Tag: Drama

Week 11 – Process and Product within drama and dance

Today we began by attending a lecture on creative dance. Having previously read Theresa Cone’s work, I found it interesting to relate my now experiences with dance to her writing. Having had previous experience with dance – both as a student at a dance school and as a dance leader working in primary schools – I have enjoyed learning about the theory behind creative dance. Some of the benefits of dance have always been, to me, obvious. It provides people with an interest and a way to keep fit and healthy (both physically and mentally) which is not centred around how well you can throw or catch a ball. However, before learning about it within an artistic sense, I had considered it to be exclusively a sport. This misconception of its limitations is highlighted as being a view of many throughout the world by Gilbert (2005) as she says that many people have viewed it as something which P.E. teachers should deliver. When considering this point, it seems almost ridiculous that a P.E. teacher should be considered as more capable of teaching young children an art form than a class teacher. Therefore, I was encouraged to think about the term ‘creative dance’, which suggests the further development of creativity through expression of feelings and connections to knowledge, rather than simply ‘dance’, which I think we sometimes confuse for exercise to music.

During this morning’s lecture, we considered Smith-Autard’s (2002) Midway Model for Dance in Schools. This model suggests that we should not ignore neither the process nor the product of dance; meaning that the dance must be meaningful and expressive but it should also be aesthetically pleasing. This can be achieved by teaching children the 10 Basic Skills of dance to give them the required skills and knowledge for them to combine these with their imagination and creativity, to come up with dance routines and to solve problems effectively. Reflecting on this, for my own understanding of the connection between the two conventions, I have related it to learning how to read – we must first develop graphic and phonic knowledge before we can develop a strong contextual understanding of the texts we read. Similarly, we must develop the ability to write before we can convey our feelings and creative stories using the written word.

We also took part in a dance input today in which we worked in groups to create a dance with a chosen theme. We chose Christmas and had to plan the dance based on a model created by Cone (2009). This model required us to consider the characters, a storyline and a title for our dance, as well as to consider any props or costumes that we plan to use. We chose the story of the elves making presents on Christmas Eve, before Jack Frost appears and tries to ruin Christmas by freezing all of the hard working elves. But Santa appears right on time and over powers Jack Frost with his jolly ‘Ho Ho Ho!’. We choreographed this dance in our groups today and used the 10 basic steps as well as adding in different conventions such as cannon. Due to the nature of our story, we felt that facial expressions were very important in our routine and that the nature of the moves should reflect the feelings of the characters at any given time. The process of this essentially allowed us to come up with an imaginative story within a theme, which would traditionally be written. However, in this context, we are telling our story through movement. To do this, we had to discuss how the different characters would feel at different points in the story and had to consider incentives and reactions. For this reason, along with so many others, this process of creative dance is so much more enriching and meaningful that copying a dance which a professional has made up. As Heath and Gilbert (2015) argue, copying can only take us so far while creating is limitless. Therefore, the products of dance stories like this have the potential to be both insightful and original. However, it is important to consider that children may require to be prompted to consider how the characters in their story would feel and reminded that they should express these feelings in both their movements and their facial expressions, to effectively and powerfully convey their messages to the audience in an aesthetically pleasing way. Performing our dances next week will allow us to showcase our product and to potentially be inspired by the products of others.

After dance, we moved on to our drama input. We took part in drama lessons which were lead by our colleagues and then my group led our session. We based our lesson on ‘Prince Cinders’ by Babette Cole. In a previous post I discussed how I was feeling before we delivered our lesson and today, after we delivered it, I was feeling pleasantly surprised. The engagement and active participation of our colleagues made it an enjoyable experience. As this was a micro-teaching exercise, I developed my communication skills and practised projecting my voice. I also made sure that I was aware of my position in the room and my colleagues and I practised giving set times to the participants. It was overall a very valuable experience in which we were able to practise general teaching skills along with drama conventions. We focussed mostly on the character of Prince Cinders, who was lonely and had low self-esteem at the beginning of the story, but by the end his horrible brothers were punished and he was rewarded. Looking closely at characters allowed us to use the process of this drama to tell the story in a more meaningful way, and the participants were able to relate to at least one of the characters and to develop justified feelings, whether positive or negative, towards them. As discussed by Jackson and Leahy (2006) drama allows children to be present within and out with a fictional story. This is a very powerful component of drama as it provides children with the opportunity to view things from two different perspectives – their own and that of a character. This allows them to compare the two and to make connections between them, using higher order thinking skills, such as evaluation, to justify both their own feelings and the feelings of the characters in question. This is a particularly sophisticated skill and is related to developing empathy for others. This is just one of the reasons that the process of drama is important.

I have discussed the use of drama to tell stories in previous blog posts, although its ability to teach life lessons in a memorable way is something which I feel, especially in my time spent in education as a pupil, has been overlooked in the past. Drama can allow learners to relate to cultural, social, and environmental world issues that may have previously seemed so distant from their own lives that they struggle to comprehend them. For example, learning about both sustainable education and integrated arts at the same time, has allowed me to increasingly see the connections between the two. Drama inputs can be used to put children into the shoes of almost anyone around the world; from politicians debating about climate change policies, to natural disaster victims and charity aid workers of all ages. I strongly believe that this would help children to make connections with the world in much more powerful ways. Anderson (2004) suggests agreement with this point as he discusses the use of drama in bringing situated learning to the classroom. Taking children to the scene of a natural disaster may be physically impossible. However, bringing the scene of a natural disaster to the classroom through drama is by every means possible!

However we use drama, whether it be to teach lessons about world issues, to teach values, or to develop life skills, the process of the drama is unarguably vital. Although, the product of the drama should not be forgotten. From today’s input, we considered how our colleagues who took part in our drama lesson have now had some practice of drama over the past few months. This meant that the products of the role on the walls, mimes, and response to the teacher in role, were likely more effective than they would have been should we have asked the same group of people to do these tasks without any previous drama input. Therefore, it is important to consider as a teacher that although it is vital to allow the children to guide the process to some extent, teacher input is necessary to structure and encourage student progress. This progress should be evident as over time, the pupils should develop more confidence and should be encouraged to delve out with their comfort zones, ensuring that every pupil is getting a chance to participate and the more dominant pupils are not taking over. The participation of all should lead to a vast range of different perspectives and ideas which should be discussed and evaluated. We should also regularly look back at our products and evaluate them as proof of the effectiveness of the process (QCA, 2004), as well as proof of new skills and ways of thinking.

These inputs today highlighted to me that within all of the arts, the process and the product are equally important.

References 

Anderson, C. (2004) Learning in “As-If” Worlds: Cognition in Drama in Education. Theory Into Practice. [Online] Vol.43(4), pp.281-286. Available: Taylor and Francis. [Accessed: 7 November 2017].

Cone, T. (2009) Following Their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances. Journal of Dance Education. [Online] Vol.9(3), pp.81-89. Available: Taylor & Francis. [Accessed: 19 October 2017].

Gilbert, A. (2005) Dance Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. [Online] Vol.76(5), pp.26-35. Available: Taylor & Francis. [Accessed: 21 November 2017].

Heath, S. and Gilbert, L. (2015) Creativity and the work of art and science. The Routledge International Handbook of the Arts and Education. [Online] Vol.1(1), pp. 398-409. Available: http://shirleybriceheath.net/pdfs2016/creativity-work-art-science.pdf. [Accessed: 21 October 2017].

Jackson, A. and Leahy, H.R. (2006) ‘Seeing it for real…?’ – Authenticity, theatre and learning in museums. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance. [Online] Vol.10(3), pp.303-325. Available: Taylor and Francis. [Accessed: 7 November 2017].

QCA (2004) Creativity: find it, promote it: promoting pupils’ creative thinking and behaviour across the curriculum at key stages 1, 2 and 3: practical materials for schools. [Online] London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Available: www.qca.org.uk/creativity. [Accessed: 19 October 2017].

Smith-Autard, J. (2002) The Art of Dance Education. London: A & C Black Publishers Ltd.

 

 

 

 

 

Week 9 – Micro-teaching in Drama and Music

Today in drama we participated in two lessons created by two other groups of our peers. From participating in their lessons and activities I have learned some valuable lessons which will hopefully help my group to lead a successful lesson next session. These included making sure everyone can hear what the participants (in this case our peers, but in a classroom setting the pupils) are saying, not looking at the participants when you are walking through a thought tunnel in order to give them full power to say how they feel, and giving the participants set times to have discussions which are not too long and not too short in order to allow them to think and discuss before they act but also to retain that aspect of improvisation. The lessons were based on a story book which our peers read throughout their lessons, stopping and starting to explore certain aspects using different drama conventions. As Booth (1985) said, exploration and questioning are encouraged by drama, meaning that these become habits which can be more easily and thoroughly developed and transferred to reading text. This is to say that using drama conventions throughout story books helps children to develop a deeper connection with the characters and a better understanding of the main messages of the story. This is not to say that drama conventions must be used every time the class reads a story, but the use of only one convention could sometimes be enough to make the difference between a class of children who develop and display their understanding of the main concepts and a class of those who do not. I also like the idea that drama allows children to display their understanding in a way that they may not be capable of doing using words. The use of facial expressions and body movements can be enough to demonstrate an idea. Reflecting on my own experience of school, I feel that we were possibly too focussed on the outcome of a reading activity and not focussed enough on the process of getting to know the characters and exploring the possibilities of the direction of the story. Sometimes it was almost as though we were rushing to read through the book as quickly as possible in order to complete the comprehension textbook tasks and tick a box to say we had completed it. In my teaching practice I want to help children to enjoy and appreciate literature and to learn from it in ways beyond their phonic, graphic and bibliographic knowledge. Drama can help us to achieve this as the process and product of drama are interconnected (Ackroyd-Pilkington, 2001).

My group are going to be presenting our lesson to our peers next Tuesday. This is what we have planned and how I am currently feeling about the experience:

Csikszentmihalyi (1996) discusses the importance of encouraging flexibility in gender roles within the arts. Books such as the one we have chosen to use in our lesson will be a good way to highlight to young children, in a child friendly manner, the different gender roles of the past and how these are changing. It also discretely brings up the issue of sexism which could be discussed indirectly after the story when the children have connected the different aspects of the story to Cinderella, by asking questions such as: “How is the story different to Cinderella? Who proposes to who? Is it okay for a woman to propose to a man? Why? Who is the hero in the story?” This would be a very good opportunity to discuss these things with a class of children in a way which they can understand and in a way which is relevant to them, while empowering the heroic female characters and empathising with the sensitive male character.

As Grainger (2003, p.44) says:

“Literature discussions, oral storytelling, poetry performances and improvisational drama [offer] learners the chance to interpret, communicate and create meaning for themselves.”

She also says that it is important for teachers to carefully select literature that will encourage children to engage and to question different aspects of the text. Through use of this book, my group and I hope to evoke imaginative responses and to awaken inquisitive minds about the different themes within the story.

In music today we worked with Primary 6/7 pupils from Greenmill Primary School in Cumnock. They are a part of a string orchestra and have been working together as a class as part of a project since Primary 4. I found it very interesting that rather than being taken out of class individually to be taught different instruments, they work together to learn how to play their string instruments and perform as an orchestra. Teachers have reported improvements in behaviour, team working skills and general attitudes of pupils who have taken part in the project. From meeting the pupils and having them teach us about their instruments today, I could see the benefits of having them all feel like professionals. They looked and acted like professionals and by making them feel appreciated and working with them in reversed roles with us as the learners they will hopefully have gone away feeling proud and even more confident. Building up the self-esteem and leadership skills of young people is an incredibly important part of the arts (Education Scotland, 2013). I saw today that learning how to play an instrument is something that every child is capable of doing and by helping them to do that we are giving them a skill to show off and be proud of. Confidence with this skill will hopefully then allow them to progress and be creative with the instrument, as creativity requires children to have more control over their own experiences in lessons (Harris, 2016).

Helping children to find their passion and something that they are good at can help them to feel more comfortable and included in school. Today I was partnered with a learner who was originally from Poland and moved to Scotland two years ago. The learner told me that being a part of this strings orchestra had helped him to make friends with the other pupils in the class, before he could competently speak English. In spite of the numerous things that the project has achieved so far and will continue to achieve, this to me is reason enough to call it a success. By helping this one young child who came to live in a new country knowing very little, if any, of the language, this technique of teaching music promoted inclusion and comfort. He is now so confident in his abilities that he could come today and teach me how to hold the bow and to play a short tune using the cello. To me, this highlights the arts as a universal language which should be accessible to all.

Overall, by being taught by both my peers and primary school students today I have been reminded that we can all be experts in different fields, and age and professional status should not always determine our level of knowledge and/or ability to teach. Teaching others can also be a fantastic way to contextualise our own learning as it forces us to think in depth about the process behind our thoughts.

References 

Ackroyd-Pilkington, J. (2001) Acting, Representation and Role. Research in Drama Education. The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance. [Online] Vol.6(1), pp.9-12. Available: Taylor and Francis. [Accessed: 6 November 2017].

Booth, D. (1985) “Imaginary gardens with real toads”: Reading and drama in education. Theory into Practice. [Online] Vol.24(3), pp.193-198. Available: Taylor and Francis. [Accessed: 6 November 2017].

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996) Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of discovery and invention. New York: Harper Collins.

Education Scotland (2013) Creativity Across Learning 3-18. [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/Creativity/CRE1_WhatAreCreativitySkills/Creativity3to18.pdf [Accessed: 2 October 2017].

Grainger, T. (2003) Creative teachers and the language arts: Possibilities and potential, Education 3-13: International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education. [Online] Vol.31(1), pp.43-47. Available: Taylor and Francis. [Accessed 29 September 2017]

Harris, A. (2016) Creativity and Education. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

 

 

 

Week 8 – Teaching Drama and Music in Their Own Right and to Contextualise Other Subjects

Today in drama we finished off our learning about the different conventions. The last four being flashback, flash-forward, narration, and slow motion. Flashback and flash-forward give learners the opportunity to carefully consider the consequences of actions and the possible past events which may have lead to certain consequences. For me, these two conventions emphasise the idea that every action has a consequence and every consequence once had a catalyst. Narration helps learners to consider what is happening in the drama and why, as it calls for them to give an explanation. This can be a good way for learners to take themselves out of the experience for just enough time to reflect on what is going on, but for a short enough time that they remain engaged in the process. Finally, slow motion can be used to slow down aspects of the drama to encourage learners to think carefully about their characters’ reactions to different stimuli and to engage with the experience of these reactions. Neelands (2000) suggests that the use of drama conventions in the classroom allows teachers to teach drama as a subject in its own right, as well as use it to capture learners within a learning experience about various other subjects across the curriculum. I would agree with this point as through the past few inputs on drama, and through various inputs in other modules, I have gained a deeper understanding of the use of the different drama conventions and have been made aware of numerous learning points for children which would fall into different curricular areas. This could be, for example, the use of flash-forward to a time in the future which shows the results of our pollution of the planet, and then an alternative flash-forward to a future time which will occur if we start living more sustainably.

We considered these conventions within the theme of a Halloween story. Using the theme of Halloween would hopefully engage learners as it is relevant to them (especially on the 31st of October). We also considered Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre. This is a style of drama in which audience participation is key. The audience are invited, not to judge or to find fault in a drama, but to give their opinion and give suggestions for alternative concepts which the drama could adopt. In some cases, the audience members may act out their suggestions. I found this form of drama very interesting as it has the potential to bring different insights on the roles of different characters and encourages the audience members to be active rather than passive throughout the process. This could lead to an enhanced experience for all of those involved as the actors are being questioned and have to think carefully, meaning that they will have no option but to be engaged. This supports Eisner’s (2002) claim that “The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their largest lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.”, as different people will have different ideas about the way in which the drama should go and by encouraging them to express these ideas we are encouraging them to explore and accept those of their own and of others.

After drama, we moved in to music. Firstly, we focussed on the use of the voice as a teacher. We considered the numerous uses of the voice and concluded that it is an imperative tool for a teacher to have and use effectively. We considered various ways to care for our voices and this has intrigued me to learn more about different ways to get the attention of the class or to convey messages to the class without raising my voice. I aim to look into this with further reading.

We then looked at different warm-ups which can be used in the class before singing. Before this input I had not realised the importance of warming up our muscles before we sing and had not considered the use of different vocal warm-ups as a strategy to settle the pupils into the class. We started off by practising some breathing warm-ups. One of these was breathing in for 4 seconds, holding it for 4 seconds and then releasing the breath through making a long, continuous “sssss” sound for 20 seconds, until all of the air was released from our lungs. We also held on to our rib cage while doing this technique to feel our lungs expanding and contracting. This would be a good way to contextualise learning about the organs of the human body as learners can feel their lungs functioning and would hopefully be more able to visualise their diaphragm contracting and relaxing as they breath in and out. We then warmed up our bodies and faces by making a ‘big face’, a ‘small face’, and chewing an imaginary piece of toffee. I found these activities enjoyable, and definitely a fun way to stretch the muscles of our faces and improve our enunciation.

My favourite of the vocal warm-ups was the penguin song. I loved this as a way to warm-up our bodies and our voices and I also thought that it would be a great way to help young children practise their rights and lefts. I will keep this song to use in the classroom, especially with younger children, to settle them in to class by ending the song with “Penguins, attention! Penguins, sit down!” Julie demonstrated this to use today and it was very interesting to see that every single one of us in the class followed her order almost subconsciously as we were so engaged with the song. This is an example of how the arts can be used as methods of behaviour management as well as their various other properties.

Finally, we explored the use of grids within music. I found this to be a very interesting and non-intimidating way of creating a whole class or group production, in which learners are encouraged to consider sounds which they would relate to a certain theme and how they would represent those sounds using different instruments, their voices, and electronic sound effects. As a class, we considered the theme of fireworks. After coming up with the sounds we chose where on the grid we wanted them to appear and chose the instruments we wanted to use to represent them. We decided how may beats we wanted each box to represent and added different dimensions such as a crescendo. We had a conductor who pointed to the column which she wanted us to play. We then split into groups to make our own versions of the grids. My group chose Christmas.

This activity encourages creativity through experimenting with different sounds and representing connections using different media. This strongly supports the imaginative aspect of Tallis Habits Pedagogy Wheel as it allows learners to play with possibilities, make connections, and use their intuition. As well as this, it provides a fantastic opportunity for IDL. As soon as I saw the grid I thought of maths. Grids like this could be used for learners at first level to achieve the Experience and Outcome of ‘I have developed an awareness of where grid reference systems are used in everyday contexts and can use them to locate and describe position.’ MTH 1-18a. The learners would all contribute to making the music grid as a class or in groups and could then identify which squares within the grid there is a ‘bang’ or a ‘boom’. In this case there is a ‘bang’ in squares A6, C6, E6 and F6. By making each of the squares represent the same number of beats I would be helping the learners to understand that on a grid all of the squares have the same value. When introducing this I would use a very small grid, possibly only 3 by 3 squares. To practice it, I could shout out coordinates like ‘C3’ and all of the children who have the instrument to make a sound on C3 do so. This could transform the role of the conductor from simply pointing to different points on the grid to calling out the names of the points on the grid to create our piece of music. As Marshall (2014) explains, teaching with an integrated approach allows learners to understand that knowledge is not separated into set groups, but it is integratable and relatable to other forms of new and existing knowledge.

After today’s workshops and from further reading, I have come to the conclusion that teaching drama through various methods such as the conventions approach and music through non-conventional approaches, allows the arts to enhance creativity, and to teach and contextualise learning in other subjects, as well as being taught in their own right.

References 

Eisner, E. (2002) The Arts and the Creation of Mind. Yale University Press.

Marshall, J. (2014) Transforming Education through art centred integrated learning. Visual Enquiry: Learning & Teaching Art. [Online] Vol.3(3), pp.361-376. Available: http://www.academia.edu/8439173/Transforming_Education_Through_Art_Centred_Integrated_Learning [Accessed: 24 October 2017].

Neelands, J. (2000) In the Hands of Living People. [Online] Paper presented at: The National Drama Conference. York, UK, April 2000. Available: http://www.theatroedu.gr/portals/38/main/images/stories/files/magazine/EandT_e-mag_June2002_EN_06.pdf [Accessed: 12 October 2017].

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 7 – Teacher control within drama and dance

Today we did not have a morning lecture and went straight to our workshops. My group started in the drama workshop where we reconsidered the different drama conventions of hot seating, improvisation, thought tunnels, freeze frames, and teacher in role, and were introduced to some new ones. We began by listening to an explanation of 2 characters – a brother and sister. We were told that the brother wound his sister up and picked on her. We were then asked to create a role on the wall, which is one of the new drama conventions we were introduced to today. In our groups we used 2 pieces of paper and drew outlines of one character on each. On the outside of the outline we wrote words to describe the character and on the inside we wrote words to describe how the character feels about themselves. This helped me to put myself into the shoes of the characters and to consider how my views of them may differ from their views of themselves. We then listened to the story of the brother and sister. Half way through the story we stopped and acted out using voice in head (another of the conventions). This was useful as it allowed us to consider the contrasting views of the two characters. This convention will also show children that there can be many different explanations and reasons for actions and it will allow them to consider a variety of them. It may also give me, as the teacher, clues about some issues which children may currently be dealing with – such as lack of attention at home or the pressures of fitting in to social groups. Voice in head essentially gives children the opportunity to relate any feelings they may have to those of the character in order to explain their actions, or to consider why the character may have different feelings to what they do. It is very similar to thought tracking, however voice in head calls for the opposing view to be heard, which in many cases is useful for showing that there are two sides to every story. We then used mime which was a good way to make the story visual. I found this useful as it helped me to get into character and to internalise the experience of being part of the story. Finally, after finishing listening to the story, we revisited our role on the wall sheets and considered how our views had changed on the characters and wrote new words on the paper. This would be very beneficial for helping the children to think about how and why their views had changed and to consider whether at first, they were too quick to judge before they knew enough about the characters. In our groups we then acted out, using a variety of conventions, a part of the story which had not been heard – this could have been after the story had ended or a part during the story which was not covered by the writer. In the classroom this would be a good opportunity for the children to make the most of the freedom they are being given and to consider, without being directly told by the teacher, the consequences of different risks taken by the characters. This, along with creating future plans, is a very important part of drama (Heath and Gilbert, 2015).

We then moved into the dance workshop. We used the theme of Halloween to warm up and play games such as Zombie Tig. We also revisited the dances which we created in our groups last week. We used different stimuli for creating a whole class dance, which had very little teacher input. We stood in a circle and came up with moves for the numbers 0 to 9. We then went back into our groups and answered a number of mathematical calculations. The answers to these determined the order of the moves we had came up with. This would be a good way to integrate dance into maths as a means of practicing different types of calculations in a memorable way. We were also given a symbol each in our groups and asked to come up with a move which represented that symbol. These symbols were related to Halloween since this was our topic, but could be related to any topic. These moves were then added all together and because the symbols related to the topic, the moves fitted in perfectly with the music genre. This was a clever way of allowing us as the learners to make up the moves to the dance and to feel a sense of accomplishment in doing so as the moves looked aesthetically pleasing and professional as they fitted with the music. It also provided us with the opportunity to think creatively and this has been argued to increase self-esteem (QCA, 2004), which I think is a very important aspect of dance. When we revisited the dances which we created last week we added in starting and finishing positions as well as cannon and a change in position. This gave the opportunity for everyone to be at the front and to show off their contribution to the group. Finally we combined all of the different parts of the dance together and performed it as a class. This made me feel proud to be a member of the group and it would have the same effect on many children if the techniques were used in the classroom.

Overall, in both drama and dance today the balance of teacher-pupil control and encouraging learners to think creatively for themselves were important aspects to consider. Using different stimuli such as a story or symbols allow the teacher to guide the learning and the direction of the lesson without dominating it. It also allows for learners to be inspired. Csikszentmihalyi (1996) argued that resources, chances and recognition were all very important when nurturing creativity. Therefore, within dance and drama we must provide resources in the form of stimuli for thought, chances in the form of encouragement of participation, and recognition in the form of praise of performances. The inputs which I took part in today showed me various ways to ensure that I am providing learners with all of these things in the classroom.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996) Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of discovery and invention. New York: Harper Collins.

Heath, S.B. and Gilbert, L. (2015) Creativity and the work of art and science: A cognitive neuroscience perspective. The Routledge International Handbook of the Arts and Education. [Online] Vol.1(1), pp.398-409. Available: http://shirleybriceheath.net/pdfs2016/creativity-work-art-science.pdf [Accessed: 21 October 2017].

QCA (2004) Creativity: find it, promote it: promoting pupils’ creative thinking and behaviour across the curriculum at key stages 1, 2 and 3: practical materials for schools. [Online] London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Available: www.qca.org.uk/creativity [Accessed: 19 October 2017].

 

 

Week 4 – Using a Stimulus as Inspiration for Creation

Using a stimulus of any means, such as the house in the painting discussed, gives learners a context which they can first relate to real-life, and then which they can attack with their imagination. Jonah Lehrer (2012) believes that when we imagine things, we take inspiration from real-life and from things in our own minds. The relatable yet ambiguous nature of a house makes it a perfect stimulus for children to consider the real life aspects and also to let their imaginations run wild about what could be happening in the house, as apart from the artist, nobody can tell them that they are wrong. I think that this also encourages Anna Craft’s (2007) ‘possibility thinking’ as we are essentially providing children with a stimulus to ask questions about; we are encouraging them to wonder and then to solve a problem. Craft also discusses her belief of the importance of taking the ideas of learners seriously. I believe that there could not be one idea about what is going on within a big house which could be written off – the element of mystery means that we are not telling learners what is going on but that they are finding out for themselves through critical thinking.

After considering this painting we were given A5 polystyrene sheets and were asked to choose a section of the painting to draw on to our sheets. The only requirement was that the drawing filled the piece of polystyrene. I chose to attempt to replicate the right hand side of the painting. We then used rollers and paint to cover the polystyrene before transferring the paint on to a folded piece of coloured A4 paper to make a print.

          We repeated this process four times before slightly changing our polystyrene drawings – for example by cutting out some of the windows or adding more detail such as brick work. We then used a different colour of paint and transferred this different colour on top of our original copies. This made a range of different prints which had different contrasting colours. Although we were all given the same instructions and the same stimulus, each person’s prints were different. To me, this represented the fact that we all have different perceptions and we all interpret things differently. By using this as a follow up activity to looking into the house in the painting and considering the different people who may live there and the different stories that the house has to tell may encourage children to use certain colours and lines within their prints which to them, represent the mood which the house now conveys due to their imaginary stories of what goes on within it. This could encourage them to think critically about pieces of art instead of passively glancing at them. By allowing them to represent their own thoughts and feelings through careful consideration of the subject matter, we would be improving their higher order thinking skills in many ways.

The process of creating multiple prints in this way would also allow children to amend their work if they were not happy with it, for example they could choose different colours or add more detail to the polystyrene as they made their four prints. This ability to redraft is named by Jonah Lehrer (2012) as essential when making something which has never been made before. If we are teaching a generation of learners to become inventors and to be able to adapt to the demands of a changing environment then I would agree that we must help them to develop the skill of looking at what they have done before and considering how they can improve it. Also, by allowing them to make these changes we will help them to feel proud and happy with their work and to get the most out of the activity.

We then moved on to drama where we used the story of the dragon as a stimulus. As this was our first drama input we started off by discussing our previous experiences of drama and current feelings about it. I did not have much drama experience at school, however I was part of a drama youth group until I was 16 and I found this to be my main escape from the new found pressures of secondary school teenage life. It boosted my self-confidence unbelievably so I have witnessed the power of it in these ways first-hand and hope to be able to affectively use it as such for the learners in my classroom. We considered the fact that drama provides the opportunity for us to be someone else and for us to take on the role of a different character. It was suggested that this is the element of drama which makes it such an excellent escape mechanism as, sadly, for many children their life at home is not as they would wish for it to be.

Also, as Smith (2009) suggests, use of the arts in schools can assist in closing the attainment gap. Children from different backgrounds will have had varying experiences of the arts, and by teaching them in schools we are providing a more even starting point as learners from all backgrounds will have the skills developed by the arts as well as being able to benefit from the escapism of them. The lesson today allowed me to see how drama can be used to convey important messages to children without directly saying, for example, “we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, things are not always as they seem”. Conveying messages in this way allows the children to understand them rather than to passively listen to them.

As Teresa Grainger (2003, p.45) says “[Drama] is essentially orientated towards both creating and solving social problems.” Today we created a social problem within the context of relationships in a child-friendly way as we took the role of villagers who were worried and upset because a dragon was flying lowly over their village and breathing fire. The villagers took part in a meeting, lead by the mayor of the village (who in this case would be played by the teacher to introduce the drama using Teacher In Role). We discussed and decided on the action we were going to take to stop the dragon from causing more destruction to our village and in groups, we came up with freeze frames which we explained to the group. We all froze doing tribal dances to try to scare away the dragon. However, the dances did not work so we had to have another meeting and decide what to do next. All this time, the teacher should be asking the pupils what they want to do and letting them lead the drama, as this is what will allow them to discover the messages of the drama for themselves, and as Anna Craft (2007) believes, it is when learners discover messages and the meaning of lessons for themselves, that they take that knowledge for their own. After the second meeting we decided to find out where the dragon lived and went to her house to speak to her. This allowed for improvisation as we climbed the mountain to the dragon’s cave and then ‘hot seated’ her by asking her questions about why she was flying so low in the village and breathing fire. It was through this process that the children discovered that the dragon was not trying to terrorise the village – but that she was lonely and was flying so low to get a closer look at the villagers because she loved seeing them so happy and she breathed fire when she got excited. They also found out that she didn’t have enough food to feed her baby dragon. We then considered how we could help the dragon and decided to invite her to the village party, to give her the food we don’t use, and to build her and her baby a home in the village so that she won’t be lonely anymore.

This is where the main lesson lies – it allows learners to see for themselves that things and people are not always as they seem and that sometimes when we think people are trying to cause us harm they are actually lonely and want to get our attention. It also allows children to consider how they can help people like this. Furthermore, if children are engaged in a drama exercise such as this, it can be used by myself as the teacher to relate back to if I find myself having to explain the behaviour of one of their classmates for example. Finally, we considered the use of a thought tunnel. This is where children stand facing one another in two lines and a character, who in this case could have been the dragon walks down the middle of the two lines. As the character walks past them the children have to say exactly what they think of them. This could be done at the beginning of the project/lesson and then again at the end as a way to measure how well the children have grasped the concept and have learned from the main themes, as their feelings towards the character should at least slightly change.

Overall, I think that using a stimulus for creation is a fantastic way to engage children and to put valuable lessons into context. It encourages learners to be thoughtful and critical of how different things work and make them feel, while it also allows them to explore their imagination and to solve problems as well as escape from them. When reading for this session, I came across a quote which refers to drama but which I think perfectly sums up the use of our imagination when given a stimulus of any sort and the main lesson I learned today:

“[Drama] represents an opportunity to construct powerful and imaginary worlds together and enables speculation, modification and transformation of our understandings.” (Grainger, 2003, p.45)

References 

Craft, A. (2007) Creativity and possibility in the Early Years. [Online] Available: www.tactyc.org.uk/pdfs/reflection-craft.pdf [Accessed: 1 October 2017].

Grainger, T. (2003) Creative teachers and the language arts: Possibilities and potential. Education 3-13: The International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education. Vol.31(1), pp.43-47.

Lehrer, J. (2012). Imagine: How Creativity Works. [Online] Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufnp89NOrel&feature=youtu.be [Accessed: 2 October 2017].

Smith, F. (2009) Why Arts Education Is Crucial, and Who’s Doing It Best. [Online] Available: https://www.edutopia.org/arts-music-curriculum-child-development [Accessed: 2 October 2017].