Learning outside the classroom
has gone on to be one of my primary interests in my teaching practice and is
certainly an area that I will continue to develop in my future practice. This
blog's where it all started: focusing on LOTC that I experienced as a pupil,
and then moving on to my experiences in the town where I trained, assessing its
utility as an LOTC site.
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PART ONE
Whilst a pupil in the Lower
Sixth in a London secondary school, we went on a History/English school trip to
the Imperial War Museum to visit the Holocaust Exhibition. After the trip
finished, we all left in stunned silence at the way that the horrors of that
period in history had been made real by certain aspects of the exhibition.
Particularly affecting were the mock hospital rooms that showed the sorts of
experiments that Nazi doctors would perform on their 'patients', and the glass
case full of shoes retrieved from concentration camps in different sizes.
Photographs were blown up on the walls to full size, making the people in them
appear more real and showing their facial expressions and features in great
detail. It was deeply affecting to look at these photos and see possible
resemblances to my own family members, which greatly developed my skill of
empathy. It was no surprise that after I had got on the Tube home, I found
myself suddenly in tears from the impact of the exhibition.
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| One of the shoes taken from inmates at Auschwitz (1942-45) |
Whilst this sounds like the
school trip from hell in certain aspects (it's probably not seen as ideal to
leave students in tears!), and was certainly not suitable for pupils younger
than at least Year 10 (there is an age restriction on entry to the exhibition),
I will remember that experience for the rest of my life. It made me a much more
able historian as I was able to develop skills of empathy in relation to the
topic, and gave me a sense of the relevance and the horror of the Holocaust
which is difficult to appreciate when presented with statistics in textbooks. I
believe that it takes a great deal of skill for a school to organise and run a
visit as sensitive as this, and my teachers handled it very well. They gave us
background information on what to expect, made sure we had an 'escape route' if
the exhibition became too upsetting, and guided us around the exhibition with
an excellent member of staff from the museum so that we had plenty of opportunities
to ask questions.
For the visit to have been so
successful, a number of things needed to be in place. These included:
•
support staff from the museum
who were specially trained to deal with and guide school groups
•
specialist teachers
accompanying us
•
a list of key questions that we
had to find out about and then feedback in our next lesson, ensuring we made
good use of our time on the trip and that it was very relevant to our classroom
learning
•
handouts detailing specific
parts of the exhibition that were especially relevant to our classroom learning
•
guidelines on behaviour when
visiting, to ensure respectful behaviour and focus
•
parental consent to the visit
(for those not in Sixth Form)
•
clear directions around the
exhibition to make sure we knew the way around
PART TWO
On this course, we completed a
trail around York in small groups. We chose the Roman Trail, and printed off a
guide beforehand.
In terms of adapting this for a
school visit, I felt it would not be particularly successful, especially for
the age groups that are likely to be studying the Romans (KS3). It involved at
least 12 separate spots to visit, which meant we spent as much time walking
between the spots as we did visiting them. This may become tiring and confusing
for students, as well as being risk-heavy because we were walking around a busy
city centre. These stops were usually of minimal educational use, with around a
third of them simply parts of walls or stones without much explanation to give
them relevance (usually just a small plaque). They would benefit from drawings
of what those buildings looked like in Roman times, with the remaining parts
highlighted, so that students could imagine the scene for themselves. This
became repetitive and I believe students would begin to lose interest after the
first few stops.
However, the parts of the visit
that were museum-based were excellent and I believe students would be engaged -
the Yorkshire Museum has some excellent artefacts and interactive activities
which would assist children's learning, and the Roman Baths Museum had a
brilliant member of staff who gave us a great tour around and was more than
willing to answer any questions we had with considerable depth (and humour!).
This museum was also interactive, and children could try on Roman armour which
I imagine they'd really enjoy. However, the Baths Museum was very small and
potentially hazardous (low ceilings and the potential to fall from the pathway
throughout the museum), which would need a risk assessment. The small space
would mean this trail would need to be done on a rotation, as really only 10 or
so students could go into the museum and get the most out of it. This would be
viable for a group of 30 or so as that would involve only 3 rotations, but with
a whole year group it would be more difficult.
Overall, I feel this trail is
suited to smaller groups, who have a good background in the topic already and
whose teacher would have prepared resources to facilitate learning beforehand.
The trail is not pitched towards children, aside from the museum sections, and
so the teacher would need to adapt the trail with worksheets or charts for the
students to get the most out of the visit.
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| Emperor Constantine surveying Roman York today |
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