Conversation Around Enhancing Deep Understanding of Literature Through Drama
Robyn
We’ve a lread y talked ab out the important role that the arts can and should play in our lives and in the classroom, but now let’s focus specifically on drama . I just read an interview with actor Rachel Griffiths. She talks about her love for telling story , the impact storytelling can have on others, her passion for encouraging social justice through her acting. She says:
Gloria, you have a background in theatre and drama , don’t you?Emotion is what changes people’s lives. You can tell people a string of facts, but put them in someone else’s shoes for an hour or a day, it changes how they view things.
Gloria
Somewhat, yet I always consider myself first and foremost to be a teacher. My career began as a primary school teacher interested in the performing arts. At graduate school I studied drama and went to work, after graduation, at a theatre school. At this school, I helped guide children from 5 to 18 years of age to create their own theatre. It was entirely process-oriented and I observed the amazing potential of drama first hand to deepen understanding but also to change lives. From there I became an actor/teacher in a theatre in Education Company and then directed a Children’s Theatre Company. When my children were young, I wrote plays for theatre and television. So, yes, some of my background is in the arts and in teaching, but all of my heart is in the arts and in teaching. What about you, Robyn?
Robyn
My experiences with the arts as a child were largely in drama and dance. I was fortunate that the local youth club offered speech a nd drama classes at a price my weekly pocket money could sustain and my nine-year-old world expanded overnight! We learned important exercises to help us use our voices more effectively, we learned about different kinds of drama and we were regularly involved in performances of po etry, duologues and plays. I think I’ve already mentioned that at one stage I dreamed of going to Nadtional Institute for Dramatic Art (NIDA) and becoming an actor. My father unfortunately did not share my aspirations.
Gloria
And so that’s when you decided to become a teacher, Robyn?
Robyn
Many would suggest that becoming a teacher was a way for me to continue my dramatic journey. Good teaching is definitely about artistry. And there are certainly some who talk about teaching as improvisation or teaching as performance. I’ve always said it’s also about developing relationships, and perhaps that’s one of the important lessons I learned thro ugh drama.
Importantly though, my interest in children’s literature and love of dramatic play was put to good use in my classrooms from my very first day as a tea cher. Drama and literature proved to be great starting points for meaningful integration across the primary curriculum, especially with music and visual arts but also with the sciences and social sciences. How fortunate I was to have that background! And how wonderful I’ve been able to deepen my own passion for the arts in education.
Gloria
I agree we were both fortunate to have drama and theatre experiences to inform our work as teachers.
Robyn
Like you, after my children were born, I began to work casually in teacher education mostly in drama and English. At the time there was no primary drama syllabus for NSW schools, but I read the increasing body of research that was emerging about literacy and drama . And I started to hear about the work of leading practitioners in the area: Dorothy Heathcote (1971 and 1984), Gavin Bolton (1979), Norah Morgan , Juliana Saxton (1987) and David Booth (2003).
Gloria
I did as well. Dorothy Heathcote (1971 and 1984), in particular, inspired my direction. I got a Canada Council grant to go to England and study theatre in education companies. The actor/teachers I met were able to combine my two loves—drama and education. I learned a great deal about being in the moment with children and the immense value of being in role.
Robyn
How wonderful that opportunity must have been, Gloria! Did you work with Dorothy? I think role is one of the most important elements in theatre and educational dr ama.
Gloria
Aside from getting to know others, I believe being in role helps you understand yourself far more as you are stepping outside yourself.
I didn’t work with Dorothy Heathcote (1971 and 1984), but I did read everything I could get my hands on about her work and watched a documentary where she worked with disadvantaged boys in their early teens. She was unassuming, quite matter of fact—a larger-than-life working class woman who spoke of drama coming from a crossroads in life, and she would get down to these youth’s level and ask:
The stories, the drama , came from those boys, and they grew as she guided them, instilled trust and risk-taking and questioned their ideas further.So what do you want to do a play about?
Robyn
Yes, she was a very important figure in the development of educat ional drama although I came to know her work only through the film y ou talk about and her writing.
Trust and risk-taking are important qualities in all learning. It took time for me as an academic to develop trust and risk-taking with teachers at my children’s school. But I started a collegial group with interested classroom teachers there and was gradually invited into some of their classrooms to model the use of drama with literature. I found in both school and university contexts that drama was always a way of engaging students who were usually difficult to engage. At the same time, it was a way to challenge those students who were already motivated to learn. And it definitely helped improve children’s understanding of text and character.
I was surprised that the arts in general and drama and dance in particular were often underused components of the primary curriculum—often just used as fill-in activities or on a rainy Friday afternoon or extra-curricular subjects for those whose parents could afford the fees. And this was despite the growing and, in my view, increasingly unequivocal evidence that student involvement in quality arts-rich experiences enhances both their social and emotional wellbeing as well as their academic outcomes.
Gloria
Most certainly! Two of my defining experiences, Robyn, support your view of the emotional and the social benefits of drama . They both occurred when I was working in Winnipeg in Canada.
My partner and I were asked to conduct a series of workshops with teenagers from a Youth Detention Centre. These young people were deemed outcasts and so dangerous that they were body searched before entering the space, and there were two guards at each door as we worked. Nervously, we drew upon H eathcote’s work of getting down to their level to establish rapport and trust and letting them direct their lives. It took time, but these tough, stony-faced, arms folded, ‘You’ve got to be kidding’ teenagers slowly, ever so slowly started revealing themselves and replayed their often heartbreaking stories.
In the second pivotal experience, I undertook a series of seven workshops in drama at an old age community (as it was known then). These people didn’t request drama ; they were told it would be good for them. They were frail, all in their 80s or older and some suffered with dementia, while others had no English. After the first three sessions, I was ready to give up. Half way through each session, the Bingo tables were set up, and these gentle souls started slowly leaving the drama space and sliding their walking frames towards the Bingo tables. Nothing I did seem to engage them.
After some good cries, I decided I was not going to let Bingo defeat me. I completely abandoned my original plan and decided to find out, celebrate and record their life stories. They clearly remembered events from their pasts. What amazed me was as they started sharing, these people, who had lived together for decades, did not really know one other. As they worked to listen and respond with great interest, they would interject with remarks such as ‘I felt that way too,’ ‘Yes, I remember that time as well,’ ‘Did you love that song too?’ Beautiful connections were fostered.
These two incidents taught me a great deal about learner-centred education and its emotional and social benefits to enrich lives. Can you share your defining experiences?
Robyn
Once again, Gloria, the transformative power of enactment and story for both youth and the aged emerges from both of your defining moments.
Your question made me think carefully—it’s difficult to just single out two moments, isn’t it? I have chosen one from my youth ...