"The Darkest Nights Produce the Brightest Stars" - My Revelation

Yesterday saw me in a complete and utter panic. I was in such a panic, in fact, that I ended up emailing Adesola to ask her to help me with my Inquiry and where I went from here.

This was, because, I had just received my Module Two feedback and in particular, feedback that suddenly made me rethink EVERYTHING. When looking at Adesola's feeback, I could see that she had advised me to completely disregard any idea of involving children in the interview process and instead focus on the creative teaching aspect. 

I looked at her feedback on my original ethics form and saw that every single time I had included the direct use of children in my study was NOT ALLOWED. 

So this got me thinking (and panicking,) HOW I am meant to carry out an inquiry without having contact with the children. Am I not allowed to mention them AT ALL in this entire process?!?!

Luckily, Adesola has replied to me today, stating that the feedback does not mean that I cannot use the experience of the children within my observational study, but that I should respect the wishes of the University NOT to directly interview the children or engage with them in any way OUTSIDE the usual school parameters. This was a relieving moment for me, seeing as I was aiming for my inquiry to be based around the impact of the children and to identify their responses to the creative elements. 

Pinnacle Moment

However, through the panic and uncertainty of my future inquiry came a light-bulb moment. It made me think OUTSIDE THE BOX. It made me question all of these doubts that I had been having, therefore making me completely rethink and consider the lasting line of Adesola's feedback.

Adesola's ending line in my feedback states, 'It is important you go into this inquiry wondering not just looking for proof of something you already believe. One of the best out comes you could have would be to be surprised by the inquiry.'

I really felt that I needed some inspiration, so I ended up going back and looking at Ken Robinson's seminar videos again, which I also did because Adesola reminded me of the fact that Creativity is still not yet defined and that it is an education in itself. And as I was watching his videos, it suddenly dawned on me. Ken Robinson talks about how EVERY child is DIFFERENT. So it got me thinking, 'what if I use Creativity in the classroom by finding out how different children respond to different types of lessons?'

I then thought, what are the things I HAVE NEVER DONE BEFORE in my lessons?

Here were my thoughts and findings that I sent to Adesola. 

What have I not done yet? What do I not know but would like to know?

I haven’t yet let the children choose what work they do

I haven’t assessed what type of learning they prefer

I haven’t yet seen what creative formats and methods teachers use

I have never let a child be a teacher or leader to the class on a subject

I haven’t let children in the lesson give feedback on their learning and what they liked and didn’t like, found hard or easy or what they learned.

Ideas to go about this

• Provide a book that children can leave comments and pictures in about the lesson
• Create a lesson where children choose what activity they do in order to learn about a particular subject.
• Observe lessons and interview teachers on how they go about creativity and how they use the arts to enhance their lessons.
• Give each child a fact on a piece of paper and they have only two minutes to tell as many people in their class what that fact is.
• Get the children to put parts of a story in order and then share the story to the class telling them what happened. 

These are all things that I truly wonder about and I hope I am going to be able to find out. I'm hoping that all these potential options will be ones in which Adesola will shed some light on before I begin making and shaping my inquiry.