MOMENT OF THE SPIRITIST TEACHER – SHARING EXPERIENCE

         I formed two groups at first, after talking about Kardec, and gave two puzzles for them to assemble. The Spiritist teacher may take several portraits of Kardec, taking into account the amount of students and the ability level of each of them. You could also form small groups and get each group to assemble one single figure.

         In the second part I told the story of Allan Kardec with the aid of a TV made from a cardboard box: the cardboard part which represented the front of the TV was slightly larger than an A4 sheet of paper. There were two broomsticks that passed from one side to the other of the box; there were a hole on both sides (top and bottom of the cardboard box), located very close to the front of the box.

         The drawings that are to be used for this presentation must be printed in "landscape" option (file - page setup) and pasted in sequence. The first drawing should be glued to the upper part of cable broom and the last drawing should be glued to the lower part of the cable broom (please make sure it’s centralised). All drawings shall be rolled to the bottom broom cable at the start of the presentation. Turn the upper part of the cable so that the drawings will emerge as you are telling the story.

         In the beginning all the children wanted to see how the TV worked; they felt curious. I asked them twice to sit down in order to watch Kardec’s story, but they didn’t listen to me. As they came over close to me for the third time, I then asked how they behaved when they were watching TV. I said: - Sitting in silence! I didn’t need to say anything else; they all sat down and watched the presentation carefully. I showed them how the TV worked at the end of the presentation.

         In the fourth part of this lesson I gave them a puzzle of each book inside an envelope so that each child could unravel their books. On the fifth part of the lesson I let each child chose the drawing they would like to paint and asked what each figure represented for them.

         I started to take photos of figures I presented, during the time I told them the Kardec’s story, while they painted. The children, as they were painting, started to blame each other: some started to criticise others who could not paint; others said one child painted very badly, etc. Criticisms kept on coming from the children. I decided to intervene in by saying: - Please be rest assured I'll judge each painting at the end, when everyone is finished painting! When everyone showed me the drawings they painted at the end, some asked me to grade their work as I had promised. I realized that those who were not putting their efforts on the work improved their paintings quite a lot. Although some were very badly painted, I established a minimum score of 6.0 for them in order not to discourage the children. I gave the highest score of 10.0 for the best painted design. They will surely try doing better in the next opportunity.

         I found other activities on the net that can cater for a crowd who is already literate, which was not the case with mine.