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16/10/18 – 23/10/18 – The importance of Drama

“Tell me and I will forget

Show me and I will remember

Involve me and I will understand”

(Benjamin Franklin)

The expressive arts encourage children to get involved and be a part of the production or performance rather than sitting back and watching someone else to the work. Getting a child involved in the creative process means they learn skills and knowledge that they can use and transfer into other subjects and continue using them through life.

The quote above helps us to make sense of the expressive arts as well as most subjects and experiences in life. By only telling a child something chance are they won’t remember what you said, making it more effective and giving them an example increases the chance they will remember what you showed them and finally the most effective way of getting a child to make sense of something and enjoy it more is by getting them involved in what’s going on.

Using the expressive art of drama is a very good way of getting children involved in the creative process rather than just telling them what to do. It’s also a great way of getting the teacher involved as well, it allows them to build positive relationships with the children and encourage them to be confident in their work and performances.

Before this workshop my experience of drama was made of very little knowledge about the different types of techniques that can be used in the classroom to get the children to express their ideas, thoughts and feelings. Getting a chance to try out these techniques ourselves gave us the opportunity to see the lesson through the children’s point of view.

Being split into groups and collaborating on ideas allows different ideas and creativity to flow from one person to another and gave us the chance to communicate our thoughts to one another while in a safe environment. Some of the techniques we looked at were:

• Improvisation – a term for unscripted acting out which can include role play.
• Thought tracking – a character speaks their thoughts and feelings from a still image or a freeze frame.
• Thought tunnel – a double line of children who speak the thoughts and feelings of the character who is walking between the two lines.
• Teacher in role – the teacher takes part in the drama alongside the children.
• Role on the wall – A simple outline of a character is drawn on a large sheet of paper. Around the outside of the body the children write words and phrases that others think of the character.  On the inside of the body children write what the character is thinking and feeling.

Many of these techniques allow the children to be in control of what happens in the scene they create and explore their ideas and creativity. However, there are opportunities for the teacher to be involved and help provoke ideas and thoughts from the children to get them thinking and expand their imagination to wider things.

Involving children in in the expressive art of drama not only allows them to express how they feel but also help them understand things that happen in the real world or more specifically in their world, it gives them a chance to show what they can’t explain through words. It helps deepen their understanding in other subjects and build skills of confidence, communication and creativity. They can feel safe sharing their ideas and feelings with their teacher and their peers without the fear of judgement meaning they allow themselves to let go and be fully involved in the arts.

“I have the freedom to choose and explore how I can use my voice, movement, and expression in role play and drama.” EXA 0-12a

“I use drama to explore real and imaginary situations, helping me to understand my world.” EXA 0-14a (Education Scotland, 2017)

Reference List:

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09/10/18 – Creative Partnerships

Integrating the arts in education is one thing but another positive way to get children involved in the arts is to look outside who’s in the school. Bringing in professionals to help can give children a deeper understanding and show teachers different methods of practice for using in the classroom. It can also be effective to get children involved in expressive arts projects out with the school. Meaning they get the opportunity to see the arts out in the real world and see how they can be used day to day and bring positive benefits to the children and others involved.

Creative partnerships enhance pupils learning experience and help develop their skills and the practitioner’s skills. Showing the different ways in which children can get involved in the expressive arts in school and out of school helps support the curriculum and support the aspects within it.

We got to experience this during one of our music workshops as a group of primary 6/7 school children from Greenmill Primary school came in to show us what they had been up to. We became the students and they became the teachers, the children were involved in the String Project which enables them to continue their music studies after leaving primary school. The String project is funded by East Ayrshire’s Youth Music Initiative and it was amazing to see so many children excited about the arts and music and interested in working together as an orchestra. They preformed for us using different instruments including the violin, cello, double base and viola and then they gave us the chance to learn the cords and have a play with the instruments.

I felt this was a great way to encourage the children to explore the arts because if they enjoy what they are doing then they want to do it more, they become passionate about it which is a great quality to have and take away with them as well as feeling like they have contributed towards a greater goal.

Creative partnerships are great and effective forms of collaboration and people working together towards a common goal. We continued this approach in dance as well by splitting into groups to create a routine, during which the teacher had very little to do with the task, we were in charge and in control of what kind of routine we good put together. To help get us started we were given 10 different moves that we could interpret anyway we liked and create a routine using the moves we created and decided on together.

Using this kind of activity in practice is exactly the kind of thing that shows how the expressive arts can create positive relationships between teachers and students and between students and their peers. It shows and develops skills such as communication, teamwork, creativity and passion.

Reference List:

Vimeo, Inc. (2018) Greenmill Primary School String Project, Available at: https://vimeo.com/176221212 (Accessed: 9th October 2018).

25/09/18 – Stimulus for Inspiration

Within the arts there is a lot of room for using what’s around you as inspiration and mixing that inspiration with your own ideas to create something unique and original. Even a simple trip outside the classroom to the playground and letting the child explore what’s around them can allow them to think of ideas and expand their imagination. Showing them a picture or a single word or letting them listen to a piece of music gets their brains thinking about the endless possibilities in their minds.

Starting a lesson with a stimulus changes how the child looks at the rest of the lesson, they see new ideas within the subject and activity, rather than sitting and being uninterested in what’s going on. They are more willing to interact with the activity, happier to collaborate with the other children in the class and even happier to come back to class and continue their learning if the subject has interest to them and made enjoyable.

During a music workshop we got the opportunity to experience this kind of learning for ourselves to experience what the child might see, feel and hear in the classroom during a similar activity. Different pieces of music were played to us and we were to write down how that piece of music made us feel, what it reminded us of. We then discussed as a class our answers and it was interesting to hear the variation of answers given, interesting to see how everyone had different thoughts about the music they heard, had their own feelings and memories.

This made me think about how this could be used in practice and the positive benefits it can have on the children and their experience in the classroom. This experience is child centred and allows the child their freedom to think for themselves and write, draw or perform what the stimulus makes them feel or think. Using the expressive arts to help achieve this means the children have a safe space and comforting environment to express how the stimulus makes them feel without fear of being judged.

“Inspired by a range of stimuli, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through activities within art and design.” EXA 0-05a / EXA 1-05a / EXA 2-05a

“Inspired by a range of stimuli, and working on my own and/or with others, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through musical activities.” EXA 0-18a / EXA 1-18a / EXA 2-18a   (Education Scotland, 2017)

Reference List:

Education Scotland (2017) Benchmarks Expressive Arts, Available at: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/documents/expressiveartsbenchmarkspdf.pdf(Accessed: 25th September 2018).