Creating an intellectually safe community:
The Community Ball is the thread (or, shall we say, the yarn) that holds the philosophy circle together. Not only does it monitor the class by identifying the present speaker, but it, more importantly, empowers the students to communicate their own ideas, call on one another to speak, and self-regulate the course of the dialogue. It also provides a visual representation of the community itself. All the little pieces of yarn that make up the ball represent the members of the community-- the pieces are as diverse in color as the students are in thought and expression, yet unified at the center by the inquiry and their respect for one another. The very act of making the community ball together marks the beginning of our own creation of an intellectually safe community.
Directions and illustrations for making your own community ball:
Materials
* A folded piece of lightweight cardboard or posterboard
about 8 inches long and an inch wide
* A piece of heavy-duty string, to place in the middle of the cardboard-- make
it at least 2 inches longer-- on either side-- than the cardboard.
This is what will hold the ball together.
* Colorful yarn
Objectives
* to successfully make a community ball
* to introduce ourselves and get to know one another a little better
* to introduce fee-la-so-fee
* to do all this playfully-- thereby setting the tone for the whole year
The ball is made simply by wrapping yarn around and around the piece of cardboard (with the strong string sticking out from both ends) until it's pretty thick all the way around. Then the cardboard, but not the string, is pulled out of the clump of yarn. Next, tie the string as tightly as possible. You'll see how the yarn forms a loop from the center (it may, when tied tight enough, form a bagel shape). Cut the yarn at the top of this loop (or around the outside edge of the bagel) all the way around. Fluff the ball, shake out the loose yarn, and trim the long pieces and VOILA... a beautiful community ball!
(SEE DETAIL ILLUSTRATION below)
To do this in class, all the students should be seated on the floor in a circle so that everyone can see one another. Explain that as one person is wrapping the yarn around the cardboard, her neighbor can feed her yarn from the larger ball. Depending on the grade level (and this can, and should, be done with every grade level), ask the student to share some information about him/herself. In a kindergarten class, you may ask what they like to do. However, since this may not take enough time to get enough yarn wrapped around the cardboard, you can ask a follow-up question about what they have just shared or ask each student to repeat what the child before has just said. To complicate things at a higher grade level, you may want to ask each student to name something they like to do (or what they like to think about, etc.) that begins with the same letter as their first name and also to repeat what each and every student has shared up to her turn. This is not only creative and fun, but it also provides a nice heuristic devise to help remember each student's name at the beginning of the year.
Since this is the very first lesson, you may want to explain that what you are going to do each week, in this circle on the floor, with this ball, is called FEE-LA-SO-FEE and that Fee-la-so-fee is going to be so much fun because we can share our ideas together and have a great time learning. Because this is such a silly word to them, it's fun to say it as playfully and as dramatically as possible and then have them all join in.