"Let's do it!"
Let's do it...
Variation: "Like This"
Like let's do it, swapping ideas for activities, only in this case the activity is always the first time for the partner so the initiator has to explain/show how to do it -- "like this..."
Argument Clinic
In this activity a "client" enters an Argument Clinic like the one in the famous Monty Python sketch.
As in the original, one person is the client, the other the Arguer. Also as in the original, there is a time limit.
The objective is simple: to argue just for the sake of arguing. No need to repeat the Monty Python sketch, just feel free to be disagreeable, contentious, contrary.
Variations:
The Flattery Clinic: Client enters room. Greets flatterer. Flattery ensues. Time limit.
Oni ha Soto! Variation 2: Beat the Fears
Two variations by Lo Manho, with a few adjustments by MN.
“Beat the fears”
- Joker separates the class into two groups: Demons and People.
- The Demons have to make a list of twenty five things that the people in this particular learning group (e.g. university students, Sanitation workers) strongly fear, writing each fear on a separate index card. Ideally it should be something specific to that group, but people should feel free to name basic human fears, like death, too.
Oni ha Soto! Variation 1
Variation by Hirabayashi Shunichi, with a few adjustments by MN.
Make a list of fears in advance, to save time. From the list, players vote for the top 10 fears that they have. Of course, they can add another words not on the list, but the number of fears should be the same as the number of demons.
Divide the participants into two groups. One group is the people, the other is the Demons. Each Demon will choose one fear to represent, keeping this secret from “the people.” The Demons will draw masks that somehow express – without words or symbols – the fear that they represent.
Love Speech
I got this idea when a member of the Human Rights Study Group of the Tokyo Sanitation Workers Union gave a presentation on Hate Speech and Racism. It is always good to stretch before running, to loosen up our conceptions and assumptions.
The Flow:
The Joker writes the words Hate Speech on the board. Check if everyone understands the concept, maybe ask for a definition.
Then write "Love Speech" on the board and ask for examples, explaining that we are looking at the opposite of Hate Speech.
You can then have people practice making love speeches, slogans, or posters.
Superpowers
Borrow Lo's activity idea with reference to the superheros activity from Kani maybe... idea is to use metaphor of superpowers and oversized villains....
If I had a hammer...
I got this idea from Adiwena (like many Indonesians, he has no last name), a student who responded to the Spiral Model I presented with his own Web of Learning, a model of learning in which the learner is at the center, engaging with a variety of teachers and classes, each of which offers something potentially valuable. The learner has to find the best way to learn in each context, making the most of resources available, and weaving the various courses into the web or pattern of learning s/he needs or desires.
Bullshit! or The Fourth Grace.
Like the card game of the same name (AKA "I doubt it."), which plays on the joy of lying and the fear of discovery. Mark Twain described lying as "a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend." It is also a fundamental language skill that should not be neglected.
The flow:
- Give every player 5-15 blank index cards.
The Electrician's Navy-Beans
In his autobiography, Leon Trotsky tells the story of meeting an old electrician and Narodnik named Ivan Andreyevich Mukhin. As Trotsky tells it, Mukhin used navy beans to give a lesson in revolution. As you're sorting out your feelings about Trotsky and the Russian Revolution, consider this learning activity.
If this meeting were a cup of coffee... radar charts for evaluation
I have given up using the evaluation technique in which you ask people, "If this meeting were a pair of shoes, what kind of shoes would they be? Roman Sandals? Pumps? Flippers?" Or, "If this workshop was a cup of coffee what kind of coffee would it be? Espresso? Turkish coffee? Soy or whole milk?" (I like that kind of thing, but I have found that not everyone does!)
But, we can borrow a tool used to evaluate coffee and other things to evaluate our work: the radar chart. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_chart)
