About Communication

The ‘making puppets’ part of the workshop was entertaining. Simple rod puppet concept with a ping pong ball on a stick, as the starting point for every puppet. It was very encouraging to see the enthusiasm and creativity of these children as they fully engaged with the basics, the fabrics and wools, the pens and glues. Original puppets sprouted up about the room as each child created the puppet they imagined from the array of items available. The puppets were then left on stands, to allow the glued items and parts to dry.  As usual, with many craft areas involving young children, some glued bits fell off as that issue over ‘surface and ratio area to glue’ fell well short of expectations. But nearly all puppets were ready after the lunch break. This was where I learnt an important lesson in communication.

For the next thirty minutes, the children were paired off, or those who wished, put into groups of four or more and then worked on a story their various puppets could present. The idea that the children would develop their limited communication skills further through telling a story with the puppets. You would think this a simple concept. Some involved the teacher aides, to establish a story (several appeared to be based on the old fairy tale “Goldilocks and the three bears, or at least one persons puppet being scared by several other puppets). It was very quickly realised that many of the children, while delighted in their individual puppets, were somewhat perplexed in how they would communicate with the other puppets. I very quickly saw the issue. The limit that these puppets put on children, already with limited vocabulary, or I observed the link between the limit certain communication skills these deaf children had, which many others take for granted.  It took all of ten seconds where one puppet approached another and was ‘shaken’ by the child operator (as if to say “hello”). The other operator also ‘shook’ their puppet (‘Hello”) then they mimicked a moment from my show, where the two puppets ‘embraced’ (side to side European cheek kissing style).

Then it all went wrong, as, with verbal skills insufficient to enhance the ‘play’, of  a well established storyline, meant there was a break in the communication. The puppets (and the puppet’s operators) stopped communicating. Each deaf child was visually focusing on their puppet and not the other person, as a result, they were not ‘listening’ to the other operator. I know they couldn’t, but this is the point. Communication does not take just one form. Unfortunately, one puppet immediately head-butted the other in an angry, violent way, and the operator also growled angrily at the other’s puppet, which took most of us by surprise. The puppet, which had been attacked, immediately attacked the other, and both puppets were quickly striking each other and then each of the other operators. While bits of fabric, buttons and glued bits started flying, the limit these deaf children had in communicating, without the ability to hear the other child, or to engage through an external method, created massive misunderstanding and confusion. It took some time to calm the operators down. But it took longer for us to understand the complexity of the situation.

(Continued tomorrow)