#encounterdrama

Setelah menonton drama Encounter episode terbaru, sempat kepikiran dengan cara Cha Daepyonim (Bu Cha presdir hotel Donghwa) menghadapi karyawannya yang ternyata bekerja sama dengan rival bu Cha untuk menjatuhkan dan menyingkirkan Cha Daepyonim agar tidak menjadi presdir hotel Donghwa lagi.

Melihat bagaimana pengelolaan emosi ketika berhadapan dengan karyawannya tanpa meledak-ledak. Sebenarnya, bisa saja langsung memecatnya tanpa adanya pertemuan langsung seperti itu. Tapi, Bu Cha ingin tahu alasan karyawannya, kenapa bisa melakukan tindakan menusuk dari belakang atau mengkhianati perusahaan.

We came full circle today: the Dutch and Lenape friends, now about 25 years later, meet for the last time to talk about how their lives have changed since the English took over the colony. They discussed how, on the one hand, life has not changed much because the English allowed them to keep their land, property, way of life, and how trade continued. The Lenape kids, now as adults, talked about how some Native Americans in other villages have had to move because the English are building houses and farms.

While they speculated that it probably did not change their relationship much, they admitted that, in the end, the Lenape and Dutch people probably did not get close over the 40+ years of co-existing on Mannahatta, and that their personal friendship did not mirror the relationship of the rest of the Lenape and Dutch.

Laiali: “Our relationship was about trade. We came here to trade. [It was] not exactly friendship.”

Milla: “Lots of people think we’re very different, so that we can’t be friends because of that. But that doesn’t really make any sense. Even though we’re different doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

Narration: “The two friends knew that even though things did not change much since Dutch times, that there would be more changes ahead in the English colony. They did not know when or how often they would be able to meet again. They decided to gather some mud and clay from the riverbank and make a pendant of their lasting friendship on Mannahatta.”

Immediately some kids connected this to the half pendants they received on the first day of the study: “Wait, are these the ones we got in the beginning?”

Narration: “Perhaps one day, many, many years into the future, archaeologists in the year 2016 might find these artifacts buried in the ground somewhere on Manhattan and wonder what it means about the people who lived here.”

Students: “That is so cool!!”

Yes, it is.

This one is for you, Dan! Dutch colonist, Joanna, reads her petition to the Dutch West India Company after Adrien vander Donck rallies them to make their voices heard. 

After a brief narration of the devastation that Kieft’s War caused the colony, Vander Donck (played by me) arrives on the scene to talk to the People: the colonists (students) give Kieft a report, and, without even needing prompting, they complain about how Kieft ignored their wishes and advice to maintain peaceful relations with the Native Americans, and suggest writing to the Dutch West India Company to oust Kieft. There’s social action for you!

4/21 The dinner table conversation is a great way to have small groups discussing an issue — different aged family members can provide multiple points of view — this can be fishbowl style with one group discussing & others watching, and then giving turns to each student to step in (tag team style) and take on one of the roles at the table as the conversation continues. Or, as we did yesterday, in our drama in which Papa comes home to discuss Kieft’s plans to wage war on the Native Americans (and, as a member of Kieft’s Council of 12 advisors, wonders what he should advise Kieft) have five dinner table discussions happening simultaneously. Papa (Teacher 1) poses the problem in discussion with Mama (Teacher 2), while the kids (who back then were ‘seen and not heard’) listen in and have their own side conversations.

We told the kids that we teachers, in the role of the parents, would jump around and sit at various tables to insert comments (questions/prompts) into the conversation, but they are to imagine we are talking at their dinner table. The role of Papa and Mama is not to do all the talking, but to, little by little, drop the issues/questions surrounding the debate into the kids’ discussions: Why does Kieft think war is necessary? What would war mean for the Dutch? For the Lenape? For trade? Are there other alternatives? It also allows us to provide snippets of background information within the context of the drama (eg. past skirmishes with Native Americans that show that relations were not always smooth, which were then used to justify the war).