Saturday, November 24, 2012

A Carpet for our Classroom


Learning about Carpets for Communities (CfC) helping to break the cycle of poverty in Cambodia, lead on to the students wanting a carpet for our classroom. I think in the past I might have taken that idea on board and ordered one for the class, but this time I saw a lot of good learning in this simple desire for a rug and so we did it together.

Rug size

We had to choose the carpet size first of all so we found the carpet measurements from the CfC website and marked out the sizes on our classroom floor. One of my most disengaged students was in charge of the tape measure. I loved that there was relevance and purpose in this simple (but not simple for all) numeracy task and it ‘hooked’ him in to learning. After marking out the sizes we had a ‘hands up’ vote for which size to order and there was a unanimous vote for the largest rug. We looked at the cost and did a quick calculation to see if we had enough money in our class budget.

Rug design

I set the kids the task to design the rug for our class. Once again I was so happy with their enthusiasm of the task. We had ended up with 12 different designs so we needed to take a vote.

The vote

I started with a ‘hands up’ vote – something you would think is a simple task. Wrong! I had kids calling out to other kids trying to persuade them to vote a certain way. There was absolutely no subtlety to the way they were bullying each other into their decisions. 

Voting attempt #2 

So we tried a silent vote instead where students voted for their favorite design on an anonymous piece of paper, free from the ridicule and bullying of their peers. We had 12 students there and instead of ending up with 12 votes, we ended up with 16! I explained that this was called cheating and that it was important that we could make a decision as a class without bullying or cheating so we would have to try again.

Voting attempt # 3

It was extremely hard not to get frustrated by this and just drop the task but I took it as a good opportunity to learn how to have a simple vote in a civilized way, something that I believe would come in handy in the community. I gave out jobs to different students such as handing out the ballot paper, collecting the votes, counting the votes and recording the results. Finally we had a successful vote! 

A democratic classroom 

There was unfortunately still jeering for the person whose design won and shaming the person whose designs didn’t win. I explained that this vote is not about wining or losing, that it is about making a decision as a group. I compared it to our democratic society in Australia and that we could be living in a country where our leader makes all the decisions for us, but instead we live in a country where people get to have their say by voting. I compared this to our classroom and explained that we could have a classroom where I make the decisions for everyone and I would decide which rug we would get, but instead I want you all to have a say and make a decision together. I hoped that they found this idea empowering. Regardless of the jeers and cheers, I congratulated them on making a decision as a class.

A valuable learning experience

This voting process (and all the attempts) probably took nearly 1 hour. I think in the past I wouldn’t have used the time in this way as I would have been riddled with guilt that I’m steering off the path of core business (literacy and numeracy). Although I know that literacy and numeracy is extremely important for our students, I honestly believe this other learning should not be overlooked. Problems in the classroom often involve arguments, swearing, fights and tears – and I think it’s not too different out in community. And so I believe that these experiences and skills in making a civilized vote as a class is something that could be very useful to my students and their community.

Here is the final design J



Meanwhile... on the Cambodian side of things... 

After this lesson I emailed Carpets for Communities to explain what I have been doing with my class and to order the rug. Just the other day I stumbled across this picture posted on their Facebook page and thought "Hey! That looks familiar!".




It's nearly done!

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