Carole Miller

Comfortable, Confident, Committed: A Model of Drama Practice

This paper describes the results of a five-year project to develop an effective structure of delivery that engenders confidence in teachers new to drama.

A complicated tangle of circumstances

The post-modern curriculum, drawing on chaos and complexity theory, recognises the realities of a world in flux and posits that the teacher and the 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, viii). The phenomenon of such (paradoxically) ‘constant’ change is a living part of the realisation of Everyday Theatre company performances that are, in turn, specifically designed to effect shifts or changes in understanding for their audience participants. It is this changing, changeful, changeable, change-ringing context that we investigate in this article as we look at the layering of the experiences of Everyday Theatre through the lens of a post-modern curriculum of complexity. For us, the work of Everyday Theatre exemplifies the post-modern curriculum at its best, confirming what we as drama educators have intuited: a rich pedagogy unfolds in the midst of chaos as students meet a complex narrative that creates powerful metaphors they are invited to explore through their own acts of experience.

Story Drama Structures

Twenty-five years ago, drama innovator Gavin Bolton (1984) recognised the power of embodied narrative when he argued for placing drama at the centre of the curriculum. Rather than seeing literacy practices as discrete competencies unconnected to students’ lives outside school, Bolton, together with Dorothy Heathcote (2003), uses drama to cross disciplines and subject areas. They create learning contexts in which students use their literacy skills in multi-modalities immersed in situations that demand their participation. It is this “apprenticeship into the very specific forms of [social] languages and literacies represented inside and outside the classroom” (Hawkins, 2004, p. 17) that makes drama such a rich pedagogy.

‘To See The World As If It Were Otherwise’: Brain Research Challenges the Curriculum of ‘Organized Chunks’

Abstract In this paper we look at current brain research in an attempt to bring about a rebalancing of the traditional, or measured, curriculum to include the arts as imperative pedagogy. As drama teachers, the art of teaching (and our pedagogy) is allied to Anderson, Ewing and Gibsons (2007) discussion which draws attention to the components that quality teaching embraces. Teaching is more than the delivery of content and must be responsive to the social and cultural contexts of the classroom. Pedagogy attends to the emotional and intellectual needs of each student and involves a partnership between learners and teachers, of skills, knowledges and understandings. Brain research enables us to understand the significance of such things as: variety; movement social relationships context low-risk environments; pleasure and how these are most effectively embedded in the arts (e.g., Damasio, 1999, 2010; Goleman, 2006; Jensen, 2008 Iacoboni, 2008 Ratey, 2008 Willis, 2007). While any of the arts (music, dance, literature, visual arts) would be appropriate sites for this exploration, we focus on the role of drama as an exemplary curriculum discipline that is discrete, cross- disciplinary and ‘brain-compatible’ (Norman, 1999).

Cacophony and Fugue: pre‐service narratives create conversation about drama education

Abstract Teacher preparation seeks to develop reflective practitioners who examine and re‐examine teaching and learning, knowledge, beliefs and values. Articulation of teacher voice‐‐use of language to explain, describe, question, explore or challenge‐‐is vital. Teacher voice implies that a teacher can speak her or his own truth and be heard. Inherent barriers in teacher education, especially in drama education, impede reflection and teacher voice. These include: (a) isolation‐‐particularly problematic in drama education‐‐students feel marginalised in both theatre and education departments; and (b) student culture favouring practice over theory, a perception created when education departments ignore arts students and drama methods texts ignore education theory. Three drama educators, two Canadian and one American, use drama student teacher written cases to develop reflection and community in pre‐service secondary drama teachers. The cases are introduced during the methods class. While each case can be exp...