Witchy says: Hello Villagers! I promised I would come back with a cargo of aromatherapy-based activities and I’m here!!! The aromatherapy-oriented teams worked very efficiently under Pompeus and my supervision and here are their outputs:
Tina the Witch’s group: Activity with
words expressing feelings and the use of Past simple
Students sit in a circle and in turns take items of perfumed stuff
from a little cauldron: scented dried flowers, cinnamon savoured
cookies,
tissues sprayed with cologne or those samples they give in herbalist’s
shops. Each kid takes one item, writes down a feeling they associate
to it on their exercise books and then they pass it to the friend next
to them. When everybody has experienced all the items they read aloud
what they have written. Then they try to remember for at least three
items, the event in their lives which has triggered that feeling and,
after hiding for so long in their memories, has just popped out. They
write down a report of these events and read them aloud.
Angela the Witch’s group:
This group has simply decided to use scents for specific purposes or to solve particular problems. For instance, when the class seems to be lazy and demotivated it’s good to spray essential oils of cinnamon, clove, anise, basil, tarragon, parsley or sassafras since they are stimulant and have the effect of harmonizing the nervous system.
If you see that the class is particularly unsettled and nervous because it’s sunny outside (or because it’s raining outside, snowing, drizzling, etc. etc. ) you can use essences of Roman chamomile, lavender, sage or bergamot since they are sedative and calming.
Do you know those winter days when everybody sneezes and half of the students are at home with a flu? Well, defend their health (and yours!) with a good spray of blue chamomiles and tagetes which have anti-phlogistic, anti-inflammatory, sedative, anti-viral, anti-carcinogenic, bacteriostatic and immune stimulant properties!!!
Peppe’s group has decided to improve students’ learning skills by using scents. Each time a particular activity is carried on the teacher would burn a special type of candles or dissolve a specific essential oil into the air in order to link that activity to an olfactory sensation. When the teacher has to lecture the class about history, for instance, students should inhale rosemary. If it is testing time they could breathe chamomile. And even memorization could be enhanced if each topic is connected to a particular scent. If students are studying the history of Greece they could smell cinnamon and saffron which are the ingredients of many Greek cookies. Or if they are studying the Roman civilization they could smell olive oil. And even Maths could be made nicer by associating it to lavender and violet!!!
Mrs Big Valley’s group:
Students are sorted out into two groups: the bad ones and the good ones. Each group is asked to write down the list of two types of activities classified as Good behaviours and Misbehaviours, in which they had been involved recently. They are also asked to assess each activity by assigning it a score (form a maximum of 5 to a minimum of 0) according to the level of satisfaction they have drawn from the same activity. At the bottom of both Good behaviours' and Misbehaviours' columns students have to sum up the total scoring. (“Here comes the most monstrous part of the activity!” Witchy’s comment) Students whose balance swings to the Good behaviour side are given a bottle of delicate rose and violet scent to smell while students who have scored more on the Misbehaviours side are given a phial of a disgusting extract of rotten mice’s tails and frogs’ eyes!
Pompeus to Mrs Big Valley: “How could you conceive something so cruel, Mrs Big Valley?!”
Mrs Big Valley: “It’s all scientific stuff!!! Young people with a bad slant to disruption have suffered from early negative imprinting: what I want to do is a bit of re-conditioning by supplying them with positive stimuli so that they develop positive conditioned reflexes. Each time they see a cigarette or, worse… a joint, the disgusting smell of this potion will come back to their memory with all its vividness and they will refuse it! Or if they meet a younger boy with a new pair of rayban spectacles they will immediately shudder at the stink entering their nostrils as if the phial was just under their nose, and they won’t try to boss the kid to exhort his sunglasses!
Witchy says: Could you believe a teacher, even if a witch, could be so cruel and insensitive? And so ignorant to believe that youngsters are like Pavlov dogs who salivated at the ringing of the bell? I really didn’t know what to say when dear Pompeus came into my rescue.
Pompeus: “I can see your point, dear Mrs. Valley, but I must warn you about adopting such old-fashioned behaviourist methods: do you know what Pavlov’s dogs did to guardians when they rang bells without bringing food?”
Mrs. Big Valley: “No, what did they do?”
Pompeus: “Easy! They bit them! So be careful with your Skinnerian theories!!”
Witchy says: How adorable! Have you ever met such a charming young teacher? I must say good bye to you friends because a mountain of tests is on my desk waiting to be graded and this time there is no magic wand which can do the job at my place… ;-))
For ever yours
