Teacher Guide
Lesson plans
To get you started, there are two leagues already on the 'Power League: Beyond Current Horizons' website (www.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk/powerleague). You can copy them for your own use, or make your own from scratch.
Here are some suggestions for using the two publicly available leagues:
What is education for?
Lesson 1
Discuss and debate the roles that education should play in the future.
Objective:
To explore what education means to us.
National curriculum link:
English, citizenship, maths (pie chart).
Preparation and resources:
Whiteboard/flipchart and board pen, A3 paper for student activities, colours (optional) for diagrams.
Introduction:
Explain that the students are going to consider what the word education means.
Starter activity:
Split the board into two. Write the word 'educate' at the top. Draw on one half a diagram of stick people showing one stick person on the left (the teacher) with an arrow pointing at about 6 stick people on the right (the students).
On the other half of the board draw the same scenario, but with the arrows travelling in a circle from the person on the left, to the group on the right and then back again.
Ask the class to discuss in pairs which diagram best represents what education means to them and why.
Explain how the Latin word educare means to 'lead out' from ignorance; hence the educated person has been led to think critically and with deductive knowledge (Wikipedia). It is not purely about imparting knowledge from the teacher to the student, but about learners being helped and 'led' to draw out and shape their critical thinking skills.
Main activity:
If the teacher is leading and shaping the students' critical thinking skills in the classroom, where else is learning taking place?
In groups ask the students to draw a pie chart of one day at school, and one day at the weekend. Into each section write what is happening. Draw arrows out from each section and list what learning might be taking place.
Spotlight some of the groups to explain what learning is taking place at different times of the day. Is one form of learning more important than another? Encourage the students to discuss why this might be.
Give each pair of students a sheet of A3 paper. Divide it in half. Write the title: 'Where learning takes place'.
On one side draw diagrams to represent person to person learning, on the other side draw diagrams to represent learning that is taking place elsewhere. The diagrams can be much more imaginative than below or as basic. It is the ideas that are important.
Example:
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Friends discussing latest fashion
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Surfing the web
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Parent asking child to run a bath for the baby
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Watching TV
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Helping grandparent make a cake
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Reading a book
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Plenary:
Select three pairs of students to share their learning charts.
Invite other groups to add any of their thoughts that may not have been mentioned.
Homework:
Bring in information about two different cultures from two different continents that are different from western culture.
What is education for?
Lesson 2
Objectives:
To explore what education means to different people.
National curriculum link:
English, philosophy, science, citizenship, geography, RE.
Preparation and resources:
Students should have their homework with them from the last lesson, researching two different cultures from two different continents. Projector with Maslow's pyramid and Deming's quotes. Whiteboard and pen. Some sugar paper for mindmaps.
Introduction:
To explore what education means to different cultural groups.
Starter activity:
Write the words 'culture', 'full potential', 'self-esteem' and 'physiological' on the board. Ask the students to mindmap what they understand these words to mean. If possible allow them access to a dictionary.
Elicit some of the students' ideas.
Explain how culture is defined as the totality of socially transmitted behaviour patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. (Wikipedia)
Introduce them to the word 'self-actualisation', which they will come across later in the lesson as meaning reaching one's full potential.
Physiology — what keeps us alive as humans — basic survival.
Main activity:
Step 1: In groups, encourage the class to share their information from different cultures around the world.
Do the children go to school five days a week as they do in the UK? Does education mean the same to all people?
Elicit some of the answers.
Step 2: Introduce the students to Maslow's pyramid:
This diagram shows Maslow's hierarchy of needs, represented as a pyramid with the more primitive needs at the bottom (Wikipedia).
Put the students into groups. Encourage them to debate the issue that education in its basic state is linked to survival (the physiological base level of the pyramid), and that it is only by achieving the first four levels that people can aspire to achieving their full potential (self-actualisation). Encourage the students to agree or disagree with the statement and link it to what they discussed in Step 1 about what education means to different people.
Step 3: Introduce the students to William Edwards Deming — an American philosopher who had some interesting thoughts about learning (en.wikipedia.org/wiki). Encourage the students to take four of his quotes and discuss them in groups.
"There is no substitute for knowledge"
"Experience by itself teaches nothing"
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival"
"It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best"
Step 4: Go back to the original objective of the lesson: does education mean something different to each person? Does education mean the same thing to people globally? Encourage the class to back up their opinions with statements from their discussion.
Plenary:
Elicit the students' ideas from the final mindmap.
Ask the students to vote via a show of hands on whether they think that education means the same to everyone or not.
Homework:
Ask the students to reflect on the activities of the lesson. They need to now write up individually what they think education means, and to try the Power League, 'What is education for'.
Expected outcomes from the two lessons:
The students should have much more of an insight into what education and learning means to them and what it means to people globally. They will have been introduced to the names of two philosophers and debated some of their hypotheses regarding learning. With this as a foundation, they should now be ready to debate how education could happen in the future (see following two lesson plans on 'How to educate').
How to educate?
Lesson 1
How could education happen in the future?
Objectives:
To understand how education has changed from the past, to the present, and what hopes there may be for the future.
National curriculum link:
English, citizenship, history, ICT.
Preparation and resources:
Extract from Charles Dickens on the projector. Paper and pens.
Introduction:
Divide the class into groups and explain how they will be using their imagination to consider education in the past, present and future.
Starter activity:
Divide the board into three and encourage the students to write what they think education was like in the past, what it is like now, and what it may be like in 2020. They could use Power League to give them some ideas for this.
Main activity:
Step 1: Read the opening section of 'Hard Times' by Charles Dickens.
"NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!"
The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a schoolroom, and the speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster's sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders, — nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was, — all helped the emphasis.
"In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!"
The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim."
Elicit from the students whether they think that education has changed or whether it has stayed the same? They need to try to think of five differences in education from the past to the present day.
Step 2: One main difference is the advancement of technology (at least one of the groups should have said this!) Ask the students to divide their paper into two and head the two columns 'good' and 'bad'. In groups the students should list the positives and negatives about the advancement of technology.
Step 3: Elicit the students' ideas. Some interesting scenarios should be around whether technology brings people together globally, dispelling prejudice, or whether it stunts social growth and interaction.
Step 4: In groups students should go back to their first chart and take two scenarios — one positive and one negative — for education in the future. Explain how Dickens meant his stories to be read out loud before an audience. In groups/pairs create a story opening for two different scenarios for the future: one positive and one negative.
Step 5: Encourage the class to share their ideas.
Plenary:
Ask the class if they could identify three main fears and three main hopes for education in the future, what would they be? Ask a couple of the students to share their ideas with the class.
Homework:
Give out a sheet of A4 to each student. Ask them to write down their three fears on one and illustrate, and three hopes for education for the future and illustrate. This could be the start of a wall display.
How to educate?
Lesson 2
How could education happen in the future?
Objectives:
The students will consider how education will be taught in the future if only they are in control. They will make use of the learning that they have done in the past few lessons identifying what education is and what it might mean to them in the future.
National curriculum link:
English, drama, citizenship, RE.
Preparation and resources:
Possible internet access to Million Futures (www.millionfutures.org.uk) (or the opportunity to be shown Million Futures via a projector and internet link). Sugar paper and pens. A4 paper and a ballot box (empty shoe box with a slit in the top!)
Introduction:
Introduce the students to the words 'utopia' and 'dystopia'. Explain to the students that they are going to imagine a utopian society.
Starter activity:
Ask the students to play Million futures (www.millionfutures.org.uk).
Main activity:
Step 1: Ask the students to sit in a circle. Explain that they are on board a spaceship. The Earth has been destroyed. Elicit how that might have happened (natural disaster, global warming, war...).
Step 2: It is one month on. The spaceship has finally landed on a planet called Utopia that has the same atmosphere as Earth. There is food and shelter. There are 200 people on the planet, but decisions have to be made on how to educate the children. Explain that all the people in the circle have been chosen to work on an education programme. The students have to imagine that the slate has been wiped totally clean. It is up to them how they want teaching and learning to take place. Are they going to rebuild schools or have a different form of teaching and learning? Is it just going to be for children or for adults too? They have access to any resources they need to make their plans happen. It is simply up to them to have the imagination to do this.
Divide up the class into groups. Give each group a sheet of sugar paper for planning. They have 20 minutes to work on their idea for education in the future and the presentation of their idea to the rest of the class.
Step 3: After 20 minutes each group will present their ideas to the class. The class are able to ask each group questions.
Step 4: Hand out a piece of paper to each of the students. Individually they need to write down which way they think is the best way forward for teaching and learning in their community and why. They will then fold their paper into four and put it in a box at the front of the class.
Plenary:
The votes are counted and the reasons given.
Expected outcomes:
The students should have considered during these two lessons how education has moved forward for them from the past to the present. They should have had the opportunity to debate the pros and cons of technological advancements.
Finally, using their imaginations, they should have had the opportunity to consider and reflect on what education could mean in the future if they are able to start again.
How to educate?
Lesson 3
How could education happen in the future?
Objectives:
To further explore what teaching and learning means and what rewards it can have.
National curriculum link:
English, drama, citizenship, languages.
Preparation and resources:
Follow on from last lesson — it may be helpful to have the winning ballot papers and read out the reasons why they opted for that form of education. Paper and pens.)
Introduction:
Remind the students about the form of education that they have decided to create on their new planet Utopia.
Starter activity:
Ask the students to mindmap as many different languages as they can think of. Encourage them to think of some of the differences between these languages, eg: Arabic reads left to right, Chinese symbols, Greek alphabet, familiar stems in languages derived from Latin or Germanic sources.
Main activity:
Step 1: Split the class into six groups. In the groups the students are going to invent their own language. They need to create: a name for their group; a word/phrase for a greeting; a verb for 'to cook'; something unusual that they eat; how they eat; a word for 'thank you' and a word for 'goodbye'. If they can think of actions for greetings as well that would be even better.
Step 2: The class meet in a circle. The teacher explains that on their new planet they have discovered that humans already exist there. However, though they look the same as Earth humans, they have a very different culture.
Step 3: Label the groups A-F. Groups A-C are the explorers. They meet groups D-F which are the indigenous people on the planet. The aim is for the students to learn the few words and actions that the indigenous people have.
Step 4: The class then meet again in a circle. Groups A-C have to report back to the group their findings.
Step 5: Groups D-F are now the explorers. They meet respectively with groups A-C who are the indigenous people, learn about their culture and report back.
Step 6: Ask the students how they felt when the explorers learnt their language. Another way of doing this is to freeze the action in the groups and ask individuals in the group how they feel at one given moment.
Plenary:
Ask the students why it is important to learn. Allow them individually to come up with three different reasons. If there is time, allow the students to try the Power League again or to do it for homework.
Expected outcome:
This final lesson will hopefully come full circle with the first question asked, which is 'What is education for?' It hopefully also includes ideas about why it is important to learn, but also how to learn in order to dispel prejudice and work towards the top of Maslow's triangle.
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