Have you seen the Policeman vs. Fireman videos on YouTube?

These funny video clips featuring puppets make for some good comedy.  Certainly, they are not something that you would want to incorporate into your public education program, but they do provide an idea on how to come up with a novel educational progam.

If you haven’t see any of these clips, be sure to check out the video below first.  Please keep in mind that the clips involve adult humor and should be treated as such.

As I said, they certainly may not fit into your typical fire prevention programs. However, there is a lesson that can be taken from the series. 

Puppets have some value in the educational field as a way to help teach younger children.  In 2005, the Puppet Project released a research study that identified several things.  In the study, the teachers used puppets to help teach science.  They discovered that:

Where puppets were used in science lessons there was:

• an increase in children’s use of argumentation and a decrease in their use of recall responses. There were more opportunities for children to develop their thinking about science in puppets lessons.
• an increase in the time that children used talk involving reasoning and a decrease in the time that they talked about practical and procedural matters. There were more opportunities for children to develop their thinking about science in puppets lessons.
• an increase in the teachers’ use of reasoning questions and a decrease in their use of non-reasoning questions. The teachers’ questioning style created more opportunities for thinking in the puppets lessons.
• an increase in the teachers’ use of argumentation and a decrease in the extent to which they gave information to children. The teachers’ interaction with the children created more opportunities for engagement and thinking in the puppets lessons. Most of this increase is attributed to argumentation generated by the puppets.
• an increase in the teachers’ use of story and narrative and an increase in the extent to which teachers offered encouragement. Both of these changes in teacher behaviour generated a more positive environment for learning in science lessons.

Observations and interviews also showed a number of important changes when puppets were used. These included the following:

• Nearly all of the children were highly engaged and motivated when puppets were used. They listened more, they became more involved in the lesson and more children engaged in conversation.
• Many children who did not normally speak in science lessons became more willing to share their ideas.
• Many of the children claimed to understand science better when the teacher used puppets.
• Most of the teachers had changed aspects of their practice as a result of using puppets, such as including more opportunities for talk in their planning.
• Generally when teachers used worksheets the children were less interested, talked less and thought less about scientific questions.
• There was some limited evidence that children’s attainment was higher, especially amongst low-attaining children.

The Puppet Project - http://www.puppetsproject.com/research.html

Maybe, you already figured out that puppets could be used to help promote fire safety ideas.  Did you ever think about posting your puppet skits to your web site or even YouTube for teachers to use in their classroom or parents to use at home?

I don’t have much experience in using puppets as a tool for teaching, but I am curious to see if it could work in this manner.  At the very least, it could generate a new way for you to reach out to your community.  Tape your puppet show for your local cable access channel.  Upload a copy of that video to your web site.  Burn it to DVD and distribute to classrooms in your town.  It could be a very effective way to get more mileage out of your program.  What do you think?

Resources:

• The Puppet Store
• Let Us Teach Kids
• Puppet Universe