Integrated Arts – 16/10/18
This week was the first week of the drama input. Drama is a subject not everyone was as confident in however the lecturer made it fun and interesting which made us all feel at ease.

We looked at experiences and outcomes in Expressive Arts, which should be involved in any lesson, so teachers are able to follow the curriculum guidelines. These experiences and outcomes are helpful to teachers who do not have a lot of confidence or background in drama and allow them to build their lessons off what the children are expected to experience. It was illustrated to us the importance of Expressive Arts in drama, as well as in music, dance and visual arts. “The inspiration and power of the arts play a vital role in enabling our children and young people to enhance their creative talent and develop their artistic skills” (Scottish Executive, 2006) This can be said for any Expressive Art, however in drama, children have the opportunity to be so creative and imaginative that they can be pretend to be someone else. This is educational for the pupils as they have a chance to channel something different inside them which they might not have had the opportunity to do before. Drama is all about expressing yourself in a way one did not know was possible, therefore it is important to let children be active and free during a drama lesson, so they can achieve their full potential within the subject.

The lecturer showed us a picture of an old tenement building in Glasgow. The building was tall and had numerous windows, all of which were owned by different people. All these people lived separate lives and not one story was the same. Our task, pretending we were pupils, was to imagine we lived in one of the flats and make up our own story using specific drama techniques. These techniques were; improvisation, thought tracking, still image, flash forward and flash back. As the short drama progressed, in groups, we had to start with either improvisation, thought tracking or still image, and then add in both a flash forward and flash back. This allowed us to be more creative and imaginative, and forced us to work together and listen to everyone’s ideas to allow for the best possible results.
Drama in education is so important. It includes both the teacher and the pupil to be teaching and learning.

For teachers who do not have as much background knowledge as others, it is essential for them to not too feel under pressure when teaching a class. The lecturer gave us lots of ways of being creative and imaginative while teaching a class that can ease any dread or uncomfortable feelings towards teaching the subject. The goal is to be as creative as possible. Children will love the chance to do something different and often, will help you increase your imaginative skills as they will always come up with different ideas that one might not have thought of before. The teacher is always learning, and some activities can be pupil-led, to aid their own creativity.

References
Scottish Executive (2006). A Curriculum for Excellence: Building the Curriculum 3-18 (1) Available: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/btc1.pdf [Accessed: 12 December 2018].