If You Could Walk In My Sneakers

Persona dolls are 70cm life-like cloth dolls who are culturally authentic and non-sexist.They have different skin colours and physical features and are given their own names, ages, personalities, homes, friends, family, and cultural background. Using persona dolls children
( and adults) are encouraged to develop empathy and challenge discrimination and unfairness. Students in an anchor classroom will become facilitators and leaders as they collaboratively develop social stories and a range of scenarios for each doll. Using Freire's problem-posing approach they will raise issues of equity and justice. Through open-ended story telling students will engage in discussions with other students as to how the situation might be resolved or how a particular doll might feel in a given situation. In the relaxed, informal and supportive atmosphere of the story telling session, children have
lots of opportunities to say what they think and feel about the discriminatory issues being presented to them through the dolls.The sessions encourage children to feel good about their own cultural and family backgrounds while at the same time respecting, valuing and learning about the cultural and family backgrounds
of the rest of the group. Talking about these similarities and differences can help them understand that being different is not something to tease or harass each other about.Their questions and any topics that have captured their interest can be explored in more detail in other areas of the curriculum -health, social studies and citizenship. By presenting a range of scenarios and problems for children to assess, explore and solve, the Dolls through the stories they ‘tell’, open up a world of possibilities and encourage children to imagine what it might be like to live through situations that they have not personally experienced.
Practitioners speak for the Doll and in their role as facilitators guide the session by asking scaffolding questions to capture the children’s interest and encourage them to reflect critically on what they
and their peers have said.