This game, loosely based on "Philipps 66" in Técnicas Participativas Para la Educación Popular, is a way to introduce background information from Wikipedia (and such) through engaged reading and summarizing.
The Flow:
In the old days, silent films were often shown with music and a voice-over provided by live players. In Japan, the narrators were called benshi. (Akira Kurosawa's brother was a benshi, a leader of the benshi union until talkies came in and he committed suicide.)
Richard Hering, from http://visionon.tv/ introduced this technique for making and uploading short videos in our English for Activists class in Tokyo.
They call it "Video Citizen Journalism," but, since not all of us are citizens of the countries in which we find ourselves, I prefer grassroots journalism or just smartphone journalism.
In any case, they have a handy leaflet that explains the most simple method, the One Shot News Report: http://streetreporter.org/en/tools
I learned this technique for "video citizen journalism" from Richard Hering in a workshop he did for our English for Activists class in Tokyo. Seems like a great tool for activists that can also be a great tool for learners. The key factors are immediacy, a clear simple structure, and low technical barriers: you use the video camera on your phone, a simple formula for organizing content, and no editing or effects. (See remoscope for a similarly direct approach.)
In this activity, the joker uses drawings to tell a story without speaking.
The flow:
Joker deals playing cards to participants, two or three cards each. (To equalize participation but maintain some freedom to choose when to participate use playing cards as talking chits.)
Filmmaker Emiko Aono introduced this approach to participants in the media working group of Labor Now, the Tokyo-based labor research and activist group. (www.jca.apc.org/labornow) I have doubts about the theoretical project of overcoming the difference between spectator and performance, especially since reading Ranciere's Emancipated Spectator. But I think this technique is perfect for practicing the attentive seeing and verification that is central to emancipated learning. For more information see http://remoscope.net/
Verification is a key concept/practice for Jacotot's ignorant schoolmaster. Often it is a question of verification through reference to a shared object of study. ("I see ten people in this picture." -- Really? I see six, let's check...) But verification is also about testing mutual understanding between individuals, and, as such, about recognition.
In the 1980's in NYC I first heard someone use the term "she-roes" to emphasize the role of women in history and society. Not being so interested in the concept of "heroes" -- I believe with Debs that people have waited too long for some Moses to lead them out of bondage, waiting for a Joan of Arc to lead us out is equally problematic -- I didn't think much about the term. But it stayed in my mind, like an advertising jingle or a virus. The fact is, I use figures like Debs to orient myself, to represent my aspirations, to express that which I dream of being in some way.
Sometimes, after a long period of using different ideas and tools, you find how they fit together, like cylinders aligning in a padlock.
Me --> You
I learned this game from Ogawa Shimpei, Miyamoto Takahiko, and Tanano Syoji, students in a course I teach at Meiji University. I have made some changes.
The Flow:
Jokers ask participants to stand in a semi-circle or U shape, facing away from the opening of the U.
