Tell it from your face!
‘Tell it from your face Dad!’
When my eldest son, Andre was a toddler (I can’t believe he’s 29 years old now!!) like lots of dads, I used to read him bedtime stories. I remember once asking him if he wanted a story from a book and him replying with these words.
I guess he felt like he’d be more interested in the story if he could follow it through my facial expressions and gestures. He probably also felt like it was a way of feeling closer to his dad.
Those words have always stuck in my head - especially when I’ve been doing storytelling, and especially when thinking about how we interact in our online link up sessions in the Hands up Project.
Of course, when storytelling or acting in non-online settings in front of large audiences, it’s not always that easy to see people’s faces, and read what’s being expressed. I wrote about this extensively in Doing Remote Theatre (HUP 2021) but if you don’t have the book, or would prefer to hear it ‘from my face’ :-) you could watch this from our tips for doing remote theatre playlist.
Powerful facial remote acting from Zaheya in ‘The Screen’ (2017)
When we do orientation sessions for new volunteers who are going to link to a teacher and a class of kids in Palestine , we try to emphasise these points for everything that they do, and to use the share screen feature sparingly if at all (and especially to avoid death by powerpoint!) For Palestinian children who are often traumatised by what they have experienced, I really feel that it means so much to see a friendly, warm face on the other side of the screen, and of course it can help them make what you’re saying more accessible. It also provides a model for them to do the same when they’re interacting with you. See for example, how much you can see of these kids faces, and how they are almost jumping through the screen in Hands Up sessions in Gaza from 2022 and before.
Girls in Jabalia playing the ‘How many words’ game.
In a class of 50 boys in Gaza city in 2022
When I do any kind of online teacher training or teacher development session I always try not to use powerpoint too much; this need for human connection applies to teachers as well as children of course. One thing I often do is to have things written out on paper which I then hold up. Again this provides a great model for the students to do the same in their own online presentations to us.
I do this a lot in this 45 minute online talk I did for CUP a few years ago. In fact I think I did the whole thing without a single powerpoint slide! Though I say it myself, I think it’s one of the best talks I’ve ever done; in my opinion, largely for that reason.
So what do you think about all this? Do you agree with what I’m saying, or do you have a different point of view. Either way we’d love to hear from you in the comments below.