Dance & Drama 21/11/2017

This week’s input in dance focused on a Christmas theme, using the dance conventions which we had learned in prior weeks to bring a dance together which could be performed and filmed the following week.

On a personal note, within the dance inputs I usually find that I have been apprehensive before beginning, but by the end of the warm up I am ready to engage fully with the workshop. They have been really enjoyable experiences, and it is my hope that I will be able to bring this element of fun to dance when I am out on placement and in my teaching career. This idea of dance education incorporating an element of fun is supported by Cone (2009) who states that dance should be fun, meaningful, safe, and child-led. I wholeheartedly agree with this, as I believe that the expressive arts are an area of the curriculum in which teachers are (or should be) able to give children a real sense of ownership over their work and learning. Creative Scotland (2013) have developed a plan which aims to improve outcomes for children through the expressive arts, and I believe that dance is one of the areas which could support this aim.

The arts are predominantly about expression of emotions and thoughts, and dance can be an engaging way to give children freedom of expression within the classroom. In our workshop, we created visual stimuli based on a Christmas theme, and each group was to create a move based on one of them. This is not only a good way to allow creativity and freedom of expression, but also incorporates a collaborative element, where the children must work together to develop and agree upon a move which demonstrates their collective interpretation of the stimulus. Cone (2009) states that

“Dance educators need to support children’s ideas and trust the children’s creative process, especially when the educator may not agree with the meaningfulness of the dance content or structure.” (p.81)

After some consideration of how I recall dance being taught when I was at primary school, quite a few years ago now, there was some element of free creativity, but I remember that we were often corrected on some of the dance steps which we had created. I don’t know if some of the teachers I had had perhaps fallen into the trap of feeling as though they had to produce visible “results”, but I do remember that it was not particularly pleasant to be corrected on your own ideas. Through reflecting on this, and also taking into consideration the fact that dance is intended to be aesthetically pleasing, I hope to arrive at a middle ground in my practice, where I will hopefully be able to provide children with opportunities for creativity and originality, while working towards developing their dance towards the aesthetic criteria expected. I am uncertain that correcting children in from of their peers about their own ideas is the appropriate way to do this, however, and through consideration of the Curriculum for Excellence’s experiences and outcomes, particularly as regards having opportunities to provide constructive criticism and experience it in turn, I think I may have arrived at a solution which works with my teaching style.

The aim for our final video the week after this input was for us to watch it back and evaluate our own performance. I think allowing the children this opportunity to evaluate their own performance and the class as a whole might potentially lead to more organic skills development, as allowing the class the opportunity to reflect themselves also allows them the opportunity to find their own solutions for improving their own performance. Eisner (2002) states that the arts allow for the development of problem solving skills and judgement, and experiencing their own dance and that of others can allow these skills to develop further in a way that is child-led and meaningful.

This week’s drama input was a day of micro-teaching exercises. My group had their turn this week, among others, and I was extremely pleased with how well it worked out. We had used the Three Little Pigs story as our starting point, and but had only shown the story until after the second house. We then carried out our individual activities within the group, and I took on Teacher in Role. The aim of this activity was the teacher (myself) was the mayor, calling an emergency town meeting to try and find solutions for dealing with the wolf. The activity went smoothly, and it was interesting to see the responses from my class, considering that often, adults can feel a little uncomfortable undertaking drama activities.

In drama, I have been considering, again, the importance of allowing creativity and freedom of expression. Of course, with a convention such as Teacher in Role, based on a known story, does not at first glance leave much room for creativity. However, using a known story in drama can help children to develop other methods for approaching ideas from other curricular areas, for example, literacy. Baldwin and Fleming (2003) posit that literacy can be taught through drama, and that drama conventions can allow children alternative ways for expressing their ideas about an issue or story.

References

Baldwin, P. and Fleming, K. (2003) Teaching Literacy Through Drama. London: Routledge.

Cone, T. (2009) Following Their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances, Journal of Dance Education, 9:3, 81-89, DOI: 10.1080/15290824.2009.10387390

Eisner, E. (2002) The Arts and The Creation Of Mind. New Haven [u.a.]: Yale Univ. Press.