Drama Teacher Education – got my ticket for the long way round

Drama Teacher Education in Australia is at crossroads.

For the Vision 2020 National Drama Conference due in Brisbane in April 2021, I re-worked my workshop presentation as a video and share it here. 

The presentation draws on a chapter I have been writing and re-writing since 2020 for the Routledge Companion to Drama Education edited by Peter O’Connor and Mary McEvoy (forthcoming after a long delay caused by the Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic – another of the many pivots that have happened 2020-2021).

 The text of the presentation is also included. 

It is also published in the Digital library for the Conference that Drama Queensland has put together. 

https://www.dramaqueensland.org.au/pd/conference/ 

Video Script

Drama Teacher Education – got my ticket for the long way round

Drama Teacher Education in Australia is at crossroads. 

Robin Pascoe 

Honorary Fellow, College of Science, Health, Engineering and Education (SHEE), Murdoch University, South Street, Murdoch, Western Australia 6150

Introduction

Drama Teacher Education in Australia is at another crossroads. Drama teacher education emerging within formal university structures in the mid 20th century until now has been a remarkable success story. But there is rapid and concerning change. Indicative of changes in other universities, 2019 was the last time that Drama Teacher Education Secondary was offered at Murdoch University. There are similar signs of contraction in other drama courses across Australian universities 

Context: developing a drama teacher education course

I have spent the last 20 years teaching drama education beginning with asking colleagues fundamental questions:

• What do you want teachers to know and be able to do on Day 1? And every day after that?

Over time I developed an approach based on the following principles:

We learn to teach Drama in the way that we learn drama

To teach Drama effectively we develop two inter-related perspectives: how we learn Drama and how we teach so students learn Drama. They are connected ways of thinking, doing and being a drama teacher. 

We learn Drama through experience, observation, modelling and being part of an ensemble. We learn to teach Drama through applying our direct experiences of drama and theatre; observing and modelling from others teaching drama; and, belonging to a community of shared practice (what I sometimes call a Guild of Drama Teachers).

In Learning Drama, we identify the distinctive nature of Drama/Theatre as an art form and its role in people’s lives, society and community. We learn Drama by making Drama recognising that it is hands-on, practical and experiential. It is embodied learning that brings together our body, mind and spirit. We understand that

Drama is aesthetic experience contextualised in the art forms’ histories, conventions and cultures. 

In Learning to Teach Drama, we identify Drama as curriculum. We shape our practice in our Drama Teacher roles as teacher, curriculum leader, director, mentor, role model and resource manager.

Learning to teach Drama is practical, embodied experience. We learn to teach Drama by teaching Drama – by trying out strategies, concepts and approaches that help us refine our choice making as teachers.

In practice, this translated into an articulated course (Example available at  http://www.stagepage.com.au/drama-education). 

Conceptual learning was integrated into and followed practical experience. Hands on, practical examples of strategies, skills and processes were underpinned by connections with contexts, curriculum, theory, theorists and history. Key multiple roles of teaching drama – teacher, curriculum leader, director, mentor, role model and resource manager – were modelled and taught.

The current crisis

Drama teacher education in Australia began to be recognised in the 1960s. In Western Australia for example, in 1974 I was in the first intake of students permitted to take Drama Education as a major curriculum study at the Secondary Teachers College. The course outlined earlier was established in 2002 as the third available in Western Australia. As drama education grew in Western Australian schools (particularly with recognition of Drama ATAR in 1999) there has been a steady need for drama teachers. But there has been rapid and concerning change in the twenty-first century in the complex contemporary landscape of Australian universities.

In the past ten years or so there have been more than forty inquiries into different aspects of teacher education (Mills & Goos, November.13.2017). The Australian Government Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) reported in Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers (December 2014) issues and concerns. There is a populist tabloid perception that teacher education is flawed if not failing (see, for example, Shine, 2018). This, in turn, has led to intense politicised scrutiny and regulation including Accreditation of Initial Teacher Education Programs in Australia (AITSL, 2011) and the establishment of Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), 2017). Yet, the situation is not clear cut.

Trends and patterns There has been an erosion of drama teacher education at my university over time and diffusion of focus in other Universities.

What is happening for drama teacher education is more than a response to the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. There is a significant challenge to place of drama teacher education itself. To move beyond this moment, we need to better understand some deeper underlying issues.

Recognising the abyssal line

It is too easy to sound a warning about declining standards in drama teacher education. The tree that holds up the sky is uneasily still holding for us. 

But as teacher educators in a contemporary world ,we have come to recognise “the abyssal line” (Santos, 2007), an invisible and unspoken line of presences and absences dividing worlds and world views into “us” and “them”. Things, people, ideas beyond that line are de-emphasised to the point that they are rendered null (in an Australian context, a terra nullius). This side of that line is what we collectively value, what we collectively think is important. In the eyes, minds and assumptions of many others both educators and the wider community, arts education is rendered as “other”, “peripheral”. Drama is negated, obscured, overlooked and rendered invisible, unimportant or non-essential (e.g., in course offerings in schools it is “optional”). When the dominant approaches to education consign arts education to this nether world, we have institutionalised “epistemicide” (Paraskeva, 2016) - a war on the knowledge(s) that we value, the destruction of existing knowledge and denial the possibilities of new knowledge(s).

To put it bluntly, what we believe in is not shared by many. 

There continue to be many misconceptions about drama teaching. 

Now more than ever we need as a drama education community to re-articulate our beliefs and values about drama education.

A robust schema for Drama Teacher Education

Whatever approach is taken to drama teacher education, there needs to be an underlying robust, durable, practical schema to serve as a living and responsive guide to our work.

Learning to teach drama focuses on embodied learning in the arts (Bresler, 2004). Through practical, hands on experiences in the drama we model the ways that your students learn the arts and ways that you teach the arts. This engenders embodied teaching.

This approach is based on sound research about providing:

analogue experiences – analogue experiences are like the ones students in drama experience; providing teachers with similar learning experiences that they need to facilitate for their students (Hilda Borko & Ralph  T. Putnam, 1995; Morocco & Solomon, 1999) 

content focus – unambiguous content description (Desimone, Porter, Garet, Yoon, & Birman, 2002; S.Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, & SukYoon, 2001; Shulman, 1986) 

active learning – where teachers are engaged in the analysis of teaching and learning; learning from other teachers and from their own teaching; reviewing examples of effective teaching practice (Desimone et al., 2002; Franke, Carpenter, Fennema, Ansell, & Behrend, 1998; Franke, Fennema, & Carpenter, 1997; Morocco & Solomon, 1999; S.Garet et al., 2001) 

dialogue amongst teachers – belonging to a community of drama teachers participating in discussion with practicing teachers (T. R. Guskey, 1986; T.R.  Guskey, 2003; Virginia Richardson, October 1990) 

long term support and feedback – support beyond the immediate experiences in the workshop through enrolling in community of drama teachers (H. Borko & R.T. Putnam, 1995; T.R. Guskey, 2002) 

This is an articulated theoretical framework for drama teacher education course design that steps beyond pragmatic functionalism. It is a framework informed by Dewey, Vygotsky, Bruner, Eisner, Greene and others. Learning to teach drama involves acts of purposeful meaning making that draw together personal experiences and those of others (Dewey, 1938:2005; Eisner, 2002). No one learns alone – drama is intrinsically social learning (Grumet, 2004; Vygotsky, 1978). Drama teachers learn cognitively, somatically and affectively – mind, body and spirit (Peters, 2004). They work with enactive, iconic and symbolic modes (Bruner, 1990). Learning to teach drama engages aesthetic imagination (Greene, 1995). Learning to teach drama involves proactive participation in communities of practice (Wenger, 1998). Learning to teach drama organises drama knowledge, categorise it and uses strategies of paradigmatic thinking and narrative building (Bruner, 1991).

Every Drama Teacher needs a robust schema for what they are doing and why as the experienced drama teacher in the focus group articulated.

Peter Wright and I have written recently about Arts Teacher Education as Applied Aesthetic Understanding (in press) (adapted and extended from (Wetterstrand, 1999). Students need to:

• see themselves as creators – as emerging artists beginning to develop understanding and control of specific skills and processes in drama

• see themselves as thinking and engaging aesthetically. They critically engage with their own experiences and those of others

• speak the language of the art form

• display the habits of mind of artists and build cognitive and practical structures for managing their learning and teaching drama

• build personal identity through drama and develop personal, social and cultural agency – capacity to initiate, manage and forge their own meaning making

• develop perspective and a range of practical and informed understandings rather than take a simple unitary view of drama teaching

• extend and deepen their understanding of the characteristics of drama as an art form and drama in the service of learning

• reflect on their processes, products and their own learning in, through and about drama – and, beyond that, to human experience itself.

At the heart of it the developing drama teachers need capacity to cope with the sometimes stressful and always demanding work of teaching drama. They need to become reflective practitioners understanding and managing their multiple roles. All of which is underpinned by their practical knowledge, understanding of the skills and processes of the art form of Drama

An important point was made by an experienced teacher who was part of my initial focus group:

• young teachers need to have an articulated philosophy of drama teaching. They must be clear about why they want to be a drama teacher. Their ultimate success as drama teachers relies significantly on their values about drama and about teaching. They needed a capacity built on respect, collaboration, working through process as well as product.

Conclusion

I don’t think I realised just how long the drama education journey would be when I entered that course in 1974. I got my ticket for the long way round. 

There’s a song that’s an earworm in my life at the moment. I think its emblematic for a life in drama teacher education. 

I got my ticket for the long way round

Two bottles of whiskey for the way

And I sure would like some sweet company

And I'm leaving tomorrow, what do you say

(Simone, 2013)

Drama teacher education and drama education itself, is a long-term project. There’s a need for a long view perspective. We are here for the long haul. Drama education and drama teacher education will survive the current road bumps. We will emerge a little shaken and stirred. But we must not lose sight of the long view and the challenges of helping those who make decisions to step over the abyssal line. Or that we as drama educators need in this time and into the future to walk both sides of that line. 

The need for the robust schema outlined earlier is urgent and essential.  Drama teacher education curriculum is not just content knowledge. It embodies ways of knowing and being in the world. It is too easy to play the misunderstood victim role as contexts change. It is necessary for us to strategically acknowledge and disarm critics and move past obstacles. It is insufficient to simply assert our place in the educational sun; we need to make the case with robust research based on experience that is not merely confirming the past but engaging future possibilities.

While I continue to work towards the long-term goals outlined, I know that this is not the task of one person and that at some point we all need to pass the baton to another generation. Long after I am gone, the case needs to be argued. We need to build drama teacher education as inevitable, as a self-evident truth. 

References

AITSL. (2011). National system for the accreditation of pre‑service teacher education programs. Retrieved from http://www.aitsl.edu.au/verve/_resources/AITSL_Preservice_Consultation_Paper.pdf

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). (2017). Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.  Retrieved from https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/standards

Borko, H., & Putnam, R. T. (1995). Expanding  a  Teachers’  Knowledge  Base:  A  Cognitive  Psychological Perspective on Professional Development. In T. R. Guskey & M. Huberman (Eds.), Professional Development in Education: New Paradigms and Practices (pp. 35-66). New York: Teachers College Press.

Borko, H., & Putnam, R. T. (1995). Expanding a teacher’s knowledge base: A cognitive psychological perspective on professional development. In T. R. Guskey & M. Huberman (Eds.), Professional Development in Education. New York: New York: Teachers College Press.

Bresler, L. (2004). Knowing Bodies, Knowing Minds - Towards Embodied Teaching and Learning. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Bruner, J. (1991). The Narrative Construction of Reality. Critical Inquiry, 18(1), 1-21. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343711

Desimone, L. M., Porter, A. C., Garet, M. S., Yoon, K. S., & Birman, B. F. (2002). Effects of Professional Development on Teachers' Instruction: Results from a Three-Year Longitudinal Study. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24(2 (Summer 2002)), 81-112. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3594138

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

Eisner, E. W. (2002). What can eduction learn from the arts about the practice of education? John Dewey Lecture for 2002, Stanford University. Retrieved from www.infed.org/biblio/eisner_arts_and_the_practice_or_education.htm . Last updated: April 17, 2005.

Franke, M., Carpenter, T., Fennema, E., Ansell, E., & Behrend, J. (1998). Understanding teachers’ self- sustaining, generative change in the context of professional development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 14(1), 67-80. 

Franke, M., Fennema, E., & Carpenter, T. (1997). Teachers creating change: Examining evolving beliefs and classroom practice. In E. Fennema & B. Scott-Nelson (Eds.), Mathematics teachers in transition (pp. 255-282). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, The Arts and Social Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Grumet, M. (2004). No one learns alone. Putting the arts in the picture: Reframing education in the 21st century, 49-80. 

Guskey, T. R. (1986). Staff development and the process of teacher change. Educational Researcher, 15, 5-12. 

Guskey, T. R. (2002). Professional development and teacher change. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 8, 381-391. 

Guskey, T. R. (2003). What makes professional development effective? Phi Delta Kappan, 84(10), 748-750. 

Mills, M., & Goos, M. (November.13.2017). Three major concerns with teacher education reforms in Australia.  Retrieved from https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=2548

Morocco, C. C., & Solomon, M. Z. (1999). Revitalising professional development. In M. Z. Solomon (Ed.), The diagnostic teacher: Constructing new approaches to professional development (pp. 247-267). New York: Teachers College Press.

Paraskeva, J. (2016). Curriculum epistemicides. New York: Routledge.

Peters, M. (2004). Education and the Philosophy of the Body: Bodies of Knowledge and Knowledges of the Body. In L. Bresler (Ed.), Knowing Bodies, Moving Minds - Towards Embodied Teaching and Learning. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

S.Garet, M., Porter, A. C., Desimone, L., Birman, B. F., & SukYoon, K. (2001). What Makes Professional Development Effective? Results From a National Sample of Teachers. American Educational Research Journal. doi:https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312038004915

Santos, B. d. S. (2007). Beyond   Abyssal   Thinking:   From   Global   Lines   to   Ecologies   of   Knowledges. Review, XXX(1). 

Shine, K. (2018). Everything is negative’: Schoolteachers’ perceptions of news coverage of education. Journalism. Retrieved from https://espace.curtin.edu.au/bitstream/handle/20.500.11937/70003/267577.pdf

Shulman, L. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4-14. 

Simone, J. (2013). Cups (You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone). In.

Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG). (December 2014). Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers. Retrieved from https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/otheraction_now_classroom_ready_teachers_print.pdf

Virginia Richardson. (October 1990). Significant and Worthwhile Change in Teaching Practice. Educational Researcher, 19(7), 10-18. doi:10.2307/1176411

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wetterstrand, G. (1999). Creating Understanding in Educational Drama. In C. Miller & J. Saxton (Eds.), Drama and Theatre in Education International Conversations. Victoria B.C.: American Educational Research Association Arts and Learning Special Interest Group and the International Drama in Education Research Institute July308 1997 Victoria, B.C. Canada.

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. 

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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-

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.