Clare Hanbury

On Being Emotionally Connected to Our Learning

Watch this great little video on how children learn....Click on the link.

 

Born to Learn: Class Reunion from Born to Learn on Vimeo.

POWERPOINT!

I am preparing a power point today and came across this. I loved it and - if you prepare power points -so will you!

 

Global Handwashing Day: Wonderful Hands, Wonderful World

Global Hand Washing day is coming up on 15th October. I will be posting more about this during the week but here is something to get the week started in celebration of our wonderful hands.

 

Steve Jobs and The Summer Day

I don't know too much about Steve Jobs' life nor about the man but I do use many of the gadgets that are the outcome of his precision and dedication. I was moved by the story I heard today that he made his gadgets as beautiful inside as they were outside and in places that no one could see. What inspiration.

Amazing too that a person could leave so much behind at 56 and for one life to have touched so many.

I wanted to post a favourite poem to remember him and the way he spent his one wild and precious life.

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

 

 

Kofi Annan: The Participation of Children in the Development of Africa

Two weeks ago, I attended the UK launch of the Children's Radio Foundation which has its base in Cape Town. This organisation advocates and practices children's participation. They train child broadcasters who then identify stories, plan programmes, record content, edit and produce. The results are amazing. In Tanzania there are 7 million regular listeners to one of their weekly broadcasts. In partnership with UNICEF the CRF are working in 7 countries already. Their site is well worth a visit and the many programmes great  to listen to.

As part of the CRF launch, Kofi Annan was in conversation with Edward Mortimer and talking about the way in which he feels children can contribute to development in Africa. My top take home points were these:

1. The need for values education that focus on building children's character and that this need to be done more actively and promoted more widely.
2. That children must be encouraged to talk about the issues of importance to them and to participate and take charge.
3. Ensuring that the actions children take and the messages they bring are positive.
4. That there is an important role for aid especially in emergencies but that development aid must focus on sustainable community-based solutions that are about developing local capacity.
5. In the context of the radio he urges that the young editors are allowed  and encouraged to bring in the moderate voice of the majority.

Kofi Annan talked of his distress that the voices of hate in this world are given more prominence than they deserve and that we must all take individual responsibility for drowning out these voices with our own voices of love and reason. "The faithful are at fault" he said, "It is the majority who must overwhelm the minority, take over the 'space' they occupy."

When young people ask him, 'What can I do to become a global citizen, Kofi Annan responds by saying, "Start in your own community and your own family."

The occasion felt like one big endorsement for the relevance of the work of all those of us who seek to facilitate participatory methodologies with children.

Child-to-Child in Cambodia

The Child-to-Child Approach

A reminder to have a look at this great little video about how one organisation is using the Child-to-Child 6 step approach with children in Cambodia. Take a look.

If you have any experiences like this or videos to share, let me know! 

Solar Bottle Bulb: Can Children Participate?

I have JUST come across this wonderful idea...and I am wondering how children can participate to grow the project. Here's an explanation of the idea from Sustainablog.

You can also link to a short video of the idea in action here

An ingenious solar lighting idea that works in the day time is spreading across low income areas in the Philippines. This solar light design requires neither a solar panel nor a light bulb, however. In fact, all it requires is the sun and a two liter water bottle.

Image Credit: Isang Litrong Liwanag

Light bulbs are only for the very fortunate in the Philippines, as they are not as easily or readily accessible. You can imagine the difference a little bit of light would make in a place where it is hard to find or expensive to purchase a light bulb. Amazingly, this two liter solar light requires nothing more than a water bottle filled with water:

The bottles function as 60-watt lights powered by 100% solar energy. Refraction is an amazing thing, if you drilled a hole in your ceiling light would drop directly through the opening in a straight line casting a shadow on the ground in the shape of the hole. By placing a bottle filled with water into the hole, the light is refracted by the water and emitted at 360 degrees like a light bulb.

This is truly a simple, beautiful piece of ingenuity. What makes it even more appealing is that it gives folks an opportunity to use something that would ordinarily go straight to the trash.
Do you want cheap solar lighting for your home? Then look no further than a bottle of water!

It strikes me that there is a LOT children can do to promote this idea by informing people in their family and community. They could also become active in collecting the plastic bottles and finding out those families who would benefit from the technology.

Children's Participation and Coloured Kites

Imagine the sky brightly lit with coloured kites each flying free, twisting to the unpredictable gusts of wind.

A lot of my professional life has been about creating and distilling ideas and knowledge about how children can participate in and contribute to health and development…

…and letting these ideas go free.

I had one of those rare and special conversations yesterday in which I was reminded that we are not owners of knowledge and ideas but custodians. Knowledge and ideas come to us and through us to others and they are not ours to hold and to keep but to let them go to others who hopefully will do the same. Perhaps we hold them lightly on a thread but the focus is on the brightly coloured kite and not  those of us holding the thread.  Magic happens when we do this…the letting go creates more space for new ideas and new knowledge to come in. New kites to populate the sky.

As a writer it is sometimes hard to hold on to the fundamentals  especially as we are in an era of limited trust, quarrels about 'intellectual property' and where much energy is spent on holding knowledge close, creating a ‘brand’, copyright and commerce. I asked my friend what she thinks happens what we do not let the knowledge go. Her answer - that the kites turn to large heavy stones, 'How many stones can you carry Clare?'  and 'How many stones can you ask others to carry?'

The good news is that I believe the children and young people I meet up are more abundant and more giving and more on this message than those of us now at the supposed ‘top’ of our game. 

The success of participation work depends upon helping children create and fly these brightly coloured kites to populate the skies. The only way to do this is by showing them how and watching with wonder as  our kites fly together in the sky.

What Education is For: Ken Robinson

I just LOVE this....

CLICK HERE

The talk.. the animation - everything.. can someone do me some simpler ones to communicate simple health messages and what children can do. PLEEEEEEEASE!

Contact me!

 

The August Blues and Designing for Change!

Am alone in being an educator who always feels a frisson of excitment as the new (academic) year starts to shimmer on the horizon? I am looking forward to my new year which this year starts on September 7th!

Last 'year' I created a big box file for documents and references to share with subscribers to this blog and my other two blogs. I will begin my year by emptying the box, getting organised and share these with you. I  hoping you will be as stimulated as I was when I found them.

An organisation which continues to inspire me is Design for Change. Here is a lovely simple video on how children in India are tackling the problem of the stigma faced by people with leprosy.