Example of a history lesson using the fishbowl method of discussion

A group of fourteen year olds gather into groups of four, designating a leader and a note taker with easy efficiency. Within minutes they are assembling key points either to defend or prosecute the King of France. Rooted in their knowledge of the French Revolution, they are assembling evidence for each key assertion they will make in response to the catalytic statement of Maximilian Robespierre 'The King must die for the Revolution to live'.

Divided into groups of royalists and revolutionaries we will go further and further into make believe, as language, thought, and reflection connect to themes of revolution and sovereignty which we have been studying and which have archetypal resonance for this age. The more I can draw on those deep patterns of symbolic play, and exchange, the more the students will say yes to becoming present to learning.

In the run up to this cooperative group activity, we have stretched and moved, sung and recited a poem - Liberty Tree by Thomas Paine - and now, as we settle into the next phase of our lesson, a cohesion warms the group and differences find their own level. For adolescents, as much as any age, what can support their increasingly individuated styles of learning is crucial. Connecting to what has gone before and what beckons from the future, offers a living context. The more vivid our learning the more we can know ourselves and how we learn (AaL). As pubescent turmoil takes over, our burgeoning powers of cognition, powerful inner feelings, and rapidly changing bodies can colour and confuse. Self consciousness emerges as the painful enabler of growing self awareness. 

Meanwhile, the students are very productively engaged as lively royalists and revolutionaries, considering the topic of a king on trial, a beheading and the implications of their actions. They will now divide into two circles for what is called a Fishbowl Discussion. Inner circle and outer circle are facing inwards, each circle composed of equal numbers of royalists and revolutionaries. The protocols of discussion are set and then the debate begins as the inner circle conducts the debate and the outer circle observes. Passions rise, engagement deepens, moral arguments fill the space, while the teacher is able to move increasingly from facilitating into an active witnessing role. After a time, if a member of the outer circle wishes to engage directly in discussion, they tap a person in front of them on the shoulder and indicate their wish to participate directly and so seats are exchanged-often a number of times. Discussion continues and the realm of make believe takes us deeper and deeper into the truths of a challenging question that marked a turning point in modern history.

In reflecting together afterwards about what we have learnt, students are amazed at how passionate they became and how much there was to say. As a teacher I delight, as do they,  in the intensity and articulate clarity of engagement and how students who might not speak suddenly are kindled into expressing new points of view. The follow up activity next day or for homework, will be to organise the arguments into opposing columns and write our conclusions. No one will struggle with this.  Fluency characterises our next steps.

Reflective practice: what have I learnt as teacher?

• That language, thought and action are most alive when kindled in a context that has directly met the needs of the body and feeling life. The affective and cognitive work together.
• That meaning is made by the students themselves through making something both collaboratively and in resistance to each other.
• That direct exchange with each other engages students when they are held in a structure that allows scaffolding - a gentle coaching towards autonomy and ease.
• That the theme, when developmentally relevant, is a mother lode for both teacher and student in terms of connection and further material and activity.
• That changing roles from facilitator to witness enables me to observe afresh how students are active. Distance changes perspective and allows me to see what they might need next and what speaks.
• That their own assessment and my own of the learning taking place happens organically and efficiently with knowledge of the subject living at the heart of the lesson.

Literacy is not just about reading and writing but about navigating the world. Making meaning leads to literacy. Skill grows out of a desire and need. My job as teacher is to attend with patient vigilance to the ripening I see before me, find models of good language and subvert where I can monosyllabic, cliche reductions. In mainstream educational reform much is now made of the need in the 21c to stress speaking and making, as much as, writing and reading. If we remind ourselves the oral was the cradle for the written word, that tool use and language evolved together, that song and melody preceded language, and that whole brain learning requires working with movement, gesture, and song to awaken to activate our right hemisphere, as much as the left we can support more modes and styles of learning.

Student's write-up of French Revolution debate

Narrative is now widely acknowledged as the leitmotif of how we make meaning our own and so find our place in the world.  Freedom comes through knowing myself and moving between, the ground of skills, activated through and by the body and the limbs, and the mountain top where altitude allows us to see, sift, select, and determine choices and next steps.

Literacy is not just a skill but part of our social glue, a way of knowing ourselves, of naming and charting the world through the poetry of metaphor and the rhythm of the familiar, as well as the strange and surprising. When joy accompanies our growing literacy we have fuel in our engine for life. If in the early years, children have been nourished in playful language, in rich storytelling, and in symbolic play, then in the teen years they are much more likely to embrace and connect with the empowering and sustaining vibrancy and deep listening that a rich feeling for language can offer.

Extract from an article published in Kindling magazine