Drama Tuesday - How do you plan for teaching Drama

Changing times but consistent approaches

In sorting through some images in my photo library I found a photo of the first planning tool that I used as a drama teacher. Long time passing in the previous century, our class visited a Friday morning class at  Perth Modern School. The teacher, Juliana Kuperis, shared with us her system of lesson planning. In a folder, she had a collection of self-made lesson starter cards (as you can see, reproduced using ink stencils). The cards could be shuffled into different combinations. Collected from a range of sources, these cards included, stimulus ideas for improvisation; prompts for shaping an improv; reminders about voice projection. 

This toolkit accompanied me into  my first teaching appointment and was developed and extended as I taught. It was rudimentary but taught me the value of organisation (after all these years, I thank you Juliana).

Early in my teaching I found and used the kit based on the ideas of Viola Spolin. (still currently available on Amazon and similar:  ISBN-13: 978-0810140073 ISBN-10: 0810140071

My battered version is still part of my library and is useful and valued (though i still twitch when teachers describe drama activities as games As useful as Spolin was in helping us, the troubling connotations of the word “games” trivialising important learning lingers).

I still use many of the activities and approaches derived from Spolin’s work and it is great to revisit the card file system. 

Of course, the world of technology has  superseded card systems - although I did use for a number of years and recommend to students The drama Game File (https://dramaed.net/the-drama-game-file/) developed by Jonas Basom with accompanying CD-ROM (remember them!). The advertising blurb still says (perhaps a little disingenuous) No previous drama experience is required. The kit includes drama terminology, activities, activity cards for students. It is well  organised. This kist is now available digitally

Of course there is nothing to say that you couldn’t make your own card system - or equivalent in  digital worlds.

 Remember: A toolkit is just that – as a drama teacher there are choices to be made

The amount of material on the internet when you search for drama teaching ideas is a blessing and a curse.There are so many drama teaching ideas out there. The issue is always which ones work. A more important question is: 

Which ones are suitable for my students at this moment in the learning journey?

Which ones are age and developmentally appropriate?

which ones will promote the needed learning at this point in the students’ progression? 

Or even, which is best for this particular student now?

If teaching is the knowing and caring intervention in the learning process for a particular group of students, then what is my thinking process as a teacher in choosing activities? 

In my current approach, i have a series of drama teaching and learning strategies that are the equivalent of my initial card systems. The beauty of a system of strategies is that you have a tool that is adapted le to the text and context of your lesson. In using strategies you draw on your paradigmatic experience. That doesn’t preclude innovation and de novo thinking (inventing a new idea or approach). But it is efficient and must be used in collaboration with an understanding of progression – how student learning develops over time. 

There is a fundamental truth about teaching. What matters is not the activity but the choice of activity to match the student(s).A system helps organise the choices that a teacher makes. But what is essential is the human factor – a teacher makes choices. That is the first rule of planning for drama. 

Drama Tuesday - Telling the story of Drama in schools – a challenge to us all

I am always looking for examples of teachers using drama and theatre with young people. Hjørdis from Denmark is the latest find. Hjørdis is a teacher given the task of creating a play for Anti-Bullying fortnight.  with a cast of socially awkward students. The pressure is on because the play is to be performed for a school visit by Princess Mary. As to be expected, things don’t go well. 

The story is told economically in four short episodes. The casting of the young people is effective and credible (unlike so many so-called teen comedies where the actors are so clearly post puberty, hirsute and sculpted by fashion). Lise Baastrup who plays Hjørdis is delightfully gangly (think Miranda). Her story of wanting to play the Princess in a school play and being forced to play the donkey is told with humour and bittersweetness. The other story threads are handled deftly. 

The “let’s put on a play” trope has been with us from Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland days (if not before -  See Babes in Arms the 1939 American film version of the 1937 Broadway musical of the same title. Directed by Busby Berkeley). The spin offs on television of the original version of Fame or shows such as Glee present one version of the transformation stories of learning and teaching drama. Often we are so used to seeing glossed versions of this experience that we can overlook the others. 

Challenge to drama teachers: tell the story – the real story – of working in drama with young people. 

 Check out Hjørdis. It’s funny and touching. Enjoy it.

Drama Tuesday - Asking the hard question

Mia, a Year 12 Media student is making a documentary and has invited me to a ZOOM interview. Her questions are thoughtful and require thought in answering them. 

It’s interesting to engage in dialogue with people in school now –such a long time since I was in her shoes. But it set my mind thinking about the importance of young people asking good questions.

What would be your answers to her questions?

1. John Hattie argued that for about 60-70% of students the current education system is working well but for the other 30-40% students are more or less struggling. Do you think a personalised or more specific schooling curriculum could work for these students to have a better chance for learning?

One of the AITSL Standards for Teaching( AITSL Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership) - another project that Hattie is connected with - that I find really important is know your students and how they learn. The question then that Hattie’s research prompts is about whether the reasons why a significant number of students are struggling lie in knowing better the students we teach. 

Do we as teachers know and understand the life circumstances of all our students or only of the students that are most like us? Do we understand what enables and what disables the learning of all our students? Do we have empathy for all of our students? Are we bringing our unspoken assumptions, prejudices and judgments into our interactions?  

Underlying these questions is an important understanding of the nature of learning?

What does it mean when we say I learn?

Students will have better learning when there is a sense of personalization and differentiation. One size does not fit all. 

2. John Hattie said that assessments in school should be a test for how teachers teach rather than students’ knowledge. What are your thoughts on this?

Make no mistake about it, all assessment is to some extent a test of how well we teach. While there is a responsibility for every learner to construct their own learning, it is also a measure of how well we teach when our students learn – or don’t learn. 

That’s not a popular position amongst teachers.

But every teacher should be reflecting on the effectiveness of their teaching in helping students learn.

There are dangers of simply assessing how well teachers teach because that can lead to distortions of practice – such as teaching to the test and, worse, coercive or bullying teaching approaches.

And there is the problem in that the true measure of how well students learn lies not in passing an ATAR test at Year 12, but in how they live their lives. Rarely as teachers do we have the opportunity of following up on lives longitudinally. 

But having made those caveats, I still come back to thinking that the test of teaching is: have students learnt? Can they independently, without prompting authentically show their learning? And when teachers teach well, students learn.

3. Do you believe that the High Impact Teaching strategies and the concept of Visible Learning developed by John Hattie would benefit the students learning and overall improve their chances of success in the real world outside of school?

Everyone, it seems, has an opinion about education and schooling. Politicians politicise it and make slogans about it; our community posts on social media all sorts of opinions, misinformation and prejudices; students in the midst of schooling offer their perspectives. It’s no wonder that we have seen flip flopping approaches – and Western Australia has not been immune to this trend. Everyone is looking for the magic bullet that will solve what are identified as problems in schooling. Too many people want simple answers to complex problems. 

Therefore, it is important that we should look at the research evidence and this is where Hattie is valuable. But even his work is being reduced to simple formulae (see, for example, Department of Education and Training, 2017). 

Having said that, I recognise from my own teaching that the High Impact Strategies make good sense – what my mother would have called common sense. Telling students what you intend them to learn; providing structure, signposts and guidance; working in teams; good questioning; explicitly understanding how learning happens; all of these strategies should be in every teacher’s repertoire.

Figure 1 From High Impact Teaching Strategies page 6

In Western Australia the Primary Principals Association has promoted a systematic approach called iSTAR – Inform/Inspire; Show/Share; Try/Transfer; Apply/Action; Review/Revise.(see https://www.campbellprimaryschool.wa.edu.au/teaching-learning/learning-areas/literacy/istar-pedagogical-framework/ for an example in use)

There is no shortage of approaches to teaching purposefully. 

The interesting question then is not about these or any  strategies, but why aren’t they evident in the day to day classroom?

There are a dazzling array of theories of learning (see for example, Bates (2019) that we also need to consider. The differences between a theory and evidence are also part of the debate. 

In short, there are no simple answers to the complex question of learning. But it must be more than haphazard and hit and miss. 

An interesting drama challenge

This sort of conversation while a dialogue is not intrinsically dramatic. There is no sense of tension or conflict. As a playwright, how could you construct this as a scene with dramatic action and tension?

• Explore and extend the ideas but write this as a dramatic dialogue.

• Who are the characters speaking? What are their relationships?

• What is their situation?

• What is the tension?

• Does the dialogue have a sense of structure and shape – rising tension/climax/resolution?

Note: John Hattie is a Professor of Education and Director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia, since March 2011. He was appointed Chair of the AITSL Board on 1 July 2014.

Bates, B. (2019). Learning theories simplified : ....and how to apply them to teaching (2nd Edition). London: Sage.

Department of Education and Training. (2017). High Impact Teaching Strategies Excellence in teaching and learning. East Melbourne, Victoria, 3002: Department of Education and Training

Drama Tuesday - Sometimes a picture tells the story

Some of the recent posts have been text heavy. Sometimes, what is needed is a diagram to tell the story.  

There are many different ways of teaching drama – and we need a guide through the maze. Rather than just listing all the different possibilities, can we categorise and organise them to see patterns?

When we teach drama we help our students become artists and audiences. We help them make drama and respond to drama. There are three main pathways that help us organise the many possibilities.

In drama learning and teaching, students

All three pathways depend on  students learning some fundamental knowledge and understanding. of the Elements of Drama; skills and processes of making and responding to Drama; Drama Conventions; Drama Forms and Genres; Contemporary Drama in the context of Drama of other times and places; and, Drama Values, the principles and standards of Drama Practice. 

Putting that all in one diagram, there is an unfolding picture to guide us. 

For example, if we come to Drama teaching and Learning through the lens of Improvising, students are both Making their own drama and Responding to their own drama making. To do so they need to draw from their knowledge and understanding of Drama Elements such as Role, Situation and Tension; they use  skills and processes of Listening and reacting, movement and facial expression; the apply the Conventions of Improv. such as offer/accept/progress; they build from a knowledge of improvisationally-based forms such as Commedia Dell’Arte; they also draw on their knowledge of improvising in contemporary theatre practice such as Whose Line Is It; and they practice the values of respecting partners, give and take and “not blocking”.

As a second example, if the entry point is responding and the aim is to help students become informed  audiences, responding as critics, then they drama on knowledge of all the Elements of Drama and skills and processes such as listening and watching, categorising information and responses and making connections between experiences; the Drama Conventions of willing suspension of disbelief and the specific conventions used; they bring to the process what they know about the specific forms and genres used in the context of history, society & culture and perspectives of time, continuity and change;. they acknowledge and act on their values of respecting contexts of the drama observed and audience expectations.

Try using this diagram to explore the teaching and learning of different aspects drama.

A diagram is always a shorthand way of saying something. Some people like and read diagrams but others need fuller explanations. What do you prefer to make meaning of the drama teacher experience?

What would you add or take away from this diagram?

Drama Tuesday - Do We Know Our Story?

Do we know our Arts and Drama curriculum story?

“…knowing and understanding the past assists us in placing all we do in perspective” 

(quoted in Green, 2003)

Curriculum – intended, published, enacted in the classroom – can be a confusing tangled story. Who says what we teach in the Arts and Drama? Where do these ideas come from? Sometimes when you read published documents such as the Australian Curriculum: The Arts  (ACARA, 2014), there’s a depersonalised, decontextualised anonymity. Curriculum documents often seem to be the illegitimate progeny of processes that obscure theory and those who wrote them.

Why should we know this story?

It is important that we name and know about our shared story. 

As Seddon (1989: 1) observes: "The dearth of Australian curriculum history is to be regretted. It means that Australian curriculum workers do not know their own past; neither the curricular past, nor the history of their profession”. Understanding educational change as a temporal process with its own rhythms and durational texture, she suggests, requires an historical imagination, one that takes full account of the complex relationships between past, present and future. (in Green, 2003 p. 3)

As an eyewitness to the unfolding story of arts curriculum in Australia and sometimes participant in the process, I feel that it is important to look beyond the published documents to inside the processes. Often succeeding documents devour what went before and there is a danger of losing the threads of continuity and paths not taken. 

Some moments in time

In this moment in time, I begin by naming and highlighting some key published documents that are signposts to the enfolding discussions that inform them. in the scope of this post, I can only introduce them and prefigure later more detailed discussion. 

In Australia …Drama is (1991) was written as part of the National Arts in Australian Schools that came from the establishment of the Australian Schools Commission and the Curriculum Development Centre in Canberra in 1975. Much of it resonates with current practice.

A Statement on the arts for Australian Schools (1994) and the accompanying A Profile of the Arts for Australian Schools (1994) was a first significant attempt to write a national curriculum. The Arts are defined as art forms of dance, drama, media, music and visual arts and recognised as significant ways of knowing. While each art form has its own way of knowing, there are common fundamental aspects to all of the arts disciplines which differentiate them from other key leaning areas of the school curriculum: The arts as aesthetic forms of knowing; as symbolic forms of knowing; and, as culturally constructed ways of knowing. Students are 'making' and 'responding as arts critics’; they are constructing aesthetic values and developing knowledge of the arts in varying contexts. Arts experiences are the right of every student. Teachers of The Arts need to plan a wide range of opportunities to observe artistic learning their students. 

To date there are four “Declarations on Goals for Australian Education” made by the Federal, State and Territory Ministers for Education: Hobart (1989); Adelaide (1999); Melbourne (2008); and, Alice Springs/Mpartnwe (2019). Each of these declarations have asserted the place of The Arts as one of eight learning areas (though sometimes blurring this clarity as the performing arts and the visual arts). This reinforces the Arts as forms of disciplinary knowledge. There is a tension in these declarations about the relationships between broad general knowledge and skills and disciplinary knowledge. In partnership with these declarations an Early Years Learning Framework (2009)has been adopted with direct implications for arts educators.

More Than Words Can Say (2019/1998, 2003) was a project of the National Affiliation of Arts Educators (NAAE, now known as National Advocates for Arts Education). This document, revised in 2015, argued the case for the role of the Arts in Literacy and Arts Literacy. The role of the NAAE in bringing together the sometimes disparate voices of the arts education community cannot be underestimated. For example, in 1995 responding to the Australian Government Creative Nation initiative the NAAE held a conference and wrote a report Creative Nation… The Arts leading the way (1995)

The National Statement on Education and the Arts (2007) jointly made by the Australian Cultural Ministers Council (CMC), and Ministerial Council on Education Employment and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA), is another attempt to bring national coherence to the Arts education story.

The Seoul Agenda on Arts Education (2010) provides a clear internationally endorsed focus on an arts education entitlement.

The Australian Curriculum: The Arts (ACARA, 2014) and its adapted forms (such as, School Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCSA), 2015) are the current versions of curriculum guidance and are at the forefront of thinking.

In this curriculum climate, there were a number of important documents that are important to note. Judith McLean wrote a monograph for what is now Drama Australia entitled An Aesthetic Framework in Drama: issues and Implications (1996). Robyn Ewing’s overview The arts and Australian education: realising potential (2010)  provides a comprehensive review of the field. 

Seeing a wider international context

As Chair of the Arts Committee established by the Curriculum Council in 1995 for the development of the Western Australian Curriculum Framework (1998), I put together a portfolio of documents that included

• Arts in Education: The Idea of a Generic Arts Community, Peter Abbs (1991) and a range of other documents from Abbs such as Living Powers: The Arts in Education (1987)

• Not a Frill, The Centrality of the Arts in the Education of the Future, Ontario Arts Council, (1994)

• The Arts are essential in the curriculum of New Zealand schools, Arts Council of New Zealand (1992) 

• The Vision for Arts Education in the 21st Century Music Educators National Conference (1993)

Also useful are more recent Arts curriculum documents such as: The New York City Department of Education Blueprints for the Arts: schools.nyc.gov/offices/teachlearn/arts/blueprint.html  and the Ontario Arts Curriculum Framework: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/arts18b09curr.pdf 

While sometimes criticised as a derivative curriculum nation, Australia has shown awareness and alertness to international trends. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority ACARA have published comparative curriculum studies with Finland, British Columbia, New Zealand and Singapore, each with discussion of arts curriculum (2018). 

For an article in NJ, the Drama Australia Journal in 2009, I wrote and still affirm, “…there is a clearly articulated worldview and epistemology that provides a direct lineage between the past and current drama documents discussed in these Australian focused articles. There is a recognisable ‘DNA’ of Australian drama education that is strongly affirmed in policy and practice” (2009). But Juliana Saxton and Carole Miller reminded us in presentations at the 6th International Drama in Education Research Institute [IDIERI] and the American Alliance for Theatre and Education [AATE] 2009 conference) that drama education successfully operates in a post-modern curriculum framework. They note that ‘the teacher and class are always teetering in the midst of chaos “not linked by chains of causality but [by] layers of meaning, recursive dynamics, non-linear effects and chance”’(Osberg, 2008). Drama education celebrates the four R’s of Post-modern Curriculum: it is rich, recursive, relational and rigorous.

What are the seminal documents in your arts and drama curriculum history? 

A note on perspective, positionality and point of view

It’s also worth mentioning that in seeing the story through our own autobiographies, we need to remember the fragmented state-based perspectives on curriculum development. The constitutional responsibility for education rests with the Australian States and Territories. This gives rise to “regional and local inflections” and “that different State systems in Australia rarely explicitly reference each other, or seek to learn from each other” (Green, 2003 p. 7).

The bad habit of ghosting previous iterations of curriculum does a disservice to the discussion of how arts and drama curriculum develop over time. What are the markers of continuity and change over time?

Bibliography

Abbs, P. (Ed.) (1987). Living Powers: The Arts in Education. London: Falmer Press.

ACARA. (2014). The Australian Curriculum: The Arts. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/the-arts/introduction

ACARA. (2018). Australian Curriculum comparison studies released. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/news/2018/07/australian-curriculum-comparison-studies-released/

Aspin, D. (1995). The Structure of an Educational Revolution: The Arts Leading the Way. Paper presented at the Creative Nation … The Arts Leading the Way (Australian Arts Education Conference), Olims, Hotel, Ainslie.

Australian Education Council. (1994). The Arts: A Curriculum Profile for Australian Schools. In. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation.

Council of Australian Governments. (2009). BELONGING, BEING & BECOMING The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia. Canberra: Australian Government

Council of Australian Governments Education Council. (2019). Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration. Canberra: Australian Government Retrieved from https://uploadstorage.blob.core.windows.net/public-assets/education-au/melbdec/ED19-0230%20-%20SCH%20-%20Alice%20Springs%20(Mparntwe)%20Education%20Declaration_ACC.pdf

Cultural Ministers Council (CMC), & Ministerial Council on Education Employment and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA). (2007). National Statement on Education and the Arts. Retrieved from http://www.cmc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/7366/National_Education_and_the_Arts_Statement_-_September_2007.pdf

Curriculum Council of Western Australia. (1998). Curriculum Framework: Curriculum Council of Western Australia.

Ewing, R. (2010). The arts and Australian education: realising potential. Retrieved from Camberwell, Victoria: 

Green, B. (2003). Curriculum Inquiry in Australia: Towards a Local Genealogy of the Curriculum Fireld. In W. F. Pinar (Ed.), International Handbook of Curriculum Research. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

Hammond, G., & Emery, L. (1994). A Statement on the arts for Australian Schools. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation (Australia)/Australian Education Council (AEC).

John O'Toole. (1991). In Australia Drama Is... In: NADIE National Arts in Australian Schools Project (NAAS).

MCEETYA Ministerial Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs. (1989). The Hobart Declaration on Schooling. Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs Retrieved from http://www.educationcouncil.edu.au/EC-Publications/EC-Publications-archive/EC-The-Hobart-Declaration-on-Schooling-1989.aspx

MCEETYA Ministerial Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs. (1999). The Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century. Retrieved from http://www.mceetya.edu.au/nationalgoals

MCEETYA Ministerial Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs. (2008). The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians. Retrieved from http://www.mceetya.edu.au/verve/_resources/National_Declaration_on_the_Educational_Goals_for_Young_Australians.pdf

McLean, J. (1996). An Aesthetic Framework in Drama: issues and Implications. Brisbane: NADIE National Association for Drama in Education (Australia).

NAAE. (2019/1998, 2003). More than words can say – a view of literacy through the arts. Retrieved from https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c7763c2778897204743a4c4/t/5ce4e34ad77bf50001a63f5c/1558504312124/MTWCS_2019.pdf

Osberg, D. (2008). The Politics in Complexity. Guest Editorial. Journal of the Canadian Association of Curriculum Studies, 6(1), iii-xiv. 

Pascoe, R. (2009). Postscript to Special Edition Drama Curriculum: looking forward. NJ (Drama Australia Journal), 33(1). 

School Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCSA). (2015). Western Australian P-10 Arts Syllabus. Retrieved from http://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/home/p-10-curriculum/curriculum-browser/the-arts

UNESCO. (2010). Seoul Agenda: Goals for the Development of Arts Education. Retrieved from http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=41117&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

What's so special about graphic novels? (November 2010). Retrieved from http://splash.abc.net.au/home#!/media/1249323/what-s-so-special-about-graphic-novels-

Drama Term Tuesday - A modest book proposal

Drama Learning and Teaching Theories Untangled – and how to use them

With tongue in cheek I make a serious proposal for a new book about Drama Learning and Teaching.  I am inspired to do so because I came across, a book by Bob Bates with an intriguing  title Learning theories simplified : and how to apply them to teaching (2019). In a couple of pages, he sketches succinct summaries of key theories and theorists of education. It’s a roller coaster ride through over 100 theories organised around Classical Learning Theories and Contemporary Thinking About Teaching and Learning. The reader switchbacks through Socrates, Plato (Shadows of reality), Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Dewey, Sartre, Freire and many more. Theories of Behaviourism, Cognitivism, Humanism, Neurolism and more rattle by. It’s not quite the comic book style, but it is a quick and useful reader with focused, point-by-point summaries for understanding and applying the array of approaches used in education. It explains and uses analogies to help understand concepts.It encourages critical engagement and  further reading. It’s worth a look.

My book proposal is to identify the key learning and teaching approaches for drama education.

Who are the people who have shaped drama teaching and learning?

What are the theories of drama education?

What is a theory in this context?

A theory is a systematic explanation of an approach; a set or principles; sometimes a justification.

Why are theories important?

If drama teaching is to be something more than collection of activities, tricks of the trade, games or schemes of work, it needs to be underpinned by a coherent explanation. That is not to make the case for the “theory of everything” – a single all encompassing master framework. We have come to realise that there are many ways of conceptualising and applying drama education as a field (As Hamlet reminded us: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.). When you think about it, the cross currents of approaches have shaped our contemporary practice.

It is however, important that we work in our drama workshops with an informed sense of context and history. We need to be something more than teacher technicians, following patterns set by others without thinking or understanding why we do what we do. What are the Big Ideas? Whose practice shifted conventional ways of doing things, set trends, gave us seminal concepts and even specific strategies? What are the dominant practices and their counterpoints?

Each drama teacher needs to articulate their philosophy or approach of drama teaching and how they understand their students learn drama. They need to acknowledge the influencers and forces that shape their day-to-day practice. They need to name and explain their drama teaching.

Why would this be a good idea?

There’s nothing like it that I have come across that provides a panoramic view of drama education.

But, there are some important cautions to this proposal.

• Naming theories and knowing them for their own sake doesn’t help make us great drama teachers. Nor is putting some particular theorists on a pedestal (or consigning some of them to Dante’s Inferno) isn’t helpful. What we need is reflective, critical engagement with theories.

• A theory exists in the context of practice – knowing and doing are hand-in-hand in the sort of embodied learning that we value in contemporary drama education. It makes little sense to treat theory and practice as mutually exclusive.

• Theories and theorists are not set in stone (or reducible to slogans). We need to remember that people and their drama practice change and develop over time. We need to ovoid ossifying ideas and practice. We need to let theories breathe, grow, change, adapt and emerge.

Who is on my initial list of theorists and theories?

That opens a can of worms, when you ask that question.

But to start the conversation I suggest the following knowing that there will be some important ones missed. In no particular order:

Dorothy Heathcote. Brian Way, Winifred Ward, Viola Spolin, Cecily O’Neill, Richard Courtney, David Booth, Comenius, Harriet Findlay Johnson, Henry Caldwell Cook, Brecht, Stanislavski, Gavin Bolton, Jonathon Neelands, Juliana Saxton, Carole Tarlington, John O’Toole, Keith Johnstone, Pam Bowell, Patrice Baldwin, Brian Heap? Madonna Stinson? Peter Duffy, Peter Wright?

And what of the types of practice we should include:

Improvisation, Process Drama, Story Drama, Script Interpretation. Verbatim Theatre, Chamber Theatre…? What about Children’s Dramatic Play? Teacher-in-role? Mantle of the Expert?

But, where are the European voices? The Scandinavian leaders? The voices from North and South America? USA? Canada, Australia, New Zealand? Where are the voices from history? 

Is it even possible to assemble a starting list? 

We won’t know until we start.

There’s a heap of work to go on developing this proposal. But it would be an interesting challenge. 

Who would you nominate as seminal theorist/practitioners for drama education?

What theories, theorists and practices are important?

How much do we need to know about each?

Join me in this new adventure.

Bibliography

Bates, B. (2019). Learning theories simplified : ....and how to apply them to teaching (2nd Edition). London: Sage.

Drama Tuesday - What will I teach today?

It’s the question we face as teachers every day of our working lives?

What will I teach today?

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a convenient text book to open and say to students,  Look at page 53 and do what it says there.

Unlike many other school subjects, drama does not seem to have a simple answer or a single set of textbooks or set syllabus.

Many Curriculum frameworks and syllabuses are written in open-ended ways. We need to join the dots or fill in the missing gaps.

• What are the choices and decisions that drama teachers need to make in their day to day planning?

• How do know what to teach in drama? When to teach specific concepts and skills and processes?

• How do I teach so students learn in ways that match or suit their age and stage of development?

To answer these questions we need to build a map in our head about how students learn drama at different ages and stages.

Teaching drama can’t just be a jigsaw of randomly chosen activities or a haphazard collection of things that work. They have to lead students somewhere. The word educate comes from the Latin deuce I lead forward.

We must have a curriculum compass that guides us forward in the learning of our drama students. One of the principles must be that we teach drama in ways that acknowledge and understand the ways youngsters learn at different ages. We need to teach with a sense of an underlying progression in learning. 

The term learning progression refers to the purposeful sequencing of teaching and learning expectations across multiple developmental stages, ages, or grade levels. They provide concise, clearly articulated descriptions of what students should know and be able to do at a specific stage of their education.

Consider the simple yet complex notion of improvising which is the backbone of many drama teaching programs. what is or expectation  of improvisation in children who are three and four? How do we shape learning experiences as they are five or ten or fourteen. We don’t expect 5 year olds to master the concepts of Algebra that they can learn in Year 12. But they do have things to learn in Year 1 so that they can learn in Year 12. There is a chain of connection across the learning years.

This is William, our grandson, in free play. This shows the seeds of improvisation that we develop through drama programs.

Where do we go next? How do we build learning upon learning?

What are aged and developmentally appropriate drama activities towards a growing learning about improvisation?

It is useful to visit again some of the learning progressions that have been developed as curriculum. 

 It might seem obvious, but nonetheless important, to observe that as children grow, their capacity to understand and apply concepts develop and our planning should reflect the patterns of child development.

The following example of a progression is based on some of my earlier research.

The Holy Grail of Drama Curriculum writers is to write workable progressions for development of drama across school years. It is notoriously difficult to write these progressions with ironclad certainty. They are at best useful approximations to guide. They are based on observation of young people learning drama and teacher experiences. But they are better than random guesses. 

A final thought:

I have had a conversation once with a teacher who said – for efficiency – that she teaches the same lesson to all the different years across the school. One size fits all. 

Can you spot the flaw in that approach?

What is the map that guides your choices as a drama teacher?

Teaching Drama For Redundancy

One of the sometimes overlooked roles of the teacher is to teach so that we are redundant. We are successful as teachers when our students no longer need us. There is often glib recognition of terms such as learning for life and independent learners. What that means in practice is often more difficult. 

I remember an inspirational teacher telling me that he teaches his drama students to run their own warm ups. He even has a roster for them to be the leader of the warm ups for each lesson. This has two advantages. Firstly, if the teacher is late to class or delayed, then students don’t sit around waiting but can get started. Secondly, in their lives beyond school, if they are working in the profession or taking part in a community event, they have the skills and processes to manage their own warm-ups (particularly, when there may not be someone to lead them). This left an impression on me and I have encouraged my drama education students to include this simple strategy in their own teaching.

Teaching for redundancy is also a timely reminder that we need to watch the temptation to take on the drama teacher as hero/heroine role. We all love a little affirmation as teachers. But, sometimes, the drama teacher as cult leader kicks in. As much as we as individual teachers have needs to be recognised, we need to keep in mind that it is not about me/us but about students. The glib phrase used is student centred learning. That isn’t about pandering to students wants and preferences; there is still a curriculum and learning to focus on. The measure of our success as teachers is that students are learning and that we make the difference in their learning. But what matters is the student learning nor our personal agenda. 

Each student does learn in her or his own way and we need to be mindful of overgeneralising about how students learn but some clear markers of teaching for redundancy do exist. Part of that process is recognising when students incorporate the learning without the teacher prompting. If our class has been working to understand fundamentals of improvisation – offer/accept/progress – when we see them using that process independently and without us side coaching, then we can see them taking the principles of improv into their own practice. Of course, there is a useful role for side coaching. But teaching for less side coaching is teaching for redundancy. Side coaching is not about us the teacher but about shifting the focus to the student in action.

What other ways can you teach drama for redundancy?

(For more on sidecoaching see https://spolin.com/?p=872)

Misconceptions about Drama Teaching

Misconceptions about Drama Teaching are interesting.

The misconceptions that many people have about drama and arts education are revealing.

A misconception is a view or opinion that is incorrect because it is based on faulty thinking or understanding

For example, there are misconceptions about drama itself. Drama is just entertainment. Drama is showing off.  Drama is faking emotions. 

Drama can be entertaining but it can often serve a wider purpose through telling stories that are enacted and embodied. 

There are misconceptions about drama in schools. Drama is just putting on scripted plays/musicals/Shakespeare. Drama is not a serious school subject/just something as a break from real learning. Drama is time filling/wasting/just games/pretending to be trees. Drama is touchy feeling/too emotional/too revealing. Drama is OK for the show off kids but not for all kids/drama is only for talented kids not average kids/. Drama is messy/noisy/disruptive/kids get too excited and they are high when they go to their next class. You also hear people say there’s nothing to learn in drama/there’s no writing/there’s no content. Drama is just pretending/a form of lying or dishonesty/unleashes undesirable thoughts and feelings/encourages rebellion/challenges authority/is subversive.

Drama teaching and learning is a legitimate field of study; what students learn in drama is specific knowledge and skills about using embodied forms of expression and communication to share stories. They also learn through drama about their  personal, social and cultural identities.

What are the misconceptions about drama in schools that you have come across?

How do we deal with these misconceptions?

I doubt that any one wilfully sets out to hold and pass on misconceptions. They often reflect gaps in a person’s experience or education or are the residue of a bad experience of school drama. Sometimes they reflect a lack of understanding of the purposes and scope of drama in schools. Sometimes, they reflect unspoken prejudices or cultural norms. Sometimes they are the fear of the unknown. Whatever the reason, misconceptions are learnt and as teachers our

role is to respond to that mis-learning and address it. 

Eggen and Kauchak (2013) observe, “misconceptions are constructed; they’re constructed because they make sense to the people who construct them; and they are often consistent with people’s prior knowledge or experiences” (p. 195). In that light it is important to understand the factors that impact on how we learn to teach the Arts and Drama.

All of us, including teachers, bring to our lives and work, our own learning experiences in the Arts. Teachers learn about their job and craft from other teachers:

• as students themselves, they see what teachers do and how they teach; the school culture can both enable teaching in the Arts or it can powerfully de-motivate and limit it

• if a teacher’s own Arts education or the Arts teaching they observe is telling them one thing, they are likely to believe and do what they see and are familiar with. If they are told often that Drama is time wasting/time filling/just games/etc. then this  message is reinforced. Many teachers continue to teach the way they themselves were taught even when they didn’t particularly enjoy that schooling.

Tied closely to what teachers do are their underlying attitudes, values and dispositions and these have an impact on how the Arts are taught and learned. Attitudes and values are most often socially formed. It takes powerful and embodied personal experience to change entrenched points of view.

Pointing out a misconception, simply labelling it as “wrong” or “flawed thinking”, is of limited use. People who change their thinking and practice need: 

• viable, alternative experiences that disrupt their mis-conceptualised understandings

• to see how that changed understanding is useful in the real world

• to see how applying their revised thinking to new situation actually produces desired results

• to have their revised world view valued and endorsed by peers and the school community

• to see that students are learning differently, with higher levels of approval and satisfaction and with better outcomes or results

• to see that parents and the community support what is different.

Teaching the Arts often needs to be transformational learning for a teacher personally and professionally. It needs also be transformational for parents, educational leaders and policy makers and the wider community.

The antidote to misconceptions is being clear in the messages we communicate. The ways that we state purpose and scope needs to be well articulated. We need to check for understanding.  Or to put it another way, as  Stephen Covey (2004) reminds us: SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD.

Stephen R. Covey  (2004) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, New York, NY. Free Press.

Eggen, P., & Kauchak, D. (2013). Educational Psychology: Windows on Classrooms, Ninth Edition. Boston: Pearson.

Purposes of Arts and Drama Education

There is a moment in the film Boychoir (Dir. François Girard, 2014), playing on SBS Movie Chanel, when the character played by Dustin Hoffman in a discussion about the notoriously short singing life of a treble voice over sees, “we give them a life, not a vocation”.

While, some students who study drama in schools continue to have lives and careers in their art form, arts education in schools is not just pre-vocational, just as a successful comprehensive education is not just pre-vocational.

Drama draws from stories of all human experience. Through the lives of other presented in drama we can better understand our own lives and stories. Drama is a rich and powerful form of expression and communication found in some form in all societies and times.

Drama shows how people interact with each other. It is about people living together in society.

Drama passes the stories of our culture from one generation to another. Drama is part of the cultural DNA, the stories that shape our wider identities.

Another way of saying that is that through drama we learn about our personal, social and cultural identities. Drama in schools is much more than a “try out” for some future job. Yes, it does develop what are sometimes called life skills such as confidence and communication. It is more importantly about how we shape the ways we express ideas and communicate and share them with others. The particular skills of using our voices and bodies, stepping into the shows of others with empathy and understanding, and having a sense of place and time are valuable in their own right. They help us tell and share the stories of our lives.

This challenges the views held by many about the purpose of drama and arts education. It questions some of the prevalent misconceptions. Misconceptions are interesting because they tell us so much. This idea of misconceptions about Drama is developed in the next post. (And there is a need to also consider drama for students who are identified as gifted and talented and pre-vocational.