HOW TO LIVEN UP YOUR CLASSROOM WITH A POD OF WHALES

Tamar Griggs teaches in the public schools of Vancouver a program she has developed and calls Whale Workshops. She says, "Science is not an isolated entity that is learned solely through memory and experiment. It is integrated into a creative environment that focuses on the child. of the children: reaching as well as the intellect."

Our approach involves the direct experience the imagination and touching the feelings Miss Griggs has given us permission to reprint excerpts from her talk at the National Whale Symposium, University of Indiana, November, 1975.

"Whale Workshops grew out of my exploring just what it is to be alive as a human being. The subjects we cover are biology, myth, evolution, whaling and conservation. The expressions that we work through are dance, drama, painting, and writing. We work with feelings, imagination, intuition, and thought. It is a total involvement for children.

"The aims of the Workshop are two fold: 1) to help children become aware of nature by giving them an immediate experience which awakens interest and concern for the natural world, and 2) to help children develop their inner resources. At the core of the workshops, therefore, is the child and whales. Both are the focal point. In the workshops they are inter-woven so that at times the child stands outside of the whale, looking at factual information, and at other times he is "inside" the whale. There is a dynamic connection between the child and whales: out there is a magically huge creature we are studying whose survival is directly affected by humans. And yet the whales are inside us because we can relate to them only by our personal feelings and thoughts.

Lowe work largely through the children's bodies because it is a vivid way of getting the children involved. We ask the children to feel their own backbones and to imagine what it would be like if they couldn't bend or twist their backs. Whales are incredibly supple and graceful in their motion.

'We pull the shades down and ask the children to curl up on the floor with their eyes closed and to imagine the entire room is filled with water - slowly they are to grow as big as the room and swim around as if they were whales. After they have had this experience, they are much more sympathetic to others. "One of the most surprising things about whales is that they are mammals, yet they spend their entire life in the oceans. Being mammals, they breathe air. So we work a lot on breath with the children. Here's how it goes:

1. Put your hands on your ribs, feel their shape, how they expand and contract as you breathe.
2. If you were a whale, where would your blowhole be? Close your eyes, put your fingers on your nose and slowly move them up you forehead, over the top of your head to the back of your neck. That's where your blowhole would be if you were a whale.
3. Now, what happens when the whale comes to the surface to breathe? What does it do? (let out air) What happens to its blowhole? (opens) so it opens its blowhole and lets the air out. Then what does it do? (breathes in..and?... closes its blowhole). Whales make a tremendous sound as they let their air out. On quiet days it can be heard for several miles.
4. Can one of you make the sound of the whale breathing? Everyone try it on your own.
5. Now could you make a blowhole out of your hands?
6. Let's try to make the sound of one whale breathing. First let me see your hands above your head. Open them and close them. At the count of three you will hold your breath, close your blowhole and when 10 seconds are up (I'll count them) you are all to let out your air, inhale quickly and close your blowhole. READY?
7. "This may develop into making a blowhole and spout out of the children's bodies. And eventually you may build an entire whale with each child becoming a part of the animal.

"This is a graphic way of learning. By feeling your Own body and getting a sense of its shape, you can better appreciate the form of an alien species. You are identifying with another life form through exploring the differences and similarities between you. And pretty soon you can have a classroom where.....

All the whales are swimming together
And eating together
And bumping heads together
And having fun together with pleasure*

*There's a Sound an the Sea: a film and manual (film script and teacher's resource unit on whales) may be purchased for $75.00 from the writer and producer Mr. Michael Robert Hoyt, 3922 Rickover Road, Silver Spring. Maryland 20902. May also be rented from the Defenders of Wildlife, 1244 Nineteenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 for $35.00. The original pictures in There's a Sound in the Sea of whales painted by elementary school children are available in an exhibition through General Whale, P.O. Box Whales, Alameda, California 95401.