Developing Emotional Intelligence in the Primary School by Colverd Sue;Hodgkin Bernard; & Bernard Hodgkin

Author:Colverd, Sue;Hodgkin, Bernard; & Bernard Hodgkin [Colverd, Sue & Hodgkin, Bernard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2022-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Experiencing and integrating positional drama

Metaphors for emotional understanding

The use of metaphor is very powerful for emotional learning. Metaphor allows children to visit and make sense of situations and issues in a safe way. We can look at life through the window of someone else’s experience.

When I was directing an adopted young people’s project, the children devised a story to perform for their parents. Some of the children in the group had been recently placed with their adoptive families; others had been with their adoptive parents for a period of two to three years. The play the children devised was about a princess who lived in a castle. By day she walked with her cat in a beautiful garden, while by night a wicked ogre, who lived in the tower of her castle, would come and trample on all the flowers in her garden. She ran away from the castle but she was spotted by the orgre’s spies who took her into a forest. A prince rescued her and took her to his parents who looked after them both. They returned to the princess’ castle and the ogre was told off by everyone. At the end of the play the children lined up and each spoke to the ogre in turn, saying things like “Stop hurting people” or “Go away”. One boy had joined in the games but was too agitated to take part in the devising process. He had been in the room drawing our “set” on flip chart pages with social workers who were supporting the project and he had decided to hold these pages up as a back ground to the action. At the end of the play I asked him if he wanted to say anything to the ogre. He marched up to the boy who was playing the ogre and said, “Be kind!” The play the children devised describes a safe garden being destroyed after dark by a dangerous creature. The girl escapes, but spies take her into a dangerous forest. A prince rescues her and takes her to a safe place where there are kind adults. The adults, the prince and princess return to the ogre and are empowered to face him and have a voice. The play, of their own making, is a metaphor for their stories. In making the story and experiencing it they act out a different ending where they return to the ogre and tell him off. Even though their retribution in the soft language of the little boy is “Be kind!” they are giving themselves power in their situation.

Daniel Golman talks about the game of “Purdy” where, in an elementary school playground in California in 1989, the children re-enacted a real event where a gunman (Patrick Purdy) visited the playground and fired a submachine-gun into the crowds of hundreds of children before killing himself. Five children died and twenty-nine were wounded. Many of the children suffered from post traumatic stress following the event as well as hyper-vigilance. Many would not go out into the playground again or became fearful of sirens and loud bangs.

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