools.

Vocabulary

I can evaluate and select a range of creative writing activities

• I can evaluate and select a set of special creativity facilitating methods (of problem finding, idea producing, analytical and complex groups) in order to encourage learners to develop their creative potential.

Making connections

Making acronym

Teaching

Analizing

Training

Independent

Art

Nature

Approach

Mind Map

My home

• I can provide a creative learning environment (which comprises physical, psychological, virtual and biological spaces).

The creative learning environment in my place of work comprises the physical space (materials, microclimate conditions, but it is not equipped enough for learning processes), the psychological space (support personal interests, create playful atmosphere), the virtual space (use e-learning technologies) and the biological space (provide time flexibility for my learners).