056 – No flies on Golding mock trial
Filed in Communication, Employee Engagement, Insight, Podcast
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Did you experience something at high school that you will remember forever? Something you could share with your team at work? Listen to hear how a group of high school students became very invested in a school project.
In this week’s episode, Mark shares a story from Chip and Dan Heath’s Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, which explores a group of high school students’ invaluable experience delving into the ‘Golding trial’ curated by their teachers.
Shawn and Mark explore how by creating meaningful and remembered learning experiences influenced by your teams’ interests, you will encourage the retelling of memorable moments and new learning initiatives.
To find out more about the Heath Brothers and their fantastic Power of Moments book, click here.
To find out more about William Golding’s book Lord of the Flies, click here.
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Tags: innovation, relevance, learning
This story starts at 02:58
In the late 80s, at a high school in California, a bunch of students in an English class were reading William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.
Lord of the Flies is a book about a group of schoolboys who are marooned on a desert island and, being detached from the rules and norms of society, revert to savagery.
The book is loosely based on Golding’s experiences in WW2, and explores the idea that the faults of society are actually representative of the faults of human nature.
As the students were reading, their English teacher handed them a very official looking legal document that said William Golding, author, had been accused of grossly misrepresenting human behaviour in his portrayal of the boys in his book.
Over the next two months, the kids went through a ‘mock trial’ whereby they all had a role, including the prosecution, defence, judge, and witnesses. On the day of the trial, they went to a real court and played it out.
One of the students teachers, their Social Studies teacher, was only 3 years into his time as a teacher, and already felt that he was boring. So, when the kids all complained when he and the English teacher had both set a major assignment to be due on the same date, they decided to do something completely different and that was the Golding trial.
This has now been happening at schools for over 30 years. Sometimes the students acquit Golding of the charges and sometimes he is convicted.
Since the assignment was integrated into the school’s curriculum, most graduation speeches have mentioned the Golding trial.
Anecdote International is a global training and consulting company, specialising in utilising storytelling to bring humanity back to the workforce. Anecdote is now unique in having a global network of over 60 partners in 28 countries, with their learning programs translated into 11 languages, and customers who incorporate these programs into their leadership and sales enablement activities.