When these terrible fires happen, the whole community comes together to support those who were affected.
~ words from Daniel that keep us thinking and wondering ~
Not hers. Not yours. People are always more than the chapters anyone could share. Hold what is here gently. Approach with curiosity, before judgment.
Notice what you notice. Wonder what you wonder. There is no quiz, no right way. Read until something stays.
this film has no words. notice what you notice. notice what you wonder. wonder out loud. and don't forget to notice what you feel, too.
Silver Lining
Enkanini, the place I call home, is an informal settlement, which means it is technically illegal. They say about 10,000 people live here, mostly in shacks made from corrugated tin. These informal settlements are left over from a time of much racism when people here were forced to live only near other people with the same color skin. This is called forced segregation. A lot has changed since then, and hopefully a lot will still change someday. Right now, hundreds of our homes — which others call shacks — are built in close proximity, with little or no access to clean and safe forms of energy, water or sanitation.
Here in South Africa, there is a lot to learn from our past that we hope will make things different in the future.
Why is it important to learn from the past?
I think this is part of being human; we make mistakes, learn from them, and hopefully don’t make them again.
What are some things you’ve learned from experiences in your past?
What type of things would you not do again?
What about things you definitely want to do again?
In Enkanini there are a few shared restrooms and water pumps but very little else in terms of infrastructure. In order to understand how to help my community, it was important to me to learn why my community is so underdeveloped. South Africa is a country working to overcome its adverse past. Our constitution, which was drafted by those elected in 1994 in the first non-racial elections, placed responsibility on the government to ensure that basic services would be expanded to all citizens, within the limits of available resources. These basic services include electricity, water, housing, as well as waste removal and sanitation. The government still promises to deliver these services but in the meantime, we are waiting and must find ways to thrive on our own.
Besides the basic services I listed, can you think of other important services that all communities should have?
Why do you think these services are important for communities?
Who do you think needs to be responsible for these services?
What are some services you have in your community?
As we have been waiting for these services, we still use open flames and makeshift connections to electricity in order to have light, to cook, to watch TV, and to charge our electronics. It is easy to spot the electrical wires that are illegal connections from formal houses to the informal shacks. These connections are very unstable; sometimes the electricity flows fine and other times it doesn’t flow at all. It is also very dangerous because the wires hang low and sometime break, which can start fires. There have been so many devastating fires in my community that have destroyed homes and taken lives due to use of open flames and unstable electrical wires. I can’t even count how many anymore. I was told that over the last five years, there were ten shack fires a day on average in South Africa. It is so sad to see people’s homes and belongings taken by fire. Since we all live so close together it is very difficult to isolate the fire, so it travels easily to other homes.
Our homes are sometimes odd shapes created to fit into whatever space is available.
Some have right angles and others do not.
It is kind of like doing a puzzle.
I bet if you draw a few rectangles, squares and rhombuses really close together you’ll see why fires spread so fast.
Not all of them are quadrilaterals either, because sometimes we add on rooms.
You could create a little map of what a neighborhood in my community might look like!
Remember we need a road somewhere, and that obstacles like trees and rocks may stand in our way.
See if you can track where the fire might spread in your map!
You could also draw a map of my my home! The main part of my home is a rectangle. One side is 9 feet long and the area is 72 feet. How long is the other side? There is also a small room off that main area, it is 3 feet by 4 feet. What is the total area of my home?
Fire can be a wonderful source of light, heat and power to cook. The problem with fire is it is very difficult to contain and if it gets out of control, it is even harder to stop.
What do you and your family use fire for?
What are some ways we could prevent fire?
What resources would we need for your prevention ideas?
When these terrible fires happen, the whole community comes together to support those who were affected. We always support each other because we know we might need other’s help in the future. Anyone who has extra resources or time to help rebuild homes will come together and work all day and all night. Others will cook for families or lend money and belongings. When someone goes through a difficult time in life, like losing a home in a fire, the only positive thing is seeing how the community offers immense support and care.
When was a time where you saw your community come together to help support each other?
What could you do if someone in your community was affected by a fire?
Notice how I say, “the only positive thing is...
”?
This is sometimes called a silver lining.
I’ve found that in challenging or sad times, we can often find a positive outcome.
Can you think of an example from your own life?
Looking for a way to focus your students? Arrange chairs in a circle and begin with two minutes of silence
“What would your life be like if you had no electricity and no running water?” You could let this question serve as a class discussion or you could encourage them to brainstorm a short list on their own before discussing.
If you’re sitting in a circle, toss around something soft for “popcorn sharing,” where whoever catches it shares one thing. Ask the person who catches it next to respond to the previous person’s idea with a question or a comment. You can step in with follow-up questions as well, prodding students to think beyond “hard.” Ask them, “How might you find a way to take a shower?” Or steer the conversation away from the material by asking, “How might this change the way you spend time with friends? How might this change your dreams? Or would it?”
Before watching the video I am Daniel, ask your students, “Now let’s say it is not just you that lives without electricity and water, but your whole town.
How might it affect you? What if it were the whole world?” Try to guide this conversation in a direction where it thinks about changes in culture in addition to changes in how you do things. When students identify problems or challenges, encourage them to think of innovative solutions. “How might we solve that problem? How could we work around that?” Next, read the story, “Daniel Fights Fires.” If fire was not a potential side effect they brainstormed, ask them why? “What else might happen? What are some potential good things about this different lifestyle?”
Draw fictional maps of Daniel’s community to explore quadrilaterals, area, and how a fire might spread.
Depending on how your students are doing with quadrilaterals, you could ask them to draw a few homes and label them with the appropriate shape, or you could draw a few on the board or as a print-out and ask them to identify the shapes. It may be more engaging if they are working around trees, rocks, roads, and other oddly shaped homes to fit new homes in as close together. Next you’ll zoom in on Daniel’s home to work with area. Again, you can ask them to draw his home according to the dimensions shared in his story, or you can draw it and provide dimensions that they calculate to find area. This presents an opportunity to practice multiplying to find area and decomposing figures. If you ask them to write the final equations in various manners, you can also practice or introduce the distributive property as it relates to area. To tie this into discussion of fire, you could ask them to predict where the fire might spread in their map and escape routes out. If each member of the class draws on one piece of paper, you could attach them to make a bigger community in need of a fire escape route.
Ask your class, “What is something you noticed in Daniel’s reaction to the challenging circumstances in his community?” Guide them toward pointing out that Daniel still found a positive side to really difficult situations.
Acknowledge that the “silver lining” doesn’t take away from the unfortunate circumstances, but that it can provide a little glimmer of hope. Ask them to write in their journals about a challenge they are currently experiencing, or something in the past, and a potential positive side effect.
This is one way to teach this story. You could also weave your own way, threading two or three other people the AI finds for you alongside.
Want to weave a full lesson around this story?
The weaver finds 3-4 real people whose stories thread together with this one.
Weave a lesson →Being Present
Do you have a favorite spot to sit and contemplate? I find that when I give myself time to just sit and observe, I feel very calm. What are you doing when you feel calm and peace? When you take time to yourself like this, what changes do you notice in how you feel?
Have you ever been scared during a storm? What are some good practices to remain safe? When I get nervous during bad weather, I try to stay calm by focusing on my breath. Do you have techniques that help you stay calm?
What emotions do you think my daughter was feeling? Have you experienced those emotions? I think there can be a lot of different emotions behind tears, not just sadness. What type of things have you really wanted to do and just couldn’t yet? Do you have advice for my daughter? She was just trying to be kind and helpful. What are some ways you are kind and helpful to your family, friends or in school?
When I leave for work in the morning it is 6:30am. When I come back, it is 3:30pm. On a normal day, at least...sometimes it varies. Can you help me figure out how long I’m away from my daughter? Even though she is small, maybe you could make her a clock that helps her know when I’ll come home?
In what ways do you enjoy helping others? What are some jobs that are available in your community? What would you love to be trained in that would benefit your community for the better?
Looking for a way to focus your students? Guide them through three minutes of yoga before beginning class
“To you, what is one of the most important things in life?” You could approach this as a discussion or as a free-write; the latter works well if you’re worried about your students being too influenced by each other’s responses.
Push them to elaborate on their answers, asking things like, “why is that so important to you?” You could also point out values you hear in their responses, such as, “it sounds like you really value family.” You can also encourage them to think about other people in their life by asking things like, “if you’re a mom/dad someday, do you think that will still be really important to you? Why might things change in importance as we grow older?”
Explore similarities, differences and assumptions by watching the video I am Daniel, then ask your students, “What type of things do you think are really important to Daniel?” Facilitate a discussion in your class around their ideas for Daniel.
Ask things like, “why do you think that is important for him?” or “it sounds like you think Daniel also values family, why might that be?” The idea is to challenge students to think curiously about Daniel’s life, start to draw parallels to their own, and to subtly illuminate assumptions or stereotypes. Point out to your students, “well, we can guess all of this about Daniel, but we don’t really know, do we? What do we know for sure about him?” Make a list with your students. They may be surprised at how little they really know about him. You can also ask them, “what questions might we ask him to learn more about what is important to him?” Next, read “I am Daniel” as a class, in small groups, or independently. If they work in small groups, encourage them to make a list of new things they learn about Daniel. If you read as a class, pause occasionally to add to your list. At the end of reading, ask them, “What can we say about Daniel now and be pretty positive we are accurate? What do we still not know?” You can debrief by asking, “what have we learned in this exercise that we can apply in other times of our life?” Facilitate the conversation toward recognizing that, as we come across new people in life, there is only a little bit we know about them right away. We can ask curious questions though!
Practice telling time by helping Daniel’s daughter. There are many ways you can approach Daniel’s call for help with clocks depending on what your students need to practice.
You could draw out labeled and unlabeled clocks, ask them to draw a number line, or ask them to draw their own clocks. You could also turn it into a craft project by supplying materials for them to create their own paper clock to “give” to Daniel’s daughter. Feel free to add in details, change the times or change what information with which you provide them to interact with time in different ways. For example, you could say, “Daniel leaves the house at 6:30am and returns home for lunch 5 hours later. What time does he come home for lunch?”
To close, facilitate a discussion asking your students, “What advice might you give to Daniel’s daughter?” and give them the feeling of being in a leadership role.
You could write a ‘letter to Daniel’ asking some of their curious questions. You could draw a connection between time and importance by asking, “We know there is not always time for everything, so how might we prioritize those things that are really important to us?” End with a little more yoga, deep breathing or two minutes of silence, encouraging students to find a peaceful spot in the room like Daniel.
This is one way to teach this story. You could also weave your own way, threading two or three other people the AI finds for you alongside.
Want to weave a full lesson around this story?
The weaver finds 3-4 real people whose stories thread together with this one.
Weave a lesson →A Growth Mindset
Have you seen solar technology before? What do you think are the benefits of solar energy? After all the fires I had experienced in my community, what do you imagine I was feeling about this idea?
Do you notice how not knowing much about solar did not hold me back? In fact, it was the opposite: my eagerness to help my community motivated me to learn! Have you experienced something like this?
The basic electricity service costs $10/month. Some families can apply for subsidies, meaning that the company helps cover some of the costs. When that happens, the unit is only $6 or $7 a month depending on the family’s income. Could you please illustrate the total cost for a family for every 3, 6, 9 and 12 month period for each of these different costs? What patterns do you notice?
One of the most important things in my home is my cell phone. I need it to do my work because it lets me know when solar systems need to be fixed. I also use it to stay in touch with my friends and family. If you could only power three things, what would they be? Why are those things important to you? What else in your home uses electricity?
What do you notice about my reaction to the damage of our supplies? What are some benefits to reacting the way I did? I think being mad can be a waste of energy. Often times, when people do things that make us mad, it is simply because they do not understand the situation or view it in the same way as me. In what ways can you relate?
Looking for a new way to hook your students? Stand in a circle and spend two minutes facilitating the yoga “tree pose”
What is something you really want to learn about or how to do?
Why is that?” Prod students to think big — this doesn’t have to be a textbook subject, it can be something like “fly to the moon!” Ask curiously, “what might you need to learn about to make that happen?” If they’re stuck, consider asking things like, “What is something you think about a lot?” or “What type of work do you imagine yourself doing someday? Why is that important to you?” Try to focus on the motivating factor - the why. Pointing out values you hear in what they’re saying will be affirming for them as well. Introduce the concept of a growth mindset, encouraging students to believe in their ability to learn and grow for the rest of their lives, not a limited time.
Watch the video I am Daniel, then ask your students, “What might Daniel value? What might he want to learn? Why do you say that?” Try pointing out similarities in what they say about Daniel and what they’ve said about themselves.
Next, read the story, “Daniel Promotes Solar.” Consider reading in small groups or independently until they reach green text, then coming together as a group to discuss and to check comprehension. You could also read as a class and pause to discuss, or read all the way through and discuss at the end. Be sure to point out where Daniel reflects a growth mindset and check-in with your students by asking something such as, “Do you think Daniel believed in himself here? Why or why not? What might he have needed to say to himself to keep motivated?”
Introduce a simple version of “root cause analysis” through the example in the story and practice with your own topic. Suggest to your students, “Let’s try to put ourselves in the shoes of those University students and understand how they came up with a solution!
What is the first thing they did?” (They spotted a problem!) “What was that problem?” (A lot of fires in Enkanini!) Using an illustration of a tree on the board may help. Begin by writing the identified problem in the trunk of the tree. You could call it the “fire problem tree.” Then ask your students, “Ok, so what are some of the things these fires cause? Some of the things we see?” (people lose their homes, people could die). These are the tree branches. You or a student can label the branches or the leaves with the “symptoms” they brainstorm. Then ask them, “What are some of the things we don’t see? The things that might cause this problem?” These are the roots underground, which Daniel points out in the story to be a lack of electricity and using open fires. Next ask them, “If we want to come up with a solution, which part of the tree do you think we need to focus on?” (The roots!) From there you can discuss how the university students came up with solar power and brainstorm other ideas your students may have. It could be helpful to first introduce the root-cause analysis tree with an example that may resonate more, like being sick with the flu. The problem is that they have the flu, the tree trunk. What are some of the symptoms, or tree branches that we see? (Runny nose, nausea, tired, etc.). What are some of the causes, or roots that we don’t see? (Spreading germs because we forget to wash hands, not eating healthy, etc.).
Practice multiplication tables and recognizing patterns in arithmetic by helping Daniel create a pricing chart. Consider framing this project as a pricing chart, not just a multiplication table.
Students could design a logo and choose their own colors to show the different prices. By changing the prices and monthly periods, you could practice a variety of multiplication facts. You can also practice recognizing patterns in arithmetic.
This is one way to teach this story. You could also weave your own way, threading two or three other people the AI finds for you alongside.
Want to weave a full lesson around this story?
The weaver finds 3-4 real people whose stories thread together with this one.
Weave a lesson →Not hers. Not yours. People are always more than the chapters anyone could share. Hold what is here gently. Approach with curiosity, before judgment.
If a moment stayed, follow it. If a question rose up, hold it. The quiet teaching is still teaching.
Three or four real stories woven into one lesson, your topic, your time. Daniel is one. The weaver finds the others, threads the math, the literacy, the values, the reflection.
Open the weaver →