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Building Belief


Week two in class (week four of school!) 

Feeling much better after this week of classes.

This week we started back in the company. The two logos that have been designed for The Company are "PROOF" and "TIB: THE INTELLIGENT BUNCH" and so, we decided that these are two divisions of The Company. I know this is branching away from Mantle, in that, I am making the call of what the company is named - but I made a quick, bad decision to have them make logos before we had locked in a name so this was my way of solving it. Hopefully, the two divisions will come to have two specalisations (eg. fingerprint analysis and data analysis) which they need inter-dependency on each for information.
Logo Designs 

We started class by talking about our office space. The learners were asked what areas we needed in our offices to complete our work to the high level of success we needed. A huge list was created and once it got started, it was hard to hold them back. Learners were then asked to draw either a whole space, or one item, in the office that they loved being in/around.

We came back together and learners grouped with those who were in their area. Despite being a group of 21, we negioated together where everything went. There was discussion around placement "that can't go there, we don't want people to know we have that" but all learners, from my observations, seemed interested in where areas where placed.

I then talked them through the space in an imaginary walk, embellishing on some of the offers they had given in their drawings. They then went away to write about their first day. Some of the stories were very detailed and elaborate. I had seen this initially as maybe a 10-15minute activity, but it ended up being just over 30mins that the spent on this. I was surprised that they kept asking, "can I write this..." to which I kept replying that it was their office and they knew what could fit in the world that they were creating as a class. Today, I didn't have to do so much of the reeling in the extremes of the imagination - there was a lot more acceptance of the realms of reality. I completed this activity by having learners write one sentence from their first day on a post it note. We went back to the office map plan and placed these on the map one at a time.


We ended this class by drawing up our ID cards. 

The second class was a Fingerprint analysis workshop, where we were going back in time - but our set up didn't quite met this. However, the learners had their lab coats on, they put on their company ID cards and were told they were undertaking some professional development. Some of the material to support their finger-printing workshop was referred to as being the company handbook. The students loved the practical workshop (and so did I). It was one of the first times that I have been in a practical 'science lesson' - and it was nice it being framed as part of a 'drama'. It was good timing to do this to keep the belief and buy-in of the company alive. 

I feel that I am walking a very thin line between this being MOTE and process drama. The biggest thing that has stood out to me this week, or over the last week as I have been reflecting, is that, MOTE is hard. You need to be 'in it' constantly to keep your game up. I haven't practiced MOTE in a good 8-10 months, and it shows. It's not something that you can easily pick up again after not being in it for awhile. This has really made me appreciate that it is a skill that needs to be constantly practiced. 

Again, much thinking is needed for where we go with this next week... 

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