The Lesson from Grumma Grimhild

A few weeks ago, there was quite a stir at Frælsinum because over a thousand children came to see the play Grumma Grimhild at the bottom of the sea. This is a play that Súsanna Tórgarð and Birita Mohr created based on the legend “The Boy Who Was Taken by the Mermaid”. The play has also been translated into other languages.

In all this hustle and bustle, I tried to get various more grounded tasks done, while thinking a lot about the Biophilia competition, which is currently running in the schools.

The Biophilia competition aims to use active and creative teaching methods and to work cross-disciplinarily. I also tried to watch the play with those perspectives, and to focus on both the audience and the student teachers, who have staged the play together with Súsanna Tórgarð and Sjúrður Hansen.

A splendid performance, with a lot of effort put into the stage, costumes, and it worked very well. The music fit well, and I found out afterwards that they composed it themselves.

Both children and adults were completely immersed in the play, that was very clear – and then comes my big question: what will they talk about when they return to school or kindergarten?

Legends and fairy tales are obvious, but also language use is a relevant topic, because there was a big difference in the language of the narrators and the parents, who used an old-fashioned language, while the other actors spoke in a more modern and lively language.

Biologically, there were many different topics that could have been addressed, because some actors were animals, e.g., a fox and a crow, and seaweed was also an essential part of the play.

However, I am not sure if these will be the topics of discussion overall. I say this because we are not particularly used to linking intended learning with various activities. The students learned a lot from this performance, no doubt about it, and the children had a great experience.

As a boring teacher, I would have wished that the play ended with some questions for them to go home and research and discuss. Questions that were based on the learning that the organizers intended for the audience to gain from the play from the very beginning.

But look, I learned something from the performance myself.

Another thing is that, in the aftermath of the play, a debate arose about the plan to shut down the creative stream. Not a word has been said about the fact that the natural science and humanities streams are also being shut down. People are lamenting that the creative learning processes are being eliminated, they say. I do not completely agree, because I think we could just as well turn the issue into what we advocate in Biophilia, namely that creativity should be included in all subjects. The play about Grumma Grimhild at the bottom of the sea would not have been worse if biological and oceanographic conditions were also included in the play. This should of course be done through interdisciplinary collaboration between the subjects.

I hope we do that next time!