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The "Roman Theme Park" Project
Dorothy Heathcote once led a Mantle of the Expert project with a class of 8-year olds on the topic of Romans in Britain. It was based on Chesters Roman Fort (which the children had recently visited). The “commission” for the children was to create a museum or “theme park,” “to help visitors know more about Roman Britain.”
Dorothy once said that, in planning, she did not plan “forward,” but rather, she set out a “landscape” of possibilities, “that are to be explored and interrogated.” Here is a "mind-map," or “dendrite of possibilities,” which Dorothy produced for the project.
Unless otherwise stated, all quotes are from a training event at Ringsfield Hall in 2009, which focused on the Romans project.
The centre of the project
Dorothy said that every Mantle of the Expert project should have a centre – a “lode-bearing idea.” (1) In this case, she decided the centre would be the clash of cultures between the Romans and the native Celts:
what did the Celts understand, and what was their culture? And what did the Romans understand, and what was their culture?
She wanted to get away from the common perception that the Romans were
the clever-dicks, and the Celts the idiots … So we were after, from the very beginning, that here were two nations, each in their way sophisticated; each in their way with their own beliefs in the gods – neither being Christian. And so we were heading all the time for: whatever clever-dicks the Romans thought they were, Boudicca [as representative of the Celts] … had the answer from her own people.
(1) “Scaffolding for Realisation” by Dorothy Heathcote, NATD Journal Vol. 27 No.2, 2011.
The “frame”
Throughout the project, Dorothy stressed:
I am not ever going to ask children to “be Romans.” … We’re all bent, as true historians always are, on trying to fathom out what might have gone on, with the information we’ve got… They don’t have to “be” Romans. They don’t have to "be" Ancient Britons.
In the “museum” or “theme park” context, they are demonstrators:
They demonstrate how they feel it might have been done. So, in the very act of creating the work [e.g., displays in the “museum”], they are creating the work of one who demonstrates. (1)
At the same time, it is clear from Dorothy’s account of the project, that there were two things running side by side. Within the overall frame of “theme park designers,” the children also participated in a series of drama episodes, in which they took on the point-of-view of Romans, living in an isolated fort, and facing threats from local tribes. The episodes included, for example, an encounter with Boudicca.
At the same time, there were always “research” tasks, which were related to the drama, and to the “commission” (to create a “theme park”). For example, in preparing to meet Boudicca, the children had to decide whether or not to go in full armour – which led to research into “the detail of Roman armour which will later be … demonstrated in some way in the theme park” (2).
The children, then, were both thinking inside the situation – when they took on the point-of-view of “Romans” – and outside the situation, as “theme park designers,” switching between the two.
(1) Dorothy Heathcote Video Archive, G:14 (University of Central England, 1993); (2) “Scaffolding for Realisation” by Dorothy Heathcote, NATD Journal Vol. 27 No.2, 2011.
The Commission
The image shows the “commission letter” which the children received.
Dorothy was working through Mantle of the Expert. However, the children were addressed in the letter as themselves, rather than as an expert team – even though the letter itself is a fictional, not a real commission.
She only had a limited time with the class – not long enough, it seems, to set up an “expert” team; so it had to be a straight “commission.” (We can assume his would have been made clear to the children.)
The children had recently visited Chesters Roman Fort; and this was the starting point for the “commission.” Here is an extract from the “commission letter”:
From the office of Viscount Holme-Pierrepoint
Dear Miss Burns
I was interested to hear from you when we met recently at Chesters Roman fort, that you and your students are currently researching Roman Britain. I am writing to enquire whether your work at Chesters might help me in fulfilling a request in my dead wife’s will. At the time of her death two years ago she was considering leaving a substantial sum of money to enable a Roman Study Centre to be built near to the site of the Ancient Chesters Fort, so that visitors could better understand what an important part of our British history the Roman occupation of our land played. […]
Could we discuss this further? My secretary the Honorable Dorothy Holme-Pierrepoint could meet you and your colleagues to take this matter further...
Yours sincerely, Pierrepoint
Presumably the role of the "Honorable Dorothy Holme-Pierrepoint" was played in time by Dorothy herself!
There is a notable shift in language in the letter – from speaking about the children as “students,” to referring to them as “colleagues.” This shift itself may be seen as a way of encouraging the “Mantle” view. It implies that even though the children were themselves, they were, in effect, assuming a frame or point-of-view - as if they were becoming an “expert team.”
Planning chart
In her planning chart, Dorothy wrote that the purpose of introducing the letter was to remind the children
of their visit to Chesters fort. To introduce the notion of “colleagues.” To introduce the curriculum domain. To “promise” a future meeting when decisions must be made. To model a type of letter-heading, picture, date etc.
She notes that, in introducing the letter, she was using “Convention 17.” This is a reference to her “33 Conventions for Dramatic Action.” No. 17 is: “An account of a person written as if from that person, but read by someone else, e.g. a diary or a letter.”
Dorothy observed:
One of the things I find in starting Mantle of the Expert - no matter who the children are [in the drama], they should be able to do the first task, and feel they can do it. So the first task in this case was to read and decode the letter. The next task was to reply to it - so of course, they can do that…
It mustn't be they feel helpless at the beginning, because they don't know enough. You know, if you're going to run the great stables that Eurystheus or somebody looked after, it's just mucking out, isn't it? Anybody can muck out muck; and from that, the great Augean … stables with the mighty horses, will be born from the seeds of sweeping up, mucking out, and not wasting straw.
It has to be a simple seeming task [that is at] the heart of it; so that, from the very beginning, they are grown up, active and behaving - and feeling confident in it.
"Case Study"
In history-based projects like this, Dorothy often chose to focus on a “case study” of an individual or group. The focus of this project was a “case study” about a fictitious Roman Centurion, Drucus Pollio, and the villa where he lived.
(She based this, very loosely, on a novel by Henry Treece, "The Bronze Sword," about a Roman soldier, Drucus Pollio, who is enjoying retirement in Britain when his peace is shattered by the Boudiccan uprising.)
The focus on the Centurion would bring in war and conquest, Roman forts, and contacts and dealings with indigenous people; and the villa where he lived would open up
the whole field of when you're off duty. And the villa can only be owned by somebody, and I’ve invented … Drucus Pollio.
So we've got a story here that I’ve prepared and written, but all the conventions we’ll be using is to make sure Drucus Pollio is at the heart of it.
Part of the children’s responsibility was to the “client” who commissioned the theme park; but it was also to
the honouring of the people named in the case study of the fort and the household of Drucus Pollio, Centurion.
Some history teachers might balk at this use of “fictional” elements and documents. However, the teacher can make it clear throughout that it is fictional. As Dorothy observed:
We are recognising this fictional life is actually following the same track as an authentic - that is, actual - life experience; and so it is truthful, while not being actually true life. (1)
The fictional context and "case study" approach would, nevertheless, enable students to learn about the real history of the Romans in Britain. The focus on an individual - Drucus Pollio - would give the history a "personal" / "human" dimension. In researching his story, and creating the "theme park," students would be thinking like historians. A fictional context not only allows more flexibility in planning or in creating materials; it means that the students have more freedom to shape the work. This does not mean, of course, that you could not do the drama about an actual person or place.
(1) Quoted in Dorothy Heathcote: A Model for Alchemical Leadership by Bogusia Matusiak-Varley (PhD, 2016).
Four Roles
In one early session, four teachers were in role, as people in the story of Drucus Pollio. They were positioned in the room when the children entered as if they were effigies, with a written statement next to them with information about them.
This is an example of Dorothy using a drama convention to make a person seem real or “present” in the drama. Here she is using Convention No. 3: “The role present as in 'effigy'. It can be talked about, walked around, and even sculptured afresh if so framed.” The use of the “effigy” convention helped to make these people “present” for the children.
Dorothy observed:
Now, what the conventions do is make an “other” present. It brings to the notice an “other.” Because our whole Roman study to create our theme park is this Centurion. So the uses of the conventions in this case will be: how can you keep remembering [that] Drucus Pollio is our main centre of the theme park?
Dorothy created a series of statements about the people, which were written large, and which formed the basic information the children were given about the people in the story. This is the statement Dorothy prepared about Drucus himself. It’s an example of how she condensed information in a highly selective way.
It begins: “I am to represent Drucus Pollio.” Each statement began this way: “I am to represent…” (etc.). Dorothy observed that the word “represent” here, was designed to maintain in the minds of the children the idea of creating a theme park, “where everything represents how things may have been.” (1)
The statement goes on:
I am now retired. I was for XXX years a Centurion of the first cohort of the IXth Legion. I hold II battle honours: “The Oak Leaf” from the battle of Glevum and the “Bronze Eagle” from the battle at Deva. I wear “the gift of safe passage” bestowed on me by Queen Boudicca of the Iceni people.
IIn some notes which she added to the statement, she observes:
How many inferences are embedded?
How much research and verification implied?
Consider the terms “bestowed,” “hold” “wear,” and the implications arising for behaviour, recognition, design and tasks to be experienced in social events.
The statements Dorothy created were the key texts in the drama, and the focus of the children’s “research” into the “case study.” In the texts, she gave the children some information about key people in the story. Besides Drucus Pollio, there was: his mother-in-law; an orderly; and a former slave and charioteer. Dorothy observed that in each of the stories,
I have stressed bondings. In the case of the orderly, for example, there is a “bonding” with his master: he looked after his weapons, and now he looks after the household. In the case of the former slave, there is a bonding with the horses he looks after – and through the horses, to Drucus Pollio. (2)
Dorothy also
tried to inbuild many questions; that, as the children begin to consider this household and this villa, they would be interested to know about the people. I mean, a fairly crude one would be [speaking to teachers in role as Drucus Pollio etc.]: “Where you when the fire - when they raided? Which way did they come in?” These short texts formed the basis of all the work in the drama. (2)
Below are the "cards" for the other roles.
Sources: (1) “Scaffolding for Realisation” by Dorothy Heathcote, NATD Journal Vol. 27 No.2, 2011; (2) video of teacher training event at University of Central England, Dorothy Heathcote Video Archive E:8, May 1992.
The texts suggest the intertwining of different cultures, but also provide openings into research into the tribes of Ancient Britain – Brigante, Iceni, Coritani – and into possible tensions and differences in the process of cross-cultural dialogue and exchange. Thus, the project extends much more widely than the customary focus, in teaching about Roman Britain, on the Roman elite. It also resonates with other situations in the present-day, where different cultures mix and clash.
Students might be asked to consider what other roles might be represented in the “theme park,” in order to show an even wider cross-section of society (e.g., agricultural workers, traders and shopkeepers, crafts-workers, teachers, etc.) ; and create descriptions for them, like Dorothy’s.
There is an additional text, that gives an outline of the situation: it describes a raid on Drucus Pollio’s villa by some of Queen Boudicca’s forces; and the kindness Drucus shows towards Keromac, Boudicca’s nephew, who is injured in the raid. This creates, Dorothy saw, more possibilities for “interaction between cultures.”
Four Roles
The teachers-in-role were introduced to the children as people who had worked previously in museums about Roman life, and they had been asked to come here, to help in planning this new museum. So it was clear they, too, were part of this enterprise, to “fathom out what might have gone on,” and find ways to represent it.
The roles, Dorothy explained, could be presented simply as "effigies"; or they could later be brought to life, to tell something of their part in the “story.” The plan was that, later in the project, the children themselves would represent roles in the museum.
At an early point in the project, Dorothy spread out a number of sketches of life in a Roman town and villa. She told the participants, in groups, to select a picture.
Have some people in the picture, because we shall be representing the people in the picture. And in the picture, you will find they’re always doing something.
She told them to “just make it happen, like the picture”. (This was not, she observed, a case of creating “freeze-frames”: “It is identifying with the task.”)
Then, she used a strategy that she believed could get children “very quickly to be able to go deeply.” It’s a way of examining the motives behind even a simple-seeming action. She broke this down into “five levels of investment.” The “levels” are:
1: I do this…
2: My motive is…
3: My investment is…
4: My models are…
5: So this is how life should be….
The account below explains how she used the strategy in the Roman Britain project. It also includes Dorothy’s own comments on the process.
Going to the heart of the event
Dorothy said to the group:
So you create pictures, and I'm going to come round, and I'm going to just ask you one question: “What are you doing?” And I only want you to tell me what you are doing. Don't start telling me how are you feeling, or what the world’s like. I only want to know - you know, like, “I am cleaning my sword.” Not: “because.” I don't want to know that.
So she went to a group, frozen in position, and tapped the first person on the back.
DH: What are you doing?
ANSWER: I am carrying meat
DH: You are carrying meat.
She moved round the group, asking each person the same question – and always repeating what they said, but rewording it a little.
DH COMMENT: So this stage, I am amplifying, and I'm creating, in Goffman's terms … "domestic-classic" statements.
The group then had to write down their statements – “You put exactly down what you said to me.”
DH COMMENT: The trouble is, you know, when adults do it, they start complicating it. Children don't. They look at the picture. They say, "Well, I'm doing that" - and that's all you need: the act.
Then, she returned to the first person in the group again, and asked the next question:
DH: Why are you doing that?
ANSWER: Because there's a big feast.
DH COMMENT: You’re going from task to motive. And this is one of the important things about the art of drama: there must be a motive for doing the task.
The third time she went round the group, the question was: “Why is it important?”
DH: Why is it so important that you carry meat for the feast?
ANSWER: So it's as fresh as it can possibly be.
DH COMMENT: There's much more complications now … You see how it's expanding? You can almost see it, like going out into space.
The fourth question:
DH: Where did you learn this?
ANSWER: I learned this from my father. He was a good cook.
The final question was: “So how should life be for the likes of you?”
DH: So how should life be for those who chop meat?
ANSWER: They should always use meat which is fresh and well-prepared.
DH COMMENT: And somebody might say, "I must never cut my fingers off." This is when you get surprises. And it's a very deep question to ask a small child.
Here’s another example. One group had an image of a Roman surgeon, who was about to cut the leg of a sick soldier. The soldier had obviously been wounded in battle (he still had part of his armour on); his leg was exposed, and part of an arrow was lodged in it.
One group of girls took the picture. These were the answers she got.
What are you doing?
“I'm taking an arrowhead … out of the soldier.”
Why?
“We want to find out about the arrowheads, whether they are poisonous.”
DH COMMENT: You’d expect something much more simple.
What is your investment?
“I want him to live.”
Where did you learn this?
“When I was apprenticed to be a doctor.”
So how should life be?
“You never give up, as long as there's breath.”
DH COMMENT: And that's what I mean by how it surprises us, because of where the particular understanding is. So some, you get what I'd call the sensible, straightforward answer. “He would die if I don't do it” is a sensible, straightforward answer. There aren't any wrong answers, and there are no right answers. But it's when you get to “How should life be?”, they've had to have gone through [to a deeper level]; because everything you do in your life is based in: how should life be?
She used an example from her own life.
There's a scrap of paper on the floor, and I pick it up. I am picking up a piece of wastepaper; because it's annoys me, I'm putting it in the bin. What is your investment in putting it in the bin? It can be used later for something else. Where did you learn this? From my grandmother, who only had sugar bags to write on. So how should life be? Stewardship. That's only my own answer to why I collect litter.
Drama episodes