According to Grainger (2003), “Drama…It represents an opportunity to construct powerful and imaginary worlds together, and enables speculation, modification and transformation of our understandings through examining different people’s perspectives, alternative possibilities and the consequences of our actions”.
In today’s input, several small groups took the role of the teacher and taught the class a drama lesson using the techniques we had discussed in previous weeks. We had to choose a children’s book and base our lesson around that book. Three groups performed that task today and we peer assessed each group after they had completed their 20-minute lesson. Time became a massive barrier during this activity as each group had to rush through the drama techniques. When doing this with children you would space a common theme or book over several drama lessons to ensure that they received the most out of it.
It is important that we discuss topics which the children can relate to through drama, such as bullying. This ensures that the children engage fully with the input and can make connections to their everyday life.
At the end of the lesson, Andrew discussed some major points that, we as future teachers, must be aware of. For example, as teachers, we must not enforce our own personal beliefs or opinions on topical issues onto the children but instead give credit to both sides. When implementing a drama lesson, it is essential that once the drama ends everyone comes out of role and returns back to their normal persona. This ensures that no disagreements occur over the ‘role’ the child played and the children must be aware that no one gets laughed at or ridiculed over a drama input.
References
- Teresa Grainger (2003) Creative teachers and the language arts: Possibilities and potential, Education 3-13: International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education, 31:1, 43-47, DOI: 10.1080/03004270385200071
