VIEWS & OPINION


Bringing learning to life: using immersive story- based learning to help students engage with the world around them


Comment by KAHIR ABDUL, World Studies teacher at St Mary Magdalene Church Gardens, a free school for pupils with special educational needs


As a World Studies teacher, I’m always looking for fun and innovative ways to get children engaging with different perspectives and cultures, to help broaden their outlook and challenge their thinking. I believe that helping pupils develop a rich understanding of the wider world and their valuable place within it, is fundamental in raising the next generation of compassionate and enlightened global citizens. This is vital for all children, but for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), who might struggle more to comprehend and empathise with new people and environments unfamiliar to them, it becomes even more important that we find ways to help them experience the world, to help lay the foundations for future success in life.


At St Mary Magdalene Church Gardens, we’ve been using immersive, story-based learning to create a virtual, global classroom, where pupils gain vital exposure to different countries and people. We have been linking our story-based World Studies to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which further provide a brilliant structure to facilitate cross-curricular learning.


For example, one of our main subject themes in World Studies has been Oral History, which encourages students to engage with local history and understand that everyone has a story to tell. Using an immersive learning platform called Lyfta, we have taken students to meet Kootyin, a young activist from Hong Kong to learn about the local oral history traditions. We’ve also virtually visited an Afghan bakery, to explore street life in Kabul through immersive 360° videos from the market. The children get to learn about a variety of topics, including the art of bartering and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Experiencing these small slices of life in such an immersive way, and discussing the themes and topics raised by them helps our students to develop a broad range of social-emotional skills.


Story-based immersive learning, which incorporates videos and 360° environments where students can virtually explore different communities and life experiences, is a powerful tool for independent working and facilitating class-based discussion. Students benefit from a highly sensory experience as they can explore the spaces and sounds and respond to questions about the topics raised, from what the person in the story might be feeling, to why they’re doing what they’re doing. This sensory style of learning helps students develop their critical thinking and self- awareness, as it asks them to reflect on what they’re seeing and helps them form their own opinions. The lessons have clear links back to the learning objectives and SDGs, while the image-rich, experiential format makes it more accessible and appealing for children with learning difficulties. We’ve also been connecting these global stories back to students’ own experiences, by asking them to bring in an oral history example from their own family.


Story-based learning has been wonderful for diversifying our curriculum and introducing children first-hand to global experiences they might not have considered, or perhaps only viewed through a certain lens based on what they see in the media.


April 2021


Engagement to drive radical empathy in education is key to change


Comment by FELICIA JACKSON, Chair of the Learn2Think Foundation


Everyone accepts that there is a generation of school children whose lives have been affected by the pandemic. Whether it is a lack of socialisation, negative impact on their learning progression, mental health issues arising from the uncertainty and insecurity driven by the pandemic, there are a lot of challenges to overcome. Given these, it is becoming increasingly important that we teach them to engage with empathy.


Radical empathy encourages people to actively consider another person’s point of view, even in the fact of strong disagreement, in order to connect with them on a deeper level. That connection is a fundamental element of building a strong social fabric. The recent controversy in Batley regarding the use of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed shows how badly things can escalate when there isn’t proper engagement and understanding between parties about meaning, intent and process.


While the school has apologised for the use of offensive cartoons in a religious studies lesson, a deeper understanding of the context (both the offence taken by the community and the intentions of the teacher) need to be considered. While the Department of Education issued a statement condemning the protests, doing so without addressing the concerns of the community only serves to build greater rifts between groups. People should be allowed to protest, but other people should also be allowed free speech. That is a hard line to walk in a country that is becoming increasingly divided.


The recent publication of the UK’s report from the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities has only complicated matters. The report caused an uproar but the findings were not that Britons could not be racist, but that the structural problems society faces are not necessarily racist.


For some this is proof of a post-racist Britain, for others proof that the status quo always wins out. What’s interesting though is the idea that it might be issues of education, health, language, religion, culture, that are both helping and hindering in how they play out. The report says, “The evidence shows that geography, family influence, socio-economic background, culture and religion have more significant impact on life chances than the existence of racism.” That means that we need to find new ways of talking to each other across a number of different divides.


In order to effectively drive systemic cultural change, we need to find new ways of opening debate about debate about the challenges faced within the system. That means engagement with opinions across the spectrum and the use of radical empathy to inform that engagement. One of the ways in which we can encourage this is the use of tools that provide an opening for discussion and the beginning of a more significant debate about how we embed fairness, empathy and understanding within our society.


As part of that process, Learn2Think is donating free copies of a book which helps to promote understanding across religious differences, by getting the conversation going within the curriculum. ‘Journey to the Beginning of the World’ is aimed at children aged 6-10 and explains a range of beliefs that people have about how the world was made, and that that is OK. For younger children there is another book available called ‘the IKADOOS and the Making of Planet IK’ which provides the same message in a highly colourful and fun way.


If you’re interested in receiving free copies you can email us at info@learn2think.org.uk.


www.education-today.co.uk 25


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