Drama Tuesday - Why Drama – preparing young people for uncertain futures

 For the past few years I have been working with drama educators in China through keynotes and workshops. IDEC one of the IDEA members located in Beijing has been a wonderful collaborator on the development of interest and enthusiasm for drama teaching. There has been remarkable growth in the field. In May 2021, IDEC are staging another conference (though, of course, limited in the Coronavirus Pandemic). They asked me to talk about ho drama prepares young people for uncertain futures. 

It is useful to go back to our fundamental understandings to remind ourselves of the reasons why we teach drama. 

I share with you the recording I have just finished. Text is included below. 

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

The Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic has taught us many lessons. One of the most important is being prepared for uncertain futures. We have learnt the importance of the need to respond quickly as circumstances change. Drama teaches us about responding. Drama teaches us about improvising without pre-written scripts. Drama teaches us to focus on what it is to be human in the world.

When our students have authentic opportunities to work with the Elements of Drama, they develop their skills of enacting role and relationships, telling stories creating dramatic action and situations. They understand how tension drives dramatic action using space, and time, voice and movement and symbols, language, mood and atmosphere. The drama they learn and create and respond to develops an awareness of their world and enables them to imagine their futures. 

Drama education provides opportunities for observing and understanding people – including themselves. Through playing these roles and exploring relationships, they understand what it is to be human. This is developing  personal identity. This is a key skill for understanding and engaging with our collective uncertain futures. 

Drama education provides opportunities for trying out possibilities and exploring alternatives. In drama we can stop the action and restart it differently. We can stop the drama and reflect on what happened and what could happen next. Drama gives the chance of playing and replaying action. We can test our futures.

Drama education provides opportunities for entering the world that we live in and exploring it. These everyday stories about ordinary experiences help us understand our sense of personal, social and cultural identity.

Drama education provides opportunities for exploring the choices that we make in life – the ethical choices and the values that we need for a successful future. In learning to express and communicate ideas and feelings through stories enacted for others, our students learn to make choices and learning about becoming good people – people who care for others, show compassion and empathy and understanding. 

Drama education provides opportunities for understanding and sharing emotions. Learning to express themselves and their feelings, helps prepare for a world where it is important to show who we are to the world with honesty and authenticity.  

Drama education provides opportunities for sharing the stories of the past – the ones that have been handed to us over generations. And to understand them for the future as we hand them to our future children. 

Drama education provides opportunities for creativity and play. whatever unfolds in the future, there will continue to be the need for creativity and play. Creativity to imagine and re-imagine possibilities. Play as a context for learning. 

Drama education provides opportunities for learning together and building teams collaborating

To summarise some of the big ideas of this presentation, drama gives us opportunities to rehearse the past and present for the future.

There has been a long history of “future thinking” – thinking about the skills needed for the future. 

Writing in 2018 before the Pandemic, Stowe Boyd identified 10 Work Skills for An Uncertain Future.

I share some of this this work with you to make the point that Drama education can and does develop these skills. 

To this list we can add that drama helps us respond to the uncertain futures through developing our skills in:

• responding to people, relationships and situations - drama is action and response

• problem solving – Drama is active problem solving

• working together collaboratively for shared goals – Drama is team work

• creative and critical thinking – Through Drama we ask questions and work creatively

We are not alone in seeking to re-imagine the world of learning for uncertain futures. As we meet in 2021, UNESCO is in the midst of project of magnitude that we should pay attention to. And we need to remind the decision makers and policy makers of the role of drama in educating for the future.

The playwright Shakespeare had Hamlet provide famous advice to players in hamlet prince of Denmark. There is good advice there for us to share with our students – don’t weave your arms around too much; don’t shout your lines; Suit the action to the word, the word to the action. And at the heart of drama education is his advice 

“the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature”.

We don’t know what the future will bring – some things good, some things uncertain. But we will always have drama as a powerful way of holding the mirror up to what we see. 

Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you today. 

I am a proud advocate for the power of drama to enrich and enhance the lives of young people.I encourage you to be the voice and action of drama education in your world. It changes the lives of all who participate. 

You can find more of my thoughts and ideas at www.stagepage.com.au 

and through IDEA www.ideadrama.org 

Thank you for listening. 

Bibliography

Boyd, R. N. (1988). How to Be a Moral Realist. In G. Sayre-McCord (Ed.), Essays on Moral Realism (pp. 181-128). New York: Cornell University Press.