Interviewing disaffected students with "Talking Stones"

"Talking Stones" is an interview technique that is designed to support self advocacy, particularly for groups of disaffected school students whose views may be difficult to elicit. It has been developed and refined to incorporate a view of learners as active agents in their own learning and is compatible with reflective practice and a social constructivist view of mind. The technique enables individuals to invest their own meaning in concrete objects which have no intrinsic meaning themselves apart from their own 'stone-ness". Stones do not make the same demands as lace to face conversations in terms of communication skills. They have texture, size, shape and colour and enable students to articulate their feelings about themselves in relation to school in ways that may not previously have been open to them. The current paper illustrates how "Talking Stones" lends itself to practice in schools by laying bare problematic relationships and opening up dialogue between, typically, teenagers and staff.