Arts Education – is it being lost in the thunder of the current election

 Arts and drama educators mostly get on with their day to day teaching. This week ACARA, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority launched The Australian Curriculum Version 9. On the whole, the focus of this major revision, politically driven, has been on strengthening Phonics in English and on headline grabbing issues amongst some such as “strengthening and making explicit teaching about the origins and Christian and Western heritage of Australia's democracy” (once again reinforcing the deep seated suspicion of dark motives in curriculum writers, sensed by some conservative Australians.

There are changes for the Australian Curriculum: The Arts – I will write about them in a later post. 

For now I focus on the relative quiet amongst the media and public about the changes in Version 9. Where is the uproar. Where is even the ripple of recognition that a change has been made that has consequences to teaching and learning?

Put simply, there is nothing showing on the Richter Scales of Education. 

The new version, despite the consultation that happened in 2021, is sinking like a stone unnoticed. 

In fact, Arts Education is not on many people’s radar this election. 

Not surprising given the focus on cost of living (petrol prices rising; inflation figures burgeoning) and the bickering and scrapping tone of the election and going for the jugular gotcha moments that dominate the media feeds.

But is anyone noticing that Arts Education is floundering in the quicksand of Australian education. Passionate few struggle to lift it up. But generally, as an education community, our focus is elsewhere. Not waving, but drowning.  

I share the media release from the National Advocates for Arts Education NAAE in full. 

Is anyone listening?

Certainly, this call falls on deaf ears of my rusted-on local representative.

ACARa advises. Version 9 will be implemented by states and territories according to their own timelines. ACARA will maintain the current Australian Curriculum website with Version 8.4 curriculum and both websites will remain live until such time as there is no need for schools to access Version 8.4 of the Australian Curriculum.NAAE statement about the 2022 federal election

Who we are

The National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE) is a coalition of peak arts and arts education associations representing approximately 10,000 arts educators across Australia. NAAE members are Art Education Australia (AEA), Australian Dance Council – Ausdance, Australian Society for Music Education (ASME), Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM), Drama Australia and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA). 

NAAE advocates for every Australian student in primary and secondary schools to have access to quality Arts Education across the five arts subjects: Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts.  We ask all political parties to endorse this principle.

Why arts education?

Australian and international research has continued to show the multitude of benefits that The Arts can have on student academic and non-academic outcomes. Arts Education not only fosters the development of artistic skills for art making, but it also teaches skills in collaboration, innovation, experimentation, resilience, confidence, problem-solving and communication.   Research finds that students who engage in The Arts do better academically in their non-Arts subjects than those students who do not participate in The Arts (Martin et al., 2013).

 There is ample global evidence (including Australia) that speaks to the explicit value and benefits of an Arts rich society. This enrichment begins and is contingent upon access to quality Arts Education. Arts Education plays an essential role in preparing young people and industry professionals to respond holistically, meaningfully, and purposefully to the impacts of global events. The long tail of COVID, coupled with catastrophic climate events and significant global conflict all point to the necessity of and need for Arts education in Australia. 

 It is now time to halt the erosion of support for arts and arts education that has occurred over the past decade. We ask for meaningful investment in quality Arts Education across all levels of Australian society. This means making a tangible commitment to providing increased support for rigorous and sophisticated opportunities for teaching, learning, making, producing, and creating into the future.

 What we are calling for

The National Advocates for Arts Education are calling for all political parties to consider and endorse the following policy imperatives.

1. NAAE urges all political parties to commit to the development of a National Cultural Policy that includes Arts Education and is developed in consultation with artists, arts educators, the community, and peak arts bodies to ensure a well-supported arts and cultural sector that is serving the Australian community.

2. NAAE calls for support for implementation of arts curriculums across the five Arts subjects in each state and territory in Australia from Foundation to Year 12 with targeted professional development, training, and education programs.

3. Halt the erosion of arts specific education training in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) to increase curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment course allocation time for The Arts. This extends to specialisations and time for arts learning in early childhood and primary education courses to ensure teachers are well equipped to teach at least one Arts subject in depth. See NAAE’s submission to the Quality Initial Teacher Education Review here.

4. Undo the current government’s university fee increase to Creative Arts courses. We call for an equitable tertiary education system that does not target Creative Arts degrees with increased fees on the false basis that this area of study does not lead to employment. See our August 2020 statement and September 2020 statements for more details.

5. Increase funding to the Australia Council for The Arts to specifically include funding for teaching artists in schools for existing and future programs, as well as support for arts engagement programs with students and for teacher professional learning.

6. The National Music Teacher Mentoring Program (established by Richard Gill and implemented through the Australian Youth Orchestra) be expanded with additional funding to ensure early childhood and primary school teachers also have professional learning support across the other four Arts subjects: Dance, Drama, Media Arts, and Visual Arts.

7. NAAE calls for the removal of political interference in Australian Research Council (ARC) directions for Australian research. Earlier this year we raised concerns about the increased level of government interference in independent peer-review processes, and major implications for the type of research that will occur in years to come.

8. Given the concerns raised above, NAAE calls for a federally funded Review of The Arts in Australian Schools. Within the past 15 years, two federally funded reviews have been conducted into two arts subjects; National Review of School Music Education: Augmenting the diminished (Pascoe, Leong, MacCallum, Mackinlay, Marsh, Smith, Church, and Winterton (2005) and First We See: The National Review of Visual Education (Davis, 2008). These have been significant, important, and valuable reviews that were completed before the Australian Curriculum: The Arts was endorsed in 2013.

It is now timely to recommend another review that will include the five arts subjects (Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music, and Visual Arts) included in the Australian Curriculum and how various national, state, and territory arts curriculum is being implemented and taught in Australian schools.  NAAE has proposed a draft terms of reference for the review which include:

• Relevant Australian and international research published in the last ten years, on national arts curricula in schools focusing on best practice delivery and resourcing models.

• Map current curriculum provision (intended curriculum) and implementation of curriculum (enacted curriculum) across the five Arts subjects in each state and territory in Australia from Foundation to Year 12 to ascertain: which Arts subjects are implemented in primary and secondary schools; which teachers implement the five arts subjects; how schools manage the time required to provide quality Arts learning experiences for students; and, what is the ‘actual’ time provided for each Arts subject. An analysis of the differences between the intended curriculum and enacted curriculum is required to investigate the elements that nurture and hinder implementation.

• Map current Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and Early Career Teacher support offerings nationally in education courses (across early childhood, primary education, and secondary education) and identify lecturer expertise, assessment types, number of units, and hours allocated to Arts education.

• Examples of effective primary school programs that provide sequential foundational learning in the five arts subjects.

• Provide recommendations for:

  • future iterations of arts curriculum and implementation at a national and state/territory level.

  • provision of Initial Teacher Education for The Arts (and any implications for AITSL to consider).

  • improving Initial Teacher Education programs in Arts curriculum and pedagogy, across early years, primary and secondary pre-service teachers. o

  • ongoing professional learning for primary generalist, primary specialist, and secondary specialist teachers. Recommendations for the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments, Teacher Accreditation Boards and Universities to consider.

  • a range of best practice delivery models of The Arts in Australian schools.

NAAE acknowledges the extensive research and industry evidence pointing to how and why Australian society looks to Arts Education to foster individual and collective resilience in crises. We ask our policymakers to do the same.

Meaningful investment, proper resourcing, and support in the form of sustained professional learning and adequate initial teacher education for Arts teachers are essential for how we leverage the unique skills and understandings obtained by the field in recent years. This is going to be essential for how we work together to understand how change is experienced on the ground, and deliver on the ambitions of version 9.0 of the Australian Curriculum. 

For further comment contact: 

John Nicholas Saunders, Chair, NAAE at contact@naae.org.au 

Drama Tuesday - A Code of Ethics for Drama Teachers

All day long as I have been driving through the South-West heading to marking Year 12 Drama Practical Exams, the car radio blasts: Drama teacher on trial for sex offences with her fifteen year old student. Scandal cries the tabloid headlines.

A fuming parent knocks at the door of the drama office, complaining that his daughter has been at rehearsal from 10.00 AM to 10.00 PM on Sunday, even though she is in Year 12. The word passed around the carpark before morning school is outrage.

Restlessly, the cast of seventy in the school musical, wait as the Director rehearses the “star” of the show. Frustrated, the Director turns and blasts the waiting students for chattering: just wait your turn. Whose time is more valuable?

A Principal in a school taps his fingers on his desk waiting for an explanation from the male drama teacher about rehearsing late at night with an all girls class production. 

Another parent rings because she’s heard that in drama class, students are expected to lie on the floor in darkened rooms, being told to clench buttocks in a breathing and relaxation routine. She complains about this “meditation stuff” and calls it a cult.

There are questions raised about the local Saturday morning drama classes seemingly repeating each term the same tired exercises and not progressing kids learning. 

A Youth Theatre Director is using psychodrama techniques and is stunned when one participant discloses an episode of sexual abuse within her family. The Director is not a trained therapist. 

In a Shopping centre Mall, a cutie pie performance by a local drama talent school is taking place with associated stereotypes, over-acting, stage door parents and ego-centric “look at me” teacher.

These are some stories gathered from the field of drama teaching. 

There are many more.

The purpose of this post is to ask these questions rather than answer them. 

I know that it would help me as a drama teacher educator if there was a well-developed and widely known code of ethics for Drama Teachers and Drama teaching. 

It should be:

• Voluntarily accepted by us as a profession (always keeping in mind that there are now legal requirements to be observed)

• Transparent

• Published

• Owned by practitioners

• Endorsed by government agencies, parents, schools, community.

It is also important to acknowledge that there are many drama teachers who establish special but healthy relationships with their students. Drama teaching is relational. It thrives, when well managed, on co-construction of learning, friendships and relationships of trust. The learning in drama builds on participation, negotiation, student-centred learning and collaborative working relationships. With this learning is a need for a moral and practical compass based on clearly stated standards of practice. 

What is in your Drama Teacher code of ethics?

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 - 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-

Questions about inclusion for Drama Teachers in contemporary times

A teacher found a beautiful and compassionate monologue based play written and performed by an aboriginal woman . It provided interesting acting challenges for her students. They had to make strong physical, vocal and movement choices. They had to use their dramaturgy skills to contextualise their choices to embody the role. It was accessible and relevant. She presented it to them to workshop acting, dramaturge and director roles. 

The 12 girls in her class responded well to the challenge. She didn’t notice the looks exchanged between the 5 boys in her class.

As a reflective teacher, she was interested to read her student journals.

Some students questioned using a text that provided acting roles only for a single female character. Other students discussed the appropriateness of asking non-aboriginal actors to play an aboriginal character. Her one indigenous student who comes from a Western Australian Noongar identity, asked about playing a role based on Murri life.

The teacher began to question her assumptions. The text was theatrically compelling and offered challenges for her students. But she also realised that her focus on theatrically strong moments for her students maybe problematic.

The question of appropriation of culture is interesting, particularly in the week when it’s announced that on The Simpsons, characters of colour will no longer be voiced by white actors ("The Simpsons stops using white actors to voice non-white characters," 27 June 2020). Is it appropriate for non-aboriginal actors to portray indigenous roles? As drama educators we have come a long way from Laurence Olivier playing Othello in blackface (1965, check it out on the Internet). 

It’s interesting if you think about it. If we extended the logic, could any Australian actor ever portray an Irish character or a character from Ibsen or Chekhov or Shaw where the roles are so deeply imbued with a national identity? It may be inappropriate for a caucasian actor to reach into the makeup kit to portray an Asian or Indian character but where is the line to be drawn?

We could ask questions of other plays that, for example, portray abuse of women. What are the implications of studying A Streetcar Named Desire (Williams, 1947) and the portrayal of Blanche and mental breakdown? And Stanley’s treatment of her?

If you extend this line of argument, are there any plays but the most innocuous that can be studied by drama students? There are some who would argue that school drama needs to be neutralised. The spirit of Thomas Bowdler lives on in contemporary times. ( Bowdler gives us the term bowdlerise which means to remove material that is considered improper or offensive from (a text or account), especially with the result that the text becomes weaker or less effective.) And many teachers tell of choices of self-censorship when it comes to choosing texts for students to work with. 

What are your thoughts?

Where do you draw the line in the sand in the choices you make as drama teachers?

What are appropriate texts(see interesting discussion in Lambert, Wright, Currie, & Pascoe, 2016)?

Bibliography

Enoch, W., & Mailman, D. (1996). THE 7 STAGES OF GRIEVING. Brisbane: Playlab Press.

Lambert, K., Wright, P. R., Currie, J., & Pascoe, R. (2016). Performativity and creativity in senior secondary drama classrooms. NJ Drama Australia Journal, 40(1), 15-26. 

The Simpsons stops using white actors to voice non-white characters. (27 June 2020). Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jun/27/the-simpsons-stops-using-white-actors-to-voice-non-white-characters

Williams, T. (1947). A Streetcar Named Desire: [a Play.]. New York, NY: New American Library.

The challenge for all of us as arts educators

In Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls (2019), there is a powerful reminder of the way that arts education is seen in popular culture (in the UK but shared by many similar Western societies like Australia). Charlie is somewhat reluctantly seduced into participating in a summer production of Romeo and Juliet being staged in his dull suburban community. Used to hanging out on the fringes of his blokey school crowd, Charlie is not a fan of the arts and like his boy mates, is quick to sardonically dismiss and deride drama (though he is secretly reading Dostoyevsky). Here is Charlie’s view about the arts in education.

If there was such a thing as a theatre bug, then I was immune. The problem wasn’t acting. I was happy to watch people pretending to be other people in films and TV that I sucked up indiscriminately. But all the elements that were supposed to make theatre unique and special – the proximity, the high emotion, the potential for disaster – made it seem mortifying to me. It was too much, too bare and artificial.

 Then there was the whiff of pretension, superiority and self-satisfaction that clung to all forms of ‘the arts’. To perform in a play or a band, to put your picture on display in the corridor, to publish your story or, God forbid, your poem in the school magazine, was to proclaim your uniqueness and self-belief and so to make yourself a target. Anything placed on a pedestal was likely to be knocked off, and it was simply common sense to stay quiet and keep any creative ambitions private.

Especially for a boy. The only acceptable talent was in sport, in which case it was fine to strut and boast, but my talents lay elsewhere, very possibly nowhere. The only thing that I was good at, drawing – doodling actually – was acceptable as long as it remained technical and free of self-expression. There was nothing of me in the still life of a peeled orange, the close-up of an eye with a window reflected in it, the planet-sized spaceship; no beauty, emotion or self-revelation, just draughtmanship. All other forms of expression – singing, dancing, writing, even reading or speaking a foreign language – were considered not just gay but also posh, and few things carried more stigma at Merton Grange than this combination. (p. 150-151)

It is useful to reflect on the explicit and underlying issues captured here. Peer pressure; deeply inculcated values of what is important; personal preference all play a part. But Charlie is no orphan in sharing these perceptions. 

Having spent a life time in drama and arts teacher education, I have often speculated about what holds back successful implementation of arts curriculum in schools.

Apart from the general levelling effect of the Tall Poppy Syndrome and the self-deprecating avoidance of ‘showing off’, we see in schools combinations of fear of failing, quests for perfectionism and misunderstandings about the purpose and nature of arts curriculum. Most telling are the misconceptions about arts education (only for talented and ’special’ people; ‘I don’t have a creative bone in my body’; not core curriculum; time filling; something for Friday afternoons after the real learning). I am reminded of our friend who asks again and again but what is there to learn about acting and singing? 

How do we change deeply-held perceptions and prejudices?

What are the misconceptions about The Arts in schools that you see?

The lack of understanding (ignorance even) from gaps in teachers’ own arts education, compound reluctance and reinforce resistance to implementing arts curriculum. What are the game changers that we need for arts education to be successfully taught and learnt by all young Australians? 

Nicholls, D. (2019). Sweet Sorrow. London, UK: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.