A short report for IDEA from Ankara University where I am for the 31st Çağdaş Drama Derneği Congress.

 During the congress I made some notes to share with the IDEA Community. 

The Congress theme was ‘change and transition responding especially after the Covid 19 pandemic when most things have changed in human life and in the drama field.

International workshop leaders

Joining the local participants were workshop leaders familiar to the IDEA Community.  Patrice Baldwin, Juliane Lenssen from Berlin, David Allen, Dr. Christina Zoniou, University of the  Peloponnese, Nikos Govas also from Greece. 

Once again, we are reminded of the richness of shared knowledge within the field of drama education.

The congress included workshops and presentations from Turkish drama educators as well as keynotes. Of course, I had only a small window into those presentations, but share a couple of points that I think are of international interest.  

Congress theme image: chameleon

A crisply articulate keynote from Prof.Dr. ÖMER ADIGÜZEL focusing on the Congress image of the chameleon. With a firm sense of humour Ömer noted that chameleon signal their social states responding to changing environments.

“Every action of a chameleon symbolises change, development and transformation - the Congress themes.”

He then noted the discrepancies between guidelines for schools and the realities of what happens. He highlighted the categorisation of drama and acting as “entertainment services” that gives the impression that the field of drama is limited to that category. And he concluded with discussion of the situation for training teachers to teach drama. 

Chameleons also tell us about camouflage. I wondered about the times when we as drama educators needed to work our magic under the cover of camouflage.

Thoughtful and challenging ideas to explore. 

A familiar controversy that IDEA needs to again address

Following a lecture from a German professor a member of the audience opened up a demarcation dispute: Drama pedagogy/Theatre pedagogy/Acting pedagogy (an issue that lingers in the very name of IDEA as an association – in English)

Are we seeing a world of education rent apart by unhelpful distinctions and marking out of territories. In the very title of IDEA as an association there’s a potential fault line that we dance on uncomfortably. 

These terminologies niceties catapult us back to the so-called civil wars in drama/theatre education in the UK in the 1980/90s. They were not helpful then. Scar tissue still evident amongst some. I wonder if there are similar disputes in, say, music education. 

Now may be another time to start a project that sets out to focus on describing key term and concepts. Such a project must not be about homogenising the field. Rather it is about acknowledging differences. There are differing conceptions philosophies and practices within the field we share. 

Of course the aims and focus of training actors are vocationally specific. We are generally speaking not training young people in school or community workshops to be professional actors. Yet we must acknowledge that underpinning both is a fundamentally shared knowledge and learning about how we express and communicate ideas and stories for others. There are age and developmental differences but seeing past them, there is a fundamental need to use bodies and voices as resources for taking on roles that tell stories in embodied ways. 

There is a fundamental relationship between related and interwoven fields of play, drama and  theatre (drawing from he work of Richard Courtney (1988) which guided my approach to curriculum writing). 

I have long relied on an image that helps me understand these relationships. Our field of drama education exists within the broad field of experience as learning. In life we have experiences of play that are further shaped into the broad field of drama in which we shape and shapers meaning through taking on roles. Within that wide field there are specific ways of making drama called theatre. They overlap with other forms of performance. 

Lifetime Achievement Awards

At the opening of the 31st Congress of Çağdaş Drama Derneği I was honoured and humbled to be awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award. 

I share a few words that I made in accepting the Award. 

Shakespeare’s Hamlet told us that the “purpose of playing” is “to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature”.  That is an idea I hold closely in my life as drama educator. It has drive my career in education and in drama . 

In accepting this award I thank you warmly and sincerely.  

In turn hold up this award as a mirror to you and your work. 

I have great admiration for your work as an association. Truly impressive.  Inspiring. World leading.  And I also warmly remind us that in our work as drama educators we are involved in the process of transforming lives as the Congress theme so strongly echoes.   

I accept this award acknowledging my deepest respect for your work in transforming lives. 

At the same ceremony Patrice Baldwin (also a former President of IDEA) was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Achievement Award. 

Congratulations Patrice. Richly deserved recognition. 

In my role as Immediate Past President of IDEA, I also passed on the message of congratulations from Sanja Krismanivic Tasic, current IDEA President (who couldn’t join the congress because of other commitments).

Workshop for Congress CABINET of DREAMS

For the Congress I developed a new 6 hour process drama that set out to tell a Brechtian Fabel to illuminate our understanding of teaching drama. 

The participants in the workshop are invited to join a company of travelling players. 

First we built the company – the Capocomico of the acting troupe and his family and their life on the road. Then they perform in a village that has never had a visiting troupe before. The nature of belief in performing is explored. The people of the village reject them but one of the villagers  runs away to join them.

In the third part we explored how you learn to become a performer through an exploration of commedia roles. In the final part we hear of another troupe called the Cabinet of Dreams based on work that Liz Pascoe and I created with the Western Australian Youth theatre Company. That play asked questions about what is real and what is illusion in our work. 

Interspersed with the drama making are moments reflecting on the approach I have used to planning this workshop. We talk about the Elements of Drama and the Strategies used to activate them. I presented this workshop twice: Thursday 26 and Saturday 28 October. Each group bring their dynamic and each time we will work from the same structure but make different drama.

I will make available to participants my planning on my web site www.stagepage.com.au  where I also regularly/occasionally post about teaching drama. 

The participants were enthusiastic, focused, knowledgable and exciting to work with. We had a great time (and again I thank and acknowledge my translator/co-teacher who enables me to do this work).

A reminder to us all as teachers 

The impact of any teachers work is long term. 

One of the participants in my process drama workshop here in Ankara, sidled up in the lunch break with the translator in tow to tell me that he was in my workshop in Mugla in 2015. He proudly told me that he had used some of the ideas in his practice with children and old aged people. 

As a fly in/fly out visitor you never have opportunity or time to follow up on the workshops you do. So it gives a little heart flutter of satisfaction to have this feedback. 

Thank you for taking the time to talk with me about your work

Opportunities to sightsee 

There were opportunities for some sightseeing in Ankara. and on the return journey I was able to spend four nights in Istanbul. Although i have now been to Turkey for CDA four times, this is the first time I have been able to spend some time outside the congress walls. A fascinating into the local particularly because I was in Istanbul on the day that the 100th anniversary of the founding f modern Turkey was celebrated. An overwhelming sea of flag waving and colour and people on the streets celebrating. 

I also made the pilgrimage that many Australians make to Gallipoli.

Robin Pascoe

4 November 2023.   

Bibliography

Courtney, R. (1988). To Currick (Verb Intransitive) (1986). In D. Booth & A. Martin-Smith (Eds.), Re-Cognizing Ricjard Courtney Selected Writings on Drama and Education (pp. 86-90). Markham, Ontario: Pembroke Publishers Limited.

Drama Tuesday - A Call To Action

The Reykjavik Manifesto

Being mindful of the goals, strategies and action items of the UNESCO Seoul Agenda’s Goals for the Development of Arts Education and acknowledging the principles expressed in the Frankfurt Declaration and the Winnipeg Declaration,

We understand that Drama/Theatre Education 

• is a powerful, creative process and subject for multi-dimensional learning in formal, non-formal and informal education; a platform for inclusivity and decolonisation; venue and methodology for research; an agent for enhancing health and wellbeing, and

• introduction to this art form, including drama in education and diverse theatre traditions around the world, and

• opportunity for enhancing social awareness, empathy and collaboration and personal and community development, and

• platform for expression and action on matters of local, global and intercultural concern such as Peace, Sustainability, Equality and Economic empowerment.

We, the participants at the 9th IDEA World Congress in Reykjavik, Iceland under The theme “Drama for All, Drama for Tall and Small” meet in the context of drama in the changing world.

We pledge our commitment to raise awareness to contribute to the implementation of the objectives and practice of Drama/Theatre Education.

We call upon all levels of government to make official legislation to support this materially, and in spirit, to ensure equitable access to high quality Drama/Theatre Education for all children, youth and life-long learners as part of a full, human education.

8th July 2022

Drama Tuesday - A Time for Giants

The challenges for teachers facing change

The playwright José Rivera in the introduction to Giants Have Us in Their Books tells of his four year old daughter’s observation 

“if we have giants in our fairy tales, then giants must have us in theirs!”. 

Imagine how giants would tell their children of this moment in the history of arts and culture education in Peru. 

Take a moment to dream of arts and culture becoming the work of every teacher, becoming the fabric of every lesson, becoming the living testament of every young person. Imagine how arts and cultural actions embody learning. Imagine how introducing an embodied change in arts and cultural curriculum opens possibilities beyond what we can imagine. For Deleuze and Guattari, becoming is a process where bodies affect other bodies and are transformed((1987 [2012])). In short it is a human process – a people focused transformation.

Of course, there are and will be challenges. 

In the ancient stories of many cultures, we are told to be afraid of giants. They were the villains of the story. But the biggest giant of the moment is the fear of change. Fear is a basic human emotional response. Change is about leaving behind our comfort zones and facing complexity, uncertainty and doubt – and I see this in my teacher education students when they are faced with the concepts of teaching the arts themselves. I begin by recognising that for many of my students, overcoming fear of change needs acknowledgment of stress and finding ways of managing stress. In part I do this by chunking information, translating the edu-speak and jargon, by relating experiences to authentic situations. I have learnt through working as a curriculum change leader that there is a need for structure and tools; but most importantly, there is the simple but complex recognition that change is about people. Change for us all is a journey not a destination and curriculum change is (hopefully a guided journey. Fear of change can be about the unknown; it can be about fearing failure; and it can be about fearing success. 

To get past moments of fear we need to remember that enacting an arts and cultural education curriculum is a time for us to be giants. The concept of an arts and cultural curriculum is a big idea – a giant idea – and it does not need timidity or apology. Shout from the rooftops. Create a storm of interest and passion. Lead the change. Become the change.

Our pedagogy leads the way for managing change.

We must be true to our principles for arts education.

The research I have done about Arts Education (e.g. Pascoe 2013; Wright, et al. 2006) has identified that the markers of quality are founded on principles of: 

• student identity and agency – their sense of becoming;

• co-construction of meaning and learning;

• learning environments that support creativity, imagination and innovation; and,

• seeing students (and teachers) as artists and audiences.

Therefore leading teachers towards successful arts teaching needs us to address these same principles. 

If these are the principles of arts and culture education for students then they should be the principles for engaging teachers. Let me put them again as questions for us who lead the enactment of arts education:

• How do we help teachers in every classroom find their own identity, develop their own voice and agency, help their own sense of becoming?

• How do they co-construct with other teachers meaning making arts education for themselves and their students?

• How do we provide supportive learning environments?

• How do we help teachers see themselves as artists and audiences?

Becoming the curriculum change we envision is about understanding the specific pedagogies of the arts – the specific ways that we learn the arts through embodied learning, through practical, hands on ways, through ways that seek to integrate and make connections. 

There is a time for giants.

In the 2015 Perth International Arts Festival, the Royale de Luxe Giants visited. They walked the streets of this modern city and set a tumble of excitement. Thousands of people poured into the streets to watch, to walk to be with the Little Girl and the Diver. In the beating summer heat they laughed and maybe even cried a little on the journey of the giants. Most importantly, they embodied the idea of imagination and wonder. It was a big event that caught fire. 

Just as we are as individuals in a process of becoming, arts and culture education is in a similar process of becoming. What emerges will not be fixed of static but richly evolving, richly possible. And who are the people to make that happen – keep happening? 

You know the answer. 

Roar, roar like giants – for arts and culture education. 

http://static.prnasia.com/pro/media/201502/perth/p2.jpg

Bibliography

Deleuze, G. and F. Guattari (1987 [2012]). A thousand plateaus. London, Continuum International Publishing Group.

Pascoe, R. (2013). Dynamic Markers for Arts Education in Schools. International Yearbook for Research in Arts Education 1 | 2013. E. Liebau, E. Wagner and M. Wyman. Münster, Waxmann: 47-62.

Wright, P. R., R. Pascoe, J. Dinham, J. MacCallum, K. Grushka, T. Church and A. Winteron (2006). From Behind the Mask: Revealing Visual Education. Research Report to The National Review of Education in Visual Arts, Craft, Design and Visual Communication. Perth, CLCD, Murdoch University: National Review of Visual Education.

IDEA DAY 2022

Drama Tuesday - IDEA 2022 Congress UPDATE

IDEA gathered for a Congress in Reykjavik, Iceland, July 4-8. after a hiatus caused by Pandemic and troubled times, it was a great pleasure to be with friends in person and face-to-face.

This is a link to my report from Drama4All.

I set out to capture experiences of the Congress through images, video clips and words. It is published as an ePub so that we can use technology to share some of the moments of the Congress particularly for people who could not travel to Iceland because of the COVID-19 Pandemic and other circumstances.

How do you access this Report?

StagePage has published this Report on Apple Books.

Here is the link to the Apple Books

https://books.apple.com/au/book/idea2022/id6443526061

You will be able to download to your computer and view on screen (fingers crossed the technology works for everyone) 

Part of a larger project for IDEA30

This report is a chapter from a larger project I am undertaking to celebrate 30 years of IDEA. IDEA Remembered is a personal memoir (Link here for opening pages of that project).

This chapter is shared free of charge as a service to the drama education community and IDEA. 

When IDEA Remembered is finalised in the next few months, it will be available to purchase by donation with proceeds to IDEA.

Drama Tuesday - This is my IDEA DREAM from the IDEA 2022 Congress.

With 30 years of IDEA there is still one unresolved issue of drama/theatre education… (well, to be honest, probably more than one, but let’s focus on just one!)

The issue is captured in the awkward English naming of IDEA – the International Drama/Theatre and Education Association. It’s a mouthful in English. And it is avoided in other versions of the association name.

What is the name of the field?

Is the term “drama”?

Or, is it “theatre”?

Does it matter!

Is it just an issue of language and terminology? Or are there underlying cultural, social, pedagogical and even political issues and tensions that are fundamentally significant.

IDEA seeks always to be inclusive. And strives to be careful in the use of language. Hence the difficult wording in the English naming of IDEA. But my tongue stumbles over it every time. It has been a long discussed project but now, I suggest, a necessary one.

IDEA could be the point where there is a bringing together a commonly shared and understood language about our field. One starting point, I suggest, is to collect from all places and points of view the ways that drama education is named and explained. Putting it all in one place would be a starting point.

What sorts of questions would be the starting point?

• What do you call your work: drama education? Or theatre education? Or, something else?

• List (and briefly explain) 5 key terms that you use that are central to your practice.

• Identify (and briefly say why) up to 5 significant practitioners in your field that shape your work.

What other questions would we ask ourselves as a community?

This is above all not about trying to homogenise the language. Not to normalise or make practice common. It is rather, the need to recognise and celebrate our differences and recognise our shared connections while making our dialogues even easier and creating community.

Drama Tuesday - Are We There Yet?

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

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

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

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

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

You ask two questions:

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

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

In answer:

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

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

There is a third question:

Are we there yet?

Of course, we are not there yet. 

It’s the journey that matters.

---

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

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

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

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

Research lies at the heart of the IDEA mission. 

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

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

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

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

TS Eliot, Little Gidding.

---

Bibliography

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

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

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

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

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

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

Drama Tuesday - How to Make a Drama Teacher

 How to Make a Drama teacher

I return to a favourite topic: I am preparing a proposal to present at the next IDEA Congress in Reykjavik Iceland in July 2022 (More information available at: https://ideaiceland.com). 

Again, I propose talking about Drama Teacher Education. I wanted to include a fun way of thinking through this issue and share with you the latest tongue in cheek recipe for making a drama teacher. 

Happy to let the images speak the words:

Drama Tuesday - Reflections on international drama education

First World Congress Oporto, Portugal July 1992

In July 2013 during the 8th World Congress on Drama/Theatre and Education in Paris, France, I was elected as President of the IDEA Executive Committee and re-elected in  2017 during the celebration of 25 years of IDEA held at the University of Evora in Portugal. It was fitting that this celebration was held in Portugal because in July 1992, during the First World Drama Education Conference in Porto Portugal, IDEA was founded. I was one of the lucky ones who was in Porto at the founding of IDEA and have been to all 8 of the congresses. As well I have represented Drama Australia at IDEA meetings in Montpellier, Budapest, Bergen,  Belém. 

International Collaboration in 1992

Seven years as IDEA President has been challenging. During that time two planned congresses – Ankara, Turkey (2016/2017) and Beijing, China (2020) – have been cancelled because of civil unrest in Turkey and the Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic. 

During my time in this role I have visited many places and had the opportunity to learn more about the wider world of drama education. 

A short video presentation of my report can be found at https://vimeo.com/manage/461230241/general.

My final report to the IDEA General Council can be read at

https://www.ideadrama.org/Documents-for-IDEA-2020-GCM 

I have worked with a dedicated team of volunteers who have spent long hours in ZOOM meetings (before the Pandemic and during) in pursuit of the aims of IDEA. I thank them for their ongoing commitment and voluntary work.

In this post I make some observations about Drama Education from an international perspective.

The world of drama education is wide

There are many different approaches to drama education. Although I have a suspicion that the original proponents of an international drama education association, thought that their vision of drama education would emerge as the dominant model, the congress in Porto quickly established that there is not one way of drama education. 

The full title of IDEA is a clue. The clumsy construction in English  is drama/theatre. If you look to the titleWords and definitions can be slippery. Some words do not have ready translations. One person or country’s drama is in another worldview theatre. In fact, in some places, there is no direct or easy translation of the term drama. 

But it goes deeper than just words and definitions. In the French speaking world, there is the concept of partenariat where drama education is a partnership between classroom teacher and actor/professional/teaching artist and theatre expertise lies with the professional partner. By contrast the model adopted in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, for example, is based on a dedicated trained drama teacher. In a similar vein, there are places that assume there will be drama in the school curriculum; there are many places where that is not happening (see discussion below). Drama education is not solely found in school settings. It is in communities, associations, political action and the streets.

In some countries and cultures, local approaches are seen as the only approach. IDEA has had to negotiate a wide definition of drama and theatre education. This is noticeable in the aims of IDEA

There is another aspect of this wide church of drama education: the role of dominant language in sharing and limiting communicating about practice. Often there is exemplary practice happening beyond the world of English. As IDEA has shown there are drama educators in the Scandinavian countries that parallel what has happened in English speaking countries but with a unique identity and flavour. Similarly, the walls of language prevent outstanding practice in Turkey being shared with the wider community. English may be the dominant language of the Internet, but there many languages of drama and we need to recognise and acknowledge this multiplicity.

It is only when you are in-country that you can understand local perspectives. World-views are powerful. Don’t we say that the essence of drama is when we step into someone else’s shoes. Nowhere is that more evident than when we talk about the world of drama education. 

Drama in the Arts

Drama education is an integral part of arts education. The history of arts education, however, has seen drama accepted as part of a wider mandate for arts education. This has been a hard won battle (and continues to be so in many places where the dominant arts education narrative is written by music and visual (fine) arts. Drama education has been the giant knocking at the door (Stinson, O’Toole & Moore. (2009). Drama and Curriculum: the giant at the door. 10.1007/978-1-4020-9370-8). 

The concept of the Arts as a field of curriculum finds voice in writers such as Peter Abbs (1987) in Living Powers The Arts in Education. In the Australian context since the Hobart Declaration on Schooling  (1989) there has a commitment to with The Arts as one of the eight curriculum learning areas model. Drama has had a place at the table when it came to writing the Australian Curriculum: The Arts (ACARA, 2014). Just as the implied mandate of the Arts in schools is not realised in practice in all schools (see, for example discussion in, Ewing, 2020) the place of drama in all Australian schools s not necessarily secured.

The situation beyond Australia is similarly mixed. 

The impact of the pandemic in the united States shows contraction of arts education opportunities. In Greece the government announced that for 2021, the arts would not be offered for senior secondary students. The success stories of the arts and drama in the Welsh curriculum and in Romania are counterbalanced by what is happening in England. 

Drama educators must continue to be the giants knocking at the doors of curriculum demanding to be let in. 

There is a role for IDEA in this world wide claim.

IDEA was a founding member of the World Alliance for Arts Education WAAE  (https://www.waae.online/) and continues to support the work of the alliance drawing together ISME, the International Society for Music Education, InSEA, International Society of Education through Art, and WDA, the World Dance Alliance

IDEA and the wider world of Drama and theatre

A question to ask about drama education and theatre and drama is: why is there a need for IDEA when there are other organisations like ITI/ASSITEJ/etc working in the field with similar objectives? What is distinctive about the mandate of IDEA?

While IDEA has affiliations with ITI the mandate of this United Nations/UNESCO body is  broader than IDEA’s aims. Similarly the focus of ASSITEJ is on theatre makers and making while undoubtedly sharing an interest in young people. 

When IDEA was funded, there was a need for the specific and particular concerns of drama and theatre educators to be heard.

IDEA has long sought to strengthen its ties with UNESCO. Despite the troubled current situation of UNESCO, underfunded since the withdrawal of the USA, there is value in reaching out to the members of UNESCO to further the aims of IDEA. 

Drama Swings and roundabouts

In some places there are good news stories about drama education particularly in schools. There are sad news stories. In Iceland, Drama is included in the primary curriculum – a victory to be celebrated. In Finland, despite a long campaign from FIDEA, the Finish member of IDEA, drama in school has yet to be realised. 

It cannot be said that there is a universal entitlement for all for drama education. The struggle continues.

Some concluding thoughts

Seven years working voluntarily for an international organisation across languages, cultures and locations has been challenging. 

It has been rewarding and sometimes frustrating. There is work is still waiting to be done. There have been some small gains and victories; many disappointments. 

The richness of our professional lives is a reflection of our capacity to belong. Through IDEA (and similar) I have been a member of a guild of drama educators, learning from each other, enriching each other.  

I particularly thank my family for supporting my time in IDEA. Members of my family have accompanied me on the IDEA journey. My son Phillip was with me in Budapest for a General Council Meeting in 1997; my second son, Ben was with me in Kissumu Kenya in 1998 and in Belém, Brazil in 2010; my daughter Hannah was with me in Ottawa, Canada in 2004 and in Hong Kong in 2007. Finally, my wife, Liz, was with me in Frankfurt November 2019 (taking time from her busy career). More importantly, they have supported the travel i have undertaken (I stress, mostly taken at our own expense as funds within IDEA are limited and funding for travel in universities and institutions have long since dried up). As I move to the role of Immediate Past President, I leave with a sense of knowing that I could not have offered or done more. Even though there is always more to do, I pass the mantle to those who follow in the hope that I have contributed to our successes and survival into the future, stronger and more resilient. IDEA 

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

Ewing, R. (2020). The Australian Curriculum: The Arts. A critical opportunity. Curriculum Perspectives, 40, 75-81. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-019-00098-w

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