What Can a Donkey Teach Teacher Students?

A new study year has started at Vestfold University College. I was responsible to facilitate activities for app. 100 new students in the beginning of their early childhood teacher education on Tuesday August 27th. Wishing to give them a memorable start I planned an assignment which would challenge them to solve a real problem: design an aid that can enable a dumb donkey to communicate by sound. The problem solving activity demanded collaboration with people they had just met and establishing a good learning atmosphere was one of the aims of the group work. The assignment was also meant to function as an introduction to what it can mean to be a student and invitation to use all senses, imagination and the whole body in their learning and teaching.

The main goals were:
- To become aware of that each student’s attitude, humor, imagination, curiosity, emotions, knowledge and skills count as valuable sources in a collaborative learning processes
- To experience creativity in practice and how imagination contributes to learning
- To experience that learning is an challenging process that demands attention, persistence and investment of personal efforts; that some things can only be understood thorough engagement in an activity; that emotional attachment and genuine will to solve a problem (in this case motivated by empathy for the donkey) matters in learning;

The assignment had two main parts: First the students were asked to discuss a design of an aid for the donkey and had possibility to measure or test it. One group for instance tested the donkey’s ability to band it’s neck by putting apple pieces on the it’s back. The students were to make a drawing of the aid and explain on a poster how the aid would be used.

The second part of the assignment was to make a pedagogical plan that could be used to teach the donkey to use the aid. Such plan could be based on observation of the donkey, information about donkeys on internet, students own experiences from animal training or similar. The donkey was present during the three hours the students were working on the assignment, thus some of the students were much faster in finished the assignment - they still don’t know that assignment like this could last for days or months, depending on the level of going in-depth. One of my hopes was indeed to motivate the students to engage with assignments that their teachers plan in order to facilitate their learning. If they are eager to learn, refusing an assignment only because it seems silly is not an option. However silly (or call it creative or imaginative) it can lead to insights and experiences that could not be imagined in advance. If learning leads to new insights, how can we ever know in advance what we will come to understand? But being enriched with new experiences can last forever…

The event was covered by journalists from NRK (Norwegian national TV- channel) with a radio report, internet news and regional TV program Østafjells on august 27th (please rewind to 13 minutes and 30 seconds in the show). Though they focused mostly on the funny and cute sides of the event, the publicity was good for the new preschool teacher education, for me, and of course for donkeys.

Photo: Jan Gulliksen NRK