Drama Tuesday - Are We There Yet?

/

 Research is a journey and it is useful to reflect on our journey’s into drama education research. Like the restless child in the back seat of the car on the road trip, we ask again and again the question: Are we there yet!

I came to academic research as a classroom-based researcher. The confluence of the stars meant that I began teaching at a time that gave attention to research in place. The mantra of the times was that every teacher was necessarily a researcher in their own classroom. I initiated action research projects in the spirit of But My Biro Won’t Work (Coggan and Foster undated)  that supported school-based curriculum. When I moved to curriculum leadership positions within the Department of Education, this approach led the development of progression maps in Drama and Arts (1998) that drew on the lived experiences of drama teachers in their classrooms. I reported this work in progress at the 1997 International Drama in Education Institute, IDEIRI, conference convened by Juliana Saxton and Carole Miller at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. 

Yet, even amongst a sympathetic clan I always had the feeling that I was not seen as a “real researcher”.

This was annoyingly and frustratingly confirmed when in 2002 I started working at Murdoch University. The sniffs of “academic dismissal” might be disguised until certain rites of passage took place, but this “blooding” only strengthened a commitment to valuing portraits of authentic experience qualitatively told. Built into the assessment design of my drama teacher education courses was a focus on reflective and reflexive practice. Building on models such as those provided by Norris, McCammon and Miller (2000), I asked students to build and share case stories of their drama teaching learning. Every teacher must be a researcher about their own practice.

This is not to downplay the case for academic rigour in research nor undervalue the quest for trustworthiness. Nor should we ignore necessary training in the protocols and rituals of apprenticeships in research. We need to reassure the wider community – and ourselves – that we have a legitimate place in the research arc. But we also have to find the courage to affirm our own research confidence. I hasten to assure you that I did serve my time and built an academic research profile (for example, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robin-Pascoe). But I have to add that I learn so much from working with research students as their research lives unfolded and this reinforces the idea that research is a journey .

You ask two questions:

  1. What is ONE important development in Drama/Theatre and Education research in the last 30 years?

  2. What is IDEA's role in furthering Drama/Theatre and Education research in the future?

In answer:

  1. One important development in Drama/Theatre and Education research has been a recognition of seeing ourselves as teacher researchers.

  2. IDEA’s role is to create communities where we empower and share the voices of teachers as researchers.

There is a third question:

Are we there yet?

Of course, we are not there yet. 

It’s the journey that matters.

Taking a moment to reflect on IDEA and Research as a quest

The role of IDEA in supporting research since its founding in 1992 has been significant. Not only is this a reflection of the role of drama educators in the Academy, it is an endorsement of the founding principles of IDEA. As noted in Article 3 of the IDEA Constitution, the aims of IDEA are: 

  • to provide an international forum for communicating about, promoting and advocating for drama/theatre and education in schools, communities and all fields of endeavour;

  • to support development of drama/theatre practice and theory as part of a full human education.

Research lies at the heart of the IDEA mission. 

As a community, IDEA must recognise and celebrate the role of Research in its ongoing story.

It is interesting to read overviews of drama education research (see, for example, Jones 2021, reviewing Drama research methods: provocations of practice: edited by Peter Duffy, Christine Hatton and Richard Sallis, all IDEA figures). In acknowledging the rich inheritances of research in the field, it is important to recognise that participants in IDEA have been drawn together into a shared international space. Belonging to community has contributed to and fired debates and differences, resonances and refractions. IDEA is not about creating an homogenised view about research in drama/theatre and education. It is about creating a space for sharing. 

Research is ultimately about questioning practice and IDEA’s role is to help us ask better questions. Morgan and Saxton (1994) reminded us there is a compelling role for questions in creating powerful learning environments. Active learners ask and answer questions. In a different religious context, George Herbert, poet coined the phrase repining restlessness, to describe a state of always, ever striving forward. Research should always leave us asking the next question, not merely giving us a warm afterglow of satisfaction. 

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

TS Eliot, Little Gidding.

Bibliography

Coggan, J. and V. Foster (undated). "But My Biro Won't Work" Literacy and learning in the secondary classroom - an action research study. Camden Park, South Australia, Australian Association for the Teaching of English AATE: 96.

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

Eliot, T. S. (1969). Complete poems and plays of T.S. Eliot. London, Faber and Faber.

Jones, J. P. (2021). "Drama research methods: provocations of practice." Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 26(2): 379-384.

Morgan, N. and J. Saxton (1994). Asking Better Questions Models, techniques and classroom activities for engaging students in learning. Markham, Ontario, Pembroke Publishers Limited.

Norris, J., L. A. McCammon and C. S. Miller (2000). Learning To Teach Drama: A Case Narrative Approach. Portsmouth, Heinemann Drama.