Classroom mistakes

The day of the egg baby massacre still haunts Sue Cowley, who is willing torelive this tragic event so you might benefit from her experience...

In the novel Flour Babies by Anne Fine (Hamilton, 1992), a ‘tough’ class of school children are given bags of flour, and told to pretend that these are their ‘babies’. They must look after their babies for three weeks and make sure that no harm befalls them. Through using a simple bag of flour to ‘stand for’ a baby, the children learn how to take responsibility and a lot more besides.

To a teacher, any interesting object is a potential goldmine of learning opportunities. This is especially true for primary school teachers, who are wonderful at getting creative with resources. Show a primary teacher a random object, and he or she will immediately say: ooh, I could
help my children learn loads by using that.

CARDBOARD BOX? That’ll be brilliant for some junk modelling.
EMPTY BIRD’S NEST? That’d be great as an inspiration for a story.
DRIED SUNFLOWER HEAD? Ah! I can use that to explain the Fibonacci sequence.
PACK OF PLAYING CARDS? Ooh, I could use that to organise my table teams.
BAG OF FLOUR? Of course – a baby! – what else?

When teachers see an object, they think about all the great things that could happen in their classrooms with that resource. But when children see an object, their instincts are not always so kindly. The thought how can I cause mischief or mayhem with this object? may well pass through their minds. Because after all, it’s in a child’s job description to cause chaos in the classroom, if that is even remotely possible. It is wise, therefore, when using resources, for teachers to ask themselves what’s the worst that could happen?

When I first came across the story of Flour Babies it seemed like the perfect learning idea for my class. These particular children found it very hard to take responsibility for their own actions. It was always ‘someone else’s’ fault when anything went wrong. What better way to help them learn responsibility than to trust them to care for a fragile ‘baby’? A decision was made to use raw eggs rather than bags of flour. In retrospect, this wasn’t a very wise choice.

It was all going so well. The babies had been decorated. We had made little egg box cribs for them. All the eggs were fully intact. And then the bell went for break. Can we take our babies outside with us, Miss? the children asked. I should have known. I should have thought ahead. I should have realised. But I forgot to ask myself the crucial question: what’s the worst that could happen? And yes, you’ve guessed it, the egg babies got well and truly scrambled. It was the egg baby massacre. Note to self: next time round, set up a crèche for break times.

Do you remember the Girls World model heads from your childhood? Our foundation stage children were showing a huge interest in the idea of a beauty salon, so we decided to adapt our role-play area to build on this interest. We set up a dressing table and mirror, and placed an old Girls World head in pride of place. We gave the children an assortment of old make-up to use on the model head – leftover mascara, lipstick, eye shadow. We had brushes and scissors in case anyone wanted a haircut. And then we left them to it. After all, what could possibly go wrong? But once again, I should have asked myself: what’s the worst that could happen?

Unfortunately, we had not been terribly clear about how the make-up should be used. And perhaps the children were not supervised as closely as might have been sensible. Let’s just say that a few of them had their first ‘real life’ experience of how much fun it is to put make-up on, and how hard it can be to get make- up off.

So what have I learned from these experiences? Well, for a start, whenever you are using a new and exciting resource, always ask yourself: what’s the worst that could happen? This is not to say that you should be negative or cynical, but just that you should always be one step ahead of your children. (Who knows, perhaps nothing at all will go wrong.)

At the same time, I have also learned that it’s vital to trust children with fragile or tricky resources, because most of the time they will return that trust a million times over. And when they don’t, just remember, it’s all part of the learning curve.