Teach-Primary-Issue-19.7

• How might the other person be feeling in this situation? • What would happen if you tried a completely different approach? • What problem-solving strategy worked best in that scene? • How does the way we communicate affect a conflict? • How can we inflame, or calm, a situation when a problem needs to be solved? • A group of friendly aliens want to attend your school, but don’t understand human customs. Give groups 10 minutes to discuss and develop their scene, then ask them to improvise and to play characters different from themselves. During their rehearsal time, make sure to circulate and ask questions. Then ask each group to perform their short scene to the rest of the class. 3 | RESOLVING A CONFLICT For this part of the lesson, ask children to work in pairs to explore real-life social problems through drama. For example: • Two friends want to play 2 | THE MISSION Divide the class into groups of four or five. Give each group a slip of paper with a ‘mission’ that requires creative teamwork to solve. Or you can orally tell pupils the mission. For example: • Your class needs to convince the head teacher to let you have a school trip to the beach. • Your group must organise a fundraiser to repair the school hall that got flooded. • Your neighbourhood park is going to be turned into a car park; convince the council to change their minds. • Your local museum has become ‘too boring’ according to visitors; make it exciting again. • Assign different character profiles for different problem-solving personalities, such as the creative thinker, the peacemaker, the practical planner, and the empathy expert, and let pupils explore how different approaches can work to tackle challenges. • Ask the children to solve problems while playing different emotions, such as being cheerful, worried, excited, scared, bored, or calm, to discover how feelings can affect our problem-solving abilities. • Create a class problem-solving toolkit display where pupils can add new strategies they discover. Include techniques like seeing a situation from someone else’s point of view , finding the middle ground , and thinking outside the box . • Use drama scenarios to explore different subjects; perhaps pupils can role- play as historical figures negotiating a peace treaty, or as scientists collaborating to solve an environmental challenge . EXTENDING THE LESSON different games at break time. • Someone feels left out when their friend makes a new friend. • Someone won’t share the school computer. • Someone borrowed something and accidentally broke it. Each pair should then choose one scenario and improvise it twice: first showing how it might go wrong if people don’t listen to each other or only think about themselves. For the second round, they should improvise differently using problem-solving skills, listening and compassion for a better outcome. For example, if they’re using the ‘someone borrowed something’ scenario, their first improv can show what happens when the owner of the item flies off the handle and doesn’t listen to the borrower’s explanation, whereas the second improv can utilise better communication techniques (e.g. ‘I do feel frustrated, but I can see you didn’t mean to break it’). After each pair performs, you can ask the rest of the class questions such as, “What problem-solving strategies did you notice?” and “How did their solution help?” SamMarsden is the author of 100 Acting Exercises for 8-18 Year Olds , and The Pocketful of Drama book series. She also runs courses on teaching drama. Teach Primary readers get 20% off all of Sam’s courses by entering the code TEACHPRIMARY20 at the checkout. See tinyurl.com/tp-SamM “Rehearsing problem-solving skills through drama can help children navigate conflicts” USEFUL QUESTIONS www.teachwire.net | 95