The sign is part of a system because it is a seal and it has a particular meaning for citizens of Oslo. On the seal there are different signs, for example the star, the lion and the arrow and they could be part of a religious symbolic system.

The seal could be used in several contexts and placed on different objects like flags, coins or precious objects of the royal family. 

The man on the coat of arms is probably a saint, maybe the city’s patron saint. I think this sign is very emblematic and it could be a good inspiration to make up a story about  its meaning.

We were inspired by Sagazan's performance transfiguration but we also took some inspiration from “Nøkken", a creature from Scandinavian folklore. The Nøkken is described as shapeshifter and it is associated with the element of water because it usually lives in lakes. Sometimes the Nøkken gets out of the lake and it turns into a beautiful creature to lure people into the lake and kill them. 

We called this video “Many faces” and we chose a background with different faces to represent the various shapes a Nøkken can have. However, in our video we reverse the roles because a beautiful woman is being turned into an awful Nøkken and not the other way around. The meaning of this choice is open for different interpretations. It could mean that we don’t have to trust apparence because a beautiful face could hide an evil person.

To transform the look of the woman we used different natural material such as clay, branches and leafs to recall the origins of Nøkken, who comes from nature and mud.

https://piratejewellery.com/norse-mythology/nokken-the-water-spirit-of-norse-mythology/

Juul, Lea, Sofia, Yvonne

How could they bring a story to life without giving the audience anything to look at? 

In this radiotheatre we tell the story of Charlie, a poor baker who attempts to win a baking competition organized by the king. By using the building blocks 'speech, sound effects, music and silence', the story is made interesting for the audience to listen to. The way the different characters are expressed through their voices shape an image of them to make the story even more real. 

Now sit back, close your eyes (if you want to), and enjoy...

What impressed me is that processed drama can be presented everywhere, you don’t need a stage and costumes but just your imagination. In class, for example, we used a piece of fabric and some paper to create our land, we used post-it to mark different place on the map and step by step we created our own world. Everybody contributed in the process by adding some details to our map and to our story. We all “signed a contract” by playing this game and since we all believed in the same story it started to became alive. It was very easy and natural for me to start improvising about our story because it appeared real to me, I felt part of that scenario and I just followed the flow.

After this experience I understood how process drama can be a very useful tool for teachers to involve all students and work on their needs.

References:
https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/articles-and-how-tos/articles/educators/theater/process-drama-taking-a-walk-in-someone-elses-shoes/

- It can be a way for the children to learn how to act in different situations, that you can bump into in the everyday life.
- They can also learn how to connect with their own emotions.
- It can help to expand the children's natural dramatic expression which it's important for the children's needs and their personal development.

Sources:

Guss, F. G. (2018). Barnekulturens Iscenesettelser 1 - Lekens dynamiske verdener. Cappelen Damm Akademisk.

https://ndla.no/subject:1:8c230faa-c1b1-4c16-b47a-490d8d7247cf/topic:3:195623/topic:2:47413/resource:1:47425

It is possible to help children that are dealing with difficult situations through stories. Narration can help them to give a meaning to what it is happening  and be reassured about the future.
According to Bettelheim fairytales are very important to help children in difficult situations because they don’t talk in an explicit way about problems but they speak to us in a language of symbols representing unconscious contents. He believed that the child needs to distance himself from the content of his unconscious and see it as something external to him to gain a mastery over it. The meaning of the fairytales doesn’t have to be explained by adults because it would overwhelm the child weakening the effect of the fairytale. 
Many contemporary stories for children are more explicit in addressing a specific problematic situation.

This week we read a book called “Angry man”, it is meant for children with fathers that struggle with controlling their emotions and have violent behaviour. The story is presented from the point of view of a boy who is very scared and confused by the behaviour of his dad. It is clear that the purpose of the book is to reassure children by saying that nwhat is happening is not their fault and suggesting a happy ending.
I don’t know if for a child in this kind of situation would have more impact a story like “Angry man” or a fairytales like “Hansel and Gretel” that is also about children treated badly by their parents. 
Even if I agree with Bettelheim about the importance of not explaining everything to a child about the meaning of a story, I think that also a more explicit story could help a child in a difficult time. By reading “Angry man” a child could understand that he is not alone in that situation, that it is not his fault and that a happy ending is possible.

References: 
Bettelheim B. (1976), The uses of enchantment: the meaning and importance of fairy tales

During the visit I took some pictures; at first I didn’t notice that in this photo there is a  chainsaw left on the ground close to the children. I would like to focus my attention on this detail because I think it says a lot about this kindergarten. Leaving a potentially dangerous object close to the children it means giving them trust. I don’t think that the chainsaw was left there by chance but probably the children know that they don’t have to touch it and that it is something  only for adults. When we give the children freedom and  simple shared rules we are giving them responsibilities. It means that we believe that they can handle the situation and that we trust them. In this way children are more responsible and it’s more probable that they will follow the rules.

Most of the time the problem is that we are afraid of giving  the children responsibilities. We are afraid that they can hurt themselves or we fear the reaction of the parents. I believe that to overcome this problem is very important to work on ourselves and with the families. If we share with the parents what we do, why we do it and we believe in it, they will support us. Only by sharing and supporting each other it is possible to build a reality like Småtjern barnehage.

This week we had a lecture about traumatized children in Palestine. It was the first time I had a lesson about this topic. As a future teacher I believe it is very important to know how to behave with children that faced traumatic experiences. Especially now that a war is happening very close to us and many traumatized children are hosted in schools in my country, I think teachers should receive a specific training about it.  A chronic trauma can cause serious problems with learning but

if we are able to identify the symptoms we can help the children.

There are many obstacles that the teacher has to face in order to help a traumatized child.

First of all, it can be very challenging to address a trauma because children often don’t express the distress they are feeling but they try to hide their emotions to teachers. Moreover, there are many ways to react to a traumatic experience and many times the symptoms are misdiagnosed as some of them can mimic other problems like ADHD.

Many times traumatized children struggle to form a bond with teachers because they don’t trust adults. So they push away the teacher that try to help them. 

Traumatized children often have trouble in managing strong emotions so they tend to over react. As a consequence teachers often have a negative perception of these children and they tend to punish them rather than support them to control their emotions. 

To connect with these children it is very important to give them positive attention, expressing kindness, warmth and patience even if it isn’t necessarily earned. In this way the teacher can form a positive relationship with these children and try to help them to restore the trust they lost in adults by showing them love.

References

https://childmind.org/article/how-trauma-affects-kids-school/

Then we decided how to structure the project. We wanted to start by asking to draw a hero or a villain to deduce their characteristics with the students but also to let them participate in an active way.

Then we told them the fairytale of Jack and the beanstalk as an example of fairytale where is difficult to say who is the hero and who is the villain. We also explained them the theory we know about Bettelheim. 

Thanks to this project I learned how to structure a workshop and I improved my skills

Moreover, it was very interesting to prepare a lecture for adults since I am used to do it only for children. I realised how similar it is for some aspects but also very different for others. For example the steps are the same because you have to start from the goals and then choose the activities to achieve them and you have to find a way to engage their attention especially at the beginning.

I chose this character, because she is one of the few I can relate to when it comes to ethnicity and culture. Growing up there were not many disney princesses or other characters that represented southeast asian culture. And children sometimes like to see fictional characters that look familiar to them. I remember when I was young, growing up in a small village here in Norway, there were not many people that looked like me. And sometimes I felt a little bit different from the others because of that. I remember when I saw other fiction characters that had similar looks and traits as me,  it made me feel calm to think that there are a lot more people out there that were like me and it made me feel less “different”. I also think many minority children from different places all over the world can relate to that sometimes. When the kids can identify with the characters in a story, the character can become a role model for them. So when the character is doing something good or bad the children will also feel the same emotions as them. Luckily many children's stories have good morals, and can lead to it influencing positivity in the child’s mindset.

Yvonne