Drama Tuesday - Back in the saddle again

Being in the theatre after a break caused by the pandemic.

I am sitting in a theatre again – for a stunning production of Chicago at John Curtin College of the Arts. The last time I was in a theatre was with Hannah and Peter in the studio Theatre in Washington DC on March 16. It’s a long theatre drought. As much as I can sit at home and watch Chicago as a filmed event on  Netflix or similar, there is nothing like the visceral presence of being in an audience of other people. As annoying as it can be when there are whoops from some audience members when a high note is struck or a dance move is nailed, there is the living shared presence of belong to an audience at an event. The warm, shared dark beyond the metaphoric footlights is a mysterious space. How is it that individual thoughts, personalities, life experiences coalesce into shared laughter or applause. 

What is an audience and why is it so important?

Can you have drama without an audience?

Why does it matter?

There is a sense of grief in many that the experience of being in a “live” audience is lost in times of pandemic. Our theatre history tells us that there have been other times when the theatres were closed. Plague, pestilence, war and politics have closed theatres in the past, just as the current Pandemic is closing them. (see discussion in https://www.thestage.co.uk/long-reads/from-pandemics-to-puritans-when-theatre-shut-down-through-history-and-how-it-recovered) There will be a time when theatres are reopened and we will flock back to seeing performances as live audiences. 

It is also important to talk about why this is important for us as individuals and as a community.

Consider the reasons why from the  perspective of those who collectively make theatre.

What Idid sense from the production of Chicago at John Curtin College of the Arts was how important it was for the students (and their teachers) to perform for a live audience. The one thing that all the discussion of performance via ZOOM and digital means – as necessary as it was – couldn’t deny was the desirability of returning to live performance. 

This was a stunning production of Chicago from the opening visual impact of the well rehearsed voices and bodies on the bare stage to the final bows. The sense of style and form was effectively realised with the Fosse choreography sitting comfortably on the young bodies. The Cell Block Tango and Razzle Dazzle was driven and pulsating There was attention to the detail in the singing performances. It is exhilarating when young performers are able to reach beyond the surface gloss of style and move an audience (as they did with the sense of pathos in the portrayal of Amos). There was a faithful evocation of the original Fosse style and pizzazz.

This production is as strong as many from WAAPA. And it is a pity that more people didn’t get to be in the audience because of the pandemic restrictions. It is wonderful for those that have been able to be in the audience.

I was briefly taken back to a production in memory – at the old Playhouse in Pier Street. I think Jill Perryman was playing Mama Morton and Maurie Ogden was Amos (with the old vaudeville trick of the boots that hooked into the screws on the stage so that he swayed deeply beyond human limits. 

I have lost sight of the times when I have seen other Chicago productions, but this JCCA production is one that will stick in memory.

 Bibliography

Dewey, J. (1938:2005). Art As Experience, Perigee Trade.

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-

Music Monday - staying vigilant

Yesterday the WA Chapter of ANATS (Australian Association of Teachers of Singing) held its AGM. We are the only state to hold our AGM in person this year, and at the meeting there was a real sense of how very lucky we are on the west coast of Australia that currently we have no community transmission of Covid-19. Life feels pretty normal right now.

And yet the situation could change in a matter of days. All it takes is a single breach of the rules from a returned international traveller or staff at a quarantine hotel doing the wrong thing and the virus could take off again.

And there is a potential danger in the kind of complacency we are starting to feel in the west.

In the past few days I have observed a number of behaviors which would be risky with even a slightly larger higher viral load here.

I attended a high school music theatre performance on Friday evening. It was SO good to be back in the theatre. But although the theatre seating had been sold at only fifty percent of capacity (in line with the current restrictions) there was no actual separation of patrons inside the theatre. We were seated next to each other with no spare seats between. Of course, there was less congestion than usual in the foyer, but any virus here would have had ample opportunity to spread during the show.

Furthermore, at both of my workplaces recently I have had the awkward experience of being in a toilet cubicle when the cubicle alongside was vacated- then no sound of water running at the wash basin followed - ie no hand washing.

I too have definitely caught myself being less constantly vigilant about frequent hand washing and hand sanitizing lately. But FaceTime chats with our daughter and her husband in the USA are a stark reminder of how much worse things could be. And tend to pull me back on track.

As arts workers we make close physical contact with each other on a daily basis. Singing and woodwind playing produce significant aerosols. Many pianists play the same piano. Dance routines often involve touch. So many scenes in plays involve embracing and kissing.

In order to inch slowly towards being able to do all of these things again we must stay vigilant in doing what science tells us to do in this pandemic: wash our hands regularly, avoid touching our face, keep a social distance from each other and where required- wear a mask.

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.

Music Monday - Thinking about friends and colleagues in Melbourne and Victoria

Of all aspects of my teaching and arts practice, vocal coaching is the one that gives me the greatest satisfaction – the biggest buzz. Over many years I think I have got better at it; mainly due to working with some outstanding singing teachers in my own training and also being lucky enough to work alongside a number of stellar speaking voice teachers in my tertiary teaching. There is nothing quite like the buzz of being part of a team putting on a show.

For the past weeks since being allowed to return onto campuses in Western Australia, I have relished being back in the rehearsal room for a performing arts high school production of Chicago. Our director was herself in the West End show for 5 years, so our lucky music theatre students are getting a genuine experience of Bob Fosse’s style as well as invaluable personal insights into Kander’s intentions. I have tried to replicate the precision of the Fosse choreography in the vocal calls and have been impressed by the performers’ willingness to engage in very detailed work on the music. These are specialist and highly motivated kids but some of their focus this time seems to come from our shared relief to be back in the rehearsal room.

And so this Monday, as Melbourne goes back to a stage 4 lockdown and regional Victoria faces stage 3 restrictions as well as mandatory mask wearing, I am musing on how easily our return to normal could backfire here in the West. 

In Australia we have been lucky that government responses to the pandemic have been based on expert medical advice, rather than politicised. However, in all communities across the world there exist minority groups of science deniers, conspiracy theorists and humans who believe that their own rights and immediate convenience surpasses the common good. Victoria was unlucky enough to cop a rise in Covid-19 cases as a result of selfishness or ignorance, but it could so easily be any other state of Australia. 

As our family, friends and colleagues in Victoria tough it out for the next 6 weeks for the greater good of the rest of Australia, please let arts teachers and practitioners across the country go to work with even greater resolve it order to make it all worth their while.

Victoria – we stand for you and with you.

Drama Tuesday - Looking beyond the Flood

In the last week I have presented a keynote for the newly established Drama and Theatre Education Alliance  (https://dtealliance.wixsite.com/dtea) in the United Kingdom.

On July 15 the Alliance staged the Big Drama and Theatre Education Debate: Getting our act together. I have re-recorded my keynote and share it.

Looking beyond the Flood

Big Drama and Theatre Education Debate: Getting our act together

July 15 2020

Robin Pascoe,

President IDEA International Drama/Theatre and Education Association, Honorary Fellow, Murdoch University.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you today and warmest wishes from the wider IDEA community to all in Drama, Theatre and Education. 

I have lost track of the times we are told that we live in “an age of innovative disruption” (see, for example, Bower & Christensen, 1995). The Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic amplifies disruption in politics, technology, society, education in schools and universities. Our current moment of disruption presents both threats and opportunities. It also highlights fissures and divisions of the past. It calls for healing and looking beyond the flood.

You may have seen my recent post about the situation in Greece where the Ministry of Education announced the weekly program for upper secondary education for the new school year 2020-2021 and has eliminated the arts completely (http://www.stagepage.com.au/blog). There are threats in the ways that people are responding to the current Pandemic.

Each of us sees our realities through our autobiographies. In the world of drama and theatre education there are good news stories and sad news stories. In some places of the world, like Iceland and Taiwan, drama is embedded in the primary school. In Finland, despite a concerted long-term campaign by FIDEA, the Finnish association, drama has yet to be included in the curriculum. In my role in IDEA I see encouraging signs of remarkable growth in drama education happening in China and Turkey alongside contraction and denial elsewhere in the world. The promise of the Seoul Agenda on Arts Education (UNESCO, 2010), that was endorsed by all UNESCO members, has yet to be realised as an entitlement. The situation addressed in your Manifesto ("Drama, Theatre and Young People's Manifesto," 2020) highlights a local perspective with global implications.

It’s worth mentioning a little about the situation in Australia. 

Australia does have the Australian Curriculum: The Arts (ACARA, 2014). Drama Australia (https://dramaaustralia.org.au/0 ) has provided a unified voice for drama education. The National Advocates for Arts Education NAAE (https://naae.org.au) thrives as a network of peak national professional arts and arts education associations who represent arts educators across Australia. 

But … there’s always a but, isn’t there!

Implementation of the Australian Curriculum is, constitutionally, vested in the States and Territories. In my own state of Western Australia the decision has been made to “adopt and adapt” the national document. Similarly, other states have made local interpretations of the mandate. The scope of the promised entitlement is narrowed or changed. 

There is also the underlying question of implementation. Writing an Arts and Drama curriculum is one thing (Don’t forget this is not the first go we have had at doing this in Australia (2007; 1994)), successfully implementing that curriculum for every Australian student is a challenge.  As the evidence of two national reviews of arts education undertaken a relatively long time ago now (2008; 2005), what happens in schools may not reflect the written curriculum. Having the Australian Curriculum: The Arts published is only valuable when we can confidently say that all Australian students have a delivered arts curriculum that includes drama.

There is in Australia also evidence of contraction in drama teacher education across Australian universities that are reeling as they re-invent themselves in the current pandemic (though the writing has been on the wall of the rise of managerialist leadership and political interference (Hellyer & Jennings, May 28 2020). The decisions made in my own university to de-couple Arts and Drama and Education by locating them in different colleges is a sign of the times. The decision to double the cost of Arts degrees, made recently by the Australian Government (19 June 2020), further erodes the position of drama education.

Returning to an international perspective, it is useful to consider some of the possible reasons why as a drama education community we have reached this point. 

Why is drama education sometimes still considered extracurricular? 

Why is drama in schools sometimes considered suspect? 

Why isn’t our vision for drama and arts education widely shared?

Perhaps we need to look back at or collective histories and speculate. 

In the minds of many, drama education is aligned with “progressive education” (see, for example, Dewey, 1938 and many others).  The tenor of the times when drama education began to flourish it was alongside embodied commitment to greater informality in classrooms and relationships between teachers and students; broader curriculum; practical activities; flexibility of teaching procedures; diversity; focus on individual child and a balance of academic and social and emotional learning. There was also strong commitment to critical and socially-engaged teaching and learning. These notions challenge a politicised educational climate

The opposition to including drama in the school curriculum entitlement is often based on assumptions and prejudices and even misconceptions.  It is always useful to identify some of the misconceptions about our field and to question the fear and loathing that drives some political curriculum choices. 

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).  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.

How are we, as a community of practice, challenging misconceptions?

I remind us all that our greatest asset is our art form as a change agent. With that in mind I invite you to imagine an unfolding process drama from a new pre-text Littlelight by Kelly Canby (2020). 

In the grey old town of Littlelight, a “big beautiful wall” surrounded the town. The wall was thick and all encompassing and the Mayor was strong .But one day a brick was missing in the wall. And no one noticed at first, but little by little, brick by brick, gaps appeared in the wall. And there were streaks of neon light fingering their way into the town. Who could be stealthily breaching the wall? 

What happens when the walls that are built are breached?

You can continue the metaphors of this process drama in your imaginations. 

Imagine how powerful our process drama could be in bringing about change.

What we need is to navigate our way through these disruptive times keeping our drama compass tracking true.

I began by invoking an image of the Flood. and return to it conclude.

Jackson Browne sang in Before the Deluge (1995) of a world of dreamers and fools “in the troubled years that came before the deluge”. But he also sang of a time beyond the flood:

Let the music keep our spirits high

Let the buildings keep our children dry

Let creation reveal its secrets by and by, by and by

When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky

We need to keep our eyes beyond the horizon, beyond the flood.

Thank you. 

Bibliography

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

Bower, J. L., & Christensen, C. M. (1995). Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave. Harvard Business Review, 73(1 (January–February)), 43–53. 

Browne, J. (1995). Before the Deluge (Lyrics). Retrieved from https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/2846364/Jackson+Browne

Canby, K. (2020). Littlelight. Fremantle, Western Australia: Fremantle Press.

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

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience & Education. New York, NY: Kappa Delta Pi.

Diana Davis, & Australia Council for the Arts. (2008). First We See: The National Review of Visual Education. Retrieved from http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/research/education_and_the_arts/reports_and_publications/first_we_see_the_national_review_of_visual_education

Drama, Theatre and Young People's Manifesto. (2020). Retrieved from https://dtealliance.wixsite.com/dtea/manifesto

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

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

Hellyer, M., & Jennings, P. (May 28 2020). Our universities must rethink their broken business model or risk failure. Canberra Times. Retrieved from https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6771137/our-universities-must-rethink-their-broken-business-model-or-risk-failure/

Karp, P. (19 June 2020). Australian university fees to double for some arts courses, but fall for Stem subjects. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/19/australian-university-fees-arts-stem-science-maths-nursing-teaching-humanities

Pascoe, R., Leong, S., MacCallum, J., MacKinley, E., Marsh, K., Smith, B., . . . Winterton, A. (2005). Augmenting the Diminished: National Review of School Music Education. Retrieved from Canberra: 

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

Drama Tuesday - We learn drama by making drama – a Process Drama example

We learn Drama by making Drama. By using the Elements of Drama such as role, situation, voice, movement and tension, we learn how drama tells stories in our bodies.

In this short video I share with you some drama making from a workshop I ran in Baoding, China, in November 2019. 

We used drama to bring to life the story of the Magic Lotus Lantern, a traditional story. We used drama strategies to build a series of dramatic action episodes exploring key moments in the story. This is a Process Drama.

In the traditional story of the Magic Lotus Lantern, on  the  Huashan Mountain there lived a guardian, the beautiful goddess Sanshenmu who had a brother Erlang who wanted to control his sister. 

We visualised the scene on the mountain. We created the mountain in the drama space using lengths of coloured fabric and sounds using our voices and recordings.

Our Process Drama explored the relationship between brother and sister in role and out of role. We edged into the drama using physical activities of gatekeepers. We improvised scenes between siblings in everyday life.

We moved back into the story narrating how Sanshenmu had a magical treasure – a lotus lantern whose light could scare away all evil. We embodied using symbol as a fundamental building block of drama.

In the story, one winter, a scholar Liu Yanchang, a human, visited the temple and saw the image of Shenmu and was struck by her beauty. He thought that she was so beautiful he would ask her to be my wife. Shenmu was also struck by the authentic love of the young scholar. But she knew that it a deity like her could never fall in love with a mortal. Liu Yanchang left Shenmu not knowing she was pregnant.

Skipping ahead in this account, Erlang angered by this love story, stole the Magic Lotus Lantern and banished Shenmu to live inside a dark cave buried under a mountain. There she gave birth to a child.

We created the dark cave and the birth of the child. 

Liu Yanchang returned after his success in the examinations but when he came to the Shenmudian temple he found it deserted. Just as he turned to leave, he heard a baby crying.

He was puzzled at finding a baby in the temple. Bu t then he found Shenmu’s letter written on the silk and knew that the baby was Chenxiang. He took the child and raised it, teaching him to read and write as any mortal would. But he kept the secret of Shenmu from Chenxiang. 

However, one day, the boy discovered the silk letter. He went searching for his mother.

The child grew and fought his uncle Erlang and won the Magic Lotus Lantern an d used it to break open the mountain and rescue his mother. 

I will let the drama speak for itself.

We learn drama by making drama.

Acknowledgment: The workshop was run for Cambridge Education, Baoding with Early Childhood educators and organised by IDEC, Berijing. 

Bibliography

The following resources unpack Process Drama

Bowell, P., & Heap, B. S. (2013). Planning Process Drama: Enriching teaching and learning (2nd Edition). Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge.

Bowell, P., & Heap, B. S. (2017). Putting Process Drama into Action: The Dynamics of Practice. Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge.

O'Neill, C. (1995). Drama Worlds A Framework for Process Drama. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

O'Toole, J. (1992). The Process of Drama: Negotiating Art and Meaning. London: Routledge.

Taylor, P. (Ed.) (1995). Pre-Text and StoryDrama: The Artistry of Cecily O'Neill and David Booth. Brisbane: NADIE The National Association for Drama in Education.

Music Monday - Rhythm and Rhyme – working creatively with young children.

Both rhyme and rhythm are patterns in sound – in spoken sound as well as sung sound.

The wonderful work done by biggerbetterbrains.com highlights the importance of these skills in early language development. I have written about this in previous Music Monday posts and it continues to fascinate me, especially now that we have a pre-schooler grandson in our lives.

Yesterday (almost) 4 year-old William came to our house for the day. As usual he was excited about what activities we had planned for his visit. The hot favourites always include cooking, picking up the dog’s poop (yes, really) and music. The last always includes a very short period of hand positions on the piano, and a longer time singing songs, accompanied by me with William playing random notes in rhythm at the top end of the keyboard. Yesterday his attention was caught by the rhyming patterns in one particular song and I wondered whether we could play further with this idea, especially after he volunteered, “The rhymes are words that sound the same, aren’t they?”

We got out William’s scrap book and started writing down rhyming words. Of course, ‘poop’ featured – loads of good rhyming words with that one! 

Next we made up short phrases, each one ending with one of our rhyming words. After 8 phrases and 4 pairs of rhymes, we tried clapping each phrase. One of William’s made-up phrases started with an upbeat so we talked about that, and although he didn’t really understand the concept, he was able to clap it with the stress on the first beat of the bar. 

We then played a game where I clapped the phrases out of sequence and William guessed which phrase I was clapping – mostly accurately. We talked briefly about the words being the rhythm – that time-honoured concept of primary music teachers. 

Finally we invented a tune for his song. William was inclined to stick to a monotone and focus on the rhythmic patterns, but I guided and coaxed him towards a simple tune contained within the doh-soh range.

All up this song-writing activity took about 30 minutes.

Later, when his parents arrived for dinner, he was keen to share his song. As before, he clearly enjoyed stressing the strong beats, clapping and singing enthusiastically. He felt ownership of both the process and end product.

So much of what we do in music classes tends towards recreating. Sometimes it is fun – and beneficial – to be creative instead.