day three – teaching through graphics

I write the word "contrast" on a flipchart in the Party Room of the Hotel. Thirty-five teachers write the word "contrast" in their notebooks. I’m showing them how they can use symbols in their day to day teaching. Smiley faces. Stick figures. how they can create a huge variety of moods and styles with very simple changes. How two dots and a line can transform almost anything into a face. And then I show them how to structure a very simple story that can involve everyone in the class in making decisions about what happens next. They aren’t too sure how this works so I make them do it with me, and we create the story of a tree and a piece of chalk. Tree wants to get water for her roots. Chalk is scared of water. Tree gets water and while watering her roots she spills some on the chalk who is partially dissolved.

Chalk is very upset! How can we fix this? Tree gives Chalk a new body made from her branches and now Chalk is taller than all the other pieces of chalk at school and they are all envious of him.

During lunch my passport is taken away to be photocopied; I had asked to visit the Capitol Complex and although it is closed on weekends we will be able to go. When we arrive, we are taken to the office of the ranking official on duty. He insists on rechecking all the papers and restamping, rephotographing my passport even though the permission had only been issued hours earlier. Oh, but not by his office though…

This would be maddening if it weren’t for the fact that we have to go up to the fifth floor for restamping/photocopying so I get to see some of the inside of the Secretariat, a beautifully bleak, shiny floored warren of cubicles, glass walls, colour coded areas and endless corridors with ovoid shapes punched out of the walls. Once they are satisfied the papers are in order we get to go up to the roof of the Secretariat and look over the complex, to the Legislative Assembly moored in a sea of concrete and pools of water and the High Court, only dimly visible through the atmospheric haze that covers the city.

We walk back down through the Secretariat’s twisting, sloping ramps, splashed by light from the openings in the walls, me stopping to look through the gaps and snap photos that will look like the set of some futureworld action zone. We pass through another two check points to get to the back of the Legislative Assembly, where we just have time to walk along a long concrete gantry to the side of the building and gaze at the curved roof, reflected in the water alongside it. But looking across towards the High Court I think I can see… off in the distance beyond the long concrete plaza… yes. I can see a giant hand through the trees. I start walking in that direction. But the phone rings. We have to get back to the library for my afternoon session.

We arrive back at the British Library. The reception area is so filled with children there is hardly anywhere to stand or sit. I am going to do with these children what I talked about this morning with their teachers. We will create a story using rules that give us a structure to invent from. Two characters, one setting, some likes and dislikes.

Go. They shout, I draw an adventure with a martian (who likes killing) and an egyptian mummy (who likes drinking blood). The martian arrives on earth looking for humans to eat. A human tries to escape by giving the martian chocolate. The martian thinks the chocolate is absolutely delicious. But he still eats the human anyway. Then he goes to egypt because he can see there is an amazing chocolate fountain next to a pyramid. The mummy is busy drinking human blood. He comes out to see who is stealing his chocolate. He tells the martian, the chocolate is mine but you can have a human instead. Here's one I drained of blood earlier. The martian eats the human. And then he eats the mummy. The end!

You are a very bloodthirsty bunch, I tell them and they all happily agree. Shall we make another story? This time our heroes are a giraffe called Julie (who likes dancing) and an ant (who likes helping everyone). Julie wants to get into the Fancy Hotel because she really wants to use the toilet. There aren't any toilets in the jungle. The hotel manager says no animals in the hotel. Our guests wouldn't like it. Sophie is terribly upset but the ant pops up and says, hey, I know where there's a good animal toilet. At the zoo! In her haste to get to the zoo Julie steps on the ant. Oh no! At ant hospital they know exactly what to do. They reinflate him and he's all better. He goes to see Julie the giraffe in jail and tell her off for being so clumsy.

They let the giraffe out of jail and is this end of our story? No! She has been wanting to go to the toilet for so long she can't hold it anymore – the ant is washed away in a huge flood of stinky giraffe weewee! Oh no! Poor ant!

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