A smile spread across her face and her eyes danced with delight. She whispered to the child next to her that“It really had been out of control, it was swaying all over the place - a very bumpy ride!”
The class laughed, as they’d seen her struggleto control her magic carpet across the playground. But this wasn’t a pupil, this was the teacher: their teacher hadbeen in that make-believe adventurewith them.
She had crossed a green stinky swamp, riddenon the back of a unicorn, explored the Forbidden Forest and escaped fromwolves and witches. The class had all been through the same immersive experience with her, and now, while writing it downin a book, she was reliving it with them.
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All the pupilswanted their part of the story to be in the book. Cleverly, the teacher created an atmosphere of curiosity:she asked questions that kept every child’simagination alive, that encouragedcreativityand collaboration.“You were at the back when we galloped over the fields, I didn’t see the colour of your horse - what was it?”
By taking the class outside on an imaginative adventure and throwing herself into it as much as they did, the teacher had shownthe children that it’s OK- even exciting - to pretend.
I witnessed the children constantly looking to the teacher, checking for validation and permission. Was it OKto say that you just bought mustard ice-cream from the magic shop, or that you have X-ray glasses on? As the experience unfolded, the boundaries of what was acceptable to imagine seemed to melt. “If I can gallop on a horse, maybe I can put on an invisible cape? Maybe I can use my teleportal machine?”
The world is changing, andour young people need to be resilient, adaptable, creative and imaginative. They are going to need to think out of the box, find solutions to profound environmental and economic issues, and have the confidence to believe they can contribute.
A final thought. No prior knowledge was needed for a child to take part, no additional resourcing was needed, no assessment or identification of “need”was employed, no “label”invoked. Every child went on a memorable adventure, every child could recall and share that adventure - and every child was successful. That, in a nutshell, isequity in education.
Natalie White is a principal teacher and development officer for outdoor learning, inEast Ayrshire, Scotland
