Drama in Education: Exploring Key Research Concepts and Effective Strategies 9781138612822, 9780429464928

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Drama in Education

As schools have become more aware of their role in addressing personal and social issues, the importance of ‘values and attitudes’ has begun shaping education and curricula worldwide. Drama in Education explores the six fundamental pillars of the national curriculum guide of Iceland in relation to these changing values and attitudes. Focusing on the importance of human relations, this book explores literacy, sustainability, health and welfare, democracy and human rights, equality and creativity. It demonstrates the capability of drama as a teaching strategy for effectively working towards these fundamental pillars and reflects on how drama in education can be used to empower children to become healthy, creative individuals and active members in a democratic society. Offering research-based examples of using drama successfully in different educational contexts and considering practical challenges within the classroom, Drama in Education: Exploring Key Research Concepts and Effective Strategies is an essential guide for any modern drama teacher. Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir is an adjunct lecturer in drama and theatre education at the University of Iceland, School of Education. Hákon Sæberg Björnsson is an M.Ed. graduate from the University of Iceland.

The book Drama in Education: Exploring Key Research Concepts and Effective Strategies tries to connect the academic research-based approach with the practical value of drama. Our education system was created for different times and so, towards the end of the second decade of the 21st century, we must explore how to transfer it for a new era – the age of constant, overpowering changes. To deal with them effectively, we need different personal and social skills which drama can develop. The book responds to the needs of the modern educational and cultural system offering academic evidence of drama impact and power as well as creative ideas for teachers to use in the classroom. It discusses the concept of fundamental pillars for education which are linked to different aspects of using drama in the classroom. The book is divided into six different chapters which are linked to introduced educational pillars. The international authors present different perspectives and experience in researching and applying drama. Prof. Dr hab. Alicja Gałązka, University of Silesia, Poland and Trinity College, London, UK There is no shortage of books advocating drama as a powerful medium for learning, developing social skills and promoting equality and social justice. In less abundance are publications which support their claims for drama’s efficacy with empirical evidence. This is just such a book. The foreword focuses on the importance of considering context in research and this is acknowledged by each contributor as they set out their research projects. Their findings are all the more convincing because they include details of the practical sessions that provided the empirical evidence. Although each chapter describes a small-scale piece of practical research the number of issues covered is comprehensive ranging from how drama can be responsible for measurable improvements in literacy and reducing bullying to integrating immigrants and challenging the destructive rise of new nationalisms. This book will inform and encourage drama educators everywhere and serve as an inspiration to those wanting to regard their own practice as a potential subject for research. Andy Kempe, Emeritus Professor of Drama Education, University of Reading, UK

Drama in Education Exploring Key Research Concepts and Effective Strategies

Edited by Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir and Hákon Sæberg Björnsson

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir and Hákon Sæberg Björnsson; individual chapters, the contributors The right of the Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir and Hákon Sæberg Björnsson to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-138-61282-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-46492-8 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Taylor & Francis Books

This book is dedicated to the children of today, who all deserve an education that strengthens and promotes them.

Contents

List of figures List of tables Acknowledgements Notes on contributors Foreword by Peter Duffy 1 Introduction: Fundamental pillars of education

ix x xi xii xv 1

ÁSA HELGA RAGNARSDÓTTIR

PART I

Literacy 2 Learning language through drama

3 5

RANNVEIG BJÖRK THORKELSDÓTTIR AND ÁSA HELGA RAGNARSDÓTTIR

3 Performing literacy and social media

22

KRISTIAN NØDTVEDT KNUDSEN AND DANIEL SCHOFIELD

PART II

Sustainability 4 Artful teaching of drama-based storyline

37 39

ANNA-LENA ØSTERN

PART III

Health and welfare 5 Advancing social and emotional well-being through drama HELEN CAHILL

55 57

viii Contents 6 ‘I am just talking and talking. I have to stop, but this is so funny’: Stories from immigrant students in drama classes

75

ÁSA HELGA RAGNARSDÓTTIR AND HAFDÍS GUÐJÓNSDÓTTIR

PART IV

Democracy and human rights 7 No direction home: Process drama as a response to new nationalisms

91 93

PETER O’CONNOR AND MOEMA GREGORZEWSKI

PART V

Equality 8 Drama, diversity and equality: Working creatively together towards social inclusion

109 111

JO RAPHAEL

9 Imagining the possible: Using drama for gender equality in schools

128

CHRISTINE HATTON

PART VI

Creativity

147

10 Living through creativity

149

ADAM BETHLENFALVY

11 Drama, inclusion and development of play competence in kindergarten

163

MERETE CORNÉT SØRENSEN

12 Conclusion

179

ÁSA HELGA RAGNARSDÓTTIR

Index

180

Figures

2.1

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.5 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 11.1

The number of correct answers on vocabulary tests by students, prior to (pre) and after the experiment (post) for the group using drama to teach Egil’s Saga Number of correct answers on vocabulary by students, prior to (pre) and after the experiment (post) for the control group using teaching methods not involving drama to teach Egil’s Saga Number of correct answers on vocabulary by students, prior to (pre) and after the experiment (post) for the group using drama as a teaching method to present the legend Iðunn and the Apples from Nordic mythology Number of correct answers on vocabulary by students, prior to (pre) and after the experiment (post) for the control group using teaching methods other than drama to present the legend Iðunn and the Apples from Nordic mythology Book cover of A Giant Love Story #iLive screenshot QR-code A model supporting dramaturgical thinking in education A ritual performed at the final event, the talk show, remembering those who lost their lives in the events explored Collective Zone of Proximal Development

12

12

13

13 20 26 30 44 50 165

Tables

2.1 2.2 9.1 11.1 11.2 11.3

One-tailed distribution Critical value = 5% One-tailed distribution Critical value = 5% The girls’ responses at different times in the dramatic process Dramatic play competences. Structured registration 1 Role in play group. Structured registration 2 The Menu model

14 14 140 168 168 174

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group who gave us the chance to undertake this project. Special thanks go to Swapnil Joshi and Lisa Font for their patient work on the manuscript. We wish to thank all the contributors for their chapters in this book, for thinking and reflecting on drama in the context of modern societal and educational challenges with regard to ‘fundamental pillars of education’ that shape global educational policies. Their work is priceless. We are indebted to Peter Duffy, a man with a wide perspective of what drama stands for and a firm believer in drama as a teaching method, who wrote the foreword with care and enthusiasm. Our thanks also go to the language editor of this volume Rafn Kjartansson. With care, support and dedication, he helped shaping the language of those of us whose mother tongue is not English. Last but not least, we are grateful to the young people whose participation in all the research projects has provided us with knowledge and understanding that are in this book. Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir Hákon Sæberg Björnsson July 2019

Contributors

Adam Bethlenfalvy (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Arts Studies and Art Pedagogy at the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary. He has worked in theatre in education companies as actor-teacher, director, facilitator in Hungary and Great Britain since 1998. He has taught in schools and universities, worked in teacher training and has led youth theatre groups. Adam is the co-founder of InSite Drama, a project-based company facilitating research, drama education and training projects. Anna-Lena Østern is a professor in arts education. She has worked as a drama teacher, drama teacher educator, and as a researcher in drama and theatre education in Norway and Finland, and as a guest professor at the School of Education, University of Iceland. She is editor in chief for the Journal of Arts and Sports Education JASEd. She has published many articles and books. Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir is an Adjunct Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Education at the University of Iceland, School of Education and a drama teacher at Iceland Academy of the Arts. Ása is a professional actress and has been introducing drama in schools and higher educations for 40 years. She has been involved in curriculum development in Iceland, with a focus on drama. Ása has written several textbooks and scholarly publications and articles on drama in education and has been a researcher for years. Her work has focused on the pedagogy of drama as both an art form and a vehicle for supporting learning across the curriculum. Her current research interests lie in Dorothy Heatcote’s teaching method ‘Mantle of the expert’. Christine Hatton works in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia, where she researches and teaches in the field of drama and creative arts education. Her research explores the applications of drama pedagogy in schools, creative teaching and learning in drama, and the impacts of digital technologies and artists in schools. Daniel Schofield (PhD) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Education and Lifelong Learning, NTNU, Norway, with Media Education as the main field. He has published several articles and book contributions

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about media education both nationally and internationally. He teaches media education, education and qualitative methods at the bachelor and master’s level. He has a background as a teacher in the media and communication programme in high schools. Hafdís Guðjónsdóttir is a Professor at the University of Iceland School of Education. She was a general classroom teacher in grade schools for 26 years, an experience that has affected her academic focus. Her research interests are in the area of inclusion and multicultural education, pedagogy and educational practices, teacher development and professionalism and teacher education. Her research methodology is mainly qualitative, practitioner research, and self-study of teacher education practices. Since 2010 she has published 27 articles and 23 book chapters. From the beginning of 2019 Hafdís has been the co-editor of Teaching and Teacher Education. Helen Cahill is Professor Director of the Youth Research Centre, University of Melbourne, Australia. She leads research and teaching in the area of youth wellbeing, with an interest in the use of poststructuralist theory and drama-based methods to address social health issues relating to gender, mental health and sexuality education. Her body of work includes transformative education programmes developed for a range of United Nations agencies working within countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including UNICEF, UNESCO and UNFPA. They variously encompass a focus on gender rights, sexuality, social and emotional learning, violence prevention, alcohol education, and youth participation. Jo Raphael (PhD) is Senior Lecturer in Arts Education at Deakin University, Australia and head of the Arts Education Teaching and Research Team. She has had over 30 years of teaching experience across schools, universities and community sectors with a focus on drama education. Jo is also the artistic director of Fusion Theatre, an inclusive theatre company involving participants with and without disability. Jo was awarded the Council of Professional Teaching Associations of Victoria Outstanding Professional Service Award in 2013 and was made Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2018. She has been responsible for leading, co-ordinating and contributing to several national projects including as a writer for the Drama Australia Equity and Diversity Guidelines. Her research and publications have been focused on the areas of applied theatre, drama as pedagogy, drama for language learning, teacher education and inclusive education. Kristian Nødtvedt Knudsen (PhD) is Associate Professor in Drama and Theatre Education at the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts, University of Agder, Norway. He participates in the research programmes Building Democracy through Theatre and Digitization of Elementary School Teacher Education at the Department of Teacher Education at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. In addition, he is chief editor of the Journal for Research in Arts and Sports Education and has been co-

xiv Contributors editor of the book Performative Approaches in Arts Education: Artful Teaching, Learning and Research (Routledge, 2019). His main teaching, research and developmental areas are in drama/theatre in education, performative research, social media and drama/theatre and dramaturgy. Merete Cornét Sørensen (PhD), is an Associate Professor in Drama University College Absalon, Roskilde, Denmark. She has written several publications of drama and aesthetic learning. Merete specialises in drama and cultural activities with children in kindergarten and primary schools. She leads several research projects on the subject of drama, art and Art-based learning, and is part of the Danish Ministry of Culture research group which is researching the effects of integrating art and art-based learning in Danish schools and kindergartens. Moema Gregorzewski is completing her PhD at the University of Auckland. Her research investigates how drama education can facilitate critical multicultural education (CME) against the backdrop of the current global refugee crisis and the simultaneous emergence of national populisms across the global north. Peter O’Connor is Professor of Education in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland where he is the Academic Director of the Creative Thinking Project. His most recent work includes directing theatre with the homeless and alongside refugee communities in Christchurch following the white supremacist attack. He is the chief editor of the Routledge Companion to Drama Education to be published in 2020. Rannveig Björk Thorkelsdóttir (PhD) is a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Iceland, School of Education. She is a professional actress and an experienced drama teacher educator. She has been involved in curriculum development in creativity and introducing drama in compulsory schools and higher education. Her research and practice focus on drama and artistic approaches to teaching and learning. Rannveig has published several books and articles on teaching and learning in drama and she has written and directed plays for children. Rannveig is a former chairman of FLÍSS, The Icelandic Drama and Theatre in Education Association.

Foreword Drama, new contexts and creating for tomorrow Peter Duffy

Context matters. Context fuses a present learning moment with past knowledge and prior experiences. Context orients how humans construct meaning, how we agree to organise information, and how we experience the world. Context is the bedrock of understanding and without it experience and new knowledge float about aimlessly. Context is how people within any given culture understand the parameters of that culture by learning its rules, organising principles, affinities, allegiances, beliefs, behaviours and relationships. Context frames the noise of our world so we know where to look and how to listen. In his essay ‘Context and thought’ what noted American educational philosopher John Dewey said about language resonates beyond word recognition to a much richer understanding of context and sense-making. We grasp the meaning of what is said in our own language not because appreciation of context is unnecessary but because context is so unescapably present. It is taken for granted; it is a matter of course and accordingly is not explicitly specified. (2008, p. 4) What Dewey describes here challenges a field like drama education that depends on context. It is easy to say a classroom context, or, more specifically a Year 5 classroom context and leave it there. Knowing that a drama lesson took place in a Year 5 classroom is contextualising, but it is not context. Or, to use Dewey’s understanding, knowing that a research project took place in a Year 5 classroom provides insight, but that is more like a matter of course. It does not explicitly provide the rich details that outline the contours of the experience. Yet, as all good drama practitioners know, to do drama work well, we can never leave it there. Drama is a lived art form and must be experienced corporeally to be understood. Writing about a drama lesson and conveying its context explicitly presents challenges. The learning moments that transpire through drama are all at once ephemeral, affective, social, aesthetic and cognitive. How can one situate insights gained through a well-placed drama strategy or an in-role writing exercise when context unfolds in the doing? How can an author adequately

xvi Foreword convey what emerges from and within socially-attuned drama spaces? It is impossible to capture fully the complexity of drama work in words. That is true because context is situational and relational. It is situational to know, for example, that the participants with whom one works are all asylum seekers in their mid-20s who are learning English. Such circumstances of the group (age, genders, relationship to the place of the workshop, economic status, school status, etc.) provide important information for facilitators to consider when planning a workshop. But of course this information is not specific at the interpersonal level and is not the whole story. The situational elements of context represent the group’s particulars that could apply to a number of individuals or groups. Relational elements represent how the group’s situational contexts manifest. It could be argued that it is situational that I identify with my biological sex, male, but how I express maleness is relational. That comes from my relationship to others and to myself. Within drama education, relational domains come from people cooperating to create a dramatic elsewhere (O’Neill, 1995). Drama is different from conventional classroom engagements as the students work within fictional frames. Students often show up differently within a drama. Even if the classroom teacher ‘knows his or her students’, how the students collaborate and who they allow themselves to be within the collaborative drama-making process creates new relational dynamics – even within long-standing groups. A participant’s new relational dynamics might be previously unknown to the facilitator or teacher. The emergent aesthetic selves revealed through drama complicate an already challenging environment. Without the drama work, classrooms already house the bullied and the bully, the unrequited and the disinterested, the extravert and the introvert all within one space. Classrooms contain the hungry and the privileged, the neglected and supported, the powerful and the dispossessed. The relational plays itself out unpredictably and mercurially. All teachers know that their classrooms are complex sites of human experience and negotiation. And as Dewey reminds us, that is often taken as a matter of course. The matter of course is known, but incomplete. Viirret (2018) offers a useful way to think about this incomplete matter of course. She elucidates the emergent within groups by borrowing from the work of phenomenologists Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty, Martin Buber and Edmund Husserl. Viirret describes the relational aspects of people using the term intersubjectivity to demonstrate that when people work together, they are not simply one individual imagining the intentions of others (having 20 different dramas playing out in the heads of the 20 students who participate in the same drama lesson, for example) but are, in a real way, responding to the brainwaves of others (which is the domain of brains working collaboratively and subconsciously). This is what cognitive scientist Uri Hasson (Hasson et al., 2012) calls brain-to-brain coupling. More than people ‘working together’ the phenomenon of brains, in essence, syncing adds another, much richer way of exploring context. Context is more than just one’s subjective experience of an experience; it is intersubjective in that it depends on the whole group to create

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the context. Facilitators will often say when a new person joins an already existing group it is a whole new group. Now we know that is scientifically true. The people in the room matter deeply and how they generate context could become a rich area of research. Context exists on several planes three-dimensionally: the group’s social/ relational context, the drama’s fictional context, the context of leadership and power-sharing, environmental contexts, political contexts, contexts of gender and identity, and facilitation contexts, to name a few, all emerge in drama’s richly complex, personal and symbolic meaning-making. Each of these contexts is deeply considered and reconsidered within the pages of this book. The push and pull of the relational and situational natures of drama complicate writing about the work. The emergent personalities, relationships, backgrounds, understandings, abilities, knowledges, emotional and psychological needs, and … and … and … cloud a researcher’s ability to capture the true essence of a drama experience. Often, it isn’t until the workshop is over that a facilitator gains any understanding of the environment in which he or she worked. What is more, we will never fully understand context due to a variety of reasons including the group’s unspoken intersectionalities (Crenshaw, 1991), inclinations, preferences, abilities and willingness to participate. Kathleen Gallagher (2014) drew upon Daniel Yon’s (2000) apt phrase ‘networks of meaning’ to capture the relational aspects that emerge within groups (p. 120). These networks transcend the demographic rollcall that permeates some research – i.e. twenty 13–15-year-old-students overall, 11 students of colour (4 boys, 7 girls), 5 white students (1 boy, 4 girls), etc. Of course, naming who is in the room is not identifying what happens in the room. Moreover, simply naming the emergent relational moments of the drama does not capture the networks of identities and positionalities. The situational and relational contexts of drama work are not neat. They are not tidy assessable bits of information that can be evaluated by answers on standardised tests. Context as a network is an apt way to describe what scholars wrestle with in their research. Context connects and binds. It emerges and holds, and it shatters as quickly as it appears. The creation of context through drama is a phenomenology that is endlessly fascinating and devilishly difficult to research. And yet, that is what these researchers attempt in this volume. Drama in Education: Exploring Key Research Concepts and Effective Strategies centres on the connections among drama in education and six key educational research concepts: literacy, sustainability, health and welfare, democracy and human rights, equality and creativity. Each chapter can be read multiple times, each time with a different focus. They can be mined for examples of research or drama practice or reflective practice or community engagement or inquiry into the relationship of gender or special needs, for example. And perhaps as enriching for our field, each offers a variety of contexts thickly described (Geertz, 1973 by way of Ryle, 1971). The thick description of their research sites, the participants, goals of their research, etc., serve as useful examples for our field. At a time when drama-based research looks more and more to mixed methodologies to fortify our inquiry, fewer and

xviii Foreword fewer authors provide their research output with the thick description it deserves. This is due in part to journal word-limit constraints. By the time an author describes the methodologies used, explains the data and writes the conclusion, that author is already butting up against a 5,000–7,000 word limit. Context’s complexifying details are often the first thing cut. There are excellent examples of mixed methods in this book where the authors here demonstrate the use of quantitative data as a way to develop the context of the work. Thorkelsdóttir and Ragnarsdóttir describe drama interventions to teach vocabulary through traditional Icelandic folktales. The description of their drama practices amplifies our understanding of student learning and also how drama can teach students about themselves and their world. The innovative mixed methods utilised in these two research projects will certainly be replicated by other authors as well. How they married qualitative and quantitative methods enriched the telling of their research story and deepened our understanding of the goals and context of this work. Knudsen and Schofield challenge researchers to reconsider the contexts in which we work. They describe a digital context that is often taken as a matter of course in our work. They ask resonating questions such as ‘What is literacy and how can we reimagine current drama practice in a way that embraces the digital landscape?’ Cleverly, they extended my reading context by integrating technology in their chapter. Østern wonders with the reader how practitioners can implement dramaturgical thinking to contribute to artful teaching and learning through drama-based storylines. Østern frames her discussion through performance inquiry and details richly the learning benefits for students. Her discussion of student learning extends beyond the classroom to the larger world. ‘This dramaturgical thinking is influenced by awareness of cultural differences as strong performative agents. Changes in society are also strong performative agents in dynamic learning events’ (p. 45). Cahill picks up themes from the book as she masterfully addresses the internal contexts of students through her rich description of an anti-bullying project she designed. She demonstrates how purposefully implementing drama activities can help students and teachers alike to know the contexts of bullying differently. This chapter illustrates ways in which each of the conventions can frame different kinds of thinking work, inviting students to variously use the drama to depict and describe, to experience a range of situations, to rehearse key communication skills, and to think from multiple perspectives as they analyse and critique the influences on social behaviour. In this, the learning activities exemplify ways in which a class might simultaneously be at work to develop their social and emotional capabilities and their creative and aesthetic capabilities. (p. 64) Ragnarsdóttir and Guðjónsdóttir describe teaching in an Icelandic context that is changing due to immigration. The description of their drama practices amplifies our understanding of student diversity and student learning as well as

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the multiple contexts in which they work. They employed narrative inquiry to explore the impact of four drama practices (roleplay, improvisation, body language and freeze-frame) and help immigrant students learn a new language. This chapter not only provides well-researched and reported findings but also shows how the world is changing all around us and how drama can be an important tool to deal with the lived reality of this change. From her first sentence, Hatton foregrounds drama’s importance as a method to understand our changing and intersectional world. ‘… drama is at its most powerful for participants when it is probing the details and complexities of the human experience’ (p. 128). Hatton challenges drama researchers to understand and disentangle the complex dynamics that gender brings to our inquiry. In everyday life (and drama education and research, I would add), gender is often normalised and sidelined as a theme or lens, as it can be assumed to be a part of the natural order of things. Gender stereotypes can flourish and be reinforced in drama processes rather than questioned, deconstructed and resisted. This critical insight and call to understand this context should push our field for some time to come. I hope it does. O’Connor and Gregorzewski write about how process drama they conducted with teachers at the Sydney Theatre Company provides a forum for the discussion of sensitive political issues. Through their comprehensive writing about their work, they show how drama, again, becomes central to the work of understanding our world and the complex people in it. They write about democracy and the geopolitical context of a drama workshop. They remind practitioners of the systemic potential of our work and how the universal lives in the particular. This chapter is enormously useful to help us understand the broad and yet specific contexts in which we work. Raphael’s chapter draws upon two research projects that brought together people with and without disability. In one she worked with actors who live with and without a variety of disabilities to create a piece of theatre that taught preservice teachers about barriers to inclusion and inclusive education practices. Methodologically and ethically rich, Raphael’s chapter shows how these two research projects have profoundly impacted teachers and communities, and also of the rich and rewarding art making that can come when we question contexts and who does and does not belong in creative spaces. Bethlenfalvy’s chapter on creativity offers rich context for practitioners who find themselves wrestling with the distinctions between teaching about the art form of theatre or using drama structures to explore other content. He admits that the tension is often coarsely distilled to process vs. performance. He challenges the context that separates process from performance and challenges practitioners to engage creativity discourses when planning their own work. Asking practitioners to reconsider theatre education’s well-delineated contexts and reimagine what is possible within our work, he asserts, ‘the question of how drama education and theatre art connect is always a useful problem to explore’ (p. 161). This idea of

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reimagining what is possible within our work is a consistent theme in the book and one that must be asked time and time again for our field to progress. Sørensen describes an action research project she created concerning kindergarten bullying. She wondered whether the development of drama skills among the children in a kindergarten group might contribute to their play competence and inclusion. By shifting how teachers engage in pretend play and drama, and by wondering how drama can enhance a child’s play and vice versa, she recontextualises the role of drama within kindergarten, reframing how it can be used as a pedagogical tool. Through her example of young children coming to understand bullying through drama, she augments drama practices for practitioners who work with preschool students. In each chapter of this book, the authors bravely challenge readers to question assumptions about the sacred cows of theatre education. What is more, the authors show how the field can move in new directions to meet the demands of a new generation of children facing a world that is uncertain to all of us. This has always been the call of drama – to image the world differently and to image how it can be otherwise. Enacting that change can be challenging, and shifting perspectives on contexts can at times feel threatening. However, doing the hard work of examining as much of a context as we can possibly understand will yield essential fruit that will be challenged by future generations of theatre practitioners. I am grateful for this call to more thoughtfully and bravely engage in my work. With these new contexts, I will work with new understandings to learn where to look and how to listen.

References Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. Dewey, J. (2008). The later works of John Dewey, Volume 6, 1925–1953: 1931–1932, Essays, reviews, and miscellany. Jo Ann Boydston (Ed.). Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. Gallagher, K. (2014). Why theatre matters: Urban youth, engagement, and a pedagogy of the real. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books. Hasson, U., Ghazanfar, A. A., Galantucci, B., Garrod, S. & Keysers, C. (2012). Brain-tobrain coupling: A mechanism for creating and sharing a social world. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(2), 114–121. O’Neill, C. (1995) Drama worlds: A framework for process drama. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Ryle, G. (1971). Collected papers, Volume II: Collected essays, 1929–1968. London: Hutchinson. Viirret, T. L. (2018). Shared experiencing, shared understandings: Intersubjectivity as a key phenomenon in drama education. Applied Theatre Research, 6(2), 155–166. Yon, D. A. (2000). Elusive culture: schooling, race, and identity in global times. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

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Introduction Fundamental pillars of education Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir

Education is a lifelong process. It is important that schools encourage their pupils’ initiative, their enjoyment and enthusiasm for studying and thus promote their education. Various ways described on how to achieve this goal in the National Curriculum Guide of multiple countries are common for preschool, compulsory school and upper secondary schools. Emphasis is on flexibility and continuity in the educational system, both in content and working methods. Additional emphasis is on school development and general professionalism of teachers at all levels. The role of teachers is crucial for any education system as they undertake various important tasks within schools, such as teaching, administration, upbringing, counselling, research and development (The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2011). The quality of education and the success of the school system is first and foremost based on well-educated and enthusiastic teachers at all school levels. Teacher professionalism is vital for pupils, their education and welfare. Teachers have the obligation to share knowledge with students, provide them with the opportunity to acquire knowledge and nurture their creative and critical thinking. Extensive societal changes have taken place in the 21st century. With the expansion of globalisation, the ever-growing importance of the Internet and the exponential growth in computing power, the world is changing fast. The opportunities and challenges for young people today are radically different from those faced by previous generations. The same is true for modern education. As a result, a paradigm shift can be seen in educational research and practices, with increased emphasis on creativity, critical thinking and cooperation rather than rote learning. As schools have become gradually more aware of their role in addressing personal and social issues, the importance of these ‘values and attitudes’ mentioned above has begun shaping education and curricula worldwide. As a result, schools around the world have introduced certain fundamental pillars which are intended to become the guiding light in the general education and be visible in the content of subjects and subject areas. The fundamental pillars refer to social, cultural, environmental and ecological literacy so that children and youth may develop mentally and physically, thrive in society and cooperate with others. The fundamental pillars also refer to a vision of the future, ability

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Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir

and will to influence and be active in maintaining society, change it and develop. They should cover all school activities and shape practices and schooling with the goal of delivering well-educated pupils into the community, reduce discrimination and class divisions and ensure all participation in a democratic society. An example of these fundamental pillars can be found in the national curriculum guide in Iceland. The curriculum guidelines are based on six fundamental pillars which are interrelated and interdependent in education and school activities. These fundamental pillars of education are: literacy, sustainability, health and welfare, democracy and human rights, equality, creativity (The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2011) – all subjects that almost every country cares about and wants to flourish in their schools. This book is divided into six parts, corresponding to the aforementioned fundamental pillars. Each part includes research-based chapters by experts in the field of drama in education, linking drama in education with the respective pillar. Subsequently, the experts provide practical examples of how drama in education can be used effectively in accordance with the research findings. The book’s purpose is to demonstrate the capability of drama as a teaching strategy when studying important personal and social issues while simultaneously making it accessible for everyone interested in using it. The research findings in this book suggest that using drama as a teaching strategy provides teachers and other educators with a basis for working towards the aforementioned pillars. Learning through drama gives students ample opportunity to exercise critical thinking and creativity through cooperation while simultaneously allowing them to reflect on, and gain a deep understanding of themselves, their peers and society as a whole. Furthermore, it seems that drama charms the students and gives them increased satisfaction and interest in the studies that take place in schools. If the use of the drama contributes to the increased satisfaction and joy of students in solving tasks, as many of the chapters indicate, it would be desirable for drama to have more space in schools and hopefully be a motivation for teachers to use drama more and more in their work.

References Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. (2011). The Icelandic national curriculum guide for compulsory schools, general section. Reykjavík: Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.

Part I

Literacy

Literacy is traditionally defined as the ability to read and write. Although these are essential components of literacy, the modern definition of the term encompasses much more such as the ability and willingness to engage with language and to acquire, construct and communicate meaning in all aspects of daily live. Thus language is explained as a socially and culturally constructed system of communication. So what makes literacy so important? Does it matter in our rapidly changing world? It seems that effective literacy skills can open the doors to more educational opportunities so it is possible for pupils to pull themselves out of poverty and underemployment by being literate. In a rapidly changing technological world, where ways to distribute and receive information have never been greater, it is essential for schools to educate pupils to become critical and ethical consumers and producers of information. Everyone needs adequate literacy skills to participate and function happily within society. The first two chapters in this book concern literacy. The first one is titled ‘Language learning through drama’ written by Rannveig Björk Thorkelsdóttir and Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir. The authors offer a pedagogical design that frames the ways in which drama can be used to teach language in the classroom. They introduce findings from two research projects which studied the educational use of drama, using drama-teaching methods, for language learning in Icelandic primary schools. The objective was to better understand how children develop literacy and to create a curriculum that actively engages them in studies that develop their vocabulary and language skills. The second chapter is titled ‘Performing literacy and social media’ by Kristian Nødtvedt Knudsen and Daniel Schofield. In the chapter, the authors explore how drama in education can respond to the challenges posed by ‘new media practices’ in everyday life in general, and by social media in particular. The authors stress the importance of being able to perform and express oneself on social media and to reflect in diverse and varied ways is crucial in today’s media-dominated culture.

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Learning language through drama Rannveig Björk Thorkelsdóttir and Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir

Introduction Learning creatively In recent years, there has been a growing focus on creativity in schools which relates to rapid social changes and a shift in the labour market toward creative solutions and creative individuals as a desirable addition to the labour force (Craft, 2003). The educational task is demanding. It is important to create educational facilities and environments for creative teaching by providing opportunities for students to practise critical thinking and engage in creative activities. This calls for a variety of creative teaching methods as individual students learn in different ways. But what characterises creative schools? Jóhannsdóttir et al. (2012) recommend an open and flexible study plan where students have the opportunity to influence what takes place in the classrooms – for example, which study materials should be used and the planning of the lessons. The emphasis on the creative school requires teachers to develop an atmosphere that encourages students’ curiosity and critical thinking. Jóhannsdóttir et al. (2012) add that it is important for students to discover that a question can have many answers and that everything is possible in the creative process. For example, you can compose a poem about a green sky or write a life story about an inanimate object. In a creative school the students should have the opportunity to use their imagination, show initiative, seek cooperation and to work independently. The educational emphasis should be on using teaching methods that demand creative practices and take each student’s abilities and skills into account (Amabile & Kramer, 2011). Torr (2008) argues that many elements have to work together, for example education, intelligence, ability and environment. In creative work students learn how to make decisions where they can evaluate different possibilities and assess the consequences of their choices. Students often develop in cooperation with others which, in turn, strengthens their independence and self-knowledge (Jeppesen & Ragnarsdóttir, 2004; Ragnarsdóttir & Thorkelsdóttir, 2010). Engaging students in critical discussions prepares them for participation in the cultural discourse of our society.

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Through creative activity and problem solving, students are able to influence their environment and take part in shaping culture. According to Sternberg (1985), creativity is related to originality and independent thinking. A creative person feels a need to challenge her own convictions and reach beyond personal limits while engaged in creative work, and even though she might contradict prevailing attitudes, she believes in what she has to offer. Gylfadóttir (2013), states that certain personal characteristics are common amongst creative individuals. They have an inner motivation and drive, they are sceptical and tend to ask questions about recommended cultural practices and sometimes set their own rules to follow. These characteristics play an important part in a constantly changing society; it can perhaps be said that creative learning in a supportive environment gives promises like a treasure chest just within reach. Learning in, through and about the arts Learning in, through and about the arts is important for the artistic, social and intellectual development of students. When specific skills and techniques are taught, for example in drama, students are learning ‘in’ the arts. However, when these techniques are used to teach concepts such as math, science and literacy, students learn ‘through’ the arts. Other art experiences like school plays allow students to learn ‘about’ the arts. Art in education supports the individual’s capacity to integrate the physical, intellectual and creative skills that contribute to a productive relationship with culture (UNESCO, 2006, pp. 4–5); these are valuable skills in a rapidly changing world. Society relies on flexible and creative thinking, multifaceted expressions, and creative problem solving methods, and it is therefore desirable that the educational system reflect these factors (Craft, 2003; Egan, 2005; Eisner, 2002; Robinson, 2001). According to Kampylis and Berki (2014), creative thinking can be defined as the thinking that enables students to apply their imagination to generate ideas, questions and hypotheses, and experiment with alternatives and evaluate their own and their peers’ ideas, projects and processes. Dewey pointed out that school is a small society and he thought it important for students to do things and try them out in school to learn about society (Dewey, 2000). Furthermore, Dewey argues that lessons in schools should inspire the students’ minds, create tension and expectations. Bandura (1997) agrees and claims that knowledge acquired by individuals through social interactions is based on the individual’s contextual interpretation at any given time. In short, knowledge arises from experience. Drama in education uses teaching methods based on the experiences of everyone involved as well as imagined ones, often played out through improvisations where the student experiments with different situations, and in that way, approaches the person he is interpreting (Jeppesen & Ragnarsdóttir, 2004; Ragnarsdóttir & Thorkelsdóttir, 2010; Kempe & Ashwell, 2000).

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Another imperative aspect that influences what students experience in art is imagination. Eisner (2002) argues that the power of imagination is unique and stresses the importance of encouraging students’ imagination. In his book The Arts and Creation of Mind, he provides examples of classroom applications, for example short stories, as tools for teachers to augment students’ imagination: Close your eyes and imagine you are driving in an open car on a beautiful country road on a sunny day in May. The sky is blue and punctuated by large white cumulus clouds overhead. As you drive down the road you see a green field with a dark brown horse far in the distance. You slow down, stop the car at the side of the road, and get out to get a better view … and while this is happening white wings on the back of the horse appear, and as they appear, they begin to move, lifting the horse into the blue sky. The image gets smaller and smaller as it rises, and as you stand there slack-jawed, it disappears in a large white cloud. (Eisner, 2002, p. 79) Envisioning the scene gives rise to endless speculations. Where was this man going? What happened to him? Why was he driving there and how was he connected to the horse? What would happen if he went horseback riding? Countless questions and imagination; everything is open for the student to create or play with in the arts. Drama and literacy Students construct a fictional world in drama class, which gives them a sense of ownership of their learning and a motivation to contribute verbally in order to keep the drama going. Through drama, the students learn to interact with one another in a safe space, and try out different roles in society (Jeppesen & Ragnarsdóttir, 2004; Thorkelsdóttir, 2016), and through role-playing they have the opportunity to explore aspects of what it means to be human (DICE, 2010). Role-playing and role-creating in drama can give students a chance to put themselves in others’ shoes in an imagined context, which immediately encourages the students to express themselves and communicate from different points of view. According to Woolland (2008), students think and behave creatively in drama, they question and challenge, make connections and discover relationships between things and explore ideas. Kristmundsson (2000) emphasises that when teachers use stories in the classroom to increase students’ vocabulary, the lesson becomes even more effective if the teacher encourages the children to imagine themselves in the role of the characters. In other words, Kristmundsson recommends using role play when increasing children’s vocabulary. Storytelling and drama share similar features. The combination of story and drama creates a process of discovery, different from just reading or hearing the story read, which leads to new learning. The children are ‘living through’ the key events of the story by taking on roles and interacting with others while still performing those roles. They work collectively to make sense of the story

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and the process of working together allows them to see and experience how persons think in a different ways. The exploration of the story motivates the children to participate in active discussions (Chang & Winston, 2012). In the drama classroom children often have to persuade, dispute, argue and negotiate with each other. Once the journey through the story is complete, it is likely that they will become interested in reading the printed text because their previous multi-sensory engagement with the story has paved the path for a different approach to the reading. In this context, Somers (1996) adds that when stories and tales are used as a source for drama the students get an opportunity to feel empathy which broadens their emotional vocabulary. They learn to be responsible in their own actions, solve problems and gain a deeper understanding of the subject. In order to accomplish that, children have to use a wide variety of words, which can then increase their vocabulary. Drama makes the literary world more accessible to the students and permits them to turn abstract written words into concrete images, and construct meanings from the text through collective, as well as individual, experiences (Chang, 2012).

Methods The data were gathered using findings from two studies, as well as a follow-up study on drama and literacy carried out by the researchers during the years 2010–2011. The methodological approach of the studies was both quantitative and qualitative. Data were gathered through interviews, questionnaires, participant observations and an analysis of the curriculum. The current chapter places emphasis on their ability to learn through drama. Creative learning through drama The first study was conducted from 2007–2009, called ‘Creative Learning through Drama’, and will be referred to as Research A in this chapter. The study applied mixed methods. The aim of the research was to find out if, and how, drama can affect students’ ability to learn. The research question was: ‘Can drama affect students’ ability to learn?’ Participants The study began in August 2007 with researchers advertising for schools to participate. A total of 16 classroom teachers and one teacher assistant participated in the study. All of them agreed to use drama in their classrooms, two lessons per week during the entire school year. A daylong training session for all the participating teachers was held before the research began, and they were provided with teaching material and a textbook, and trained in the use of drama in teaching, given that none of the participating teachers had previously used drama in their teaching.

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Data gathering and data analysis Data gathering in Research A was mostly carried out through interviews and participant observation. Interviews were conducted with 16 teachers and all of them were asked the same questions. The same was done with the 22 students who took part, although their questions were simpler. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The interviews took place in the schools and were around 40 minutes long. Participant observation was conducted in three elementary schools in Reykjavík. Two lessons were observed in grades 1 and 5 and four lessons were observed at the lower secondary level. Using a special room for the interviews with only the student and the researcher partaking ensured anonymity. Additionally, periodical meetings were held with the teachers in order to provide them with support and to follow teaching developments. The data were thoroughly analysed with respect to recurring themes and patterns, as well as being scrutinised in smaller units. Data analysis began before the data gathering process was completed. First, the data were analysed by means of open coding with the aim of identifying general patterns. Secondly, closed coding was used to extract data which adhered to the main themes that had appeared. The data analysis involved a search for specific descriptions from the interviews about certain aspects that arose. Can drama through Icelandic tales, increase children’s vocabulary? The second study is called ‘Can Drama through Icelandic Tales, Increase Children’s Vocabulary?’ and will be referred to as Research B in this chapter. The study was conducted between 2010 and 2012 and applied quantitative methodology (comparative research). The aim of the research was to explore whether drama methods could be useful in increasing the vocabulary of young children in primary schools in Iceland. The research question was: ‘Can drama increase children’s vocabulary?’. Researchers advertised for schools to take part in a comparative research project in autumn 2010. The only condition was that two classes should be involved in each school and each year class taking part. One class used drama (treatment group) whereas the other class did not (control group). All the classes worked with the same two stories that the researcher selected, namely, the medieval Icelandic Saga of Egil and the legend of Iðunn and the Apples from Nordic mythology. Participants Eight second grade classes (7 years old) took part. Four classes used drama and four classes did not. Both groups read the same two stories at the same time. Two drama programmes were created from the stories for the classes that used drama. The drama programmes were sketched in such a way that they created a contrast between the treatment groups (with drama) and the control groups (without drama). The control group teachers could use any teaching method of

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choice. Before the study began, a daylong training session for the participating teachers was held. The purpose of the workshop was to introduce the study to participants, provide them with teaching material and textbooks, and train the treatment group teachers in the use of drama in teaching. Data gathering and data analysis Data gathering in Research B was carried out through questions that had to do with word definitions from the vocabulary found in the story Saga of Egil, as well as a test of words and phrases from Iðunn and the Apples. All the students were asked questions relating to the stories the classes were working with. The first part of the questionnaire was answered in September 2010 before the project started and the second one in May 2011 after the completion of the project. All the interviews were recorded on video and, to ensure confidentiality, interviews took place in a special room where only the student and the researcher were present. The teachers who took part in the research did not see the survey and did not know which parts of the stories and what words children would be tested on. The data were analysed quantitatively and compared. The questionnaires for each class were analysed by counting the right answers to each question, and average and standard deviation was found for each class, individually, before and after the project, in September 2010 and in May 2011, respectively. The follow-up From 2014 to 2017, the researchers conducted a follow-up study. The teachers in both Research A and B were asked questions through email and in personal interviews about whether they were still using drama in their teaching. The question was: ‘Did you continue to use drama in your teaching after the research ended? If yes, in connection with which subject? If no, what affected that decision?’. Follow-up questions were sent out to the teachers by email and the interviews were both formal and informal. Most of the teachers answered the questions by emails in non-formal ways. Most of the answers indicated that they found it difficult to use drama on their own, in relation to which they would need more encouragement and time.

Results The interviews with teachers and students in Research A revealed that students took active part in the lessons through drama and built interactions between the characters they created. According to the teachers, the students felt equal in drama. For example, non-native speakers have the same opportunities as others because of the diversity entailed in drama, which can help students with reading and language difficulties. In drama, students took on roles of different characters, which calls for the diverse use of language. Immigrant students find

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it easier to speak and experiment with Icelandic when acting, and this process strengthens their vocabulary. It was notable that all the teachers mentioned that students with learning difficulties flourished in the drama activities. One teacher said: ‘I notice that kids who are really shy and quiet seem to blossom in drama activities.’ Another said: ‘There was one boy who couldn’t remember anything when we had finished reading but told me after you made us act I remembered everything about the murders. I remembered all the circumstances, who was who and things like that.’ The teachers felt the immigrant students were on an equal footing with the others when learning through drama. They thought that drama motivated the immigrant students to express themselves orally. They also felt drama helped develop their understanding of concepts and the use of terms. However, some teachers said that immigrant students needed more encouragement than the others, which was often challenging for the teachers. In the student interviews most of them mentioned how much fun it was to work through drama, especially in the group work: ‘To work in groups – it is sometimes fun to work in groups - that is the main point of drama.’ They also talked about their experiences and how drama helped them understand the project. ‘Then I see the events, you know, in drama. Sometimes I don’t understand stories when I’m reading because I can’t visualise or maybe there are no pictures or things.’ The quote above is from an interview with a 10year-old girl with reading difficulties; her teacher decided to tell a story by asking the students to act it out, using still images to help the student understand and connect with the story. The girl was able to describe the story plot even though she had not read the story. This is a good example of how drama can affect children’s learning. In Research B, the findings showed an increase in vocabulary between the surveys in all eight classes; however, the most significant increase took place in the classes where drama was used. All the students in the eight groups, four classes in the treatment group and four classes in the control group, were asked questions relating to the stories. Two drama programmes were created from the stories for the classes that used drama. The teachers that took part in the research did not see the survey and did not know which parts of the stories and what words the children would be tested on. Each student was asked 26 questions from Egil’s Saga, 15 questions from Iðunn and the Apples. A paired t-test was performed to determine whether the differences between categories were statistically significant. Figure 2.1 shows the difference in number of correct answers for the group using drama in teaching Egil’s Saga. First, numbers for September, before the test began, and then May, after the test was completed. The findings suggest that when the stories were taught through drama, the students’ vocabulary increased and they remembered the story better. They take responsibility for their assumed characters and solve the characters’ problems based on their own real world experiences. Textbooks are set aside and students get a chance to let their imagination and creativity flourish. In order to

Figure 2.1 The number of correct answers on vocabulary tests by students, prior to (pre) and after the experiment (post) for the group using drama to teach Egil’s Saga.

Figure 2.2 Number of correct answers on vocabulary by students, prior to (pre) and after the experiment (post) for the control group using teaching methods not involving drama to teach Egil’s Saga.

Figure 2.3 Number of correct answers on vocabulary by students, prior to (pre) and after the experiment (post) for the group using drama as a teaching method to present the legend Iðunn and the Apples from Nordic mythology.

Figure 2.4 Number of correct answers on vocabulary by students, prior to (pre) and after the experiment (post) for the control group using teaching methods other than drama to present the legend Iðunn and the Apples from Nordic mythology.

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ensure that the findings were statistically significant a paired t-test was performed. When comparing means for Egil’s Saga in September and in May the t-test showed a significant differential between the tests. Descriptive statistics Table 2.1 One-tailed distribution Critical value = 5% Egil

N

Control group

60

Treatment group

41

Pre Post Pre Post

Mean

SD

T

12.33 16.48 9.53 15.12

5.38 5.84 3.91 6.04

0% 0%

In summary, the control group showed no significant gain in their vocabulary regarding Egils Saga, whilst the treatment group’s scores improved significantly. When comparing means for Iðunn and the Apples in September and in May, the t-test showed that there was no significant differential between the tests in the control group, according to the 5% level (95% confidence level), but the treatment group showed significant statistical difference. Descriptive statistics Table 2.2 One-tailed distribution Critical value = 5% Iðunn

N

Control group

60

Treatment group

41

Pre Post Pre Post

Mean

SD

T

8.33 9.86 8.34 13.04

3.48 3.49 3.13 2.31

6% 0%

Discussion The studies show that the use of drama in educational contexts has a significant positive influence on children’s learning. Findings show an increase in vocabulary between tests in all the eight classes that took part, with a more significant improvement in the classes where drama methods were used. It seems that when stories are taught through drama, the growth in students’ vocabulary is greater than when conventional teaching methods are used, since the dramatasks provide a meaningful basis for increasing the students’ vocabulary. These

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findings echo those of the DICE consortium (2010), which showed that students focus more on their speaking when they are role-playing. This is because they often memorise and perform their own lines in front of the class, where they can learn to interact with one another in a safe space, and try out different roles in society (Jeppesen & Ragnarsdóttir, 2004; Thorkelsdóttir, 2016). They choose words according to the character they are playing and often come up with new words related to the character. In the story-drama they have to read the story carefully, or listen to it performed by someone else. They have to make sure they understand the vocabulary, and will routinely ask for the meaning of words which facilitates the growth of their bank of words (Ragnarsdóttir & Thorkelsdóttir, 2013). Kristmundsson (2000) also stresses that, when role-playing, the children’s experience and knowledge is important for their understanding of the text. Through drama, students with a low vocabulary can gain the courage to use and experiment with language, which helps improve their vocabulary (Ragnarsdóttir & Thorkelsdóttir, 2010). In drama, students get to choose roles they feel comfortable with, allowing them to build up experience to improve their vocabulary. They become interested in their characters and the roles they play give them a sense of security. It seems that using stories for the purpose of increasing vocabulary can be a significant success. With the use of stories and drama, students can be drawn out of their silence into more active classroom participation, which often involves the use of a larger vocabulary than normally, without the students necessarily realising that a learning experience is taking place (Ragnarsdóttir & Thorkelsdóttir, 2013). Drama requires active participation from the children, so it is crucial that every teacher encourage the children to collaborate and interact. In the drama lesson, the students often used a tone of voice to indicate their feelings and attitudes when acting out the story and they seemed to enjoy it. They are unlikely, as Chang and Winston (2012) note, to gain such learning experiences from reading the traditional textbook dialogues which are typically function-oriented and bear little relation to the children’s emotions, as well as demanding little physical engagement. Most importantly, the story-based drama provides a variety of learning modalities to accommodate varying learning styles. It also enables students with different levels of vocabulary to cooperate and participate in group work on an equal basis.

Conclusions It is clear that vocabulary is important for a person’s ability to express himself or herself and to communicate with others; thus it plays a crucial role in children’s development. Vocabulary can be taught purposefully. The roles students take on in drama sessions encourage risk-taking (because they are in the role of others) and often the students gain confidence in using difficult vocabulary in order to communicate spontaneously. In this study it was shown that drama has an important part to play in increasing children’s vocabulary. But drama also helps to develop the students’ understanding of themselves and others, the text they are working with and the world in

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which they live. In drama, the students find themselves in all kinds of situations; they use language and dialects relative to each situation and depending on who they are talking to. It must be to the student’s benefit if he or she can use a variety of events that are experienced not only in drama but also in everyday life. Thus, drama provides the opportunity for students to exercise those varieties and understand how to use their language. Future society calls for students who are skilled in working with others, and creative in applying their knowledge and insights. To meet these expectations, schools must produce competent students who can take initiative, express themselves with confidence and think creatively. They need to be openminded and possess strong cooperation and communication skills. The findings shed light on the importance of teachers’ learning trajectories. A learning trajectory is defined by Wittek and Bratholm (2014, pp. 14–15) as the movement initiated through participation in a professional context, and the learning processes taking place in a person’s professional life. Furthermore, a learning trajectory occurs when persons relate different practices to one another, and compare, contrast and position themselves with regard to those practices. Teachers travel in and out of different practices. The learning trajectories are shaped by how teachers assess the practices in relation to one another, through positioning themselves. It is important to create opportunities of professional development for the drama teacher and to reconceptualise designs of the drama teacher’s learning trajectories in order to support the teacher and encourage him/her to transform the teaching to benefit the students’ learning. Making drama an integral part of every teacher’s repertoire could also be useful (Thorkelsdóttir, 2016). Given that all of us learn more effectively when we are allowed to play a large part in selecting the tasks we engage in, it must be important to involve the students more in the planning and interpretation of the learning programmes (Ragnarsdóttir, 2002). It is our hope that the role of drama in education will be elevated in response to the changes in our society. Everyone will gain from empathetic and inventive students who can approach tasks in diverse ways, offer a variety of solutions, and come to successful conclusions. Words are powerful, let children enjoy them in the classroom, celebrate them, love them, have fun with them and embrace them; thus the children will most certainly be engaged in learning and increase their vocabulary at the same time.

A GIANT LOVE STORY AGE OF STUDENTS: Key stage AIMS: That students become

1 acquainted with concepts such as spells, natural disasters, elves, trolls, fear, hatred, love, joy and sorrow. EMPHASIS IN THE CURRICULUM: Drama, language, social skills.

Learning language through drama The lesson is conducted in one or two-hour lesson blocks, but can be broken down into more sections. STRATEGIES: Narrative, brainstorming, still image, hot seating, meetings, teacher in role, thought-tracking, soundtracks, discussions, improvisation, writing in role, interviews, ritual. MATERIALS: The book: A giant love story, varying types of stones, little trolls, tissue, pictures and music. LENGTH:

Strategies The hook The Icelandic folk song: ‘Móðir mín í kví, kví’ is a hook in the beginning of the lesson www.youtube.com/watch?v=quMNTcCm9xI. Mime Students are asked to play elves. They will dance in the classroom/hall as elves, only miming. Are the elves big or small? What are their facial expressions like? Then the students are asked to add sound to the movements. What kind of sound do the elves make? What do we hear? In the end the students are asked to change into trolls, how do they move and which sounds do they make? Brainstorming Students sit in a circle. The teacher gives different stones to the students and asks them to examine them; he also gives them little trolls to observe. The teacher asks the students about the stones. Do they know them by name? Do they collect stones? Where do the stones come from? The teacher asks if the children have heard that people can change into stones. Have the children heard troll stories? What do trolls look like? Have you seen stones that look like trolls? Do you believe in trolls and elves? Where do the trolls live? Narrative The teacher shows the students a picture from the book A Giant Love Story and narrates: This is old Flumbra. Once she was madly in love with a big ugly giant. He lived far away, and he was so lazy that he never bothered to visit her. That’s why she had to track him all over the world, but when she came to him he was also madly in love with her and they started kissing and embracing and tumbling over in love.

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Rannveig Björk Thorkelsdóttir and Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir Soundtracks Teacher: The trolls are terribly noisy. We sometimes hear them when they are making everything tidy in their rooms. The rocks tumble from the mountains, stones and gravel plunge down the mountain slopes; there is nothing left but barren ravines and canyons. Students are asked to play the trolls with sounds when they are tidying their rooms. Improvisation Teacher: The trolls also like to cook, and then the column of steam comes up from the mountains and soot and ashes spatter over us, the men. Then we say that a volcanic eruption is coming. The trolls also make love like us. They embrace and kiss and tumble over in love and of course they have many big, ugly troll kids. When they make love like that, the earth vibrates and the houses collapse. Then mankind says that an earthquake is happening. Students are divided into four groups. Each group gets a tissue/material. Group one makes an earthquake, group two a volcanic eruption, the third one a mud landslide and number four makes waterfalls. Narrative One night Flumbra waited until dark. Then off she went to her beautiful Giant. They hugged and kissed. They jumped on each other and rolled around together so everything was shaking. This could not end but one way. Flumbra had eight giant boys. Oh, how she loved those boys and she thought they were the most beautiful boys in the world, and of course they were. All mums think their kids are beautiful. Also the giant Flumbra. Give the names Teacher: Those eight boys of Flumbra had to have names. Can you help Flumbra name them? Each student gets a sheet of paper and a pencil to write down eight names. Then the names are introduced and discussed. Questioning Teacher: We have a little problem. Flumbra has decided to go to the father of her beautiful giant boys, but she doesn’t know where he is. Who can help us? Who would know? Who can we talk to? The teacher gets ideas from the students, and they discuss the ideas. In the end (if the students have not decided) the teacher suggests talking to the author, he must know.

Learning language through drama Teacher in role The teacher enters the classroom in the role of the author. ‘Good afternoon. I am the author of the story. My name is Gudrun Helgadóttir. I heard that you have this tiny little problem. You don’t know where the giant is? Is that right? I think I know where he is, but he is far away. How can Flumbra find him? What should Flumbra do to reach him? He is probably asleep. How can we wake him?’ Get ideas from the students and discuss them. The author: ‘He is probably asleep. You can wake him with a song, but you have to make it loud and special. In groups of four, can you act out this song by playing the sun, the clouds, the giants, and the doves?’ Soundtracks/sound collages/voices Here come many giants, ho, ho They scream so it echoes in the mountains. Ho, ho They tramp in the hills So the doves fly away But behind the clouds is the warm sun hiding She shines on the giants Then they become stones. (Soffía Vagnsdóttir)

Improvisation Flumbra took off overnight with the boys to visit their father. But the boys were so naughty that it took her a long time to get there. When she was almost there the sun came up and they all turned into stones. She never made it to her giant. TEACHER: Have you ever seen stones that look like giants? Why do you think that is? (shows pictures of mountains). Can you retell the story with the help of those five pictures? Ritual Teacher: Flumbra and her boys are still stones, they are going to stand there for thousands of years. Even though the giant, the father of the eight boys, passed them he would not recognise them. He did not know he had those beautiful boys. The teacher asks the children to write down a few words to tell Flumbra and her sons that they miss them. It is also possible to draw a picture for them. Then the letters are placed besides the little giants.

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Rannveig Björk Thorkelsdóttir and Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir Teacher: What does it mean to be fond of someone? Why do people love each other? How can we show love and care? The book is available at Amazon.

Figure 2.5 Book cover of A Giant Love Story.

References Amabile, T. & Kramer, S. (2011). The progress principle: Using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York, NY: W.H. Freeman and Co. Chang, L. S. & Winston, J. (2012). Second language learning through drama: Practical techniques and applications. In Joe Winston (Ed.), Using stories and drama to teach English as a foreign language at primary level. London and New York: Routledge. Chang, L. S. (2012). Second language learning through drama: Practical techniques and applications. In Joe Winston (Ed.), Dramatic language learning in the classroom. London and New York: Routledge.

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Craft, A. (2003). The limits to creativity in education: Dilemmas for the educator. British Journal of Educational Studies, 51(2), 113–127. Dewey, J. (2000). Reynsla og menntun [Experience and education]. (G. Ragnarsson, Trans.). Reykjavík: Rannsóknarstofnun Kennaraháskóla Íslands. DICE Consortium. (2010). The DICE has been cast: Research findings and recommendations on educational theatre and drama. Budapest: DICE Consortium. www. dramanetwork.eu/file/Policy%20Paper%20long.pdf. Egan, K. (2005). An imaginative approach to teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Eisner, E. (2002). The arts and creation of mind. London:Yale University Press. Gylfadóttir, R. (2013). Óljósar hugmyndir um sköpun í skólastarfi [Unclear ideas about creativity in school] (Unpublished master’s thesis). https://skemman.is/bitsteam/ 1946/15635/1Óljósar%2c%20lokaútgáfa.pdf. Jeppesen, A. & Ragnarsdóttir, A. (2004). Leiklist í kennslu. Handbók fyrir kennara. [Drama in education, teacher’s handbook] Reykjavík: Námsgagnastofnun. Jóhannsdóttir, I., Ragnarsdóttir, E. I. & Hjartarson, T. (2012). Ritröð um grunnþætti menntunar [Pillars of education]: Sköpun (p. 7). Reykjavík: Mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneytið [Ministry of Education, Science and Culture]. Kampylis, P. & Berki, E. (2014). Nurturing creative thinking. International Academy of Education, UNESCO (p. 6). http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002276/227680e.pdf. Kempe, A. & Ashwell, M. (2000). Progression in secondary drama. Oxford: Heinemann Educational. Kristmundsson, G. B. (2000). Kraftaverk og kræsingarstaður [A miracle and a place of wonder]. In H. Pálsson (Ed), Lestrarbókin okkar: greinasafn um lestur og læsi. Reykjavík: Rannsóknarstofnun Kennaraháskóla Íslands og Íslenska lestarfélagið. Ragnarsdóttir, Á. & Thorkelsdóttir, R. (2010). Skapandi nám í gegnum leiklist. [Creative learning through drama]. Ráðstefnurit Netlu – Menntakvika 2010, Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands. Retrieved http://netla.khi.is/menntakvika2010/006.pdf. Ragnarsdóttir, Á. & Thorkelsdóttir, R. (2013). Can drama, through Icelandic tales, increase children’s vocabulary? In R. Thorkelsdóttir & Á. Ragnarsdóttir (Eds.), Earthair-water-fire (pp. 13–35). Reykjavík: FLISS and University of Iceland. Ragnarsdóttir, Á. (2002). Using drama in teaching language and literacy. (Unpublished master’s thesis). University of Warwick, UK. Robinson, K. (2001). Out of our minds: Learning to be creative. Westford, MA: Capstone. Somers, J. (1996). The nature of learning in drama in education. In J. Somers (Ed.), Drama and theatre in education: Contemporary research (pp. 107–120). North York, ON: Captus Press. Sternberg, R. J. (1985). Implicit theories of intelligence: Creativity and wisdom. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(3), 607–627. http://psycnet.apa.org/ornals/psp/49/3/607. Thorkelsdóttir, R. B. (2016). Understanding drama teaching in compulsory education in Iceland: A micro-ethnographic study of the practices of two drama teachers. (PhD thesis). Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim. Torr, G. (2008). Managing creative people: Lessons in leadership for the ideas economy. Chichester, UK and Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. UNESCO. (2006). Road map to arts education (í. Vegvísir í Listfræðslu. Heimsráðstefna um listfræðslu: Efling sköpunarkrafts á 21. öld [In road map to arts education. World conference on arts education: Stimulating creativity in the 21st century]). http://ft.ki. is/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=2840. Wittek, L. & Bratholm, B. (2014). Læringsbaner – om lærernes læring og praksis. [Learning trajectories – about teachers’ learning and practice]. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk. Woolland, B. (2008). Publish as playwrights. Stoke on Trent: Trendham.

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Performing literacy and social media Kristian Nødtvedt Knudsen and Daniel Schofield

Introduction In the last few years, several incidents, such as the 2016 presidential election in the United States, the #MeToo campaign and the hearings against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, have shown that communication on social media holds numerous pitfalls. What characterises social media is how the user can be a producer and a consumer at the same time. The communication takes place on platforms such as Twitter, Snapchat and Reddit that allow several people to participate simultaneously. Furthermore, while social media can be an agent for manipulation and undemocratic strategies, they can also stimulate emancipation and change. Thus, engaging with social media requires the user to handle a high level of communicative complexity. Relating to the context of the anthology, we ask: ‘How can drama in education respond to such complexities?’ The following chapter is based on a recent PhD research project (Knudsen, 2017). The research project concerned drama education and social media, and involved developing a drama educational design, in which social media strategies were transferred to ways of teaching and learning drama. The overall study was rooted in a performative, practice-led research paradigm, and the empirical material was generated from practical work with the participants of #iLive, including video recordings, questionnaires and participant logs. For a more in-depth view into methodological perspectives, ethical considerations and reactions from the research participants (including the development of empirical data) see Knudsen (2017) and Knudsen (2018). However, in this chapter we explore how drama in education can respond to the challenges posed by ‘new media practices’ in everyday life in general, and by social media in particular. By adapting both literacy- and design-oriented theory as analytical guidelines for practice, the article’s second author Schofield, with a background in digital-and media literacy, is invited to discuss how these challenges might invite drama educators to reconsider their conceptions of what drama education could be in the 21st century.

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Media literacy and designs for learning Being literate today requires something different than in ‘pre-digital’ society. In the view of scholars like Erstad (2010), Buckingham (2007), and Lankshear and Knobel (2011), literacy means coping with current cultural techniques. As reading and writing have long been the dominant cultural techniques, literacy has traditionally been related to mastering the written word; however, this is no longer sufficient to cope with contemporary daily life. This has led to a series of discussions about ‘new’ forms of literacy, such as new literacy, digital literacy and media literacy (Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Bawden, 2008; Hobbs, 2011). Seeing mediation as the central aspect of the new forms of communication and knowledge development, we use the term ‘media literacy’ in this chapter. There are three trends that change how literacy is understood and we consider to be particularly relevant in the context of our perspective. First, multimodal communication has become increasingly important. More and more people use texts, messages and communications that combine written, auditory, visual and interactive expressions (Bezemer & Kress, 2008; Kress, 2003, 2010; The New London Group, 1996). Second, literacy practices; that is, what we do with different types of texts and communication forms, are to a great extent social and facilitate and require participation (Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Lankshear & Knobel, 2011; Schofield, 2015; Säljö, 2006). Therefore, literacy should be seen as developed in social contexts rather than as an individual, cognitive accomplishment (Säljö, 2006, 2012). The third trait of today’s literacy is that the contexts in which literacy practices occur are increasingly complex. According to scholars such as Castells (2010), Qvortrup (2004) and Beck, Giddens and Lash (1994), increased complexity is a basic characteristic of contemporary society. Individuals, as well as social institutions, are becoming more reflexive and complex. Media has also become increasingly global, in terms of content, scope and ownership (Hjarvard, 2008). Furthermore, in recent years, the development of social media has had a significant impact on knowledge production, communication and meaning-making. Thus, this third trait also means the distinction between fact and fiction is becoming more blurred and complex. A ‘media literacy’ definition that considers these development features states that ‘media literacy is a set of competencies that enable us to interpret media texts and institutions, to make media of our own, and to recognise and engage with the social and political influence of media in everyday life’ (Hoechsmann & Poyntz, 2011, p. 1). The Swedish Professor Staffan Selander (2017) points out that when digital technology was first introduced into school curricula, it affected the way one worked, but it did not change it. According to Selander, today’s educational system is based on a logocentric principle that is oriented towards students acquiring skills and competences needed in society. Selander states that in a digital society, the school no longer has the monopoly of being the only learning platform. He proposes a multimodal and design-oriented learning theory, where learning and meaning-making processes are recognised as distributed and designed in many places, not only in school but also on

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digital platforms, such as YouTube or Facebook (Lankshear & Knobel, 2011; Potter & McDougall, 2017). Learning and meaning-making is seen as dynamic, social, participatory and interactive. Selander introduces the concept of applicability, which brings new principles into play regarding the views of knowledge, knowledge representations and teaching. Such an understanding of education and of literacy requires new learning designs. In the following section, we will shift our focus and explore how drama in education might comply with theory from both media literacy and Selander’s design-oriented learning theory.

Drama in education in a digital society In the past 20 years, drama and theatre educators have argued that digital platforms and social media potentially represent new stages, or educational environments, where young people can explore human experiences with new media forms (Carroll & Cameron, 2009; Davis, 2011; Jensen, 2011; O’Toole & Dunn, 2008). One of the arguments put forth is that theatre skills can aid young people in their own performative expression of self in a digital society (Anderson, Carroll, & Cameron, 2009; Jensen, 2008). According to drama educator Amy Petersen Jensen (2011), the process of gathering, producing and redistributing mediated messages on social media can be viewed as inherently performative: ‘The essence of this type of performance is that the performer is what he or she is connected to, and convergence then is the purposeful selection of just the right connections to generate a desired meaning’ (Jensen, 2011, p. 146). Jensen argues that new converging forms of media give people more ways to perform; thus one’s ability to interpret and comprehend such performances becomes a critical cultural skill in contemporary society. Drama educators such as John Carroll, Michael Anderson and David Cameron (2006) have stated that drama teachers can use their understanding of various emerging performance conventions as a way to engage students to explore authenticity and role-based identity on digital platforms. Drama educator Susan Davis has also encouraged drama educators to explore the digital culture and to design creative processes that are familiar to students within these virtual spaces (Davis, 2011). To address how drama in education can be a response to the challenges posed by ‘new media practices’ and a vehicle for learning about media literacy, the previously mentioned scholars emphasise three inter-connected topics: 1

2

Skills from drama and theatre, such as working in roles or being able to shift perspectives inside and outside a fictional context, can aid young people in their own personal expression in a digital society. The way communicational messages are converging, becoming multimodal and inter-connected with communication on several platforms simultaneously, can be viewed as a performance. Therefore, the way drama education stages creative processes, utilising strategies from performance, might also be considered a way to train a critical cultural skillset and to develop media literacy.

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Creative processes in the drama classroom offer a sensuous and embodied response to teaching, learning and reflecting about being a citizen in a digital society.

Previous research has explored the transfer to social media of various forms of working with drama and theatre, such as forum theatre or devising (Carroll & Cameron, 2009; Wotzko & Carroll, 2009; Wotzko, 2012). However, one of the key research concepts in the PhD project (Knudsen, 2017) was to try and move in the opposite direction by investigating how strategies from social media could be transferred to drama education. This manoeuvre challenged several principles of teaching and learning drama (for a more thorough discussion Knudsen, 2016; Knudsen, 2017; Knudsen, 2018). One of the challenges was the use of fiction as a vehicle for meaning-making processes. On social media, the distinction between fiction and reality is blurred, disturbing one of the pillars for drama in education; the ability to shift perspectives between fictional worlds and real worlds (cf. the first inter-connected topic on p. 4). Another disturbed principle was the notion of risk inside the drama classroom. Drama processes and social media as literacy practices can be characterised as social and as requiring participation; however, the risk seems greater when one includes social media in the drama process. On social media, one’s actions are not only exposed and shared with the fellow participants inside the classroom but can potentially be shared with the rest of the world. Such exposure requires that the students and the teacher reflect on how the participants are invited to participate in the creative process, and they are given an opportunity to step out of the creative process as well. These challenges resonate with the three trends mentioned in the section ‘Media Literacy and Designs for Learning’, which recognised literacy as multimodal, social and increasingly complex. In the following section, we will use the three trends as analytical guidelines to explore practical examples from the educational design #iLive (Knudsen, 2017) and discuss how drama in education can respond to the challenges of ‘new practice media’. The practical examples are referred to as ‘steps’. However, in order to get a more informed understanding of the discussion, we suggest that the reader start off by reading the detailed presentation of the entire drama educational design #iLive (pp. 29–33).

Handling the challenges of social media inside the drama classroom The lesson plan describing #iLive holds several different strategies and drama elements, such as: teacher-in-role, roleplays, re-enactment, improvisation, pre-text, the hook, contract of fiction and ritual. Thus, as an educational design, #iLive implements familiar ways of teaching and learning drama. However, the presence of social media, including the participants’ own social media accounts, applies new strategies to the learning design. Although we could have chosen to analyse all the design’s steps, we will instead take a closer look at Step #5 (The Art of the

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Good Selfie, p. 32) and Step #7 (Global and Local Perspectives, p. 33). In these steps, the three literacy trends are particularly apparent. Therefore, in the following section, we focus on Steps #5 and #7 as two examples, wherein the audience is asked to migrate between converging media practices and drama. The three literacy trends (multimodal, social and complex) guide our analytical lenses, and we discuss what #iLive adds to teaching and learning drama. 1. Step #5: Handling risk and fiction In The Art of the Good Selfie (#5), the drama teacher’s instructions do not imply giving the participants a role through which the investigation is carried out, which in theory would mean that the participants are without the safety of acting in fiction. However, the participants utilise strategies during the investigation that are recognisable from performance. For instance, by putting on a cap or by switching hairstyles, the participants are changing their looks and appearances. Developing an element of distance when engaging with social media is part of the participants’ digital culture. Thus, they are creating their own fiction element and reducing the level of risk when performing on social media. In the reflective loop following this task, called Selfies for Dummies, one of the participants also expressed such a strategy:

Figure 3.1 #iLive screenshot.

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The Screenshot is from a dialogue between the Host in #iLive (grey text) and one of the participants (green text). According to the participant, one has to choose a character. In #iLive, the participants identify and describe 14 roles that already exist on social media.1 Each of the 14 roles has a description that belongs to that type of personality. Whether you are the ‘Pretty Girl’, ‘Myself’ or ‘Fuck Boy’, the role influences the way you look and communicate on social media and can be interpreted as a way of redistributing the protective element of distance through fiction. All of the roles are available to anybody willing to use them, as long as they follow the regulations. The roles become an expression or symbol of the individual as a group, and one can also perform several roles at the same time, for example ‘The comedian’ on Snapchat, ‘The political activist’ on Facebook and the ‘Pretty Girl’ on Instagram. In terms of the trends, all three are present in the way participants engage this task. For instance, when they are experimenting with the selfies, they are combining written, auditory, visual and interactive expressions in the meaning-making process. Furthermore, what they do when they communicate is both social and requires participation, and when the participants apply the characters to the educational design, the drama teacher enables the participants to discuss and critically engage with their culture. Such engagement involves shifting perspectives between different types of fictional worlds, taking risks while being in role and reflecting about how to handle the complexity that permeates a digital society. 2. Step #7: Handling complexity In Step #7, Global and Local Perspectives, the participants are asked to explore the positive and negative aspects of social media. As mentioned in this chapter’s introduction, while social media can be an agent for manipulation and undemocratic strategies, it can also be an agent for emancipation and change. Therefore, teaching and learning about media literacy must be nuanced in how it is facilitated in an educational design. One interesting and potentially fruitful way of responding to complexity can be to knowingly accept it, rather than rejecting complexity or attempting to avoid it. Designs like #iLive can create didactic approaches that embrace complexity, and the aim is that students will be enabled to deal with any complexity they face. In the task, it is the participants themselves who decide what the presentation’s content will be; however, it is the drama teacher who decides which of the four perspectives the participants explore. The perspectives are the (1) positive and (2) negative aspects of social media from a global perspective and the (3) positive and (4) negative aspects of social media from a local perspective. The local perspectives are characterised as being in the participants’ everyday life, and the global perspectives are characterised as being in the world. When the presentations are mediated through Snapchat, the participants are converging different forms of media practices while experimenting and playing with the complexity that exists on the platforms they are investigating. Reducing social media to four perspectives enables the drama teacher to handle the complexity and to implement it in an educational context. Such a manoeuvre might

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involve a change in how the teacher is positioned in relation to the students. In terms of engaging with digital media, the students’ experiences often exceed those of the teacher. In #iLive, the investigation is launched by asking two open questions: ‘Who are you on social media?’ and ‘How do you live with social media?’ By converging strategies from social media and drama in education, the drama teacher can create a platform where such questions can be experimented with and explored. While it may seem contradictory to deliberately offer complex learning activities in school as a way of dealing with complexity, according to Qvortrup (2004), it is necessary to develop complex forms of knowledge and understanding to master a complex culture. In relation to the three literacy trends, the #iLive analysis shows that the project provides an arena where students can sense, understand, perform and exert complex, multimodal and social literacy.

3. Performing literacy – Embracing the challenges of a digital society The #iLive project represents a didactical means of embracing the challenges posed by the three literacy trends previously described: multimodal, social and complex. The #iLive project is in principle multimodal, and it emphasises social learning and literacy. Knowledge is not seen as something prefabricated but rather constructed by the participants – in the context created then and there. Furthermore, knowledge is embodied in how the Host and the participants present and represent bits of knowledge. The analysis of the two examples shows that the participants’ existing know-how for performing and their skills in communicating on social media are applied to the learning design. Such manoeuvres require crossing borders in a network consisting of drama in education, social media, literacy and the school. In Selander’s (2017) terms, the learning and meaning-making processes in #iLive are recognised as distributed and designed in many places, not only inside the classroom but also on digital platforms, such as the participants’ own social media accounts and on YouTube. Similarly, researchers studying how to develop media literacy skills emphasise the importance of linking informal learning situations from everyday life to the more formal learning contexts in school (Buckingham, 2003; Erstad, 2018; Hoechsmann & Poyntz, 2011). According to the media literacy scholar Dezuanni (2017), being able to perform and express oneself in the media and to reflect in diverse and varied ways is crucial in today’s media-dominated culture. The #iLive project materialises a rich repertoire of ways to express oneself, both multimodally and socially, and both in and about the media. The project is also complex, in the sense that the participants are set in situations without any clear solutions or predefined answers. They are challenged regarding how to advance in the process and on how the tasks are to be read, understood and interpreted. Furthermore, the students are invited to use media tools they are comfortable with in everyday life; thus, they have the opportunity to explore the situation, to practice

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navigating a complex context and to try to understand the complexity. For instance, the participants in the #iLive project alternate between taking the role of audience and producer, between fact and fiction and between different genres and expression forms, all of which are important features of practices related to social media, thus making them fundamental aspects of today’s literacy and culture.

#ILIVE – WHO ARE YOU ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND HOW DO YOU LIVE WITH SOCIAL MEDIA? AGE OF STUDENTS: 13–18 AIMS: This drama educational

design introduces students to issues of social media, digital literacy and global responsibility, as well as promoting skills in researching and presenting. MATERIALS: A sensory box for each participant, containing: two pieces of sour candy, headphones, post-it notes, a pen, a guide to download a qr-reader and two qr-codes. Furthermore, you will need some marking tape, a video-projector, hdmi cables, a computer and an Internet connection (wifi). It is also recommended that you stage #iLive in a ‘drama and theatre’ room, for example one with black curtains on the walls and a wall featuring mirrors. The room also needs to contain some technical equipment (lights, audio). Of course, #iLive can be carried out without all of these features. CONTEXT: As an educational design, #iLive attempts to create a dramatic platform for reflections on social media, and it is mediated through the use of social media itself and drama. #Live would be appropriate to use in a variety of educational programmes, such as Drama, English, History, Media Education, Business-related studies and other more general studies. #iLive contains 14 steps, each with a range of intentions: (1) supplying the participants with different kinds of information to be used in the project; (2) stimulating the initiation of both individual and collective working processes and (3) challenging the participants to complete various tasks. Reflective loops are applied after each episode, which allows the participants and the teacher to reflect on their experiences in a shared dialogue on social media. In the following design description, we thoroughly detail the most important steps as a way to communicate how you, as a drama teacher, might try to connect to social media in your own classroom. It is important to emphasise that the structure of the dramatic development in #iLive does not imply a linear narrative but a more episodic development. And, finally, there are several different strategies and drama elements occurring during the process. In the text, these strategies are typed with extra bold.

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Kristian Nødtvedt Knudsen and Daniel Schofield Welcome to #iLive – Step #1 In the introductory phase of #iLive, each participant receives a sensory box and is asked to scan the QR-code on the box lid. The code leads the participants to an introduction video on www.vimeo.com, where they meet the Host (Teacher-in-role), who welcomes them to #iLive. In the video, the Host explains some of the ground rules in #iLive, for instance that when they are not using their smartphones in the laboratory, they are to place them in the sensory box. Furthermore, the participants are told they can leave the laboratory at any time and take some timeout if needed. At the end, the participants are given the first task, which is to take a ‘selfie’ and share it on Instagram. It is important that they use the hashtag on the front of the sensory box (#iLive) so that the images become searchable on Instagram, which is projected on a big screen in the laboratory. Afterwards, the participants are allowed to enter the laboratory, one by one, where they are welcomed by the Host (in the physical reality). One might characterise the introduction video as The Hook because the purpose is to introduce the educational design’s thematic content. This activity has a ritual quality because it allows the participants to operate as an audience and to develop expectations regarding what they might encounter. However, meeting the Host represents an embodied and analogue encounter with the imagined world inside #iLive. As such, this action also represents a contract of fiction. The QR-code below contains an example of the introduction video:

Figure 3.2 QR-code.

Source: https://vimeo.com/1334377852

Status updates – Step #2 Lounge music is playing inside the laboratory as each participant enters. The Host kindly shakes hands with each of the participants and politely asks them to take a place inside a marked area at the end of the room. Afterwards, the Host introduces him/herself once more and repeats the two key questions from the introduction video and the basic rules of #iLive. A quick survey is conducted regarding the participants’ relations to social media. One of the participants volunteers to write different status updates on a document titled ‘This Is a Facebook Page’. The document is

Performing literacy and social media projected on the screen for all to see. The participants produce the status updates in response to the following questions: a b c d

How many of you have a smartphone? What are you using your smartphone for? How many of you use social media – what social media? How often do you use social media?

The purpose of the status updates is to build involvement by relating the theme to the participants’ everyday lives. By focusing their anticipation, this task also provides a direct exposition to the educational design’s content and, thus, can be understood as a pre-text. What has the smartphone brought to our everyday lives? – Step #3 The participants are asked to lie down on the floor and enjoy a piece of candy from the sensory box. The Host begins a short presentation called ‘The History of the Smartphone’, which is projected on the ceiling above the participants. This presentation contains some facts regarding smartphones; for instance, when the first smartphone was released on the Android system and for the iPhone. Afterwards, the Host invites participants to travel back in time to 9 January 2007 to experience what it was like when the first iPhone was released. The participants are gathered in a group, and a YouTube video of the release is projected on the screen. Following the two different introductions to the history of the smartphone, the Host introduces a new task called ‘The Snapchat Circle’. This action is a group assignment, where the participants, who are gathered in a circle, take turns stepping forward into the Snapchat Circle and sharing a word, a phrase or any kind of bodily expression, which they relate to the question: What has the smartphone brought to our everyday lives? As an improvised encounter, the Snapchat Circle is built on reflections related to the two presentations and the participants’ own relationships with the use of smartphones. This action works as an improvised brainstorming session and establishes a tension between the individual subject’s use of the smartphone and the impact the device has had on society in general. The future smartphone – Step #4 Working in groups of designers five years into the future, the participants create a presentation of what the smartphone will be like in the future. Each group also creates a slogan and rehearses how they will present their product to the world. This step is composed and rehearsed rather than improvised, and it allows the participants to choose their level of being in role during the

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developmental and design process. One might characterise the designers’ role as a collective role or as the role of the expert. Furthermore, they are also working as directors to their own performance, discussing whether they want to use effects, such as music, lights, etc. The groups are also audiences for each other’s presentations. The Host acts as a facilitator or as a catalyst, asking the groups questions while they are developing their product and after their presentation. The art of the good selfie – Step #5 The Host announces the next task while revealing the wall of mirrors to the sound of Pharrell Williams and Snoop Dogg singing ‘Beautiful’. The participants explore ways of taking a good selfie. They may work in groups or individually. Afterwards, those who volunteer can share their images with the rest of the group, and everyone offers tips that can be included in the fictitious book called Selfies for Dummies. During this step, the participants are not acting in a defined role. Instead, they are engaging in improvisation, as directed by the Host and themselves through their smartphones. Improvising allows the participants to experiment with poses, lights and other multimodal effects. The reflection is retrospective and present at the same time because the participants are using their own experiences with selfies while also experimenting with ways of taking selfies. The Host then carefully facilitates the analysis of the selfies and asks questions like:    

What is important to remember when you take a selfie? How do you get more likes on social media? Do the likes have any effect on you? What function does a status update have?

From SoME celebrity to a SoMe user – Step #6 In groups, the participants are asked to find a celebrity or someone well-known on social media and to analyse that individual’s social media account(s). This task’s purpose is to transform the social media account into a short narrative by asking: ‘What story, or stories, does this individual tell through social media?’ The participants share their analysis while presenting the social media accounts on the big screen, and the Host asks questions like ‘What strategies of performance are visible?’ ‘Is there a parallel to the previous task (Selfies for Dummies)’? and ‘Are there any archetypes on social media?’ Afterwards, the groups split up, and the Host introduces a new task. This time, participants will analyse the Host’s social media account. This action is an important strategy in the design because it allows the teacher to mediate between the private world of the teacher and the public world of the

Performing literacy and social media celebrities. The task also acts as a catalyst to reflect on the distinctions between privacy and distance on social media. The teacher is in a vulnerable position; therefore, the Host can decide whether to use a real account or to create a fictitious account. Either way, the task introduces some ethical perspectives on the use of social media and digital literacy that are important to explore. Afterwards, in pairs, the participants exchange their social media accounts with one another and repeat the task; however, this time it is their own stories on social media that are being transformed into a narrative. Once again, ethical perspectives come into play, and it is important that the teacher is aware of how the participants engage with one another. In the reflective loop, volunteers might share the stories they have found, and the Host can initiate another status update, starting from the questions: ‘How does a person’s identity form on social media?’ and ‘Who are you on social media?’. Global and local perspectives – Step #7 The Host introduces this task by announcing that it is time to investigate the positive and negative sides of social media. By using the Internet for research, the participants collectively come up with possible ideas, themes and issues that can be associated with the instructions. Each group is given a specific focal point, which will guide them in their research: (1) positive themes from a local (in their everyday life) perspective, (2) positive themes from a global perspective, (3) negative themes from a local perspective and (4) negative themes from a global perspective. Afterwards, the group must direct and create a presentation through Snapchat using the platform’s tools and strategies. The final presentation will be broadcast on the big screen. This step’s purpose is to reflect upon the complexity of social media and its impacts on our everyday lives and on a global perspective. The participants themselves are allowed to direct and decide the thematic content of their presentations and how they wish to arrange the presentation. Do they want to record small roleplays with fictitious characters? Or do they want to stage it as a news report, a documentary, etc.? The Host finalises the step with another reflective loop, perhaps asking questions like: ‘What did we see?’ ‘How does it impact our way of life?’ or ‘Are we familiar with other similar incidents?’ And in the end – Step #8 The participants are asked to answer the two key questions from the beginning of the design: ‘How do you live with social media?’ and ‘Who are you on social media?’ Participants write their answers anonymously on post-it notes and place them in the #iLive box. The purpose of this step is to evaluate and debrief the participants. The Host collects all the boxes and places the post-it notes on the wall, creating a big montage of answers. Finally, the Host evaluates and debriefs the participants regarding their experiences with #iLive.

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Notes 1 For a complete oversight of all the characters, see Knudsen, 2018. 2 A QR-scanner can be downloaded for free in one’s preferred app store (Android/iOS).

References Anderson, M., Carroll, J. & Cameron, D. (2009). Drama education with digital technology. London: Continuum. Barton, D. & Hamilton, M. (1998). Local literacies: Reading and writing in one community. London: Routledge. Bawden, D. (2008). Origins and concepts of digital literacy. In C. Lankshear & M. Knobel (Eds.), Digital literacies: Concepts, policies and practices (pp. 17–32). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Beck, U., Giddens, A. & Lash, S. (1994). Reflexive modernization: Politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bezemer, J. & Kress, G. (2008). Writing in multimodal texts: A social semiotic account of designs for learning. Written Communication, 25(2), 166–197. doi:10.1177/ 0741088307313177. Buckingham, D. (2003). Media education: Literacy, learning and contemporary culture. Cambridge: Polity Press. Buckingham, D. (2007). Digital media literacies: Rethinking media education in the age of the Internet. Research in Comparative and International Education, 2(1), 43–55. Carroll, J. & Cameron, D. (2009). Drama, digital pre-text and social media. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 14(2), 295–312. Castells, M. (2010). The information age: Economy, society and culture (2nd ed.). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Davis, S. (2011). Digital drama: Toolkits, dilemmas, and preferences. Youth Theatre Journal, 25(2), 103–119. doi:10.1080/08929092.2011.618365. Dezuanni, M. (2017). Agentive realism and media literacy. The Journal of Media Literacy, 64(1 & 2), 16–19. Erstad, O. (2010). Digital kompetanse i skolen [Digital competence in school] (2nd ed.). Oslo, Norway: Universitetsforlaget. Erstad, O. (2018). Digitale læringsliv – integrerte mediepraksiser og mediepedagogiske utfordringer [life of digital learning – integrated media practice and media-pedagogical challenges]. In V. Frantzen & D. Schofield (Eds.), Mediepedagogikk og mediekompetanse. Danning og læring i en ny mediekultur [Media pedagogy and media competence. Forms of learning and education in a new media culture] (pp. 165–184). Bergen, Germany: Fagbokforlaget. Hjarvard, S. (2008). The mediatization of society: A theory of the media as agents of social and cultural change. Nordicom Review, 29(2), 105–134. Hobbs, R. (2011). Digital and media literacy: Connecting culture and classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Hoechsmann, M. & Poyntz, S. R. (2011). Media literacies. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Jensen, A. P. (2008). Multimodal literacy and theater education. Arts Education Policy Review, 109(5), 19–28. doi:10.3200/AEPR.109.5.19–28. Jensen, A. P. (2011). Convergence culture, learning, and participatory youth theatre performance. Youth Theatre Journal, 25(2), 146–158. doi:10.1080/08929092.2011.569528.

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Knudsen, K. N. (2016). Social media: A new stage for the drama teacher. In A. B. Sæbø (Ed.). International yearbook of research in arts education, 4 (pp. 205–213). Frankfurt: Waxmann. Knudsen, K. N. (2017). #iLive - konturer af en performativ dramadidaktik i en digital samtid [iLive - contours of performative didactic drama in a contemporary digital world]. (PhD thesis). Institut for Lærerutdanning, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. Knudsen, K. N. (2018). Challenging fiction: Exploring meaning-making processes in the crossover between social media and drama in education. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 19(1). https://doi:10.18113/P8ijea1901. Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. London: Routledge. Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London: Routledge. Lankshear, C. & Knobel, M. (2011). New literacies: Everyday practices and social learning. Maidenhead: Open University Press. O’Toole, J. & Dunn, J. (2008). Learning in dramatic and virtual worlds: What do students say about complementary and future directions? Journal of Aesthetic Education, 42 (4), 89–104. Petersen, A. J. (2008). Multimodal literacy and theater education. Arts Education Policy Review, 109(5), 19–28. doi:10.3200/AEPR.109.5.19–28. Petersen, A. J. (2011). Convergence culture, learning, and participatory youth theatre performance. Youth Theatre Journal, 25(2), 146–158. doi:10.1080/08929092.2011.569528. Potter, J. & McDougall, J. (2017). Digital media, culture and education: Theorising third space literacies. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Qvortrup, L. (2004). Det vidende samfund: Mysteriet om viden, læring og dannelse [The knowledgeable society: The mystery of knowledge, learning and education]. København, Denmark: Unge Pædagoger. Schofield, D. (2015). Reflexive media education. Exploring mediagraphy as a learning activity in upper secondary school. (PhD thesis). Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Social and Educational Sciences, Department of Education, Trondheim, Norway. Säljö, R. (2006). Læring og kulturelle redskaper: om læreprosesser og den kollektive hukommelsen [Learning and cultural tools: On learning processes and the collective memory]. Oslo: Cappelen akademisk. Säljö, R. (2012). Literacy, digital literacy and epistemic practices: The co-evolution of hybrid minds and external memory systems. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 7(1), 5–19. Selander, S. (2017). Didaktiken efter Vygotsky. Design för lärande [Didactics after Vygotsky. Design for learning]. Stockholm: Liber. The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–93. doi:10.17763/haer.66.1.17370n67v22j160u. Wotzko, R. (2012). Newspaper twitter: Applied drama and microblogging. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 17(4), 569–581. Wotzko, R. & Carroll, J. (2009). Digital theatre and online narrative. In M. Anderson, D. Cameron & J. Carroll (Eds.), Drama education with digital technology (pp. 168–183). London: Continuum International Publishing.

Part II

Sustainability

A common understanding of the concepts sustainability and sustainable development is that people leave the environment to their descendants in no worse a condition than they received it. Sustainability describes an attempt to meet the needs of the present without reducing the possibilities of future generations to meet theirs (The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2011). At a time where global warming poses a bigger threat to earth’s climate than ever before, it is important to educate children in such a way that they are encouraged to take action. Pupils have to understand and respect nature, both because of its value and because of the service it provides humankind. Environmental protection, climate change and biodiversity are examples of tasks that need to be taught in schools. In this part, a project is described that worked with sustainability through drama-based storyline. It is written by Anna-Lena Østern, and is called ‘Artful teaching of drama-based storyline’. The author introduces the use of drama-based storylines in artful teaching and learning which she claims can contribute to performative literacy and awareness of sustainable ways of living.

References Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. (2011). The Icelandic national curriculum guide for compulsory schools, general section. Reykjavík: Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.

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Artful teaching of drama-based storyline Anna-Lena Østern

Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to introduce dramaturgical thinking in the planning of drama-based storylines about urgent themes. Dramaturgical thinking potentially contributes to artful teaching and learning in educational contexts, and is a necessary part of a drama teacher’s planning tool. I have teachers, teacher educators and researchers in mind when writing this chapter. I will apply a performative inquiry mode as a research methodology and as an action site (Fels & Belliveau, 2008) when I present meta-thinking around the planning of drama-based storyline projects. As my aim for this article is to invite the reader into meta-thinking about the planning of drama-based storyline projects, the concrete example of one storyline sequence will only serve as a backdrop to the article’s argument. The argument is that dramaturgical thinking can contribute to the renewal and vitalisation of storyline as an educational pedagogy. In the following sections, I theoretically explore how dramaturgical thinking might enhance artful teaching and learning guided by the research question: How can dramaturgical thinking contribute to artful teaching and learning through dramabased storylines?

Artful teaching and learning In artful teaching and learning different art forms are the main working modes when exploring a theme. The teacher has deep knowledge of for example drama as an art form, and of drama conventions (Neelands, 2015) with the potential to invite students into deep learning processes. The students learn to elaborate a theme in multimodal ways through music, dance, visual presentations, drama and narrative. The students orchestrate meaning through their combinations of different modes in the expression they create (see Østern & Knudsen, 2019). My background in the field of drama and theatre education, literacy education and teacher education is the basis for an ethnographer’s voice in the explorations of this chapter. My explorations are placed within arts-based research (ABR),

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with theory building as the ultimate goal. Rolling (2013, p. 1) suggests: ‘Theories are conveyed as representative constructs – or reconstructions of experience – of the experiential worlds of the researcher, both lived and speculative.’ The experiential worlds of the researcher, relevant to this study, are intertwined as a performative inquiry mode, dramaturgy in the design of teaching and learning, and a worldview which places the arts as strong agents in education for a sustainable future through artful teaching. I elaborate these three perspectives in the following sections of the chapter in answer to the guiding question I have posed.

Performative inquiry mode A performative inquiry mode underlines the importance of creating knowledge through practice. Austin describes a performative in linguistics as an utterance that performs what it says, like the ceremonial utterance ‘I hereby take you to be my wedded husband’ (Austin, 1955/1962). In ritual and theatre, performance studies have highlighted practice, the doing. This is the basis for a performative mode, where the performer embodied and in words presents a perspective, an insight or a provocation in a performance (Schechner, 2013). In a manifesto for performative research, Haseman (2006) argues that the performative perspective is a new research paradigm. Gergen and Gergen (2018) describe a performative movement also in social sciences. They maintain that a performative perspective (in education and research) brings to the forefront more artful ways of teaching and learning as well as in carrying out research. These three paths, from linguistics, from theatre and from social sciences into performative mode all give priority to practice, the doing. A performative perspective is an embodied perspective focusing on expressive exchange (Richards, 1994). A performative inquiry is described by Fels and Belliveau (2008) in Exploring Curriculum Performative Inquiry, Role Drama and Learning. In their book, the authors give rich examples of the stages in performative inquiry, through work with ‘role drama’ around urgent themes. They suggest that: Performative inquiry creates opportunities for students to interact reciprocally, to take creative risks, and to come to understanding of the “real world” in an interactive and reflective way. Exploring curriculum through performative inquiry stimulates creative and critical thinking, motivates and encourages students in their learning, and frames and communicates complex situations or concepts within a context that makes these ideas and issues meaningful and applicable. (Fels & Belliveau, 2008, p. 43) Performative inquiry, according to Fels and Belliveau, uses the frameworks, activities, and strategies of drama, and they suggest that an inquiry ‘/ … / can be a question, an event, a theme, a feeling, a fragment of poetry, or a phenomenon explored through the questions: What if? What matters? So what?

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Who cares?’ (Fels & Belliveau, 2008, p. 32). Inspired by Appelbaum’s (1995) book The Stop, they introduce the concept of the stop moment. A stop moment is a moment when participants become aware of the possible choices of actions, and of the possible consequences of the choices (p. 36). This moment is a moment of listening, and an opportunity for learning and for responsible action: Performative inquiry brings the personal, the political and the experiential into the curriculum. The curriculum becomes vibrant and active as students become agents of influence and change. (Fels & Belliveau, 2008, p. 44) Fels and Belliveau call the dramatic scenes created in a drama session role drama. Role drama can also be part of storyline as an educational pedagogy.

Storyline as an educational pedagogy Storyline or ‘The Scottish method’ was originally developed at Jordanhill College in the mid-1960s as an outcome of curriculum reform. The main architects behind this strategy were Steve Bell and Sallie Harkness (cf. Bell, Harkness & White, 2007; Mitchell & McNaughton, 2016). The teacher is a director and guides exploration of a theme in problem-solving ways, inquiry-based. The learning is dependent on a story with a storyline. The teacher creates the line, but the students/pupils create the story. Storyline periods vary in length from perhaps three lessons to several weeks. Over time, the word method or strategy has proven insufficient, because storyline can be understood as an educational pedagogy or design. After more than 50 years of storyline practice, there are still some principles that guide storyline planning. Thematic frame The thematic frame for a storyline is chosen by the teacher. It is about something that is urgent, both locally and in a wider perspective. It must also be possible to study the phenomenon from different angles and by different means, and within different subjects. It needs to have potential for hands-on work, imagination and philosophical discussions. The idea comprises moments which become affected, emotionally touched. Usually one subject is the directing one. From this subject the main theme emanates, supported by the other subjects involved. The theme can be elaborated in a context created now and there. It can be based on a book (called book-based storyline), a problem or an event, imagined or real. The creation of fictive characters/creatures Together with the teacher, the students/pupils decide upon which characters or creatures will be part of the story. The students/pupils then create visual representations of the characters chosen, and discuss place and life circumstances: Who lives here? What kind of life do they live? These characters/

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creatures vary according to the students/pupils/children participating. Children in kindergarten can create these images, but grown-up participants can also create images relevant to the theme chosen. The fictive world the students/pupils have created forms a common frame for things that happen The pedagogical documentation produced during the evolving story forms a storyline wall. The storyline project has a closing event, when the documentation of the project is presented to a suitable audience. Key questions Key questions make the evolving story stick to the theme, but also keep the students hooked, because the key questions are not easily fixed as questions with one right answer. The questions trigger the interest of the students, and they need to be explored – and there might be different answers. The idea behind key questions is that they give an organised form to the storyline. In the planning, the teacher might plan what the teacher does, what the students/ pupils do, what material will be needed, what working forms are offered, what results are expected, what curricular aims the storyline considers, and how the outcomes are discussed by the participants.

Storyline in a future perspective There has been an ongoing discussion about the future of storyline as an educational pedagogy (Pihlgren-Eveli, 2017). Schwanke (2018) has discussed how manipulation in storyline can be avoided by making the ethics of storyline work quite explicitly. One main rule is having respect for democracy and equity when choosing a theme and ways of working. Bell (2005, n.p) writes: ‘Storyline is an educational strategy which encourages models of democracy and good citizenship.’ I suggest that one important way of vitalising storyline as an educational pedagogy is to strengthen the artfulness of storyline planning and working forms. This artfulness can be promoted by making the storyline more dramabased, and by applying dramaturgical thinking.

Drama-based storyline and fictionality Storyline contains a fictive frame, and the participants create an emergent story that unfolds during the storyline period. The participants also create more or less fictive characters, and step in and out of roles. Conventions or strategies from process drama (cf. Neelands, 2015) or role drama (cf. Fels & Belliveau, 2008) create counterpoints to the evolving story. These conventions can serve as stop moments, creating challenges and affects. When working drama-based, the

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participants perform, but simultaneously or consequently move to a meta-level both when planning and when debriefing and discussing what lessons they have learnt. This meta-awareness is connected to different degrees of fictionality, meaning awareness that this is fiction, and that the scenes created can become more or less ‘real’. This staging of characters/themselves, for instance as digital characters on social media, contributes to increased awareness of themselves, the other and the community. The concept ‘drama-based’ underlines the importance of fiction and degrees of fictionality when stepping in and out of somebody else’s shoes in a storyline (Belliveau, 2014; Fels & Belliveau, 2008).

Dramaturgy in the design of teaching and learning in drama-based storyline Dramaturgy is a concept developed in theatre and performance, but it has travelled into other contexts, such as education. Dramaturgy can be denoted as design: how to design or compose. In education it is about the teacher’s artistry in practice. When you think like a dramaturge in education, the classroom is considered a scene where the participants perform. Why think like a dramaturge in storyline as educational pedagogy? Dramaturgy in educational contexts offers ways to think and inquire with innovative concepts, with the use of other metaphors than those of the traditional educational vocabulary. This can contribute to vitalising and stronger meaning-making for the teacher and for the pupils/students. The familiar can be made strange, and the strange can become familiar when using vocabulary from dramaturgy. In short, dramaturgical thinking can awaken curiosity and inquiry mode, and thus contribute to ‘wide-awakeness’, ‘full attention’, and ‘heightened perception’. Dramaturgy in theatre and performance asks: What is important in saying something about today? For what audience? What kind of participation do we wish for from the audience? How should we communicate? The answers to these questions are vital for the success of a theatre performance. An audience comes voluntarily to theatre performances. The audience needs to be ‘hooked’, and stay hooked. In education this is also a major challenge in encounters with teaching and learning. What dramaturgy then? Two basic dramaturgical models are called dramatic dramaturgy and montage dramaturgy. According to dramatic dramaturgy, the evolving drama has certain structural elements based on a story with dramatic tension, released in a climax, and rounded off. Dramatic dramaturgy tells one story. It is a mono-narrative. Different montage dramaturgy-models introduce different layers of fiction, which are at work simultaneously with a dialectical tension between the layers.

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The montage model implies multi-narratives, not only one coherent story. Storyline has a fictive frame with an evolving story, much as with dramatic dramaturgy. The key questions, however, interrupt the evolving story, and the episodes contain elaborated work with the use of montage principles. There are many dramaturgical forms. In circular dramaturgy, the episodes function in associative ways out from a centre. This is also a possibility in storyline projects based on a theme or a problem. In relational dramaturgy, the participants make the decisions that need to be taken within the fictive frame. This is also the case in storyline, which is guided by the participants’ choices. I have developed a model as an analytical tool for dramaturgical thinking in education, which is shown in Figure 4.1. I have initially described the model in ‘Dramaturgy in educational context’ (Østern, 2014). Figure 4.1 contains three big ‘oval spotlights’: the teacher’s ideas, the classroom/arena for knowledge production, and the pupils’/participants’ ideas. The activities taking place in the arena for knowledge production are dependent on two filters (shown as two smaller ‘oval spotlights’): (1) choice of form, and (2) code competence. Choice of form is the teacher’s possibility to choose engaging entrances into the learning tasks. The dramaturgical entrances are time, space/place, text and role/figure. Code competence concerns the previous experiences and competence the pupil/participant has regarding the forms chosen. If the forms chosen by the teacher do not communicate with the participants, the full learning potential may not be released. In the model, there are two stippled horizons of understanding: those of the teacher and the participants. These horizons must meet, and to some degree overlap, in order to sustain engagement in inquiry-based learning.

Figure 4.1 A model supporting dramaturgical thinking in education. Source: Østern, 2014, p. 62; my translation from the Norwegian of the title and text in the model.

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In the model there are double-ended arrows indicating communication in the arena for knowledge production: the classroom activities. The ‘circle spotlight’ in between and above the learning arena indicates the potential meaning-making through performative inquiry in the theme elaborated. This dramaturgical thinking is influenced by awareness of cultural differences as strong performative agents. Changes in society are also strong performative agents in dynamic learning events. A performative agent can be another person, an affect or some material circumstance like time or space, which produce experiences (cf. Barad, 2007). The model can serve as an analytical tool when planning a (storyline) project. It can also serve as backdrop for analysis of how the session in question was successful or problematic. As a guiding principle for planning informed by dramaturgical thinking, some things need to be familiar, but not all. Something needs to be challenging, unfamiliar. The dramaturge has a rich repertoire of dramaturgical elements to use. I will list some of them in the next section. Dramaturgical elements Empty spaces, in between spaces, are powerful places for meaning-making in practice, because the participants fill the empty spaces with their interpretations. The dramaturgical elements can serve the meaning-making process in different ways. One quite general guiding principle in planning as a dramaturge is the performative inquiry mode: the participants do, they perform in practice. The sense of story in storyline is also a dramaturgical element. The concepts I list in the following are inspired by concepts in use in theatre and film production, and hence also travelling concepts concerning structure, dynamics and content: Structure    

The hook (tune in, point to the core of the session) Exposition (who, what, why) Turning points Open, close. Dynamics

      

Planting and harvesting (set up and pay off) Forward pointing, backward pointing Timing Creating tension – and relief Thinking of the rhythm of the session Varying the tempo, intensity, degree of challenges Using rituals, props as metaphors.

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Content    

Surprise, paradox Mystery, empty spaces for the participants to fill Challenge, resistance Tuning out – let the session land – make it history.

These, and other dramaturgical elements, can be included in artful teaching in education. T.P. Østern and Engelsrud (2014) describe the dramaturgy of the teacher’s bodily presence in the classroom as embodied teaching. The authors suggest that the teacher moves around in the classroom, creating energy (movement creates movement). The teacher shows bodily intention, and has a bodily focus. The teacher has eye contact with all pupils/students. The teacher is generous with her or his own presence. The bodily dynamics can be helpful in problematic situations. The preparations for teaching ‘sit’ in the body, even if the teacher is improvising at the current moment. The third perspective I elaborate on in this chapter concerns artful teaching.

Worldview in artful teaching of drama-based storyline The worldview relevant to artful teaching considers the arts as strong agents in education for a sustainable future. Arts literacy functions as world-making in education (Østern, 2016). Arts literacy is a cultural literacy, and an arts literate person can ‘read’ both the text and the context. In the arts the creative process is both challenging and rewarding. The outcome is something new and meaningful. The artistic work is dependent on an explorative attitude, and the considerations comprise ethical issues and a strong wish to bring something of a constructive character into the world. The arts have a prominent place in artful teaching, and the teacher has an overall aesthetic approach to education. An aesthetic approach in drama embraces aesthetic transformation in various ways, such as:      

Enlarging Diminishing Distorting Stylising Speeding up Slowing down.

These aesthetic transformations underline the points and the value priorities the participants wish to bring forward. Summing up what artful teaching and learning might be, I lean on the outcomes of a research and development project carried out in secondary education. The project ‘Space me’ was carried out with art and science combined in an exploration of the theme ‘space research and man in the universe’ (cf. T.P. Østern & A. L. Østern, 2016). The main elements were performative inquiry

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through storyline, playback theatre, a mime workshop around gravity, and an artistic performance created by professional dance artists, combined with aesthetically designed science loops (short lectures). An aesthetic educational design emanating from ‘Space me’ is described by T.P. Østern and Strømme (2014, and in further developments):       

Corporeal learning/embodied learning Overall aesthetic approach to learning Multimodal impulses and material Difference and friction as a value in meaning-making, learning and teaching Explorative and relational learning Relational encounters with art Emphasis on dramaturgy in the educational context.

I have now elaborated three perspectives as theoretical contributions answering the question: How can dramaturgical thinking contribute to artful teaching and learning in drama-based storyline? The analyses go beyond a restricted field applying only to drama-based storyline. Performative inquiry, dramaturgy and artful teaching nurture teacher thinking in general, and they are intertwined. In the final section of the chapter I will bring these perspectives into a storyline project which was carried out in 2012 around water as threat and hope.

Climate change as an ecological crisis Värri (2018) in his book Education in the Time of Ecological Crisis, 1 suggests an ecological turn in education towards more depth in everyday life. He points out that if all people were to live like we do in the Western world, we would need 3.6 planets. The reports from scientists conveyed, for instance, by Sir David Attenborough in a series of programmes in BBC Earth 2018 serve as wake-up calls at an ever stronger volume. International gatherings discuss how to stop global warming. The United Nations has reported that: Climate Change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment. From shifting weather patterns that threaten food production, to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. Without drastic action today, adapting to these impacts in the future will be more difficult and costly. (www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/climate-cha nge/; retrieved 30 December 2018)

Storylines exploring water as threat and hope The background for the RnD project ‘Huseby @uarell – reading and writing for children and teenagers in the twenty-first century’ (Østern & Strømme, 2011) was

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the wish to explore the importance of aesthetic approaches in education by combining art and science. The @-sign in the title indicates that developing the digital skills of the pupils was part of the aesthetic approach (applied in digital storytelling, film-making, learning to use photo shop, and creating a multimodal talk show). The initiative from teacher education was positively received by a local secondary school in mid-Norway. The local school wanted ‘something that could develop the pupils’ literacy, give them more depth in the Norwegian language’. Four teachers from the local school signed up to participate over a period of three school years. The subject teachers comprised one teacher of science, one teacher of Norwegian, and one teacher of English. Also a special education teacher participated. The pupils were in grade 8 in the first year, grade 9 in the second year, and grade 10 during the third year. From the side of teacher education, I was the project leader and researcher, and I invited a teacher educator, Alex Strømme, as an expert in science education. A group of student teachers from teacher education participated every year as part of their practice placement. I carried out storyline workshops in teacher education, both for teacher educators and for student teachers, in order to make them comfortable with the educational pedagogy storyline. The RnD project was invited to be part of an EU-project ‘S-Team’, aiming at supporting a renewal of science teacher education. The ‘S-Team’ project ran from 2009 to 2012, and because of our participation in this project we documented the storyline projects as a delivery package to ‘S-Team’. The delivery contained the storyline planning schemes of the four projects, and that is why these tutorials can be found on the Internet.2 The final storyline project that was carried out and explored will be the empirical example in this chapter. Each year had a different theme dealing with the threat and hope of water on a local, national and finally on a global level. The length of the storyline periods varied from one week intensively to more evenly spread lessons over three weeks. All projects were planned to cover about 25 lessons, but the school teachers could use more time if they wanted. The concrete planning was carried out in teams of teachers, student teachers and teacher educators. I will provide glimpses into the final project, focusing on the three perspectives I have elaborated on theoretically earlier in this chapter. The final project had a global perspective, but in 2012 there was still some hesitation as to whether the observed phenomena were part of global warming or some other climate change. In this project students in grade 10 were the participants. The three events we decided to explore both artfully and scientifically were a mudslide in Norway in 1892, flooding in Pakistan causing water-spread diseases, and rising sea levels in the Maldives islands. Water as a global threat (and hope) because of changes in climate In the third year the storyline around water as a global threat and hope was performed. The storyline started with three narratives by (student) teachers in role: 

An old lady remembering her grandma telling her about the mudslide in 1892 in Verdal, Norway (where 112 people died).

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A mother in a Norwegian family in the Maldives when a tsunami struck, and killed 80 people there. A person from the Red Cross flying over a flood in Pakistan in a helicopter reporting on what she saw.

The pupils were framed as families in these three deadly events. The dramaturgy applied in this storyline was a montage model with different layers in dialogue. Teachers in role creating the hook There was a thin storyline, concretised by the teachers in role telling about potentially real events. Those potentially real events were examples of the different levels of fictionality in use. None of the teachers in role had personally experienced the stories they told, but the stories were real: 112 people had died in the mudslide in Verdal in Norway 1892; 80 people had been killed by the tsunami in the Maldives, and many people had contracted diseases from contaminated water caused by flooding in Pakistan. These teacher-in-role stories functioned as a dramaturgical hook to get the students engaged in exploring the stories further. Students creating fictive family members from the three events The students in groups of five created family members for their role drama. The role drama they created was a scene from just before the catastrophe struck, focusing on the feelings and decisions of the family they had created. Still images from the catastrophe moment as a stop moment The students in their family groups created still images trying to express both the fear and the togetherness of the family at the decisive moment, which could be called a stop moment, or an existential moment for the persons in role. Some uttered the thoughts in their heads at this moment. Some made the still image come alive and created a role drama, for instance of an escape from the roof of a house (by helicopter). Juxtaposition by science loops and visitors with real stories Science loops by the participating teacher students and teacher educators interrupted the role drama parts. There was a science loop about possible climate changes, about the cause of salt from the ice age melting when there was a lot of rain making the salt melt. We also had one session where the start was a fictive snow avalanche outside the school building and one person (a doll used for training in resuscitating people after drowning, or being buried under the snow) had to be found quickly. This was acted out with ski poles in rows with students seeking (and finding) the ‘person’, and consequently carrying out the resuscitation exercise.

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Another science loop was a lecture about the diseases that contaminated water might cause, but also a sequence where the students learned how to clean water under difficult circumstances. A third science loop was a visit by a person from the Maldives telling about how the sea has made her grandma’s place disappear. She remembers actual changes in water level. The students had prepared questions to ask her about the situation in the Maldives. Writing letters in role After the small scenes performed as role dramas the participating students wrote letters in role to the families they had created. Performance of a talk show for the grade 6 pupils invited from a nearby school The final event in this storyline project was a talk show (for other pupils) as a product based on the performative inquiries during the project. As a striking coincidence, an earthquake in Japan, creating a tsunami there, was filling the TV news on the final day of the storyline project. This was used as the introduction to the talk show. The talk show was built up by the elements elaborated during the weeks with storyline. Ritual As part of the talk show the students created a ritual with battery-driven white lamp bulbs. In the ritual the light was turned on and one student after the other uttered: ‘We light this lamp in remembrance of all who were taken by the mudslide (the tsunami or diseases).’

Figure 4.2 A ritual performed at the final event, the talk show, remembering those who lost their lives in the events explored. Source: Sketch courtesy to Anna-Lena Østern (www.storyline-scotland.com/wp-con tent/uploads/2012/05/water.pdf).

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The talk show was a montage with different fictional layers from the concrete stories to the emotional experiences reported by the students in role, and finally the arguments for empathy and the challenge concerning change in life style from now on.

Artful teaching and learning in storylines with urgent themes In this concluding section I will sum up how drama-based storylines might contribute to meaning-making exploration of urgent themes. I take the perspective of a teacher and teacher education. I will first mention some obstacles that might constrain the meaning-making exploration in storyline as an educational pedagogy. Obstacle 1 The first obstacle is the choice of an urgent theme. What theme is urgent enough for an exploration from the perspective of different subjects? Storyline in the lower grades is in one way easier to organise than in higher grades like secondary and upper secondary – or in teacher education. It is easier because one teacher covers several subjects at the primary stage. To overcome this obstacle, the decision regarding the theme must be thoroughly discussed in a team of teachers. Big themes which affect people’s lives in many ways offer many explorative learning possibilities. Obstacle 2 Being a teacher of storyline means trusting the capacity of the pupils/students to make decisions. If the teacher enters the storyline faint-heartedly, it is really bad for the quality of the project. A storyline teacher needs to engage bravely and whole-heartedly and artfully in the storyline, and likewise the pupils/students. Obstacle 3 One obstacle is connected to the teacher’s competence in staging and designing drama-based and arts-based storylines. A teacher without competence in some arts subject can, however, in most cases, be part of a team where an artist or arts teacher can guide the design of some parts of the storyline, as the visual artist and drama teacher in the examples in this chapter. One critique of storyline as educational pedagogy is the scarce theoretical backdrop for the activities. Dewey is sometimes mentioned, relying on learning by doing (and undergoing). This chapter is a contribution to the building of a theoretical framework for drama-based storyline, which I have outlined as a performative inquiry mode, a dramaturgical teacher thinking, and a worldview, considering artful teaching as an opportunity for strong meaning-making in learning events. The storyline of which I have given glimpses connects to ecological awareness focused on climate change and sustainable ways of living. Elaborating the theme in multiple ways contributes to the pupils’ performative literacy.

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Notes 1 My translation of the original title in Finnish ‘Kasvatus ekokriisin aikakaudella’. 2 http://docplayer.net/10355788-Combining-art-and-science-through-the-scottishstoryline-method-in-explorations-of-themes-connected-to-water-locally-nationally-a nd-globally.html.

References Appelbaum, D. (1995). The stop. Albany, NY: State University New York Press. Austin, J. L. (1955/1962). How to do things with words: The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. In J. O. Urmson & M. Sbisà (Eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press. Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Bell, S., Harkness, S. & White, G. (Eds.) (2007). Storyline past, present & future. Glasgow: University of Strathclyde. Belliveau, G. (2014). Stepping into drama. Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press. Fels, L. & Belliveau, G. (2008). Exploring curriculum: Performative inquiry, role drama, and learning. Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press. Gergen, K. & Gergen, M. (2018). The performative movement in social science. In P. Leavy (Ed.), Handbook of arts based research (pp. 54–67). New York: The Guilford Press. Haseman, B. (2006). A manifesto for performative research. Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy, 118, 98–106. Mitchell, P. & McNaughton, M. J. (Eds.) (2016). Storyline: A creative approach to learning and teaching. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Neelands, J. (2015). Structuring drama work: 100 key conventions for theatre and drama. (3rd revised ed.). T. Goode (Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pihlgren-Eveli, A.-K. (2017). Litterär storyline som bidrag till interkulturell pedagogik [Literature based storyline as a contribution to intercultural pedagogy]. (Diss.). Pedagogiska studier 21, Helsingfors Universitet, Helsingfors. Richards, A. (1994). The performing ‘I’ performance, self and social theory. (Unpublished master’s thesis). Department of History and Philos Sci, University of Melbourne, Melbourne. Rolling, Jr., J. H. (2013). Arts-based research: Primer. New York: Peter Lang. Schechner, R. (2013). Performance studies: An introduction (3rd ed.). S. Brady (Ed.). London and New York: Routledge. (1st ed., 2002). Schwanke, U. (2018). Storyline and manipulation. Paper presentation at the conference Storyline next generation, Ljubljana, 29 June –1 August 2018. Värri, V.-M. (2018). Kasvatus ekokriisin aikakaudella [Education in a time of ecological crisis]. Helsinki: Vastapaino. Østern, A.-L. (2016). Multiple arts literacies as worldmaking in education. In A. Sæbø (Ed.), International yearbook for research in arts education. At the crossroads of arts and cultural education: Queries meet assumptions (pp. 99–112). Rotterdam: Waxmann Verlag. Østern, A.-L. (2018). Drama-based storyline about urgent themes: A dramaturgical perspective. Paper presentation at the conference Storyline next generation, Ljubljana, 29 June –1 August 2018. Østern, A.-L. (Ed.) (2014). Dramaturgi i didaktisk kontekst. [Dramaturgy in educational context] Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. Østern, T. P. & Engelsrud, G. (2014). Læreren som kropp [The teacher as body]. In A.L. Østern (ed.), Dramaturgy in educational context (pp. 67–85). Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.

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Østern, A.-L. & Kalanje, E. (2013). Meningsutvidelse i skapende læring gjennom storyline [Broadening of meaning in creative learning through storyline]. In J.-B. Johansen (Ed.), Skapende og kreativ kreativ læring [Performative and creative learning] (pp. 145–174). Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. Østern, A.-L. & Knudsen, K.N. (Eds.) (2019). Performative approaches in arts education: Artful teaching, learning and research. London and New York: Routledge. Østern, T. P. & Østern, A.-L. (2016). Storyline as a key to meaningful learning: Arts and science combined in SPACE ME. In T. Mitchell & M. M. Naughton (Eds.), Storyline: A creative approach to learning and teaching (pp. 116–135). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Østern, A.-L. & Strømme, A. (Eds.) (2011). Huseby @quarelle Vann som tema ved Huseby ungdomsskole 2008–2011 [Huseby @quarell water as theme at Huseby School]. Trondheim: NTNU, Department of Teacher Education. Østern, A.-L. & Strømme, A. (2012). Art and science combined in storyline key questions. In T. Kravchuk, A. Groysman, C. Soddu, E. Colabella & G. Leisman (Eds.), Art, science and technology: Interaction between three cultures. Proceedings of the first international conference 1–2 June 2011, ORT Braude College (pp. 55–59). Milan: Domus Argenia Publisher. Østern, T. P. & Strømme, A. (Eds.) (2014). SPACE ME Sanselig didaktisk design [SPACE ME Aesthetic Educational Design]. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.

Websites Storyline tutorial. www.storyline-scotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/water. pdf. Retrieved 15 August 2018. Storyline tutorial. http://docplayer.net/10355788-Combining-art-and-science-through-thescottish-storyline-method-in-explorations-of-themes-connected-to-water-locally-nationa lly-and-globally.html. Retrieved 15 August 2018. United Nations. www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/climate-change/. Retrieved 30 December 2018.

Part III

Health and welfare

The term health describes a state of a person based on mental, physical and social wellbeing. It depends on the complexity of the individual, circumstances and environment. As children spend a good part of the day at school, all school activities should encourage health and nurture welfare and wellbeing. To achieve this goal, it is important to create an environment within schools that contributes to, encourages and systematically supports personal development and healthy ways of life. This includes educating students about multiple health factors such as positive self-image, exercise, nutrition, rest, mental wellbeing, positive communication, security, hygiene, sexual health and understanding of one’s own feelings and those of others. By actively teaching children about these health factors, and allowing them to reflect upon them, they will be better equipped to make informed and responsible decisions concerning their health. There are two chapters concerning health and welfare. The first, written by Helen Cahill, is called ‘Advancing social and emotional wellbeing through drama’. In this chapter, the author introduces collaborative modes of learning that provide students with the opportunity to evolve key social and emotional capabilities, including emotional literacy, self-regulation, problem-solving, negotiation, assertiveness and communication skills. She adds that well-developed social and emotional learning programmes can lead to a reduction in mental and social health problems, and an improvement in self-efficacy and learning attainment. The second chapter is written by Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir and Hafdís Guðjónsdóttir and is called ‘I am just talking and talking. I have to stop, but this is so funny’ – stories from immigrant students in drama classes. In the chapter, the authors discuss inclusive education and stress the importance of employing ways to educate all pupils successfully, working against discrimination and leading to a socially just society where everyone is a valid participant. They make the claim that opening up learning spaces involving drama is one possible way to meet diversity in the classroom, create space for active learning and build trust between students and between the students and the teacher.

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Advancing social and emotional well-being through drama Helen Cahill

Introduction This chapter discusses the research that informs our understanding of social and emotional learning. It then discusses ways in which the selection of drama conventions can enhance the growth of social, personal, critical and creative capabilities. To provide an example, it discusses a series of learning activities which can be used when using drama methods to examine the phenomenon of bullying. This discussion identifies ways in which a range of drama conventions can be used to heighten both engagement in socially critical analysis and to advance students’ understandings of how to use the dramatic form to construct and share meaning.

Principles Throughout my career I have had the opportunity to develop and research education programmes that work across and between the fields of drama education and well-being education. I have found that research studies investigating social and emotional learning and other fields of well-being education such as violence prevention, drug education, and sexuality and gender education, chiefly draw on the tradition of researching impact through use of control trial studies. My own projects developing such curricula have also used these research methods, and have demonstrated positive outcomes on behaviour (Midford, Ramsden et al., 2015; Midford, Cahill et al., 2017; Midford, Cahill et al., 2018). However, drama education research tends to draw more heavily on qualitative research traditions, including action research, ethnography and reflective practitioner research. I have favoured this approach when researching drama practice, combining ethnography and reflective practice (Cahill, 2012; Cahill & Coffey, 2013; Cahill, 2014; Cahill & Coffey, 2015). In working across these two fields of drama and social health, I have found that they have much to contribute to each other. Consequently, in this chapter I offer some principles for drama educators that I have derived from reading and conducting research in the fields of well-being promotion and drama education. I propose that drama educators have a unique potential to contribute to the social and emotional well-being of their students. I argue that they do this when they offer modes of working that are connective, protective and invite perspective (Cahill, 2003).

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Working through drama can be highly connective. This is because drama educators chiefly provide collaborative learning tasks. Collaborative modes of learning provide students with the opportunity to develop a sense of connectedness and to evolve key social and emotional capabilities, including emotional literacy, self-regulation, problem-solving, negotiation, assertiveness and communication skills (Cahill, 2014; Cahill, 2015). This is important as a sense of connectedness or belonging is one of the most significant protective factors for young people, and well-being research shows that those with a sense of connectedness to school have lower rates of mental health problems such as depression and anxiety (Durlak, Weissberg et al., 2011). Despite deployment of participatory approaches, it is not a given that members of a class will work together in a socially healthy way. The social environment of the class must be inclusive, respectful and protective if all students are to experience a high level of connectedness. Research in the field of behaviour management demonstrates that when teachers use positive behaviour management strategies, students are less likely to engage in forms of bullying and exclusion (Sugai & Horner, 2006). This requires working with the class to set and support clear standards and norms for social behaviour, and using learning activities to support development of the interpersonal skills needed for students to work effectively and respectfully with each other. Additionally, research in the fields of bullying prevention shows that the teacher plays a key role in ensuring that patterns of elitism, exclusion, marginalisation or covert bullying do not emerge within the social interactions (Eliot, Cornell et al., 2010; Hong & Espelage, 2012). As well as establishing a connective and protective environment, teachers can play a key role in advancing social and emotional learning when they invite their students engage critically as well as creatively with the subject material around which they construct their dramas. To accomplish this, teachers provide learning activities which help to invite thinking from a range of perspectives – that is, they use the material as a platform for critical enquiry into social health issues. They are not only concerned with the aesthetic quality of the students’ constructions but also deliberately select drama conventions which invite students to detect and deconstruct the influence of social norms on attitudes and behaviour, and in this become socially critical art-makers (Cahill, 2014). To advance social and emotional well-being through drama, the teacher aims to ensure that the approach is:

  

Connective – promotes a sense of belonging through interaction and participation. Protective – addresses needs for inclusion, positive regard, and freedom from stigma or hierarchy. And invites Perspective – uses learning activities which prompt socially critical analysis of social health issues.

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Overview of research about the contribution of SEL to wellbeing and academic outcomes Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the term used to describe teaching and learning programmes which set out to explicitly teach key capabilities of selfawareness, social awareness, and the associated self-regulation, communication, decision-making and positive coping skills (Payton, Wardlaw et al., 2000). It can be useful for drama educators to engage with an overview of some of the research around school-based approaches to promoting personal and social capabilities, as this research demonstrates ways in which positive outcomes can be accomplished and measured. There is a very substantial and growing body of research that demonstrates the positive contribution that social and emotional learning (SEL) programmes can make to student well-being and academic attainment (Payton, Weissberg et al., 2008; Durlak, 2016; Espelage, Rose et al., 2016). This includes positive outcomes such as reductions in mental health problems and harmful health behaviours such as risk-taking with alcohol and other drugs. Research also demonstrates that participating in SEL programmes can improve students’ sense of belonging and connectedness to peers (Catalano, Haggerty et al., 2004; Midford, Cahill et al., 2017) and lead to more positive teacher-student relationships (Poulou, 2016). SEL programmes can also help to reduce bullying. A meta-analysis of research studies found reductions in bullying of around 20% to 23% following participation in SEL programmes (Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). The provision of social and emotional learning programmes in high schools has also accomplished reduced rates of engagement in cyberbullying, homophobic teasing and sexual harassment (Espelage, Low et al., 2015). It is not surprising then, that following a comprehensive review of SEL research, the OECD argues that all education systems should invest in this form of education. Indeed, the OECD names social and emotional capabilities as amongst the 21st Century Skills, key to well-being, learning and future employability (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2015).

The power of method Research into effective SEL programmes shows that the teaching method is as important as the content, with use of collaborative learning strategies being central to the effectiveness of well-being education programmes (Herbert & Lohrmann, 2011). Indeed, simply using collaborative learning strategies within other disciplinary areas has demonstrated positive results for students, including higher academic attainment results, and better social health outcomes (Natvig, Albrektsen et al., 2003). Research also demonstrates that students who are provided with opportunities to engage in collaborative learning activities are more likely to ask teachers and peers for help in relation to violence and bullying (Eliot, Cornell et al. 2010). This indicates that provision of opportunities for collaborative or social forms of learning advances the growth of relational support and connectedness amongst students.

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Given that drama educators chiefly employ collaborative learning methods, it can be readily argued that their classes provide a particularly rich opportunity to enhance the social and emotional capabilities of their students. In addition, the drama class can also provide opportunity for enquiry into the human condition, via its study of character, context, story and the dynamic of human interaction. Hence drama educators can harness both the pedagogical method of the subject and the thematic focus of their lessons to advance the social and emotional learning of their students. A focus on method is of central interest to drama educators, as they regularly consider how best to call upon different dramatic conventions to evoke social, cognitive and aesthetic engagement. The following section draws attention to some of the different ways drama conventions can be used to provide opportunity for students to i) construct descriptive accounts through which to share their experiences; ii) engage in experiential learning to explore predicaments and challenges; iii) rehearse key relational life skills within their experiential learning; and iv) engage in socially critical thought within and about the drama. In doing this, attention is drawn to the importance of considering the relationship between method and content when using drama to build social and emotional capabilities. Key approaches to using drama to promote social and emotional well-being include:

   

Drama for description: Students develop their capacity to explore the workings of the social world when they devise scenarios, which examine relational challenges. Drama for experiential learning: Students build self and social awareness when the drama provides them with the opportunity to imaginatively and empathetically engage with experience. Drama as rehearsal for life: Students build their communicative and cognitive capabilities when the drama provides opportunities to practice ways to respond to challenging social situations. Drama for critical thinking: Students engage critically with social norms that affect well-being and health-related choices when the drama is used to promote critical enquiry into those social patterns and practices that precede and exceed individual biographies.

Drama for description The drama class provides an opportunity for students to describe their experiences, and to use their storying to explore issues. Conventions such as the freeze frame, and improvised naturalistic role-play provide opportunity for students to show, as well as tell about, their worlds. In this, drama methods can be used to elicit the voices of children and young people on matters of concern

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to them. This can position them as key informants reporting on matters of importance to them. The process of documenting experience through enactment can provide opportunity for students to experience the validation of recognition and to be prompted to engage with the stories and experiences of others. This effort to engage with both self and others can promote the key capabilities of self-awareness and social awareness. Despite the central importance of storying in the drama class, research in the field of narrative enquiry alerts educators to be mindful that storying is not an ‘innocent’ practice. Rather, storying is culturally informed, and thus political in nature. Within her substantial work on use of narrative in research, Elliott notes the influence that genre and structure in storying can influence the construction of meaning (Elliott, 2005). She points out that the recounting of events in a sequence suggests a causal relationship between the events, and thus the location of the beginning, middle and end of the story influences the meaning that is constructed. In particular, the choice of ending retrospectively casts meaning upon the tale. Using insights from narrative theory, a drama teacher would remain alert to the tendency for tellers to exaggerate a tale in order to achieve a heightened dramatic effect. Elliott cautions that the pressure to construct a ‘tellable tale’ can lead to telling of worst-case scenarios, which can then lead to an unhelpful exaggeration of the prevalence or impact of social problems. For example, in constructing a scenario about bullying, students may be drawn to depict an extreme example rather than one of the more common but covert forms of bullying such as those involving exclusion, name-calling or teasing. When constructing their dramas, they might inadvertently demonise a ‘bully’, pathologise a ‘victim’ or glorify a ‘hero’, simply because villains, victims and heroes occupy structural and well-recognised positions within a cultural tradition of storytelling. Alert to this phenomena, drama teachers might have their students experiment with genre in order to note the ways that the choice of genre and structure might position the audience differently. For example, they might note invitational meta-messages such as: empathise with this (realism); see the ridiculous nature of this pattern of behaviour (parody); see how considering one event in the light on another helps use engage with complexity (juxtaposition); or re-think what you had assumed (flashback). When working to maximise the contribution of drama to story experience, the teacher can also help the class to work analytically with their constructions. Here it is useful to consider the use of questioning during the post-performance discussion phase. A teacher might use reality testing questions to ask about accuracy: Is this how it usually happens? or about frequency: How often do these things happen in everyday life? They might invite critical thinking through use of questions about focus and framing: Whose point of view is privileged in this scene? What might be seen if the story was told from the perspective of another character? The teacher’s questioning style and intent can make a major contribution towards assisting students to think more analytically about the work that their stories are doing, and have them reflect critically on the impact of their stories.

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Drama for experiential and embodied learning Empathy is a key element of emotional literacy. Drama educators have long argued that empathetic engagement with others can be augmented through participation in role (Edmiston, 1996; Cockett, 1997; Donelan, 2002; Ackroyd, 2007). Naturalistic performance conventions can provide an important mode through which students experientially engage with a role or situation not typically available to them. This embodied thinking, feeling and interacting in role can help to develop empathy, insight and compassion. To additionally foster critical thought through experiential engagement, the teacher may need to consider a possible drift towards reductive stereotyping that can occur when students play ‘others’, and the tendency to over-claim the knowledge produced as a result of the experience. Use of the provisional voice can be helpful in signalling that conclusions made following experiential learning are theories or insights rather than facts. For example, when the teacher asks ‘What might it be like to be in that situation?’, rather than ‘What is it like to be in that situation?’, they signal that it is appropriate to speculate rather than to conclude. Use of the provisional voice leaves open the likelihood that there may be other possibilities. The combination of experiential learning and lateral and speculative thinking can promote recognition of diversity and difference. Recognition of difference is a key social capability, as it underpins tolerance, inclusion and respect. Drama for rehearsal for life Drama strategies also offer a means through which to intentionally ‘rehearse for life’, and to try out ways to conduct one’s self within challenging relational situations. Naturalistic improvisations or simulations offer a dynamic way to rehearse relationship skills. Key relationships skills include the capacity to empathise, to be able to communicate one’s views, needs and preferences, and to be able to share, negotiate and problem-solve with others. The dynamic nature of improvised dramatic play offers opportunity for both action and interaction. The co-created nature of an improvisation closely replicates the intra-connected nature of social relations experienced in everyday life, and thus offers opportunities to develop skills in contexts which provide similar constraints as those that must be dealt with in life. Whilst naturalistic strategies offer strong modalities through which to explore or rehearse for life-like situations, they can have some limitations, for example when portrayals default to the presentation of types which over-simplify people’s positions, and identities. The resultant portrayals may then inadvertently demonise, pathologise or overly glamorise certain characters (Cahill, 2013). In seeking to interrupt this trend, there are many strategies the teacher can use to help students examine a character more deeply, whilst also applying rigour to development of their drama skills. Application of conventions such as role swap, rewind, replay and fast-forward all provide this opportunity. For

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example, students working in dyads can be asked to swap roles, rewind and replay in order to gain insight and extend skills. Forum theatre techniques are one mode through which drama teachers can frame such efforts (Boal, 1985). These techniques allow for a provocation or problem to be presented in an initial scenario, and for it to be replayed multiple times with a range of actors experimenting with different response strategies as they attempt to deal with an ‘oppression’ or the presenting problem. However, use of the forum theatre convention can be interleaved with opportunities for all students to move from the spectator position to the actor position. For example, teachers may arrange for pairs or small groups to simultaneously try out some of the suggested strategies, so as to experience for themselves what it might take to carry them out, and what effects they may have on others. Use of conventions like coaching from observers, or ‘crowd sourcing’ advice for a character can elicit suggestions about how to manage an interaction. The addition of techniques in which participants experiment with enacting a range of the sets of advice allows participants both to explore their potential to improve a given situation, and to provide a chance to rehearse the communicative skills needed to carry out the interaction. Drama for critical thinking Critical thinking is a key skill for health and well-being as it is the capacity people use to assist them in detecting and challenging the ways in which certain social norms and expectations might lead to harmful practices. For example, a critical engagement with the ways gender norms are reinforced through media and advertising can assist young people in identifying the social pressures that lead to body image distress (O’Dea, 2000). Critical thinking activities are needed to detect and disrupt dominant storylines. Playing a scenario within a purely linear logic may suggest the inevitability of certain actions, and fail to reveal all the micro moments in which actions could have taken a different turn due to the choices of any of the characters. However, drama educators have a wide spectrum of non-naturalistic performance conventions to call upon to slow down this linear progression, to investigate what is driving behaviour, or to explore different possible choice lines available to the characters (Cahill, 2011). Many of these conventions derive from non-naturalistic theatre traditions, such as surrealism. These conventions may overtly break the fourth wall of the drama by working across the boundary of the fiction. For example, the method of stopping the play to interview the characters, or inviting them to use soliloquy to address their audience about the drama, before returning to its progressing narrative. Use of thought tracking or hidden thoughts conventions, whereby the additional players are asked to identify what a character might have been thinking or feeling, but not saying in the interaction, can evoke multiplicity of desires, fears and expectations which propel the character. Use of various alter-ego devices can help to humanise the different subject positions, and interrupt a tendency towards portrayal of narrow types (Cahill, 2014).

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Other conventions which help to evoke critical thinking within the drama include those that disrupt the rules of reality by allowing anything that is imaginable to happen. For example, the genre of the dream or nightmare can be used, or objects or animals can become key characters. Using these modes of play can invite more distanced perspectives, with key characters sufficiently removed from the linear narrative to become commentators or analysts who comment on patterns and causes, thus providing a more socially critical view. For example, when in role as the items in the playground (the school bench, the rubbish bin and the tree), characters can comment on the types of bullying they see in the playground, offer theories about why it happens, and suggestions as to what can be done about it (Cahill, 2005). This provides more of a system-level view than is possible within a naturalistic scenario which depicts the actual bullying interaction. This use of anthropological distancing can also encourage a less judgemental view on events and interactions by inviting attention to the patterned nature of certain phenomena, and the multiple causal factors that interact to produce certain patterns.

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE Informed by the previous discussion, the following unit of work has been devised to exemplify the use of a range of different drama conventions to engage students in an exploration of school-yard bullying. It illustrates ways in which each of the conventions can frame different kinds of thinking work, inviting students to variously use the drama to depict and describe, to experience a range of situations, to rehearse key communication skills, and to think from multiple perspectives as they analyse and critique the influences on social behaviour. In this, the learning activities exemplify ways in which a class might simultaneously be at work to develop their social and emotional capabilities and their creative and aesthetic capabilities.

Peer power AGE OF STUDENTS: 12–15 AIMS: To explore ways in which

different drama conventions can be used to illuminate the impact of school-yard bullying MATERIALS: Space to move, pens and paper CONTEXT: This series of activities is designed to be delivered across a number of drama lessons, and to culminate in a short devised performance to share with fellow students. It aims to use drama as a medium through which to examine the harmful effects of bullying, to highlight the contribution that peers can make to preventing bullying, and to use theatre as a strategy for the promotion of respectful and inclusive relationships between students.

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Session 1 Bullying and belonging In this session students play the Gang Greetings game as a warmup. This game invites students to co-create simple movement routines, thus building their physical devising skills. Its generative energy and the structure of mixing students between multiple dyads and small groups is used to help build a sense of social connection in the class. Following the game, students use freeze frames to depict key forms of bullying. Reality testing questions are then used to assist them in identifying the more common types of bullying practices that can happen in the school setting. The questions are devised to help interrogate any inadvertent default towards depicting only the more extreme forms of bullying in order to achieve the dramatic effect of a tellable tale, and to orient the students to a more fine-grained documentation of the phenomenon. 1a Gang Greetings game Method for the Gang Greetings game: a

b

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Ask group to walk around the classroom. When teacher says ‘stop’ they take a nearby person as their partner. This person is Partner Number 1. Each pair has about one minute to make up and practise a special greeting in the form of a handshake, or special movement or sign. The greeting is the sign that they belong to the same special group. It should include a sound as well as a form of physical contact. Ask the pairs to practise their greeting a few times. Then ask them to walk around in the space. When the teacher says ‘stop’ they are to find Partner 1 as quickly as they can and do their special greeting. Once this is done, mix the group again. Now the students must find a new partner. This is Partner Number 2. Together the new pair design a completely new greeting. Give one minute to practise it a few times. Ask them to move on. When the teacher says ‘stop’ again they are to find Partner Number 2 and do that greeting. Then they must find their Partner Number 1 and complete that greeting. Repeat with another round, but in the final round have them form a group of four and do the greeting for the four people to do together.

Key questions to use post-game: Reflection and critical analysis after the game is used to activate its power as a metaphor for life. The suggested discussion of the key messages of the game is used to open an enquiry into the human need for connectedness and belonging, and to highlight the hurt that can be caused by practices of exclusion. Questioning awakens critical thinking, and provides a

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chance for students to articulate positive values and positive intent towards others.  

  

In what ways does this game remind you of things that can happen in everyday life? What can it be like when you don’t know whether you will find a group to belong to? Where or when in life can similar anxieties happen? How do these practices and anxieties play out in use of social media? What difference does it make when you know who your group is, and that they will welcome your arrival? What can we do in this class to make sure that everyone feels included, and can mix with anyone else in the room? To what extent do you think that warmup games like this can help us build this spirit and practice of inclusion?

1b Focus on behaviour Ask students to work in small groups to devise two freeze frames, one showing exclusion bullying, and a second showing verbal bullying. Also aim to demonstrate the effect of the bullying in each of the images. Here the freeze frame convention provides a way to use drama for the description of experience. Provide a few minutes for them to construct their image. Arrange for a viewing of the images. Invite students to identify the different design decisions that helped to clearly communicate to the audience that the bullying act had negative effects. Invite them to identify the design decisions which contributed to the affective or communicative power of the images. For example, invite them to comment on physical placement, use of levels and angles, gaze, focus, evocation of setting, and emotional energy. 1c Reality test the scenarios Use reality testing questions to invite students to compare the images to everyday realities of school life. Remind them to comment in general, rather than to name specific persons or incidents. Emphasise that this is done to preserve the right to respect for all parties. Ask:   

To what extent did these images represent the most commonly occurring forms of bullying? Are there more common forms that were not represented in these images (e.g. forms of covert bullying, or the use of cyberbullying)? How might these forms of bullying be conveyed to an audience using a freeze frame?

Advancing social and emotional well-being

Session 2 Exploring actions and reactions Use a combination of the Mirror Game and the Robot and Controller Game to introduce the notion of power relations. The Mirror game evokes the image of respectful partnering, as each member of the dyad must attune to the capacity of the other. The Robot and Controller game evokes the dehumanising effect of exercises of power which objectify the subjugated party. Use a mapping activity to help to identify the spectrum of behaviours or actions that people use to enact bullying, and the possible emotions, and embodied sensations that may be felt by the victim of bullying. Use a combination of naturalistic portrayal and alter-ego conventions to explore the possible effects of bullying on victims and witnesses. 2a The Mirror game Method for the Mirror game Arrange for students to stand facing each other in pairs. One will be the lead, and the other the ‘Mirror’ who will copy the movements. Arrange to swap leader and reflection part way through the exercise. Ask students to remember what it was like to play this game, so as to compare it with the following game. 2b The Robot and Controller game Method for the Robot and Controller game Arrange for students to stand facing each other in pairs. The Controller leads the Robot, using the palm of his/her hand. The Robot must keep his/her nose the same distance from the palm of the Controller’s hand. Thus where the palm of the hand goes, the nose will follow. Swap roles part way through the game. Key questions to use post-game Reflection and critical analysis after the game makes use of its power as a metaphor for life. Comparison between the different embodiments of the two games awakens attention to power as it exists in relations. This evokes critical thinking, and provides a chance for students to articulate the ways in which power relations can play out in relationships. Ask: 

In what ways do these two games remind you of relationships that happen in everyday life?

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What is it like in relationships when power relations are relatively equal (like in the Mirror game) and people tune in to each other? What is it like when the one in power pays little attention to the effect of their actions on another (like in the Robot and Controller game)?

2c Body mapping Ask students to work in groups, and draw the outline of a human body on a large sheet of paper. Ask them to record any behaviour or act that is a form of bullying around the outside of the body, and to name any of the emotions or bodily sensations that can arise in response to bullying on the inside of the body. Once done, they will have completed their body mapping. This will assist them in developing a language to describe bullying as a set of behaviours, which can be chosen or not, rather than to default to labelling the ‘bully’ as a particular identity or character type. Explain that, when constructing a scene, actors are enriched when they know what action or behaviour they are exhibiting, what their motivation or intent is, and what their emotional and embodied reaction is to the actions of others. Emphasise that a character may have multiple intentions for an action, and multiple emotions which co-exist. Characters with depth have multiplicity. Shallow characters are narrow, or show only singular emotions or intentions. Encourage them to draw on this material when preparing their allocated naturalistic scenario. 2d Showing is more than telling Ask students to work in groups to depict a common type of bullying. To structure the performance, ask them to provide three or four freeze frames to show the key moments in the scenario. Arrange for each of these freeze frames to come to life with short snippets of dialogue. Ensure that only short key moments at the beginning, middle and end of the scenario are shown in action. Controlling the time and structure of the replay of offensive behaviours can help the actor to stay in control, and prevent positioning the audience to find the violence the most engaging moment of the drama. This can also help to avoid use of violence as a source of audience gratification rather than the point at which to begin exploration. During the frozen moments between the sections of action, provide players who will voice the hidden thoughts of the key characters, speaking their fears, hopes and desires. Ensure that the hidden thoughts characters provide insights into the all the key persons, including the victim, the bully and the observers. This can help to interrupt the binary between victim and bully, and show that all characters have motivations, and options.

Advancing social and emotional well-being Allocate time for students to prepare and rehearse their scenarios, and then to present them in a sequence designed to develop insight into the phenomena. Following the performances, discuss with the class which sections of the scenarios worked to effectively illustrate the complexity and depth of each of the character positions in the scenarios.

Session 3 Using drama for deconstruction Play the Animals game to energise players, and to introduce the use of the heightened physicality which will be required within the following performance conventions. Students then use physical theatre conventions to depict and explore the patterned nature of bullying practices. They perform in the style of an allocated animal, so as to heighten and highlight the patterned nature of bullying and its effects. Students compare the affective and aesthetic impact of naturalistic and non-naturalistic performance conventions. They also engage with the patterned nature of bullying and the common characteristic of bullying as an abuse of power. 3a Animals game Method for the Animals game Sit the class on chairs in a circle. Have one person without a chair stand in the middle of the circle. Number everyone off as Chickens, Tigers and Apes. Explain that when the person in the middle calls a particular category, all members of that category must move to another seat. They must make the sound of their animal and use its movement style as they move. The person standing tries to get one of the empty seats, to leave another player in the middle. On the call of ‘Animals’ everyone must change seats. Play a few rounds of the game. Questions to use post-game  

How did the allocation of the animal inform the movements used by the players? What can it contribute to the audience when the player uses heightened physicality to communicate actions and reactions?

3b Animalise Put students in groups of around four members. Ask them to choose one of the three animal categories: Chickens, Tigers Apes and request that they prepare to perform their scene as if that animal. They should use their animal’s will to inform their physicality. (Additional animals could also be selected or assigned.)

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Helen Cahill Set each group to prepare three variations of scene, the first two of which demonstrate a type of bullying in action, and the final of which shows the welcome arrival of a peer. The first scenario should show an arriving individual being teased by the group. The second iteration of the scene shows an arriving individual being completely ignored and excluded by the group. The third iteration shows an arriving individual being welcomed and included by the group. They will perform each version of the three scenarios as if they were the allocated animal. This will mean taking on the physical characteristics, behavioural routines, movements and sounds of the animal. Their interaction will not include human speech, but rather the sounds and movements of their animal. Thus when showing name-calling, as chickens, they will cluck at the victim in a spiteful way. When showing exclusion, they will use chicken-like movements and behaviours to exclude or drive the victim away. When showing welcoming inclusion, they will use their chicken sounds and movements to show this welcome. Once they have prepared these scenarios, they should repeat them in a naturalistic style, and then consider which of them have a more powerful impact – the naturalistic versions, or the stylised versions. Which work most effectively to show that bullying is a behaviour? Which work most effectively to show its impact on those who bully, those who observe, and those who are targeted? Arrange each group to show their scenes in carousel. First the teasing. Second the exclusion. And finally the welcome. Following the performances, discuss with the class the ways in which the peers used their power to include and value or to exclude and diminish the arriving character. Discuss which sections of the scenarios worked to effectively illustrate the power relations and the patterned nature and impact of bullying. Discuss the differences between the naturalistic scenarios and those performed as if animals. Note the ways in which stylised and physical theatre techniques can contribute to the making and sharing of meaning.

Session 4 Devising and dramaturgy In this phase of the work, students practise providing feedback on the work of other groups, They aim to assist them in spotting the strengths in their work, and to identify strategies to evolve their concepts and practise towards performance. They consider the ways in which the choice of performance genre influences the meaning that is created, and what is communicated to an audience. 4a Shaping performance concepts Arrange for each group of students to shape scenarios they would like to evolve and prepare their concept to present to another group. Encourage

Advancing social and emotional well-being them to draw on the material generated within the games and drama conventions they have engaged in. They may wish to use their freeze frames, dynamisations and hidden thoughts, or their scenarios played as if animals. They may wish to include multiple forms of bullying such as exclusion, name-calling, spreading false rumours, denigration of identities based on race, body, religion or social class. They may also wish to consider whether interactions shown will include the virtual and the embodied. 4b Think like a dramaturg Arrange for each group to present their concepts, and snippets of their scenes to another group. Invite students to think like a dramaturg about the work of the group they have observed. Give them time to provide feedback to their assigned group. Ask them to consider and comment on:    

Which elements in their scenes most clearly illustrated the actions that constitute the various practices of bullying? Which elements in their scenes most clearly showed an audience the impact of bullying? Which performance decisions most powerfully engaged the audience? What advice would you give them about what to value and retain, and what to heighten or review in crafting their performance?

Session 5 Planning and rehearsing ‘Peer Power’ In this phase of the work, students engage with feedback, make performance decisions, and rehearse for a performance. They work variously in the roles of director and actors as they evolve their piece for performance. Allocate time for students to work as devisors, directors and actors, as they plan how to enhance their material for performance and rehearse for performance.

Session 6 Performing ‘Peer Power’ and identifying learning outcomes In this phase of the work, students identify and invite an appropriate audience for their work. They perform for the audience, and engage in a post-performance discussion with the audience about key themes in the work. They complete the unit with an evaluation and de-brief, with their teacher and classmates, identifying the strategies that have contributed to their drama learning and to their social and emotional learning.

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Summing up This chapter has illustrated that the teacher has a range of drama conventions available to assist them in leading the class in exploration of social health issues. Through strategic and purposeful selection of dramatic conventions, the teacher can variously provide opportunities for sharing of experience, for learning through experiential experimentation, for social skill development, for problem-solving and for critical thought. They can simultaneously build student familiarity with different theatre genres and performance traditions, and can highlight the relationship between form and content in the devising of material, and consideration of its impact on an audience.

References Ackroyd, J. (2007). Real play, real feelings and issues of protection: Drama in education beyond the classroom. Drama Australia Journal (NJ), 31(1), 23–32. Boal, A. (1985). Theatre of the oppressed. New York: Theatre Communications Group. Cahill, H. (2003). Using role-play techniques to enhance engagement in the health class: Issues and strategies. Health Education Australia Journal, 3(2), 17–23. Cahill, H. (2005). Profound learning: Drama partnerships between adolescents and tertiary students. Drama Australia Journal (NJ), 29(2), 59–72. Cahill, H. (2011). Drama for deconstruction. Youth Theatre Journal, 25(1), 16–31. Cahill, H. (2012). Form and governance: Considering the drama as a ‘technology of the self’. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 17(3), 405–424. Cahill, H. (2013). Drama for health and human relationships education: Aligning purpose and design. In M. Anderson & J. Dunn (Eds.), How drama activates learning: Contemporary research and practice (pp. 176–190). London: Bloomsbury. Cahill, H. (2014). Promoting critical thinking within the drama: using theory to guide practice. Applied Theatre Research, 2(2), 151–164. Cahill, H. (2014). Withholding the personal story: Using theory to orient practice in applied theatre about HIV and human rights. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 19(1), 23–38. Cahill, H. (2015). Rethinking role-play for health and wellbeing: Creating a pedagogy of possibilty. In K. Wright and J. McLeod (Eds.), Rethinking youth wellbeing: Critical perspectives (pp. 127–142). Singapore: Springer. Cahill, H. & Coffey, J. (2013). Young people and the ‘Learning Partnerships’ program: Shifting negative attitudes to help-seeking. Youth Studies Australia, 32(4), 1–9. Cahill, H. & Coffey, J. (2015). Positioning, participation and possibility: Using poststructural concepts for social change in Asia-Pacific youth HIV prevention. Journal of Youth Studies, 19(4), 1–9. Catalano, R. F., Haggerty, K. P., Oesterle, S., Fleming, C. B. & Hawkins, J. D. (2004). The importance of bonding to school for healthy development: Findings from the Social Development Research Group. Journal of School Health, 74(7), 252–261. Cockett, S. (1997).Drama, myth and parable: Problem-solving and problem-knowing. Research in Drama Education, 2(1), 7–19.

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Donelan, K. (2002). Engaging with the other: Drama, and intercultural education. Melbourne Studies in Education, 43(2), 26–38. Durlak, J. A. (2016). Programme implementation in social and emotional learning: Basic issues and research findings. Cambridge Journal of Education, 46(3), 333–345. Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D. and Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students’ social and Emotional Learning: A metaAnalysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1), 405–432. Edmiston, B. (1996). Discovering right actions: Forging ethical understandings through dialogic interactions. In P. Taylor & C. Hoepper (Eds.), IDEA ’95 papers: Selected readings in drama and theatre education (pp. 114–125). Brisbane: IDEA Publications. Eliot, M., D. Cornell, Gregory, A. & Fan, X. (2010). Supportive school climate and student willingness to seek help for bullying and threats of violence. Journal of School Psychology, 48(6), 533–553. Elliott, J. (2005). Using narrative in social research: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. London: Sage. Espelage, D., Low, S., Van Ryzin, M. & Polanin, J. R. (2015). Clinical trial of second step middle school program: Impact on bullying, cyberbullying, homophobic teasing and sexual harassment perpetration. School Psychology Review, 44(4), 464–479. Espelage, D. L., Rose, C. A. & Polanin, J. R. (2016). Social-emotional learning program to promote prosocial and academic skills among middle school students with disabilities. Remedial and Special Education, 37(6), 323–332. Herbert, P. C. & Lohrmann, D. K. (2011). It’s all in the delivery! An analysis of instructional strategies from effective health education curricula. Journal of School Health, 81(5), 258–264. Hong, S. J. & Espelage, D. L. (2012). A review of research on bullying and peer victimization in school: An ecological system analysis. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 17(4), 311–322. Midford, R., Cahill, H., Geng, G., Leckning, B., Robinson, G. & Ava, A. T. (2017). Social and emotional education with Australian Year 7 and 8 middle school students: A pilot study. Health Education Journal, 76(3), 362–372. Midford, R., Cahill, H., Lester, L., Ramsden, R., Foxcroft, D. & Venning, L. (2018). Alcohol prevention for school students: Results from a one year follow up of a cluster randomized controlled trial of harm minimization school drug education. Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy, 25(1), 88–96. Midford, R., Ramsden, R., Lester, L., Cahill, H., Mitchell, J., Foxcroft, D. & Venning, L. (2015). Alcohol prevention and school students: findings from an Australian 2-year trial of integrated harm minimization school drug education. Journal of Drug Education, 44(3–4), 71–94. Natvig, G. K., Albrektsen, G. & Qvarnstrom, U. (2003). Methods of teaching and class participation in relation to perceived social support and stress: Modifiable factors for improving health and wellbeing among students. Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology, 23(3), 261–274. O’Dea, J. (2000). School-based interventions to prevent eating problems: First do no harm. Eating Disorders, 8(2), 123–130. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2015). Skills for social progress: The power of social and emotional skills. OECD Skills Studies. Paris: OECD Publishing. Payton, J. W., Wardlaw, D. M., Graczyk, P. A., Bloodworth, M. R., Tompsett, C. J. & Weissberg, R. P. (2000). Social and emotional learning: A framework for promoting

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mental health and reducing risk behavior in children and youth. Journal of School Health, 70(5), 179–185. Payton, J. W., Weissberg, R. P., Durlak, J. A., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D. & Schellinger, K. B. (2008). The positive impact of social and emotional learning for kindergarten to eighth-grade students: Findings from three scientific reviews. Chicago: Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. Poulou, M. (2016). Social and emotional learning and teacher-student relationships: Preschool teachers’ and students’ perceptions. Early Childhood Education Journal, 45, 427–435. Sugai, G. & Horner, R. R. (2006). A promising approach for expanding and sustaining school-wide positive behavior support. School Psychology Review, 35(2), 245–259. Ttofi, M. & Farrington, D. (2011). Effectiveness of school-based programs to reduce bullying: A systematic and meta-analytic review. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 7(1), 27–56.

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‘I am just talking and talking. I have to stop, but this is so funny’ Stories from immigrant students in drama classes Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir and Hafdís Guðjónsdóttir

Introduction Over the last two decades, the shift in the demographics and the growth of migration in Iceland is leading to increased population of pupils with different ethnic, linguistic and family backgrounds in Icelandic schools. This means that educational practices must place emphasis on multicultural education, secondlanguage teaching and inclusive education (Banks, 2007; Nieto, 2003). Already, a number of programmes address issues of diversity, and multicultural education has been implemented in Icelandic schools over recent decades (Guðjónsdóttir et al., 2018), but there is still work to do. The main goal of inclusive education is to use ways to educate all pupils successfully, thus working against discrimination and leading to a socially just society where everyone is a valid participant (Slee, 2011). Likewise, multicultural education builds on fairness and equity, considers the multiple purposes of education and looks at the role of schooling in a democratic society. Both inclusive and multicultural education consolidate that all pupils should have equal opportunities to learn at school, irrespective of their gender, social class, ethnic, racial, or cultural characteristics (Banks, 2007; Guðjónsdóttir et al., 2018). Thus, one of the major challenges for teachers in modern times is the continuous search for pedagogy and approaches to cater for the diverse groups of pupils in inclusive schools. Teaching strategies that create flexible learning environment, emphasise pupil choice, cooperation and independence give diverse pupils opportunities to be active agents in their education (Hart et al., 2007). Opening up learning spaces involving drama is one possible way to meet the diversity, to create space for active learning and to build trust between students, and between the students and the teacher. In this chapter we will introduce how we have been developing drama-teaching methods with teachers and groups of multicultural pupils. These methods were developed with teachers teaching at a pre-school and a lower secondary school; both practices had a high percentage of immigrant pupils having Icelandic as a second language. The purpose of this study was to explore how drama-teaching methods can be used and developed to help multicultural groups of pupils learn a new language and about their environment. The aim of the narrative inquiry was to

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gain understanding and knowledge that would bring to light the learning and development for the teacher and the pupils. To reach our aim we chose to use a narrative inquiry because we felt that it would give us insights into the practices at these schools. We believed that the form of narratives and stories would allow us to understand how teachers use drama-teaching methods and how pupils act to them

Diversity Cultural diversity has become a fact in modern societies and it is a globally challenging project, which calls for increasing equality in multicultural societies (Parekh, 2006; Ragnarsdóttir, 2007). Each country has to seek a balance in society with open conversations between groups and individuals to get equal access and opportunity for all people. Where people are treated equally they are more satisfied. Among the factors that are necessary to investigate when creating a school environment that promotes students of diverse origins are methods of group formation, social conditions at school and employee expectations for student achievement. Attitudes towards immigrants have a major impact on how a policy is formulated in each country. In a discussion from findings from a study with ten immigrant families in Iceland, Ragnarsdóttir (2008) argues that some of the reasons for the lack of success of immigrant children in schools in Iceland are related to feelings. If children experience not being appreciated or valued and a sense of not belonging, they can build low self-esteem. When there is a lack of knowledge of multicultural education in schools and lack of cooperation between homes and schools it also affects students’ self-esteem. Bearing this in mind the teacher uses a variety of teaching methods to augmenting the immigrants’ self-esteem and decreases their feeling of isolation.

Drama and language learning Bringing drama into the classroom may seem an unusual strategy for boosting the speaking skills of immigrant children who speak another language at home. According to Somers (1996) creative drama activities can help children improve their fluency in a new language. It also helps because drama gives students opportunities to participate in different roles and situate themselves as all kinds of persons using various methods (Jeppesen & Ragnarsdóttir, 2004; Somers, 1996). One way to build students’ vocabulary is to immerse them in a rich array of language experiences so they learn through literary activities, as Graves (2006) point out. He adds that it is important to repeat words when students are learning new words so they become familiar to the student. Language learners face challenges in today’s classrooms, because they often have a strong focus on written work (Óskarsdóttir et al., 2014). To improve their language skills, the immigrant children need frequent opportunities to engage in verbal interactions. Drama can create learning spaces for children to

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learn through active participation instead of memorising vocabulary and studying grammar. It uses language as an authentic method of communication and by using words from daily life for interactions between students it sustains the target language. The learners become active participants in social roles and relations (Kao & O’Neill, 1998). The language that arises is fluent, purposeful and generative because it is embedded in context. Drama has helped multicultural students, especially when teachers use process drama. Process drama is a method of teaching and learning where both the students and teacher are working in and out of role. Piazzoli (2014) argues that the intervention of process drama pedagogy contributes to reduce a degree of language anxiety within language learners. In her findings, participants with a tendency towards language anxiety benefited from the affective space generated by process drama. Her findings indicate that process drama enabled the students to speak more spontaneously through the role; dramatic tension and authentic contexts provided a stimulating environment to communicate. Hence it could be worth encouraging teachers to venture into an imaginative world and create a learning space for their students through drama.

Imagination In their study, Roskos and Christie (2001) proposed that imagination games can play an important role in language stimulation, especially if the game promotes diverse language use. Then the children play different roles in their imagination and use vocabulary related to their roles at each time. During imagination games they often forget who they are and talk and talk. According to Vygotsky (1967) social development occurs through children’s imagination. He believed that imaginary play is extremely useful for the development of children. Play promoted formal operations and made the children aware of the society in which they live and the rules, customs and practices that are valued in the society. The children set their potential social conditions in the game as they have to deal with problems without encountering them in real life. Playing imaginary games makes students live the experience of being transported to elaborately simulated places. Entering these regulated spaces that differ from the ordinary, the students feel surrounded by another reality upon which they can also project their feelings; here they can become involved in situations that elicit their emotions, and can acquire knowledge more safely (Antonacci, Bertolo & Mariani, 2017). The game establishes a special space and time which, to a certain extent, are separated from the ordinary life: a circle that circumscribes, delineates and protects the game activity (Montola, Stenros & Waern, 2009; Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). In this sense, the game can encourage an effective educational experience; players can have experiences that they are precluded from in their ordinary life. They are allowed to play other roles and be in others’ shoes. Hence it is easier to comment behind a mask in some form; it provides protection, stands between the student and reality so that it is easier to go beyond the boundaries (Jeppesen &

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Ragnarsdóttir, 2004). It is important to use drama methods in schools and when dealing with very shy students drama can be useful. Improvisation is a method where pupils can easily forget themselves and talk and talk because they are not themselves but other persons (O’Toole & Stinson, 2013).

Cooperation One of the ways in which multiculturalism can be pursued is through cooperation, with the aim of enhancing social competencies, teaching students to support each other, increasing self-confidence and identity (Schmuck & Schmuck, 2001). However the teacher needs to support the students to interact and work together. When teachers organise learning spaces through collaboration it not only enables the students to learn from each other but also to keep the responsibility for the tasks they have to complete and the decisions they have to make. By respecting, listening and supporting each other the students learn to find solutions to different problems through collaboration (Gillies, 2008). Children that work together tend to find better solutions and show more success than those who work alone (Shaffer, 2002; Vygotsky, 1978). According to Neelands (1984) the most important contribution that drama makes to many schools is the influence it has on the school culture. For him active participation in drama can enhance skills of citizenship, which must be of importance for immigrant students as well as other students. Cahill (2010) agrees and points out that drama can enhance students’ sense of connectedness in schools and can nurture a positive classroom environment as drama is often a communal activity and that this shared concern may empower the students. By collaborating, the immigrant students get help and give help depending on the project at any given time, and most importantly they learn to trust the fellow students in their work, because everyone are working together. Methodology and methods The methodological background of this qualitative study was based on participatory research and narrative inquiry. Narrative research is inspired by the view of human experience (Clandinin, 2006), and in our case from our work as we as teachereducator’s work with student teachers at their practicum and with experienced teachers at their field. The form of narratives and stories allowed us insights into participant experiences at school. It also helped us make sense of and evaluate experiences in the past and the present and plan and anticipate future experiences. Narrative inquiry is a way of understanding experiences and therefore it is important to develop collaboration between the researchers and the participants (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Narrative inquiry is a study of how people make meaning of their experience by telling and retelling stories about themselves (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988). Narrative inquiry is a way of understanding experience. Hence, narrative inquiry in education is the study of the meaning teachers make of their experiences of teaching in their classrooms.

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In this study data were collected by field observation and participation. By entering the field we worked alongside participants, dwelled in their stories, investigating the lived experiences of the participants (teachers and pupils) in the presents. The study was conducted from 2015 to 2017. The purpose was to explore how drama-teaching methods can be used and developed to create learning spaces for multicultural groups of pupils were they can learn the new language and about the new environment. The aim of the narrative inquiry was to gain understanding and knowledge that would bring to light the learning and development for the teacher and the pupils. Thus, the research question that drew the inquire was: How can drama-teaching methods support immigrant students learn a new language? The study was conducted in a comprehensive school, grade 8, and in pre-school. As most schools in Iceland, this was a public school for pupils from 6 to 16 years old, all children taught in the same building. The preschool was a public school for children from 1 to 5 years old. Participants were a teacher educator and a researcher from the University of Iceland, collecting data, two student teachers, collecting data, classroom teachers, collecting data, and the pupils. The student teachers were not being evaluated but used some of the data for their master theses. The students participating were, firstly, teenagers, a class of six girls and four boys, immigrants from different countries, and their classroom teacher. Secondly, a class of 5-year-old immigrant children in pre-school along with three preschools teachers. All names are pseudonyms. Data were collected at both compulsory and pre-school levels. We conducted active recording at the research fields by collecting data as we participated in the classroom activities along with the teachers and the students (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). The data were collected through field notes (teacher, teacher educator, researcher and student teacher), videos (researcher), photos (teacher and student teacher), teaching plans (teacher and student teacher), interviews conducted by the researcher and the teacher educator) and through conversations between the teacher educator and the teachers, student teachers and the students. The data were analysed and interpreted from the perspective of narrative inquiry. All data were transcribed and deconstructed by looking for certain themes and sub-themes; this helped us organise specific stories that emerged from the data. The key themes clustered around repeated content are stories of events we experienced when drama methods were used in various ways (Phonenix, 2013). Through the analysing and comparing of multiform data, collected in multiple ways, we saw these events from different perspectives. From there we began to form the narratives. Through the data as we, as the researchers, developed our understanding of pupils’ and the teachers’ experience and by telling and retelling their stories, we began to make meaning of their experience and create our knowledge of their learning process. Permission for conducting the research in the two schools was granted. The principals, the teachers and the parents of the children all signed an informed consent. The pupils all had the opportunity to read their narratives.

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In the next section we will present the narratives that were constructed and deconstructed from the data collection. The narratives shape the findings as we explored how drama-teaching methods could help immigrant students learn a new language. Findings In this chapter the focus is on four narratives that each represents a certain teaching method in drama. Those teaching methods are role-play, improvisation, body language and freeze frame. In working with the immigrant pupils the teachers in this study used different ways of teaching methods in order to respond to their pupils in a meaningful way. The hallmark of drama is that pupils need to solve problems together and come up with a solution and therefore collaboration is interwoven throughout the narratives in this section.

Role-play Using drama methods with pupils of a foreign background or Icelandic as a second language can open up a space for the pupils to talk freely, ask questions and gain a clearer understanding of subjects or the content. One day we observed Stella teach her grade 8 pupils. She was using role-play and created a learning space for them as they are to get in the shoes of another person and brake away from themselves. In doing so they can do things that they usually don’t. One day Stella, the teacher, was working with her teenage immigrants on everyday vocabulary. She asked the pupils to create a situation that was to happen at the airport in their new country. Stella asked three girls to play the act; none of them wanted to do it, but went along with it after some encouragement from the teacher and other pupils. In the situation, they created an incident were a ‘mother’ lost her child at the airport when they got to their new country. She was running around at the airport trying to find it. A cleaning lady approaches her wanting to help: MOTHER: Please, please, I can’t find my baby girl! CLEANING LADY: How old is she? MOTHER: Five (puts up five fingers). CLEANING LADY: I will help you we will find her together. MOTHER: She doesn’t talk a word in English (sobs). CLEANING LADY: Here, have tissues, don’t cry. MOTHER: (in a panic) What … I do? CLEANING LADY: Lets go and get some help. MOTHER: Thank you for being so kind, you good.

[They leave.]

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(to the cleaning lady) Where do you think you are going? You have not finished washing this floor. MOTHER: (angry) This is not fair. Woman is help me finding my baby girl and you are just, you are just thinking of wash floors. Who do you think you are? A baby is more important than a floor. I think you are (tries to find words) … just selfish old man. You not a good man. THE BOSS:

After the play, Stella, the teacher, sat down with her pupils to discuss this experience. Her intention with the task was to give the students the opportunity to use a certain vocabulary but also to give them a space to discuss their feelings about the task. Sulema, the girl who played the mother, was shocked when she finished the play and said: I have never talked like that to anyone! Why did I do that? He just made me so angry (Field notes, 9 October 2014). How the activity turned out also surprised Stella, the teacher, she was not used to hear these pupils express their feelings or use so many words. Sulema, the one that played the mother, had only been in the country for few months. She was shy and did not talk much, but in this dramatic play she completely forgot herself and the words just came out of her like a waterfall. Sulema was angry at the boss and showed feelings from fear to anger. When the play was over, she asked if they could continue! Participating in a role-play the students receive a protection they need when discussing serious matters. It is easier to express yourself if you are behind some kind of a mask; it gives a protection, is situated between the person and the reality and therefore the person can cross the border line as Sulema did when she became angry.

Improvisation Drama methods are useful in schools when working with languages and vocabulary. As the immigrant students became more comfortable in the drama class, it was possible to create more challenging tasks. To better understand what was to become in the lesson we looked through the lesson plan and then prepared our observation. This lesson was structured and in some ways complicated and therefore it was important to collect data in different ways. Stella was working with vocabulary and began by brainstorming asking the students to come up with all the words over things that make them happy and wrote them down on the chalkboard. Next the students prioritised what made them happy and everyone voted going swimming. Going swimming is popular among Icelandic families but surprisingly this was also for these groups of students. Stella decided to work with that activity, focusing on going swimming, and again she brainstormed with the pupils and asked them for all the words they could think of related to swimming. They came up with words like swimming suit, towel, swimming glasses, a brush and many more.

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The students were divided into groups of four and the task was to create an event of going to the swimming pool were the shoes of one of the pupils were stolen. In the improvisation the students created a scene: VIVIAN: Hurry, we are late. CHRISTINA: I forgot the towel. VIVIAN: You borrow mine. CHRISTINA: Lets go swim. VIVIAN: I love swim. CHRISTINA: Lets go to hot top? VIVIAN: (laughs) You mean hot tub! CHRISTINA: Yes, hot tub. VIVIAN: We go to hot tub.

[The swimming pool guardian (Sulema) comes running and tells them that he saw a thief steal the shoes from Vivian.] SULEMA:

Thief, thief, is stealing shoes! He not swimming.

[The girls run and try to catch the thief, but no luck.] VIVIAN: How CHRISTINA: I

can I get home? phone father (she picks up a phone). (Field notes, 10 September 2014)

Although the improvisation is not very long the girls use the vocabulary they were working with; swimming, hot tub and towel. In addition they solve the problem and phone the father of Christina. It would have been nice to hear what the father said, but they didn’t continue and the teacher had to respect that. For sustainability and to make sure that the pupils learn and remember the words, Stella returned to the words related to swimming two days later. This time Stella used a freeze frame game and the students were to guess what was played. Sulema made many suggestions when other students played a gesture, words like, ‘Shower!’ Shampoo! Towels! Hot tub!’ (Interview, 17 September 2014). It was a great pleasure to see that her insecurity seemed to be completely gone. Through this task the students not only enhanced their vocabulary, they were open to talk, and they little by little became proactive in talking and asking questions.

Body language In drama there is emphasise on imagination, the students learn to use their voices in different ways, play diverse persons, and thus their creativity increases. Diana was working with 6-year-old children; 10 out of 15 were immigrants. She was using the teaching method: Mantle of the expert were the children

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worked in an imaginary world, they were in a role as experts. The play was about a crook that the children wanted to save and teach good manners and they played detectives trying to find him. They were very excited, as they had almost caught the crook, Siggi the sour. LUCAS: (to Lási the policeman) Do you have it? POLICEMAN (A TEACHER IN ROLE): Have what? LUCAS: (puts up an imaginary handcuff behind his back) This!! POLICEMAN: You mean the handcuffs! LUCAS: Yes, I mean the handcuffs. POLICEMAN: Handcuffs are useful. LUCAS: Oh, yes, we need handcuffs. Handcuffs for the crook.

(Research journal, 29 November 2018) In their excitement they needed more words, but they didn’t have the vocabulary and therefore they used body language. It was obvious that Lucas was learning the word ‘handcuffs’, as he used the word again and again. In the same drama class, still trying to get the crook, another immigrant boy deep in the imaginary game gasps: Policeman, policeman, we have to … (then he shows imaginary phone and throws it at the policeman) get help. POLICEMAN: Sure, you are right Roberto we need the mobile phone. ROBERTO: Yes, the mobile phone is good. POLICEMAN: Thank you for the mobile phone Roberto. ROBERTO:

Again, a pupil uses body language to describe the word he needs and the teacher draws up on it to reinforce the vocabulary by using the word repeatedly and get the pupil to use it also. Later the teacher in role (the policeman) heard Roberto saying proudly to another child: I did throw a mobile phone to the policeman so he could phone. Here the imagination of the children using body language helped them learn new words. It did not stop them in the imaginary game that they did not have the words to continue the play; instead for a word they used their hands and then learned the word. The teacher consciously reinforced the pupils to learn new words and use them. To create a learning space the teachers have to know their pupils, be well prepared, sensible and follow through the learning that takes place. And that is what we could see happen again and again as the teacher used this drama-teaching method.

Freeze frame In group work, children learn to know and trust each other. They also learn to take into account other people’s feelings, and learn to work together as a group. When working with drama it is often group work, students are offered the opportunity to enter an imaginary world together and deal with various

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problems related to the subject. A class of 7-year-old pupils were working in groups studying landscapes. This is quite amazing to see. All the children work together to create a mountain statue. A freeze frame. There are no words just a gesture and they struggle to form their mountain. They all work together. Collaboration. They are so quick to do this. (Research journal, 25 August 2016) The children were learning about mountains. They worked in groups of four and were asked to create a mountain together with their body. Every group got a picture of their mountain. It was interesting to hear them talk: PETER: Please don’t hurt my back. SOLA: No I will not, I will just touch you calmly, is this all SOLA: Please help Lucas, he doesn’t understand what to do.

right?

They were working together, smiling and trying to make their mountain and so proud and pleased with themselves when they succeeded. I sometimes waited for sentences like: You are not supposed to do like that! Or a sentence like: don’t you understand this! It is common to hear sentences like this, but they didn’t come. Maybe it is because they were having so much fun and were so excited. (Research journal, 25 August 2016) Similar was an example with the teenaged immigrants. It was group-work improvisation and the focus was on activities in daily life. One group was improvising dinner at home. Sulema, who was in that group, played the mother. She was flourishing in drama, and asked again and again if they could continue do a group drama. Often she created a situation where she copied her own family, and made the situation so funny that she was laughing all the time. She seemed to enjoy that and said: I am just talking and talking. I have to stop, but this is so funny. It seemed that by playing her own family a learning space was created. She talked more freely and told the other students stories from her homeland. The findings indicate that as the students took on new and different roles they felt more open to talk and at the same time gained understanding of the subject the teacher was teaching. This suggests that drama methods are helpful teaching immigrant students a new language, but not only that, it also indicates that through drama methods students introduce their culture, their experience and what they are coping with in their daily lives. The narratives reflect their lives and tell a story how they are building new understanding on former experience. These findings indicate that drama can enhance multicultural teaching because it offers different approaches to the same content learning and thus gives the students new opportunities. The narratives suggest that gradually the pupils talk more freely in the drama classroom. At the same time, they gained a better understanding of the subject the teacher was teaching.

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Discussion and conclusion In this study we explored how drama-teaching method can help immigrant students learn a new language. As can be seen in this study, the drama methods used offered students opportunities to learn the language in many different ways. They worked in groups, they commented on different issues and, what is most important, a learning space is created for students where they have opportunities to talk. As other researchers have also learnt we saw that drama offers many opportunities to take on different roles and at the same time give the students a chance to put themselves in the shoes of others (Jeppesen & Ragnarsdóttir, 2004; Somers, 1996). In one of the narratives Sulema created a situation where she drew from experience from her daily life, and that made the situation amusing. She forgot the real situation, and talked and laughed at the same time. Sulema was playing a mother, but used examples from her own family and in so doing a learning space was created. She talked more freely and told the other students exciting things from her homeland. This is in line with findings by O’Toole & Stinson (2013) when working in drama with a shy student; the student forgot himself in the drama lesson and talked and talked. According to Jeppesen and Ragnarsdóttir (2004) it helps students to augment their vocabulary when they have to take on different roles and situate themselves as all kinds of persons using various methods. They talk more freely because they feel they are another person. From another narrative we learn how Stella, the teacher, works on enhancing students’ vocabulary. Through brainstorming she prepared them for the improvisation and collects words the students knew collectively from an activity they like. Drama uses language as an authentic method of communication and by using words from daily life for interactions between students it sustains the target language. In addition to enhancing their vocabulary the students become active participants in social roles and relations (Kao & O’Neill, 1998). We could see both students and teachers use body language to express themselves and try to get messages across. After the boys communicated through gesture the teacher in role repeated the word handcuffs several times. By doing so it was likely that the boys kept the word in their memory. Graves (2006) points out that using gestures and repeating the words are important methods to use when teaching a new language and introducing new words to immigrant students. He recommends repeating the words frequently so it sinks into students’ memory. It can enhance students’ language skills to participate in drama because it calls for a variety of language usage. In drama students are offered the opportunity to enter an imaginary world and deal with various problems related to the subject. Addressing problems and seeking out solutions can enhance the students understanding and knowledge and augment their language use. Cooperation is the hallmark of drama as the

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students are constantly working together. Active participation in drama can enhance skills of citizenship, which is of importance for immigrant students as well as other students as drama represents how we live, how we have come to live so far and how we might live differently in the future (Neelands, 1984). Similarly, Cahill (2010) asserts that drama can enhance the social and emotional well-being of students in schools. In this study it happened again and again that the pupils gradually embodied their experience from personal live in the drama activities. Through the narratives we learn that Sulema again and again asks to continue in drama although sometimes she experiences a little embarrassment of her behaviour. However, she felt that she could talk more in drama classes than she usually does. She also liked working with the other students and through drama her self-esteem began to strengthen. It is in parallel with Cahill’s (2010) report that drama can enhance students’ sense of connection at school and can nurture a positive classroom environment as drama is often a communal activity and that this shared concern may empower the students. The students not only offered us a close look at their learning experiences but also helped us to see and acknowledge the students need in their language learning. Furthermore, the variety of students needs was made more visible to us and to their teachers and helped structuring learning experiences and designing new tasks. It also shed light on how the teachers understand the potential of the pedagogy of drama. The drama made the language learning more sophisticated through the participants’ active exploration of fictional roles and contexts. Roles and situations can provide language encounters and authentic purposeful dialogues. However, more research is needed to help us understand how, why and under what circumstances the conditions for drama and second-language pedagogy are most productive.

DEAR DIARY AGE OF STUDENTS: 12–14 AIMS: That immigrant students

feel safe and secure in the educational environment. The drama lesson explores the immigrant feelings when moving to a new country LENGTH: One or two-hours lesson. MATERIALS: Large and smaller sheets of paper, pens, colours, stapler. CONTEXT: In this lesson the teacher is working with immigrant students, exploring the new country they are moving to. The aim is to become familiar with the culture and the habitants of the country.

1 In Iceland In the beginning of the lesson students play a game I am great as I am as a warm-up. This game invites the students to tell positive things about them self and hopefully help them to build a sense of social connection in the class.

‘I am just talking and talking’ 1a I am great as I am – game The students sit in a circle. Everybody thinks of one thing that is specific to him as an individual. In a row they tell the others and always start with the sentence: I am great as I am because I can, for example, whistle. Or I can ride on a horse. If anyone else can do the same he goes and sits on the lap of that person. The one who started has to try to find something really difficult to get rid of the ones who are on his lap. If he succeeds, all move and the next one tries. 1b Brainstorming with guidance Students close their eyes; in front of them is empty paper and a pencil. The teacher reads in a soft voice: We are in an airport in your new homeland in Iceland. We are just coming out of the plain. How is the weather? Do you know this kind of weather from the land you come from? How is the environment around you? What kind of sound do you hear? Do you smell anything? How are your feelings coming to this new country? Are there a lot of people at the airport? Do you have luggage? Who is with you? When the teacher has stopped reading students are asked to open their eyes and write down everything that came into their mind when listening to the teacher. Discussion about their writings. 1c Freeze frame Students are divided into groups of four. They are asked to make a freeze frame of what they saw when coming into the airport. The teachers then ask the students who they are, what they are doing and how they are feeling. 1d Collective writings What is in the suitcase? The students work in groups. They get A3 paper, fold it in half and staple the sides of the paper. This is their suitcase. On the front they write: Our suitcase. Then they get many little blank pieces papers; on them they write what is in their suitcase. One thing on each piece of paper. This can be clothes, toys, books and beauty boxes. The students in groups tell what is in their suitcases. Discussion. It could be interesting to ask if the students wanted to take something else, but were not allowed to. What could that be? 1e Improvisation Students are divided into groups and work as families. What can happen at airports?

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Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir and Hafdís Guðjónsdóttir Group one: Your are a family who just came to the airport. Unfortunately a 3-year-old girl in your family runs away and disappear. What can you do? Where can you look for her? Where could she go? What will happen? Group two: You are all very tired after the long journey. At the airport you find out that one of your suitcase is missing, and with all the medicine of your father. What will you do? How are you all feeling? Group three: You witness a theft in a shop. Who are the thieves? What will you do? Will you report this? 1f Sharing The group shares their thought and their thinking, and these can trigger discussion in the whole group. 1g Reflection After the improvisation it is useful to reflect on what was happening. What questions do the small improvisations raise for the students? When did they feel most powerful? When did they feel most helpless? Why?

References Antonacci, F., Bertolo, M. & Mariani, I. (2017). In migrants’ shoes: A game to raise awareness and support long-lasting learning. Italian Journal of Educational Technology, 25(1), 55–68. doi:10.17471/2499–4324/858. Banks, J. A. (2007). Educating citizens in a multicultural society. New York and London: Teachers College Press. Cahill, H. (2010). Teaching for community: Empowerment through drama. Melbourne Studies in Education, 43(2), 12–25. doi:10.1080/17508480209556399. Clandinin, D. J. & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Clandinin, D. J. (2006). Narrative inquiry: A methodology for studying lived experience. Research Studies in Music Education, 27, 44–54. https://doi:10.1177/1321103X06 0270010301. Connelly, F. M. & Clandinin, D. J. (1988). Teachers as curriculum planners: Narratives of experience. Toronto and New York: The OISE Press and Teachers College Press. Connelly, F. M. & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2–14. Connelly, F. M. & Clandinin, D. J. (2006). Narrative inquiry. In J. L. Green, G. Camilli & P. B. Elmore (Eds.), Handbook of complementary methods in education research (pp. 477–487). Washington, D. C.: American Educational Research Association. Gillies, R. M. (2008). Teachers’ and students’ verbal behaviors during cooperative learning. In R. M. Gillies, A. Ashman & J. Terwel (Eds.), The Teacher’s role in implementing cooperative learning in the classroom (pp. 238–257). New York: Springer.

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Graves, M. F. (2006). The vocabulary book: Learning and instruction. New York: Teachers College Press. Guðjónsdóttir, H., Wozniczka, A. K., Gísladóttir, K. R., Lunneblad, J., Odenbring, Y., Janhonen-Abruquah, H., Layne, H. & Skrefsrud, T. (2018). The story of my teaching: Constructing learning spaces for diverse pupils. In H. Ragnarsdóttir & L. A. Kulbrandstad (Eds.), Learning spaces for inclusion and social justice: Success stories from four Nordic countries (pp. 152–175). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Hart, S., Drummond, M. J. & McIntyre, D. (2007). Learning without limits: Constructing a pedagogy free from determinist beliefs about ability. In L. Florian (Ed.), The Sage handbook of special education (pp. 499–514). London: Sage. Jeppesen, A. & Ragnarsdóttir, Á. H. (2004). Leiklist í kennslu, handbók fyrir kennara. Reykjavík: Námsgagnastofnun. Kao, S. & O’Neill, C. (1998). Words into worlds: Learning a second language through process drama. Stanford, CA: Alex Publishing. Montola, M., Stenros, J. & Waern, A. (2009). Pervasive games: Theory and design. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann. Neelands, J. (1984). Making sense of drama: A guide to classroom practice. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Books. Nieto, S. (2003). What keeps teachers going?New York: Teachers College Press. Óskarsdóttir, G., Ólafsdóttir, K. Á., Ólafsson, B., Guðmundsdóttir, H. R., Kaldalóns, I. G., Júníusdóttir, R., Júlíusdóttir, R. K. & Guðmundsdóttir, S. (2014). List- og verkgreinar. In Gerður G. Óskarsdóttir (Ed.), Starfshættir í grunnskólum við upphaf 21. aldar (pp. 241–277). Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan. O’Toole, J. & Stinson, M. (2013). Drama, speaking and listening: The treasure of oracy. In M. Anderson & J. Dunn (Eds.), How drama activates learning: Contemporary research and practice (pp. 159–177). London: Bloomsbury. Parekh, B. (2006). Rethinking multiculturalism: Cultural diversity and political theory (2nd ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Phonenix, A. (2013). Analysing narrative contexts. In M. Andrews, C. Squire & M. Tamboukou (Eds.), Doing narrative research (2nd ed.) (pp. 72–87). London: Sage. Piazzoli, E. (2014). Drama education and second language learning. In J. Winston & M. Stinson (Eds.), Process drama: The use of affective space to reduce language anxiety in the additional language-learning classroom (pp. 77–93). London and New York: Routledge. Ragnarsdóttir, H. (2007). Fjölmenningarfræði. In H. Ragnarsdóttir, E. S. Jónsdóttir & M. þ. Bernharðsson (Eds.), Fjölmenning á Íslandi (pp. 17–40). Reykjavík: Rannsóknastofa í fjölmenningarfræðum KHÍ & Háskólaútgáfan. Ragnarsdóttir, H. (2008). Collisions and continuities: Ten immigrant families and their children in Icelandic society and schools. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller. Roskos, K. & Christie, J. (2001). Examining the play-literacy interface: A critical review and future directions. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 1(1), 59–89. Salen, K. & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Schmuck, R. A. & Schmuck, P. J. (2001). Group processes in the classroom (8th ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill. Shaffer, D. R. & Kipp, K. (2002). Developmental psychology, childhood and adolesence. (8th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth. Slee, R. (2011). The irregular school: Exclusion, schooling and inclusive education. London: Routledge.

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Somers, J. (1996). The nature of learning in drama in education. In J. Somers (Ed.), Drama and theatre in education: Contemporary research (pp. 107–120). North York, ON: Captus Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1967). Play and its role in the mental development of the child. Soviet Psychology, 5, 6–18. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Part IV

Democracy and human rights

When a matter of ethical opinion arises in a democracy, people take a stand, thus taking an active part in shaping society. In a democracy the citizens decide on all major issues collectively. The prerequisite of democracy is collective responsibility, consciousness and activity of the citizens, which makes them involved in shaping their society and influencing it, both at home and away. Respect for the human value and health of children involves both respect for their human rights and acceptance of their talents and possibilities for development. Attitudes, values and ethics are essential factors in education for democracy and are at the same time an intrinsic part of other fundamental pillars of education. It is expected that children learn democracy by learning about democracy in a democracy (The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2011). There is one chapter connected to democracy and human rights. It is written by Peter O’Connor and Moema Gregorzewski and is called ‘No direction home: Process drama as a response to new nationalisms’. In the chapter the authors explore the way in which process drama provides a forum for the discussion of sensitive political issues. It describes and analyses the manner in which a distanced and fictionalized approach provides an opportunity for young people to engage both cognitively and affectively with the politics of new nationalism and racist ideologies. In particular, it focuses on how the demonizing of refugee populations might be challenged by drama that builds an empathetic and rationalized response to the human disasters occasioned by war and conflict.

References Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. (2011). The Icelandic national curriculum guide for compulsory schools, general section. Reykjavík: Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.

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No direction home Process drama as a response to new nationalisms Peter O’Connor and Moema Gregorzewski

Introduction This chapter explores the way in which process drama provides a forum for the discussion of sensitive political issues. It describes and analyses the manner in which a distanced and fictionalised approach provides an opportunity for young people to engage both cognitively and affectively with the politics of new nationalism and racist ideologies. In particular, it focuses on how the demonising of refugee populations might be challenged by drama that builds an empathetic and rationalised response to the human disasters occasioned by war and conflict. Building on a tradition of critical pedagogy that has informed drama education praxis (O’Connor & Anderson, 2015) the chapter traces the origins of a research project that tests the capacity for process drama to engage in the creation of participatory citizenship (O’Connor, 2010). The chapter uses a reflective practitioner account of a singular workshop to draw attention to common themes in the drama in the education theoretical lexicon. The early history of process drama was populated by such narrative accounts and this chapter reasserts its potential as a useful research methodology to inform and extend praxis.

Process drama Process drama is a genre of theatre with improvised role play at its centre. It is episodic and engages in non-linear narrative (O’Neill, 1995). This distinguishes it from single or brief improvisation exercises or scenes. The non-linear narrative allows other kinds of exploration of narrative and its meaning. Process drama shifts the role playing from an acting out of a story to an acting as if approach to the narrative. Process drama’s origins are in the work of Dorothy Heathcote and the notions of drama as a learning medium (Wagner, 1976) and in Gavin Bolton’s (1979) theorising of drama for understanding. In process drama, meaning making is created through improvisation where students and teachers co-create drama for themselves rather than an outside audience. Central to the pedagogical approach of process drama is the use of conventions, which in large measure are derived from Brechtian devices. The purpose

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of these conventions is to distance or frame events in ways that provide ‘protection into emotion (Bolton, 1984)’. Eriksson notes: Brecht was more interested in people making their own destiny, controlling their own future, and making decisions in their life time, effecting social change. For that he needed to break away from a purely empathetically charged model, and to bring another dimension, another rational dimension and angle, to bear on that. (Eriksson, 2009, p. 49) The non-linear and non-naturalistic conventions regularly employed in process drama provide the opportunity for participants to engage with deeply sensitive material at a carefully constructed distance to paradoxically engage more closely with underlying issues. In doing so it provides an opportunity to awaken political consciousness.

Process drama and democracy Maxine Greene (1997) argued that a truly democratic society requires people who are fully conscious, or fully awake in the world, and that it is arts-making which brings the individual into awakenness. We argue that drama education then becomes more than a subject which links curriculum areas, a disciplinary subject area, in itself a form of active resistance to anti- democratic forces and social injustice. It does so through a reassertion of communal living and learning, in its embrace of the imagination, and in its modelling that our lives can be made different, whole and better through acting in and on the world. O’Toole (2009) argues that all drama occurs within wider contexts. These include the particular classroom, school, local and national community and the political social and cultural context of the historical moment. The immediate context of the drama lesson that sits behind this chapter is a workshop held at the Sydney Theatre Company in April 2017 with a group of teachers using the picture book Home and Away by John Marsden. The workshop was conducted by one of the authors, Peter O’Connor. Its deliberate purpose was to perform political resistance to the Australian government’s dehumanising treatment of refugees as part of a wider global trampling of their human rights. The wider context is a rise in populism and extreme right-wing ideology across the world. To fully understand the political sensitivities of the work, and its underlying pedagogical structures, it is necessary to make explicit the wider context in which the workshop took place.

The geopolitical context of the process drama workshop As we write, 65.6 million people around the globe, 22.5 million of whom are refugees, are seeking refuge, forced to abandon their homes due to armed conflict or persecution (UNHCR, 2017). The severe dislocation of millions has been accompanied by a racist backlash at the root of growing nationalist right-wing

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parties who have won significant percentages of democratic votes in Western democracies as part of a global phenomenon (Vieten & Poynting, 2016). In Australia’s 2016 federal election right-wing ideologue Pauline Hanson and her nationalist anti-immigration One Nation party returned to parliament where both major parties pursue a policy towards refugees that denies them basic human rights in the privatised prison camps on neighbouring Pacific Islands where they hold them indefinitely. Anti-immigrant hate crimes have risen, both in the UK (Travis, 2016, 2017) and Germany (Zeit, 2017). Australia has exhibited similar patterns, as the culturally and ethnically motivated violent incidents such as the 2005 Sydney Cronulla riots attest (Collins, 2009). While the minority of citizens of receiving nations actually commit hate crimes based on their fears and frustrations, many are genuinely worried that the movement of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa is weakening their country’s security (Brady, 2017). Increasingly, the public express the suspicion that refugees themselves could be or become terrorists – in spite of research that shows a very small number of refugees have actually committed any terrorist attacks (UN, 2016). This deprecatory attitude towards refugees has become an everyday phenomenon in many countries. Views and claims hitherto condemned as intolerable in democratic and inclusive societies are becoming the socially accepted everyday vocabulary of the ‘native’ and self-proclaimed ‘indigenous’ Christian (Vieten & Poynting, 2016, p. 536). Political parties (consciously) and increasingly ordinary citizens (arguably unconsciously) use the disguise of concern for and protection of one’s homeland and cultural heritage to make exclusive nationalism and islamophobia a respectable and normal ground to speak from. In so doing, they deny and ‘devalue the citizenship of racialised others’ (ibid., p. 538). Gusterson (2017) calls this phenomenon nationalist populism, and others have referred to it as authoritarian populism, right-wing populism, cultural nationalism, nostalgic nationalism, and neo-nationalism (Gingrich & Banks, 2006). Contemporary forms of populism can be regarded as a search for meaning in a neoliberal age of globalisation that is ‘shaking up our existing ways of life, no matter where we happen to be’ (Giddens, 1999a, p. 19), leaving us with the feeling that we are ‘in the grip of forces over which we have no control’ (Giddens, 1999b, n. p.). At the core of populism, then, are questions of meaning and identity, or as Cox (2017) suggests, questions of ‘who I am, what I am, and do I still live in my own country surrounded by people who share the same values and allegiances?’ (p. 14). In this light, Montier and Pilkington (2017) argue that the backlash in the form of populism does not come as a surprise. Catering for the emotions, anxieties and frustrations of searching citizens who feel they have been left behind in a post-normal world, populists offer ‘sensational narratives, myths and fears that plant the seeds of distrust in a constructed enemy’ alongside ‘simple solutions to complex problems’ (Dzurinda, 2016, pp. 171, 172).

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In the popular imagination of the global North the movement of refugees is presented almost entirely as a security issue. This ‘securitisation of refugee migration, both a result of post-9/11 anxieties and of the influence of the discourse on asylum-seekers on the discussions about quota refugees’ (Neumann, 2016, p. 11) incites fears that one’s country might be invaded by somewhat dangerous others. These fears are as distinct in New Zealand as they are in Australia and elsewhere. They have been played out with a particular viciousness and antipathy to human rights in Australia where children and their parents are left marooned in detention centres on off shore islands for daring to board boats and head to Australia for refuge. The Stop the Boats policy initiated by the Abbott government has wide political support in Australia, but there remain significant pockets of resistance.

Close the camps: the immediate context of the workshop In 2016, thousands of Australians wore ‘Close the Camps, Bring them Home’ T-shirts to show support and solidarity with asylum seekers. Up to 500 teachers from Victoria, who also wanted to see the offshore detention facilities closed, were members of the ‘Teachers for Refugees’ protest group and joined in by wearing the shirts. These teachers argued they felt a sense of ‘professional urgency’ to speak out and act against the abuse happening to refugees in camps. ‘Teachers for Refugees’ from Victoria planned to hold political discussions within the classroom to educate young people about government policy on refugees. However, The Victorian opposition parties said it was ‘political indoctrination’ for teachers to openly declare and promote their personal stance on a highly politicised issue. Teachers for Refugees argued that discussing politics in the classroom is not indoctrination. It is essential in helping develop the reasoning and analytical abilities of kids. The Education Union backed its members’ campaign. Despite this backing, Federal Education Minister Simon Burmingham released a warning to all teachers planning on protesting by wearing the politically inspired T-shirts; Teachers’ demonstration of personal political views on any governments’ policies and, in this instance, specifically on the Australian Government’s border policies, oversteps the line of the teacher’s role to teach. In my view, this represents an abuse of their position by promoting their own personal views in the classroom. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also expressed concerns about the political protest planned by teachers, going as far as to say that the protest had resulted in poor international rankings. It’s absolutely inappropriate. Political campaigning has no place in classrooms and teachers should be focused on teaching. We’ve seen with the

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fact that our ranking internationally has gone backwards in maths and science and in the PISA results just this week … There is a lot of work to be done in our schools and it doesn’t include political campaigning. (The Australian, 2016) This false binary of arguing an education system cannot do well at literacy and numeracy and create critically informed citizens is further muddled by the notion that the true measure of a country’s schooling is the dubious rankings of PISA.

Process drama: a political response The workshop held at the Sydney Theatre Company with members of the Refugees’ Teachers group and drama teachers from across the city at the height of the debate was designed to challenge the Prime Minister’s statement by arming teachers with powerful pedagogies to disrupt his message. Sitting behind these plans was a recognition that refusing to engage with the politics of our times as teachers is a political choice. Staying quiet, compliant to right-wing ideology that diminishes the value of teaching and learning to the accretion of technical skills measured on international league tables is a political choice. Finding ways to politically engage our students to challenge the rise of islamophobia, of right-wing ideologies is a political act of resistance. The use of drama to disrupt the dominant narratives of government’s persecution of minority groups, we would argue, is both a political and moral act of civil disobedience.

A process drama reflective account This account of the workshop follows the tradition of early drama in education theorists, including Way (1959), Slade (1967), Bolton (1979), Heathcote (1984) and O’Toole (1992). They created narratives as a means of making sense of their developing practice. They provided a lexicon to explain the potential of a new pedagogy, and ways to make it accessible to the everyday teacher. Grounded in actual classroom practice the research methods were rudimentary, relying on the narrative skills of the practitioner to convey the structure and possibilities of the work. Yet, we would argue, that in their simplicity, they galvanised generations of teachers to experiment with drama in a way the highly theorised accounts of applied theatre that plague our field have not achieved. The narrative that follows is situated within this reflective practitioner paradigm of asking the typically ethnographic question of attempting to understand what had occurred in the workshop. Our reflections were guided by a desire to understand how participants were able to address the highly emotional issues of refugee resettlement through the distancing conventions. In a traditional sense this might be considered the research question. However, reflective practitioner accounts open up the possibility for research questions (and answers) to arise

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from the reflective process in much the same way they might arise from a grounded research methodology. This narrative was constructed from brief notes taken immediately after the workshop and from reflective conversations between us, as authors and fellow practitioners. Our research conversations focused on the nature of distancing, but we also talked more widely about what we thought had happened in the workshop. Typical of reflective practitioner accounts we then attempted to reconstruct the narrative of the drama for this chapter through the writing of it. Laurel Richardson conceived of this form of writing as a way of knowing, challenging the notion that methodology and method are separate processes from the writing up of research (2005). Using these ideas our analysis is contemporaneously managed within the act of reflexive writing. The narrative is, therefore, both the process and result of analysis. The narrative does not claim to represent the ‘truth’ of the workshop but it attempts to present in one story our differing interests and understandings of the workshop. We do not draw upon other forms of data, other than our own reflections as captured in our initial notes and through our discussions and attempts at writing. Rather than attempting to validate our experience, we attempt to capture the fleeting nature of process drama through story.

The workshop Using the non-linear episodic nature of process drama the teachers at the Sydney Theatre Company workshop crawled into the belly of a story. John Marsden’s sophisticated story book, Home and Away, is used as a distancing device. It is a deeply troubling book where the death and mayhem of refugee life is played across a picture book. Set in a fictional Australia, the familiar story of refugees is made strange when the war impacts on a stereotypical Australian family. Their ordinary mundane lives in the first few pages of the picture book are shattered by war. The book traces a decision to flee by boat, multiple deaths of family members and a final descent into a detention centre, where the narrator of the story, a 15-year-old, waits for redemption. The teachers begin the workshop by creating a still-image of the middle class white family in what looks like an Australian city. Turning the third page of the book, the story suddenly sees the city in which they live turn into a war zone. A picture in the book sees the family huddled together around a candle discussing their leaving on a boat the next morning. The participants create a soundtrack of the conversation. The soundtrack provides the opportunity to focus on the tension in the silences, the fraught choices between staying and risking everything on the promise of refuge. We close our eyes and imagine as we listen. Everyday concerns, lies of false hope to the children clash with the sounds of sobbing. The manner in which drama makes time elastic means we slow the whole meaning of what it is to be a refugee to those moments of decision, to these sounds.

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Then writing in role, the hopes and fears of what lies ahead are scrawled across scraps of green paper. The next page of the picture book is read and we learn that the grandmother dies before they can board the boat. It feels like a sucker punch. We replay in slow motion, a kind of dream sequence, the moment where we bury the grandmother, symbolised by a black T-shirt, like the one she wears in the picture book. We lay the green paper with our fears and dreams on them over the T-shirt. As teacher in role as the boat’s captain, Peter cuts short the farewells and the family make their public farewells and board the boat to leave. The deliberate callousness of the teacher in role, reinforces the human predicament of leaving behind the dead as new beginnings are sought by the family. We look at the pictures in the following pages of the book and we learn of the death of the narrator’s father, stabbed in a fight over the sharing of fish. Then across two pages of the book, the outline of the new land is seen from on board the boat. It is a rare moment of real hope. On large sheets of muslin cloth and with crayons we draw the hopes and dreams of those on board; food, work, security, welcome, peace. It feels a relief from the trauma of the previous pages to work with possibility. We take a break for coffee and talk out of role. We talk of the importance of hope. Whilst no one is watching the cloth we had worked on is cut into four strips. It is used to mark out the boundary, the barbed wire lines of the detention camp our narrator finds himself in. When we restart the drama the group of teachers find themselves inside the torn cloths of hopes. Rather than dreams we relive the story that has led to this point as a nightmare. Stylised movement draws together the disasters of war the family have experienced. Tears flow as we relive the story starting from the frozen images of the family. Our final episode in the drama has Peter playing the Minister of Immigration. Seated at a desk behind a bundle of files he is shuffling, some signing, some not, the teachers in role as advocates for our narrator make a case for him to stay. Their arguments range from crude bribes, to humanitarian pleas. They are met with the actual rhetoric used by right-wing leaders in Australia. The stony face of bureaucracy bears down. The pleading becomes more urgent, finally the Minister is asked: ‘What if this was your child? What if this was real for you? The decision you make is about you becoming more human.’ For a moment Neelands’ mimetic art becomes a moment of metaxis where the fictional Minister in an imagined world, yet so very close to the real world, is asked to imagine, to empathise with human disaster. There is a moment where agency and hope must enter this story, not as some cheesy resolution of the story, but of the small possibility that action built on an empathetic response might shift the heartlessness of government policy and those who administer it. We are left with the Minister agreeing to free our narrator but in doing so he reminds the gathered group, ‘I free this one, that is fine, but it alters nothing, for it means I must turn down another.’

100 Peter O’Connor and Moema Gregorzewski One woman stands forward and says: ‘So, we will fight for one child at a time.’ This victory, for one fictional child, is hard won in the drama. Protected into feeling deeply for the life of this one refugee the process drama draws attention to the enormity of the human condition for millions. The possibilities of process drama to awaken, to stir the ethical and moral, to be a site of democratic citizenship might be seen in these moments where at least in the drama, people begin to act in the interests of others

Concluding possibilities Exhausted by the drama the group of teachers now reflect on the work and what it means for them. They are deeply moved. Several comment that they are more committed than ever to fight for the rights of refugees, but many baulk at the thought of teaching this in their classrooms. As noted, the Prime Minister of Australia might think teaching is apolitical, but several teachers said they could not teach this workshop because its politics would imperil their employment. Discussion carried on into the bar next door. The talk centred on considering the ethics of doing a drama which makes children feel the moral weight of refugee resettlement when there is no practical action they can take to change things. They wondered what is served in drawing attention to these issues when there is no genuine possibility for change. There was for some a sense of ennui, of impossibility, for others a feeling of determination to continue to confront government policy. These problems, it seems to us, sit at the heart of what it means when we consider the nature of drama and social change. There remains a danger in awakening people to the reality of the world when there is little possibility for genuine change. Perhaps, however, contrary to the assertion of the Prime Minister, the teachers confronted a truth of the politics of teaching. They recognised it is a task that is always embedded in political and ethical choice. Freire (1994) recognised that critical hope confronts ‘the fatalism that pushes us to compromise with the surrounding reality instead of attempting to transform such reality. This is hope that challenges the seeming fixedness of the future’ (Freire, 1994, p. 198). In the enormous struggle of the humanitarian crisis that sits behind millions of displaced people across the globe it might be that, as Susan Stinson (1998) suggests, ‘We cannot respond to injustice if it is invisible to us. We cannot respond to persons if they are invisible’ (1998, p. 226). At least in the drama with these teachers we made visible the refugees who sit and wait in the detention camps. We highlighted the inhumanity of new nationalist ideologies and their practical application in the Australian context. The retelling of this drama reminds us perhaps of the potential of process drama for awakening participants to possibilities for active communal engagement as democratic citizens, as discussed earlier in this chapter. However, this reflective narrative is also a cautionary tale. We set out with this work to consider whether process drama could build an empathetic and rationalised

No direction home 101 response to the human disasters occasioned by war and conflict. The issue then remained at the end of the workshop whether such a response was either adequate or useful to challenge the enormity of the issues raised. We trust it might reignite the tradition of teachers attempting to make sense of their practice as a form of research, as we have done. It draws attention, as it should, beyond the particulars of the case to the issues that we still struggle with as we attempt to understand the potential of an aesthetic pedagogy. For all the claims of political resistance made earlier in this chapter, in the end, this or any other process drama will not change the fate of refugees. The drama will not in any way empower teachers or their students to become more agentic in opposing government policy. It would be wrong to think drama could or even should do this. Perhaps all it can do is awaken participants to the questions of what is our moral responsibility in a world where people are mercilessly punished because they are already the victims of war. The drama deeply questioned our teachers as to whether they were prepared to do more than wear T-shirts, sign a few petitions and be angry and emotionally moved in a piece of participatory fiction. It is impossible to know what effect the drama has had on the lives of participants who, like us all, make decisions on how we negotiate the rise of populist movements that degrade humanity amidst the growing silence or collusion of democratically elected governments.

LESSON PLAN AGE OF STUDENTS: Key Stage 3 AIMS: To provoke students to critically

explore concepts of Othering and

xenophobia EMPHASIS IN THE CURRICULUM: Drama, social skills. LENGTH: The lesson is conducted in one or two-hour lesson blocks. STRATEGIES: Role on the Wall, Still-Images in Performance Carousel,

Visualisation, /Teacher in Role, Conscience Alley, Picture book ‘Home & Away’ with diary entry ‘September 13’ on p. 12 covered; one chair per participant; ‘character descriptions’ copied or transcribed from p. 1 (one character description per page); six pre-cut pieces of butcher’s paper, each large enough for a body outline; black felt tip pens; blu tack.

MATERIALS:

Strategy 1 Rapid still-images Participants walk around the space. The facilitator calls out a number and a provocation (one word), from the options below or from the Strategy 2 reflection. Participants – either alone or with other participants, depending on the number called out by the facilitator – create a still-image depicting the respective concept. This process can be repeated a number of times.

102 Peter O’Connor and Moema Gregorzewski Provocations           

Home, Away Safety, Uncertainty Alone, Together Friends, Strangers Same, Different Family, Enemy Freedom, Border Leader, Follower Welcome, Farewell Normal, Abnormal Powerful, Powerless.

Provocations for reflection   

How did you feel as you found yourself in these different moments? Can you think if any moment in your own life where you felt similar? Did any moment strike you as particularly familiar/ unfamiliar/ comfortable/ uncomfortable?

Strategy 2 Wondering about the story The facilitator and participants look at the cover of Home & Away to describe and interpret it together. They could start with ‘I wonder …’ to share questions they would like to ask the moment depicted on the cover or the author. Provocations for reflection    

What/who can you see? What/who can’t you see? Why might the author have chosen to show you this moment in this particular way? What might the story be about?

Strategy 3 Role on the wall Facilitator shows participants p. 2. Together, they make up the name of a fictional country and city in which the family live (X). This name will be used throughout the session(s) so it is best to note it down somewhere for everyone to see. Participants form six small groups. Each group is allocated one of the story’s family members (characters). The facilitator gives each group a caption with the respective character’s name. The facilitator gives out the

No direction home 103 butcher’s paper (one piece per group), some blu tack and the black pens. Participants stick the character’s name on the top end of the butcher’s paper and draw one group member’s body outline on the paper. The facilitator gives groups the respective ‘character description’. Participants read their character description and use the black felt tip pens to write onto the butcher’s paper: 1

2

on the outside of the outline, they write their character’s physical characteristics (including typical clothes and appearance) and day to day routines (such, as going to school or work, hobbies, favourite music/movie/food/colour/actor/singer etc.) on the inside, they write their character’s personality traits (this includes the character’s favourite place in their city and the memory that makes it so special, the character’s values and goals in life, beliefs or religion, biggest dream etc.).

Participants then stick ‘their character’ onto the wall with blu tack. Participants walk around the space to look at the roles on the wall and ‘get to know’ the family members. Additionally, each small group may present their character verbally to the other groups. Provocations for reflection:  

Do these characters or (some of) their characteristics and/or aspects of their everyday life seem familiar? How are they different from or similar to you?

Strategy 4 Still-images in performance carousel Participants individually walk through the space, greeting each other in role as their respective character by saying their character name. They link arms if they have found a participant who embodies a different family member, walk on to greet other participants-in-role. Again, they link arms if they find another addition to the family. Once a family is complete – that is, once all six characters are linking arms, they freeze. Ultimately, several complete blueprints of the family – ‘family groups’ – will stand together ready for the next part of the strategy. Participants are asked to take a family selfie – create a still-image – on a typical day. Each participant comes up with their character’s thought, feeling and a line – either a line of monologue or dialogue directed at another family member. Each family group then shares their still-image in a Performance Carousel. The facilitator and/or other participants have the option to tap characters on the shoulder to reveal characters’ thoughts, feelings, and/or lines of monologue/ dialogue.

104 Peter O’Connor and Moema Gregorzewski Provocations for reflection   

What are these families and these family members like? Does any of what they think, do, feel or say sound familiar? Is there anything you like about a particular family or family member?

Strategy 5 Visualisation Participants sit down, family members of the same family sitting next to each other. Together, facilitator and participants look at pp. 5 & 6. Provocations for a short discussion may include: What do you know about war? Do you know any stories about war? What do you know about why wars happen? Does your family have any stories about war? Each family receives one ‘war diary entry’ (see ‘Materials’ above). The facilitator puts the music on and reads out the diary entry dates that are displayed on pp. 7–12, except for ‘September 13’ on p. 12. This diary entry is covered. As the facilitator reads out the respective date, the participant with the corresponding ‘war diary entry’ reads it out loud. The facilitator then puts on the music and leads the participants through a visualisation. Participants are asked to close their eyes and to imagine they are standing in the family’s hometown wearing a bulletproof cloak that makes them invisible. Participants imagine themselves perceiving different things in the war-torn city through different senses. When tapped on the shoulder by the facilitator, they may share their imagined experience: ‘In the city I can see/hear/smell/taste/feel …’ Provocation for reflection:  

What might it be like when a war breaks out? What does war feel and look like to Me? How did Me choose to represent his experience of the war breaking out? Why? ○ Participants and facilitator discover the images on pp. 7–12. (explore pages in the book)



How might war be different at different ages and stages in life?

Montage Soundscape & small-group play-making/collective drawing in two small groups. Neither A nor B know of each other’s tasks. 1

Devising: Task Group A: create soundscape in the basement Task Group B: read the ‘Excerpts of Online Posts / Speeches’ silently and turn them into graffiti on the role on the wall

No direction home 105 1 2

Performing: Group A: Plays their soundscape; Group B: Reveals the graffiti. TiR as citizen of Y bombards Group A verbally with the headlines/ tweets. Either A or B can respond in role.

Writing in role Me sitting in the basement the night before the family is supposed to get on the boat, he/she writes down his/her hopes for the future.

Dreamscape / performance carousel In small groups, participants devise a ritual to say goodbye to grandma covering her with ME’s hopes. Participants devise a non-naturalistic scene that Me has ten years later, starting with the pre-war family selfie, ending with the goodbye ritual for grandma. Music accompanies the scenes when performed. Option Teacher in role as trafficker ends the performance carousel by urging all family members to enter the boat.

References Boal, A. (1979). Theatre of the oppressed. New York: Urizen Books. Bolton, G. (1979). Towards a theory of drama in education. Harlow: Longman. Bolton, G. (1992). New perspectives on classroom drama. Hemel Hempstead: Simon & Schuster. Bowell, P. & Heap, B. S. (2000). Planning process drama. London: David Fulton. Brady, E. (2017). An analysis of security challenges arising from the Syrian conflict: Islamic terrorism, refugee flows and political and social impacts in Europe. Journal of Terrorism Research, 8(1), 53–67. Collins, J. (2009). Sydney’s Cronulla riots: The context and implications. In G. Noble (Ed.), Lines in the sand: The Cronulla riots, multiculturalism and national belonging (pp. 27–43). Sydney: Institute of Criminology Press. Cox, M. (2017). The rise of populism and the crisis of globalisation: Brexit, Trump and beyond. Irish Studies in International Affairs, 28, 9–17. doi:10.3318/ISIA.2017.28.12. Dzurinda, M. (2016). The resistible rise of populism in Europe. European View, 15(2), 171–172. Eriksson, S. (2009). Distancing at close range. (Unpublished PhD dissertation). Bergen University. Freire, P. (1994). Pedagogy of hope. London: Continuum.

106 Peter O’Connor and Moema Gregorzewski Giddens, A. (1999a). Runaway world: How globalization is reshaping our lives. London: Routledge. Giddens, A. (1999b). Reith lecture 1: Runaway world: Globalisation. London: BBC. www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith1999/lecture1.shtml. Gingrich, A. & Banks, M. (2006). Neo-nationalism in Europe and beyond: Perspectives from social anthropology. New York: Berghahn. Greene, M. (1997). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. New York: Routledge. Gusterson, H. (2017). From Brexit to Trump: Anthropology and the rise of nationalist populism. American Ethnologist, 44(2), 209–214. doi:10.1111/amet.12469. Heathcote, D. (1984). In L. Johnson & C. O’Neill (Eds.), Collected writings on education and drama. London: Hutchinson and Co. Montier, J. & Pilkington, P. (2017). The deep causes of secular stagnation and the rise of populism. Grantham, Mayo, & van Otterloo (GMO) White Paper. www.advisorp erspectives.com/commentaries/2017/03/27/the-deep-causes-of-secular-stagnation-a nd-the-rise-of-populism. Neumann, K. (2016). The current refugee crisis: What’s new? Klaus Neumann discusses refugee issues in light of Australia’s and New Zealand’s experience. New Zealand International Review, 41(4), 10–12. O’Connor, P. (2010). Creating democratic citizenship through drama education: The selected writings of Jonathan Neelands. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Publishers. O’Connor, P. & Anderson, M. (2015). Applied theatre research: Radical departures. London: Bloomsbury. O’Neill, C. (1995). Drama worlds: A framework for process drama. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. O’Toole, J. (1992). The process of drama. London: Routledge. O’Toole, J. (2009). Writing everyday theatre: Applied theatre, or just TIE rides again. Research in Drama in Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 14(4), 479–503. Slade, P. (1954). An introduction to child drama. London: University of London Press. Stinson, S. (1998). The passionate mind of Maxine Greene: Maxine Greene and arts education. New York: Falmer Press. Travis, A. (2016). Lasting rise in hate crime after EU referendum, figures show. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/society/2016/ sep/07/hate-surged-after-eu-refer endumpolice-figures-show. Travis, A. (2017). Hate crime surged in England and Wales after terrorist attacks. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/17/hate-soars-in-engla nd-and-wales. UN. (2016). Report of the special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. Prepared for the UN General Assembly’s 71 Session, 13 September 2016 (Report No. A/71/384). https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N16/285/61/PDF/ N1628561.pdf?OpenElement. UNHCR. (2017). Figures at a glance. www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html. Vieten, U. M. & Poynting, S. (2016). Contemporary far-right racist populism in Europe. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 37(6), 533–540.

No direction home 107 Wagner, B. (1976). Drama as a medium for learning. London: Heinemann Press. Way, B. (1967). Development through drama. London: Longman Group. Zeit. (2017). Jeden Tag ein Anschlag auf eine Asylbewerberunterkunft [Daily attacks on asylum seeker accommodation]. Zeit. www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2017-11/bun deskriminalamt-anschlag-asylbewerberheime-fluechtlinge.

Part V

Equality

The goal of education for equality is to create opportunities for everyone to develop on his or her own terms, nurture their talents and lead a responsible life in a free society in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, broadmindedness and equality (The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2011). In all school activities it is important that everyone takes an active part in creating a society of equality and justice. Equality education involves critical examination of the established ideas in society and its institutions in order to teach children to analyse the circumstances that lead to discrimination of some and privileges for others. There are two chapter connected to equality. Jo Raphael has written one titled ‘Drama, diversity and equality: Working creatively together towards social inclusion’. She introduces projects that have brought together people with and without disability to work creatively together to understand how it is possible to work in and through drama towards becoming more inclusive. The other one is written by Christine Hatton and is called ‘Imagining the possible: Using drama for gender equality in schools’. She discusses some critical issues when working with and for gender equity in the drama classroom, where gender-based process drama was used to investigate and problematize adolescent girl relationships and gender esteem.

References Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. (2011). The Icelandic national curriculum guide for compulsory schools, general section. Reykjavík: Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.

8

Drama, diversity and equality Working creatively together towards social inclusion Jo Raphael

Introduction Drama, with its basis in play, is both a social and highly accessible art form. When an ensemble approach is adopted, drama can be democratic in nature, promoting equality amongst participants (Neelands, 2010). This chapter provides examples of two research projects that have brought together people with and without disability to work creatively together to understand how we might work in and through drama towards becoming more inclusive. In the first project, actors with disability from an inclusive theatre ensemble draw upon their expertise in drama to teach pre-service teachers about barriers to inclusion and inclusive education practices. In the second project, actors with intellectual disability and university students work alongside school-aged students in a process where each group teaches the other. In these projects responsibility and power is shared. The drama experience in both projects not only explores and celebrates diversity, but offers an example of equality and inclusion in action. Through these projects we found that careful listening and close attention to the other, and a shared sense of beauty and joy, meant that the experience was potentially transformative for all participants.

Background: Fusion Theatre ensembles Alongside my work as a university-based teacher educator, I am also the artistic director of a small inclusive theatre company. Fusion Theatre is based in an outer area of Melbourne, Australia, an area known for its low socio-economic status and high level of multicultural diversity. As an inclusive company, Fusion welcomes actors with and without disability who meet weekly to work collaboratively in drama workshops and create original works of theatre. Fusion has two ensembles each with approximately 12 actors who identify as having disability. The range of disability includes physical, learning/intellectual disability, autism and acquired brain injury. Other participants include university theatre students, artistic support workers, visiting artists and professional theatre directors who facilitate and direct the work. Our work is cognisant of the principles of partnership, protection and participation for working in drama with people

112 Jo Raphael with disability (O’Connor, Szaunder & Bentsen, 2003). Fusion actors experience a sense of belonging and well-being from being involved in the artistic and governance processes of the company. As an example of engagement in lifelong learning, some of them have continued to be involved for over 20 years. Since many of the actors with disability are no longer involved in the formal education system and the majority is not in employment, opportunities for them to mix within the wider community are often limited. Fusion works towards social inclusion, understanding that ‘an individual is socially excluded if he or she does not participate in key activities of the society in which he or she lives’ (Burchardt et al., 2002, p. 30). Some of the actors live within residential care settings for people with disability and almost all of their scheduled activities involve working with other people with disabilities. The opportunity to work within an inclusive context, involving people with and without disability on an equal basis is a valued opportunity. Furthermore, the company looks for ways to increase our reach beyond the confines of what happens in our workshop and rehearsal spaces. Theatre provides an opportunity for the actors with disability to have presence and a voice within the wider community through working together to devise original performances based on their own ideas to present to the public. Rather than positioned as being in need of help, there is a strong sense of pride that comes from being able to give the gift of theatre to an audience (Tomlinson, 1982; Raphael, 2004). For many of our actors, theatre has become their tool for advocacy. In this chapter I present two projects involving Fusion Theatre. The first brought the actors together with pre-service teachers within the university context and the second brought the actors together with secondary school students. Both of these projects explored what happens when people with and without disability come together in the creative process of doing drama, and how we all worked together towards becoming more inclusive. Following the case studies, I provide a workshop plan that captures some of the activities from the workshops in each of these projects. These are the kinds of activities that encourage critical thinking and recognition of barriers to inclusion, while at the same time being inclusive in nature.

The research and methodology These two research projects considered the ways that diversity and equality can be reflected through drama and the creativity of individuals in our Fusion drama workshops. Our research asked the question: ‘How might we work in and through drama towards becoming more inclusive?’ In order to investigate this question, we drew on a range of qualitative methods including the drama practitioner’s own reflections, recorded group interviews and individual written or verbal responses. Ours was a participatory research approach in which all participants were able to ask questions, pose problems and think about possible solutions. As an additional layer of inclusive research practice, we drew upon arts-based methods, as embodied and accessible approaches to generating data.

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The drama activities served as a method of research as we negotiated meaning in the process of working together. Drama as an embodied and aesthetic arts-based inquiry can be inclusive and generative; it provides a place to begin inquiry (Gallagher & Rivière, 2007), allows for other ways of knowing (Norris, 2000), and opportunities for marginalised voices to be heard (Conrad, 2002). Drama as an arts-based research approach involves action, agency and participation, and works to exercise the imagination, providing a chance to collectively consider other ways of thinking and acting towards a more inclusive society (Raphael & Freebody, 2019). As Finley (2011) states: From within the liminal openings that are created by the performance/ practice of arts-based inquiry, ordinary people, researchers as participants and as audiences can imagine new visions of dignity, care, democracy, and other decolonizing ways of being in the world. Once it has been imagined, it can be acted upon, or performed. (p. 443) The data was analysed for emerging themes and using post-structural theory, in particular Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) theories of affect and becoming. The notion of affect is useful in the embodied drama workshop context, because of the way affect is understood to precede thought and articulation through language. ‘Affects aren’t feelings’, Deleuze explains, ‘they’re becomings that spill over beyond whoever lives through them’ (Deleuze 1995, p. 137). Furthermore, the notion of affect is useful in the project of working toward inclusive practice, because of the way affect engages, compels, or even shocks us to thought (Thompson, 2009; Massumi, 2002). When participants with and without disability encounter one another through drama, we are able to appreciate what and how participants from diverse backgrounds are able to learn from one another in the project of becoming more inclusive.

Inclusion and equity in and through drama The declaration Towards 2030: a new vision for education (UNESCO, 2016) is focused on ensuring ‘access, equity and inclusion, quality and learning outcomes, within a lifelong learning approach’ (p. 7). The declaration states that ‘Inclusion and equity in and through education is the cornerstone of a transformative education agenda’ (p. 7). However, schools might promise inclusivity and equal opportunity for all, and yet be unwittingly producing and reproducing inequalities. If this goal of inclusion and equity is to be achieved, both teachers and students will need to work towards eliminating bias and discrimination in a continuing process of becoming more inclusive. Lundy (2008) calls for teachers to teach fairly in an unfair world, and draws heavily from drama as a pedagogy of choice for its potential to encourage students to ‘cooperate with one another, express their emotions, seek alternative solutions to problems, engage in conflict resolution, and participate fully in the making

114 Jo Raphael of individual and collective meaning’ (p. 13). The Drama Australia Equity and Diversity Guidelines for Drama Educators (Drama Australia, 2015) also provide provocations and suggestions for drama practice, encouraging drama teachers to reflect upon ways in which diversity, including gender (and gender identity), sexualities, disability, socio-economic status and diverse cultural and linguistic perspectives impact on drama education. These guidelines describe the ways that drama, as an art form, offers a powerful site for imagination, analysis and representation of diversity, and for learning about diversity in and through drama. Inclusive schools play a role in building a more inclusive society.

Drama as a social art form One of the affordances of drama in the project of inclusion is its social nature; it has been described as ‘the quintessential social art form’ (Neelands, 2010, p. 139). Drama brings participants together in the creative process of making and sharing their art. This is one of the aspects of drama that has drawn me, as artist/teacher/director/researcher to drama and theatre. As an artist, I value the opportunity to collaborate with others, knowing that because of a diversity of participants, we are creating something unique with our collective contributions. As a teacher, I appreciate the opportunities drama provides for students and teachers to work together, so that we are all sharing in the artmaking and the learning. I recognise how much this social experience of working together is also valued by participants in a drama process. As an artistic director working in community-based arts contexts, I value the ways drama brings together diverse members of the broader community to participate in rich and potentially productive experiences, who can then give back to that community the gift of performance. As a researcher, I appreciate the ways that drama can bring together participants as co-researchers in a process of collective meaning-making. These two research projects involve collaboration in drama as well as collaboration in research, drawing upon participatory action research and drama-based methods. Jonothan Neelands (2010) favours the term ‘ensemble’ to describe the social approach to working in drama. Key common characteristics of ensemble-based learning, whether it be in theatre companies or in drama classrooms, include ‘the uncrowning of the power of the director/teacher; a mutual respect amongst the players; a shared commitment to truth; a sense of the intrinsic value of theatre making, a shared absorption in the artistic process of dialogic and social meaning making’ (p. 139). Neelands refers to this as a ‘democratisation of learning’ (p. 139); when we come together in drama to work as an ensemble, we agree to work together in a way that values the contributions of all members of the group. Diversity is an important quality in an ensemble; it brings a richness that might result in robust negotiations between participants and contributes to the ensemble’s strength and creativity.

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Drama and diversity Drama has long been valued as a means for exploring human nature and relationships as well as concepts of diversity, justice and equality. There are numerous examples and studies that show how drama and applied theatre strategies and techniques are an effective way of engaging students and teachers in processes that can lead to appreciation of diversity and deeper interrogation and understanding of important matters, including prejudice and discrimination (for example Grady, 2000; Moynihan, 2012; Winston & Strand, 2013). As Neelands suggests, drama ‘is the art of togetherness even if much of its content and form is about representing un-togetherness’ (2010, p. 139). That ‘togetherness’ is to do with the pro-social nature of drama – there is a sense of interdependence – because when doing drama and making theatre, we depend on others. Dewey (1934) makes a claim for the arts as ‘the only media of complete and unhindered communication [between humans] that can occur in a world full of gulfs and walls that limit community of experience’ (1934, p. 105). Drama is also social, providing a community of experience; drama is concerned with individuals, and as Way suggests, ‘the individuality of individuals, with the uniqueness of each human essence’ (1967, p. 3). Diversity is often most clearly reflected through the arts and the creativity of individuals. It is through coming together in drama that we can appreciate and value diversity and individuality (Raphael & Hunter, 2017), as well as similarities through ‘a collective experiencing, celebrating, or commenting, not on how we are different from each other, but on what we share, on what ways we are alike’ (Bolton, 1984, p. 154).

Project 1: The Teaching for Diversity workshop This drama project began as a response to the challenges of preparing teachers in regular classrooms with the inclusive mindedness necessary for teaching students with a disability who are increasingly integrated into mainstream education. The workshop was designed as a pedagogical innovation for a new university unit for pre-service teachers called Teaching for Diversity. I worked with the Fusion actors to devise the Teaching for Diversity workshop. Five of the actors, all of whom identify as having intellectual or learning disability, worked alongside me to lead the pre-service teachers and lecturers in a two-hour applied drama workshop within the university. We designed the workshop to explore the education experiences of students with disability through physical drama activities including group problem-solving, personal narrative and reflection. The drama workshop provided a space of social and collective meaning-making. It included face-to-face conversations with the actors, who were experts, able to talk about their own lived experience of disability and education. In this we were enacting Freire’s ideal of learners who are teachers and teachers who are learners engaged in continual collaborative

116 Jo Raphael enquiry. Together, through drama, we were seeking knowledge through invention and re-invention, ‘through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other’ (Freire, 2011, p. 72). The competence shown by the Fusion actors as copresenters and the use of drama, in which they also held expertise, combined to provide an embodied, cognitive and affective learning experience. Research on the Diversity workshop has been undertaken over several years (Raphael, 2013; Raphael & Allard, 2012; Raphael, 2014), with methods including reflective practice, participatory action research and arts-based approaches. Data collected from all participant groups has included pre- and post-workshop interviews, written responses to the workshop and focus group interviews, images and responses to questions generated through drama. The workshop continues to be offered each year to pre-service teachers, and is currently being researched as part of a new project with a team including researchers in areas of health and critical disability studies, with a view to how the drama approach can be applied to other contexts. The Fusion actors have always been involved as co-researchers and invited to ask questions, as well as reflecting on their involvement as workshop leaders. We can appreciate what the student teachers understand and we can be happy that we are sharing the issues with them … They experience who we are and learn from us as people. (Fusion Actor) For the pre-service teachers, the experience of the workshop has provided a deeper understanding about barriers to inclusion, and many reported that it made a positive, and often striking, difference to their understanding of teaching students with disabilities. Being able to learn through inclusive and practical drama activities was significant, as one pre-service teacher explained in a post-workshop written response: ‘I’ve read a lot about inclusive education but this workshop has actually offered me a very practical way of considering how to create an inclusive classroom.’ Post-workshop responses showed that pre-service teachers also recognised the democratic nature of drama in promoting equality amongst participants: ‘Students are equal, there is no one better than the other, and I was glad to be in an environment today where that notion was celebrated.’ Additionally, some pre-service teachers were reminded that as teachers, they are also learners: ‘The most important part is that we, as teachers, can actually learn from students with all backgrounds. We need to be open-minded, and have a growth mindset in our inclusive teaching.’ In particular, deficit views of disability were dispelled when they saw the Fusion actors as competent leaders: The level of confidence that the Fusion actors displayed was both inspiring and challenging. The acting and the entire forum was their domain. With such grace and inclusion, they were able to guide us in our sometimes inadequate acting skills, direct our drama and lead us towards greater understanding. (Preservice teacher, post-workshop written response)

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The data also indicated that the drama workshop can provide impetus for transformation: The workshop made me want to be better and more inclusive … I want to break down the wall of stigma and misunderstandings … Anything less is really not good enough when you consider that a person’s or group of people’s well-being is at stake. I hope I can do it. (Preservice teacher, postworkshop written response) This research revealed how even a single drama workshop can have a lasting impact. Participants who were surveyed about the workshop after they graduated and began teaching, reported that they were still thinking about it one year later: I thought back to the workshop many times. The workshop taught me to ensure that I change my teaching style and expectations when working with students with additional needs, particularly ensuring that each student is treated absolutely individually. (Graduate teacher) In the analysis phase of the project, post-structural theory of affect and becoming (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) helped shed light on the ways that drama works on an affective level. Perry (2011) also found this theory of affect useful, explaining that in drama we are ‘whole sensate beings in motion … the body is always in a state of becoming, at once as a representation of self, a site of experience, sensation and affect, and a mode of creation in progress’ (Perry, 2011, p. 4). In the Diversity Workshops, all participants, including pre-service teachers, lecturers and Fusion actors, frequently referred to the way drama involved their ‘bodies, minds and hearts’. Learning was not just thought, but was embodied and felt, as participants encountered one another in the workshop. In this shared ensemble space, the interplay of vulnerability and responsibility generated a spirit of positive becoming – propelling us further in an ongoing project of becoming more inclusive.

Project 2: The Diverse Encounters project The Diverse Encounters project was undertaken as part of Deakin University’s Participation and Partnership Program that aims to improve university access and participation rates, particularly for students from low socio-economic backgrounds. In this project university students of drama and education worked together with Year 9 drama and dance students (aged 14–15 years) from a local high school and adults with disabilities from Fusion Theatre’s morning ensemble. The workshops provided an opportunity for the three diverse groups to come together for drama and creative movement. In addition, all were invited to participate actively in arts-based participatory research (Raphael & Freebody, 2019).

118 Jo Raphael The morning ensemble actors experience a broader range of disabilities than those in the evening ensemble. Some use a wheelchair, and others have limited speech or are non-verbal. All had been developing skills in drama for more than a year, and some for more than ten years. The high school students are also diverse, with the majority from non-English speaking and a range of cultural backgrounds. We were mindful of establishing a sense of equality, acknowledging and working from the strengths of each group. The university students and I formed a teaching team and worked with the group of high school students and the group of actors separately at first, to prepare them to work with one another. Each group developed workshop activities to present to the other so that members of each group were able to take leadership at different times. This was a process involving high school students and Fusion actors teaching and learning from each other. The activities were chosen according to inclusivity, with a sense of how they could be adapted to ensure everyone could participate. The majority of the activities were group and movement-based and ‘performed’ to music, involving synchrony which was at times beautiful to see, serving to surprise and delight both participants and audience. In the context of the drama workshops, we sought to establish a playful, creative and generative research space, as Finley suggests, a ‘field for play … a confluence of mind and body in efforts to understand’ (2005, p. 686). Mindful of ensuring that our research processes were inclusive, it seemed most appropriate to devise ways to collect data through arts-based (drama) methods. We photographed and video-recorded workshops and participants were provided with Flip and Go-Pro cameras so that they could record important moments from their individual perspectives. At the conclusion of the workshop series the university researchers and pre-service teachers visited the school and asked the students to reflect on the experience of the Diverse Encounters project by providing them with slips of paper to write word and sentence responses to research questions. As this was their drama and dance class time, we then invited them to be creative by forming groups to share their individual words and sentences, and combine them to construct a data poem about the experience. Recognising the similarities and differences in responses was a kind of collective analysis as they noticed repetition, contrast and interesting juxtapositions. After collaborating on the structure of their poem, they prepared and presented a group performance of their poem using voice, sound, movement and gesture. Wondering I was nervous, but at the same time was wondering Confronted Joyful Sad Surprised

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A window into another community everyone feeling they belong Creativity is alive no matter what your level of ability Because the way we use and express our body is a common thing Amazed It was a great experience and I would love to work with them again (Sample from students’ data poems) The poem reflects the students’ nervousness and feelings of being ‘confronted’ as they began their work with the actors. There were mixed feelings described as sadness and joy, then surprise at the realisation that they shared the ability to be creative together and it was something they would like to do again. For the Fusion actors, we devised an active drama-based ‘group interview’ process where they stood on an imaginary continuum line according to their responses to research questions. We also invited them to make physical shapes to show how they felt in response to some questions such as ‘How did you feel when the high school students arrived the first day?’ and ‘How did you feel when you worked with the high school students?’ We used this activity to prompt further discussions. The data collected through these arts-based processes revealed the actors’ appreciation for the opportunity to work with the students and a sense of satisfaction in being individually and collectively creative. This was evident when the actors with disability expressed their feelings and thoughts such as ‘I felt happy’, ‘I felt strong’ and ‘I wish the students would come again.’ Through our analysis, we learned about the potential of shared learning experiences in the arts to transform often limited or negative prior experiences people with disabilities have had of secondary students and to dispel apparent fears the teenagers held about working with them. We also discovered the ways the drama and dance workshop activities including gesture, movement, music and voice, involved participants in working creatively together and encountering each other in a fully embodied way, dependent on careful observing, listening and communication. The high school teacher commented: It was an absolute pleasure to see relationships formed between our students and the Fusion Theatre members, working together in a creative way, where the differences in abilities ceased to exist. On the last workshop, students had been so touched by the overall experience that there were some tears of sadness to leave. (Teacher, post workshop interview)

120 Jo Raphael Encountering others through the arts provided a space of possibility that transformed thinking, shifted attitudes and disrupted limited views of disability. As participants and researchers, we learned more about the power of the arts in education to tap into the rich potential of the aesthetic experience. The opportunity to work creatively with different people, in a way that valued what each group brought to the experience, encouraged individuals in each of the three participant groups to feel more capable and optimistic about their ability to cope with future challenges they might face.

Conclusion: Drama, diversity and equality Our aim in these drama projects was to understand how we might work in and through drama towards becoming more inclusive. We discovered something about the ways drama can provide an affective space that has the potential to disrupt pervasive negative or deficit attitudes, prompting thought and imagination – so that participants might imagine other ways of thinking and acting towards the ideal of a more inclusive society. Working together in drama can involve the taking of extraordinary risks for all involved, and this includes the teacher when normative power relations are shifted (Neelands, 2010). Bringing a diversity of participants together in drama, as in both these projects, requires their embodied presence, interdependence and a vulnerability to one another, heightening the element of risk. This can be a productive risk but requires a mutual responsibility and respect. As Nicholson (2005) warns, positive relationships and outcome are not guaranteed, ‘relationships between participants and practitioners are not automatically trusting, and theatre is not necessarily an instrument for change. It depends on the spirit in which these things are used’ (p. 24). Therefore, carefully scaffolded drama activities, co-led by participants in an atmosphere of being open and valuing what each person brings, are of key importance. The workshop activities, and the creative responses to them, were commonly described by participants as being surprisingly beautiful. An unexpected beauty performed by all, but in particular by people with disability, served to disrupt preconceptions of the disabled body, casting ‘beauty as a social force for good … with transformational possibilities’ (Winston 2010, p. 85). These moments of wonder, beauty and grace in our drama work are significant – not only in the moments they occur, but for the lasting positive impressions they tend to leave of working inclusively with others. This research has shown how shared affective experiences of beauty, grace and laughter are significant in workshops that explore and celebrate diversity, and are examples of equality and inclusion in action. While there are inevitably moments of discomfort and struggle toward becoming more inclusive, working (and researching) together in this way is educative and potentially transformative for all participants. Within Australia, and in many international contexts, classrooms are becoming more diverse as there is a movement away from segregated special education

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settings to inclusive classrooms in mainstream schools open to students of all ability. However, for many people, especially people with disability, such as those in Fusion’s ensemble, social inclusion is still something that they are seeking in their lives. Involvement in an inclusive ensemble with a public face helps make this happen, but for them the project of social inclusion is ongoing. Teachers might think about the ways that ideas presented in this chapter could be drawn upon to consider what opportunities there are for diverse groups to work creatively together in drama, including individuals who are still striving for social inclusion. With ever changing combinations of participants, contexts and circumstances, the project of inclusion is never complete; there is always a need to strive towards becoming more inclusive. As seen in these two projects, moments of this collective endeavour in drama can be joyous and transformative.

A FUSION WORKSHOP AGE OF STUDENTS: Upper primary, secondary through to adults AIMS: To build ensemble skills through inclusive exercises and

explore equity, diversity and barriers to inclusion through critical thinking in action. To work towards becoming more inclusive. MATERIALS: Appropriate recorded music for movement exercises. CONTEXT: The workshop or lesson outlined here is a fusion of the inclusive ensemble work explored with Fusion Theatre’s morning ensemble and the critical thinking in action that is the work of Fusion’s evening ensemble. The first exercises build experiences in working inclusively as an ensemble, through togetherness, cooperation and synchrony. Towards the end of the workshop, activities move into an exploration of diversity, equality and understanding barriers to inclusion. Fusion has used these exercises with upper primary to secondary students and with adults. The workshop works well when groups of different participants come together, such as the school students and adults with disability mentioned in the case study.

Movement circle Purpose: This exercise is suggested as an inclusive warm-up for the group. Each person has a chance to offer a movement, and by promoting a diversity of movements, this exercise can help to expand the movement range of participants. It also leads into the mirror exercises that follow. Participants stand in a circle with some space between each person. Going around the circle, each person in the circle takes a turn to lead a repeated movement that everyone copies for about 15 seconds. Ask them to

122 Jo Raphael try to think of a different movement from what has been done previously so that by the time we reach the end, all parts of the body have been moved. Use some lively music with a beat to encourage rhythmic movements.

Mirror pairs Purpose: This exercise is a drama classic and has many forms. Its purpose in this workshop is to continue to exercise movement, focus, concentration and careful attention to the other. In pairs, participants face each other at about arm’s length. The teacher asks them to decide who is A and who is B and explains that A is to become the leader in the first iteration of the exercise and B is the mirror reflection. The leader leads the action, keeping their actions simple and their motion slow so that the person mirroring can follow. The movement should also be done in silence. Moderately paced and peaceful music can be used to help keep the movements slow and easy to follow, and to add an aesthetic element to the exercise. It is a good idea to stop after a short time and hold a discussion about what factors are important to remember for the exercise to work well. The aim is for the reflection to be so close to the original that someone observing from the outside would not be able to tell which is the leader, and which is the reflection. After a while, A and B should swap roles so that they have both experiences. As an advancement of the exercise, they can switch the leadership spontaneously between person A and B.

Double mirror exercise with chairs Purpose: This exercise builds a sense of unity and can be appropriate for participants with limited movement, such as those using wheelchairs. It can also be done standing without chairs. Set out a row of chairs down the length of the room with every second chair facing in the opposite direction. Facing each row is another chair for the two people who will be the leaders in this exercise. Play some slow music for the leaders to begin slow movements and gestures that are closely mirrored by those sitting in the chairs facing their direction. Change the participants and the leaders so as to provide experience to others. Extension: Encourage the two leaders to either try to copy each other or deliberately contrast with the other, to create an attractive effect of interwoven movements that often juxtapose in interesting ways.

School of fish and flocking Purpose: This movement exercise encourages cohesion in team-work, as participants move between leading and yielding.

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Groups of people can mirror a leader from behind. It is easy to begin this with a group of three. One person leads and the others stand behind as two points on a triangle. They follow the leader’s movements and if the leader turns right or left they turn as well. This will result in one of the others, at a different point of the triangle, to be in front. When this happens, the person now in front of the other two becomes the new leader. Select some appropriate music to add an aesthetic element to this exercise. Extension: More people can be added to make a larger triangle or a V like a flock of birds. A larger more organically clumped group can allow different leaders to emerge. This is like what happens with a school of fish. As the group moves around and changes direction the leader keeps changing. The same principles of closely copying the leader’s actions apply.

Magic Hand Purpose: This exercise is inclusive in that it allows for participants to contribute at their own level and the result is creating something greater than the sum of its parts. Exercises like this have been used as structures in preparation for Fusion Theatre performances, instead of tightly choreographed pieces which can sometimes be difficult for actors to remember. Our version of Magic Hand has been adapted from Lecoq (McQueen, 2013). A group of 8–10 students are positioned together facing in one direction and a leader stands in front of them. The leader uses one hand to conduct the group in movement. As the ‘magic hand’ gestures, using different qualities of movement (right, left, high, low, fast, slow), the group moves together in response to the magic hand movements. Individuals can interpret the magic hand and respond in their own way. This is not mirroring, but simply responding to the gesture. Different responses will make the collective movement more interesting, but still unified. The conductor might find Laban’s efforts useful to inspire movement: slashing, gliding, flicking, pressing, wringing, punching, dabbing and floating. Choose appropriate music to enhance this exercise.

The crazy choir Purpose: This exercise provides a vocal warm-up in which everyone is simultaneously involved. It can be done as a whole class exercise and results in an unusual variety of sounds that can sound like an interesting cacophony, but are often surprisingly harmonious when the choir members follow the conductor’s prompts and listen to each other. It is useful as an exercise that requires the whole class to work together and pay careful attention to each other. Anyone can do this as even the smallest movements can be interpreted vocally by the choir. Some of our participants who are non-verbal have particularly enjoyed the powerful effect of leading a very vocally energetic choir.

124 Jo Raphael The participants gather together as if in a choir. One person is selected to be the conductor and stands in front of the group. The conductor uses finger, hand, arm and whole body gestures to conduct while the choir responds to these movements with improvised vocal sound effects. The timing, size of the gestures and the level at which they are performed by the conductor will give the choir ideas about the rhythm, volume, pitch and so on. The conductor can also lead through a series of emotional gestures by using body movements to show emotions such as surprise, sadness or suspicion and the choir can respond with sounds that match the emotions. It is a good idea to establish one clear gesture from the beginning that means stop, so that the conductor can easily bring the choir to silence. Change the conductor so that others get a turn, each conductor will bring a different quality. Participants may be hesitant at first, but can find it very satisfying and empowering to experience the role of the conductor.

Clumps and ten second constructions Purpose: These two common drama activities get the participants mixing together and working quickly on problem-solving in lots of different combinations. I use a version of these activities in many different drama workshops as it helps break down barriers, helps set the conditions for productive group work, and can be tailored to suit any topic or theme. In this version, participants begin to think symbolically about some of the key concepts of the workshop. Instruct the participants to walk around the room in all directions, changing direction frequently, and ensuring there is equal space between all participants. When the teacher calls a number, the participants quickly clump together in a group of that number. They must form groups quickly and this encourages random mixing. Do this a few times before adding in an instruction for each group to use all the bodies in the group to create a shape, or sculpture, to represent a given word in 10 seconds or less. Some suggestions: Open, Closed, Harmony, Discord, Equality, Diversity. If time, a few moments can be taken for the groups to appreciate the shapes created by the other. Ask them to describe what they notice about these shapes, or to describe some common elements. Extension: Ask the groups to create a sound that would go with this sculpture. This can be done spontaneously on the count of three.

Tableaux: Exclusion/Inclusion Purpose: Groups create tableaux or still images useful for focusing and finding the essence of a moment in human relationships. For groups of participants who are unused to drama, they can be a gentle introduction to performing scenes. Morphing between two scenes is an easy way to add movement or dynamise a scene.

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In groups (of about five) ask the participants to involve all the members of the group to create a tableau or still image to show a scene of exclusion. Ask them to create a second tableau that shows inclusion. Then ask them to morph the exclusion tableau to the inclusion tableau over eight counts (claves can be used to sound the beats). Look at each of these images and the transitions between them and discuss the whether they seem realistic in any way. Ask participants to think about what might really need to happen in order to turn the image of exclusion into the image of inclusion.

Barriers to inclusion: Forum Theatre Purpose: Holding inclusive dispositions is not enough to ensure an inclusive society. People also need to be able to identify the insidious barriers to inclusion. There are many kinds of barriers; they can exist because of individuals or systems, they can be physical, economic or to do with attitudes people hold. This exercise uses a simplified version of Forum Theatre (Boal, 1995) to consider a range of barriers to inclusion and what might happen to break down these barriers. In groups, ask participants to consider barriers to inclusion in society. As a group they choose one example, then create a short scene (approximately 30 seconds) to show that barrier to inclusion. The scenes only need to show the problem, not solve it. All the members of the group will play the various roles required in the scene. The scenes are viewed and the audience identifies the barrier/s presented in each scene. The teacher leads a discussion and invites audience members (spectators), rather than talk about solutions, to take on the role in a replay of the scene, to attempt to break down that barrier to inclusion. Several alternative solutions can be presented. Alternatively, or additionally, the teacher (and students) can question characters in the scene to gain their thoughts and insights into the situation presented in the scene. It might not be possible to find a solution, and this does not matter. It is the rich discussion liberated by this exercise that is most important. Conclude the workshop with a discussion about ideas for thinking and acting towards a more inclusive society.

References Boal, A. (1995). The rainbow of desire: The Boal method of theatre and therapy. London: Routledge. Bolton, G. (1984). Changes in thinking about drama in education. Theory into Practice, 24(3), 151–157. Burchardt, T., Le Grand, J. & Piachaud, D. (2002). Degrees of exclusion: Developing a dynamic, multi-dimensional measure. In J. Hills, J. Le Grand, & D. Piachaud (Eds.), Understanding social exclusion (pp. 30–43). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

126 Jo Raphael Conrad, D. (2002). Drama as arts-based pedagogy and research: Media advertising and inner-city youth. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 48(3), 254–268. Deleuze, G. (1995). Negotiations: 1972–1990 (M. Joughin, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. London and New York: Continuum. Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. New York: Capricorn Press. Drama Australia. (2015). Equity and diversity guidelines for drama education. Brisbane: Drama Australia. http://dramaaustralia.org.au/assets/files/DA_EquityAndDiversity.pdf. Finley, S. (2005). Arts-based inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 681–694). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Finley, S. (2011). Critical arts-based inquiry: The pedagogy and performance of a radical ethical aesthetic. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (4th ed., pp. 435–450). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Freire, P. (2011). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder & Herder. Gallagher, K. & Rivière, D. (2007). When drama praxis rocks the boat: Struggles of subjectivity, audience, and performance. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 12(3), 319–330. Grady, S. (2000). Drama and diversity: A pluralistic perspective for educational drama. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Lundy, K. G. (2008). Teaching fairly in an unfair world. Ontario: Pembroke Publishers. McQueen, G. (2013). The visionary, transformational pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq: Adapting his ‘frameworks’ approach for creating theatre to drama/theatre and education. Dramasound Projects. https://dramasound.com/paris. Massumi, B. (Ed.) (2002). A shock to thought: Expressions after Deleuze and Guattari. London: Routledge. Moynihan, M. (2012). Acting for change: Four drama workshop models in anti-racism, anti-sectarianism, human rights and gender equality and storytelling to promote reconciliation. Smashing Times Theatre Company. https://arrow.dit.ie/cgi/view content.cgi?article=1014&context=aaconmusbk. Neelands, J. (2010). The art of togetherness. In P. O’Connor (Ed.), Creating democratic citizenship through drama education: The writings of Jonothan Neelands (pp. 131–142). Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books. Nicholson, H. (2005). Applied drama: The gift of theatre. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Norris, J. (2000). Drama as research: Realizing the potential of drama in education as a research methodology. Youth Theatre Journal, 14 (1), 40–51. O’Connor, P., Szaunder, E. & Bentsen, E. (2003). Partnership, protection and participation: Principles for working in drama with people with special needs. In H. Heikkinen (Ed.), Special interest fields of drama, theatre and education: The IDEA dialogues (pp. 54–65). Jyvaskyla: Jyvaskyla University Press. Perry, M. (2011). Devising in the rhizome: The ‘sensational’ body in drama education and research. Applied Theatre Researcher, 12, 1–16. Raphael, J. (2004). Equal to life: Empowerment through drama and research in a drama group for people with disabilities. NJ: Drama Australia Journal, 28(1), 73–86. Raphael, J. (2013). The disruptive aesthetic space: Drama as pedagogy for challenging pre-service teacher attitudes towards students with disabilities. (Unpublished PhD thesis). University of Melbourne.

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Raphael, J. (2014). Teaching and learning in the crucible: Actors with disabilities as experts preparing pre-service teachers to be inclusive educators. Drama Research: International Journal of Drama Research, 5(1), 1–19. Raphael, J. & Allard, A. C. (2012). Positioning people with intellectual disabilities as the experts: Enhancing pre-service teachers’ competencies in teaching for diversity. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 17(2), 205–221. Raphael, J. & Freebody, K. (2019). Active participation: Social inclusion and drama research. In P. Duffy, C. Hatton & R. Sallis (Eds.), Drama research methods: Provocations of practice. Netherlands: Brill/Sense. Raphael, J. & Hunter, M. (2017). The arts and teaching for diversity. In C. Sinclair, N. Jeanneret, M. Hunter & J. O’Toole (Eds.), Education in the arts (3rd ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Thompson, J. (2009). Performance affects: Applied theatre and the end of effect. Basingstoke, UK andNew York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tomlinson, R. (1982). Disability, theatre and education. London: Souvenir Press. UNESCO. (2016). Education 2030: Incheon declaration and framework for action for the implementation of sustainable development goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Incheon, South Korea: UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000245656. Way, B. (1967). Development through drama. London: Longman. Winston, J. (2010). Beauty in education. New York: Routledge. Winston, J. & Strand, S. (2013). Tapestry and the aesthetics of theatre in education as dialogic encounter and civil exchange. RIDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 18(1), 62–78.

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Imagining the possible Using drama for gender equality in schools Christine Hatton

Introduction As an art form and pedagogy, drama is at its most powerful for participants when it is probing the details and complexities of the human experience. Human problems are central to learning in drama as fictional moments are framed and held up for scrutiny (O’Neill, 1995). This framing of dramatic inquiry (Carroll, 1986; Heathcote, 1982) and the artful use of the elements of drama (O’Toole, 1992; Haseman & O’Toole, 2017) enables participants to look anew at specific moments of human action and problems, to critically investigate them, often from within the dramatic experience itself. The ‘now time’ (Heathcote, 1984) of the drama learning experience and its ‘productive tensions’ (Heathcote, 2010/2015) provide creative interpretations of stories and dilemmas. Drama can be a powerful catalyst for generating new meanings and representations. Heathcote’s masterful drama praxis showed us that drama works best in education when it troubles and probes ‘man in a mess’ (1971). Drama can be a safe, experimental haven for re-imagining the social world (Berry, 2000, p. 65). In the current educational, social and political contexts of schooling, the messes of human life are many, and these, in turn, offer teachers a multitude of subjects and human dilemmas to explore with students. When dramatic processes delve into complex human problems, there are also many challenges for drama teachers, who need to practise with care if meaningful learning is to take place. Gender and gender equality are messy human entanglements, concepts which shape human lived experience and behaviour. These are also socially constructed, contextual and responsive to particular social, political and historical forces. Gender is laden with hegemonic ideas and practices (Gramsci, 1973), which need to be addressed in any drama work about gender. The machinations of gender and equality also interact and intersect with other human identity markers such as race, culture, class, abilities and sexualities. Any interrogation of gender (or the other markers) needs careful praxis and a layered understanding of how context, culture and complexity matter. If drama educators work on/with concepts of gender and gender equality in the drama learning process, care needs to be given to who is learning and how the pedagogy is used to problematise students’ understandings of

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how these concepts impact human action and stories, as well as modes of representation on stage. The foregrounding of gender in the active drama learning experience offers both benefits and challenges for learners and teachers, particularly if we use gender to imagine what may sometimes feel impossible: change. This chapter, and the lesson included with it, aim to discuss some of the critical issues when working with and for gender equity in the drama classroom. It references an Australian research study that used gender-based process drama to investigate and problematise adolescent girl relationships and gender esteem. This chapter will consider some of the teaching and research implications of using drama to probe notions of gender and gender equality in schools. In everyday life (and drama education and research, I would add), gender is often normalised and sidelined as a theme or lens, as it can be assumed to be a part of the natural order of things. Gender stereotypes can flourish and be reinforced in drama processes rather than questioned, deconstructed and resisted. As a social and cultural construct, gender shifts and changes with time and context. In my experience, drama teachers often shy away from interrogating gender, unless the teacher has a particular interest or expertise in the area. There are also few research studies in our field that explicitly focus on gender, either as a thematic focus of the learning experiences or as a lens for research inquiry. My own research and practice over the years has aimed to bridge that gap (see Hatton, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004a, 2004b, 2005, 2007, 2012, 2013) and also the work of Kathleen Gallagher (2001) and Richard Sallis (2004, 2011). Hatton and Sallis (2018) have recently questioned the lack of attention drama researchers give to the workings of gender in their research studies. What might be the cause of this gap? Is it by accident or strategic oversight? Gender is a fundamental part of human identity, behaviour and art making, and yet drama practitioners and researchers often mistakenly assume that all participants, male, female and non-binary, experience the drama process in the same way. Girl students of drama are used to the predominance of masculine stories, plays and viewpoints positioned centre stage and centrally in narratives and plays. In my own country and state, however, girls make up around 70% of students in elective classes in secondary drama classrooms and yet they do not access 70% female perspectives, stories or dramatists in their studies. The white, male, heteronormative, cisgender narrative is alive and well in our classrooms (and not only in drama). The challenge for drama educators and researchers is how to effectively examine gender and gender equity in more accessible ways in their work. Part of this involves moving the concept from the margins to the centre of the work. Tensions often arise about whether the dramatic process opens up a Pandora’s box, uncovering deep biases and inequities (within the fiction and outside it). Based on my own practice and research, I suggest practitioners need to trust the poetic and critical powers of our art form and drama pedagogy to create worthwhile and supportive processes for inquiry about and analysis of gender and gender equality.

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Remembering the core of drama education: purposes, processes and performances Drama education offers powerful experiential pedagogies to address and trouble participants’ understandings of gender equality and equity. Effective drama pedagogy and practice are highly responsive to context; therefore, no generalised answers and easy strategies will be offered in this chapter. Here, my aim is to highlight some of the critical, practical and ethical challenges of drama praxis that occur when the drama work and methods directly aim to question gendered social norms, inequitable structures and accepted behaviours. To do this, it is useful to return to some of the key purposes, processes and performances of drama education more broadly. Drama’s purposes When using drama to probe complex issues such as gender equality and equity it is useful to return to some basic questions. What is drama for? Why would educators use it in this way? Drama teachers often deal with difficult stories and texts for the purposes of student learning and inquiry. Effective drama teachers fully consider their purposes and the ‘ethic of care’ (Noddings, 1984) that underpins the dramatic processes they use. Humans face many urgent challenges and crises, both at this time and in the future. These challenges are social, environmental, political, cultural, economic and technological. In these difficult times, humans need more than ever to find creative ways and processes to come together in order to create, to develop empathic understandings, and to collaborate, in response to the multitude of complex problems we face in our world (Wright, 2015; Hatton & Nicholls, 2018). Dramatic processes can help us delve into and critique difficult ideas and issues. The imagined frames of drama learning can help us envisage change and rehearse the possible. Neelands (1996) proposed four modes of empowerment in drama; that is, personal, cultural, communal and social/political (p. 26). These modes position drama along a spectrum of change, from the individual to the wider social realm. The purposes underpinning drama are grounded in the learning experience itself. The doing of the drama enables these purposes and types of empowerment to be activated. Heathcote and Fiala argued that ‘drama has a didactic purpose [which is] presented as an aesthetic experience’ for participants (Heathcote & Fiala, 1980, p. 25). For learning to occur in drama, students need to engage with the dramatic fiction and aesthetic processes – using role, story, voice and movement to manipulate the elements of drama and create dramatic meaning. O’Toole and O’Mara (2007) have argued that there are four paradigms of purpose that shape the use and teaching of drama, such as the:    

cognitive/procedural (gaining knowledge and skills in drama) expressive/developmental (growing through drama) social/pedagogical (learning through drama) functional/learning (learning what people do in drama) (p. 207).

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Skilled drama educators use and manipulate these purposes to guide their design of the learning process, choice of strategies and facilitation methods as they adapt to learner needs as well as curriculum content and contexts. Learning in and through dramatic modes is unique in many ways. In drama, the self is in the play (with bodies, minds, feelings), and therefore individuals are heavily invested in the representations and communication processes in the work. Students use their known worlds to reference and shape the characters and stories they portray, drawing on the reservoir of their lived experiences in the world. This enables the creative processes to occur and the metaxis (Boal, 1995) of the drama experience to drive the learning process. As students work in drama modes, they reference their realities whilst imagining and constructing new ones in the fictional contexts of the drama. Through collaborative creation students experiment with symbolic representations and embody characters and stories. They learn to work imaginatively and purposefully use improvisation, performance and reflection (the fundamental elements of the drama learning process). The potential of drama education lies in the interplay of purpose, form and technique, and our multiple ways of knowing and doing drama. As Berry (2000) suggests: If nothing else, the dramatic arts allows us to explore, to play, to be ludic (playful), to dance with all of these perspectives. We can use humour, irony, parody, analogy, comedy and intellectual sarcasm. We can meander with metaphors or travel with tropes (figures of speech); we can move without, nor aim for, closure to ideas, challenges, history, knowledge or values. (p. 5) The experimental, collaborative use of form allows multiple stories and ideas to be examined and multiple meanings to be juxtaposed (rather than resolved). Art mirrors life. Imaginative processes in drama are infused with real life beliefs and experiences where students mine what they know to imagine the ‘what if’ in the drama. Through imagining the possible, students are invited to consider alternative actions, and ways of being and seeing the world. When acts of imagination in drama focus on the ‘what if’ possibility of social and personal change, students enter into important enactive and critical dialogues about humanity and human experience. In doing so, the drama classroom becomes an experiential laboratory for the examination of processes, people and impacts. It can also open up the space for experimenting with other ways of behaving and thinking about complex social issues, but this in itself can be challenging for students and their teacher and, I would argue, needs both pedagogical care and ethics in the design and implementation of learning. Dorothy Heathcote championed the dialogic and radical engagement of the learner in drama as she created learning processes that allowed participants to stir their knowledge together (Heathcote, 1989/ 2012). When skilfully led, the fictional inquiries of the drama can provide safe processes for enacting, critiquing and challenging limiting discourses, representations and storylines. To imagine ‘what if’ and

132 Christine Hatton represent it in dramatic form opens up the potential for dialogue, empathy and critical understanding for participants, in the moments of learning and also beyond it. It would be naive, however, to assume this kind of process is easy or simple to enact or lead. Sometimes these types of collective and personal imaginings experienced in drama classrooms can be revelatory or affirming, or indeed, they can be difficult and/or confronting for participants. Problematising complex issues and experiences in drama can be very challenging for many students. Such a way of working requires a strong ethic of care in the way the teacher facilitates the processes and meaning making, ensuring students work openly with acceptance of different viewpoints and experiences. Skilled teachers use our porous and elastic art form to juxtapose alternate ideas and perspectives, weaving complexity into representations, and inviting students to inquire creatively and critically throughout the learning process. Drama processes When we collaborate creatively in drama, groups can dream together in the classroom, seeing new connections, symbolism and synergies emerge on the workshop floor. The fictional inquiries of drama and performance projects offer opportunities for both teachers and students to open up radical spaces for generative imagining and critical inquiry. Drama students exercise their metaphorical thinking (Hatton & Lovesy, 2015) as they work, make and reflect on the art form. This involves iterative processes of collaborative playing and experimentation, usually through improvisation and play building. Students consider what (and whose) stories matter and which human questions are worthy of enactment. Students also consider the impacts to be made on audiences in the presentation of the work. Skilled teachers create safe spaces for students to experiment, critique and respond to the emerging work in creative ways. Rather than reinforcing or replicating normative ideas and behaviours in the drama, it is important for students to inquire deeply and work in fresh and imaginative ways. Effective dramatic learning processes enable students to cocreate and shape the work, often using form to drill down or open up on critical issues and ideas at the heart of the work. Gallagher refers to this as the ‘sociology of aesthetics’ in drama learning episodes, where self and community knowledge are deeply embedded in the work on the classroom floor (Gallagher, 2007, p. 161). When using experiential drama to explore difficult content, how participants come to know and respond (in and out of role) needs to be carefully structured and guided by the teacher, and it is always mediated by the context of the work and the collaborative process of shared imagining. What teachers and researchers do in drama classrooms is unique, and can be potentially dangerous, particularly if it is counter-cultural to the educational, social or political contexts in which we work and live. Drama learning processes require a uniquely active type of learner engagement – different to the positioning of learners in more traditional subject classrooms. In drama the learner is asked to be present and open to the emerging inquiry and others as

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the work evolves in fictional and reflective modes. Students need to yield to the collaborative process and be ‘in the moment’ of the dramatic action. Making use of what Freire referred to as the dialectical movement between action and reflection (Freire, 1973), drama learning processes work to cyclically shift participants from outside to inside the fictional context. This in itself involves a dynamic interplay between doing and reflecting on, in and after the action. Schon theorised the idea of reflection on and in action (Schon, 1983) and in dramatic processes this occurs inside the dramatic action as well as outside it (O’Mara, 1999). Many processes are at work in the experience of drama learning (some intended and some accidental). Whatever the drama processes used, participants learn both through and because of the experiences they have in role and within the dramatic frames. This is what Bolton refers to as the ‘epistemological purpose of drama in education’ – the aim to bring about change in a participant’s understanding of the world (1984, p. 148). For Bolton, effective drama learning processes work to shift habitual ways of thinking and produce insightful change. He says: Only when the work is at an experiential feeling level can change in understanding take place … Various metaphorical terms are used in an attempt to describe the insightful change that can take place: refining, extending, widening, making more flexible, shifting a bias, breaking a stereotype, giving a new slant, challenging, casting doubt, questioning assumptions, facing decisions, seeing new implications, anticipating consequences, trying alternatives, widening range of choice, changing perspective. (Bolton, 1979, p. 45) For Bolton, this dynamic process works through the educational uses of dramatic action: firstly, to separate and objectify a fictional event for exploration (we focus and isolate the lens on what is to be explored), and secondly, to enable a breaking down of the established concepts and perceptions embedded in that event (we play with it using aspects of the art form). In drama, learning processes interrogate the fictions we create, often replaying them in multiple ways for further interpretive possibilities. This generative process of making, performing and reflecting in drama allows students to experience, in the moments of enactment and reflection, the multiple perspectives and layers of meaning that emerge from the group inquiry. When dramatic processes open up complex ways of working and knowing, this throws light back onto the teachers’ purpose and the quality of their experiential teaching. Not only does this apply to using drama to explore gender, it also applies to approaching any challenging or controversial content in the drama classroom. Troubling deeply held hegemonic ideas and practices in drama is hard work, as Berry argues, empowerment is a precarious world to rehearse (2000, p. 67). Working in this way can challenge students’ personal beliefs, world views and perceptions of the world. Consequently, the way drama teachers use protection and distancing during the dramatic inquiry

134 Christine Hatton becomes even more critical. Bolton reminds drama teachers to take conscious steps to protect students and understand how this process works in the experience of the unfolding drama: The notion of ‘protection’ is not necessarily concerned with protecting participants from emotion, for unless there is some kind of emotional engagement nothing can be learned, but rather to protect them into emotion. This requires careful grading of structures toward an effective equilibrium so that self-esteem, personal dignity, personal defences and group security are never over-challenged. (1984, p. 128) The fictional frame acts as a protective but porous barrier where ‘the distancing creates a protective distance between oneself and one’s fictive role’ (Bolton, 2006, p. 58). If learning is to be effective, teachers need to create and facilitate learning processes that enable productive or generative exploration and deeper engagement from students. Sensitive teacher facilitation of student meaning making is key, alongside the provision of supportive structures and strategies to help scaffold student meaning making in age-appropriate and critical ways. It is important to be careful not to simply spotlight the social problems to be explored in the drama by using superficial strategies and/or processes. Worse still, trite or poorly conceived approaches run the risk of reinforcing or reinscribing the very issues they hoped to interrogate. Without a robust, inclusive and reflective approach the work may not only miss its mark, it may also reproduce bias and stereotypical thinking and representations of gender, as well as prejudice about gender equality and equity. Effective drama teachers understand the importance of immersion but also the ways in which new and emergent meanings are coaxed into being (usually with cycles of dialogue, experimentation and reflection). Drama can help excavate what students already know, but also what they sense but cannot yet articulate. Teachers must be clear of how they use metaphor and interplay between the real and the fictional contexts. Bolton reminds us of this crucial dialectic at the heart of drama: Drama is metaphor. Its meaning lies not in the actual context nor in the fictional one, but in the dialectic set up between the two. (Bolton, 1979, p. 128) The way we use and experience metaxis within the drama learning experience affects and shapes the meanings participants make. For Bolton, this jostling of these two frames, reality and fiction, in the ‘as if’ world of drama acts as a form of mental liberation that relies on the necessity of presence and action (1984, pp. 141–142). Drama performances The embodied performances of drama learning provide an immediacy to the experience of learning for participants. Enactment is powerful as students feel

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their way into knowledge in the moment of sharing and communicating in role alongside their peers. Performance matters in drama, and it is particularly important for girls in terms of taking up space, voicing their stories and commanding the performance space and the audience. Often the confidence and capacities developed in performance have flow-on impacts for students’ identity development and social capital. Shared meaning making in and through performance can empower students to be present, in charge and attuned to their audiences and contexts. Whether student performances are self-devised or scripted, improvised or rehearsed, full consideration needs to be given to types of performances afforded to young people and how they matter to their audiences. What do students produce and why? Do they perform work that reproduces gender rules and discourses or does the work subvert and critique the norms and expectations of the audiences? This can be a tightrope for drama teachers, as their pedagogy is made visible through student performance to the school community. Radical or transgressive student performances require supportive audiences and communities which understand drama education; as I write this, I know this is the ideal situation. Not all teachers and students have supportive contexts to perform for. Increasingly in many schools today, censorship is commonplace and school-based audiences can be reactive rather than understanding about student performances that push boundaries or are provocative of deeply held community beliefs. An effective drama educator would aim to engage students in the critical process of deciding what is performed, for whom and why.

Using drama to explore gender equality and equity Feminist and gender scholars have done much to interrogate and deconstruct gender as a bodily, cultural and political construct. Australian scholar Raewyn Connell has been theorising gender and its machinations for decades. Connell’s work has helped shape the field of gender studies and particularly the scholarship on masculinities. Connell explains that gender is ‘the cultural difference of women from men, based on the biological division between male and female’ (Connell, 2002, p. 8). One of the challenges facing gender aware teachers or scholars is the way the normative binary of gender casts male and female as oppositional yet also part of a natural order of some kind. As Connell illustrates, the natural order of this binary is never stable or indeed ‘natural’. She states: In everyday life we normally take gender for granted. We instantly recognize a person as a man or woman, girl or boy. We arrange much of our everyday business around this distinction … These arrangements are so common, so familiar, that they can seem part of the order of nature. Belief that gender distinction is ‘natural’ makes it scandalous when people don’t follow the pattern. (2002, pp. 3–4)

136 Christine Hatton In these terms, gender is linked to the sex difference or sex assignment we receive in the womb; however, biological difference is only part of the gender story. As a cultural construct it is shaped by discourses, practices and rules, all of which are situated in place and time. Gender, like other identity markers, is heavily coded, and its rules are learned and taught, and importantly, policed at various levels and spheres of human life. Gender rules and discourses affect our understandings of self, the body, relationship to others, education, wealth, health, social networks, institutions and politics. The rules and codes shift and contradict each other providing double standards and inequality. Gender codes are used to reinforce oppressive regimes of difference and normative ideals that shape human existence and potential, usually by positioning women as the lesser, weaker sex. Gender also profoundly impacts a person’s education and career opportunities and also their access to health care and empowerment (World Economic Forum, 2017). All over the world there are gender related gaps of opportunity, wealth and living standards, particularly for women. For many groups of women around the world there are substantial systemic, social and political barriers that keep inequitable structures and rules in place, affecting their lives and power in their worlds. It is important not to see gender as a stable, fixed and singular human identity marker. It is evident in the personal realm through processes of internalisation, as well as at social levels (families and communities), plus institutional levels. Power play is an inherent part of the workings of gender. Connell (2002, p. 142) refers to the way hegemonic masculinity feeds inequity and dominating male power structures, where men are reluctant to yield power lest they lose the ‘patriarchal dividend’ or profits that they receive from inequitable social structures, discourses and behaviours. There is a lot to lose if we destabilise hegemonic masculinities. In addition, gender is always linked to and shaped by other aspects of identity, forming a network of intersections in a dynamic interplay. Gender needs to be understood in terms of intersectionality. Post-structuralist theorists have described gender as fluid and performative (Butler, 1990), shaped in the repetition of normative patriarchal and heterosexual patterns, discourses and signifiers. These govern and shape aspects of self and experience, as Connell notes: Gender arrangements are thus, at the same time, sources of pleasure, recognition and identity, and sources of injustice and harm. This means that gender is inherently political – but it also means the politics can be complicated and difficult. (2002, p. 6) This context is important for drama educators to understand and be able to work ‘with’ and ‘against’ for the purposes of learning in the classroom. Gender is always at play in whatever we do in the drama learning process, whether we acknowledge it or not. The concept of gender equality is guided by an overriding sense of fairness and social justice. The European Institute of Gender Equality defines gender equality as referring to the equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of

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women and men, girls and boys (European Institute of Gender Equality, n.d.). Focusing drama on gender equality involves paying attention to equal human rights (as both a topic and as a process of drama) and exploring the workings of gender inside the fiction and outside it (in and out of role). Guided by an exploration of justice and equity, the drama learning process may consider the differences of gendered perspectives and experiences (in stories, plays or devised works). It is important for teachers to be careful to avoid essentialist approaches which may render the work superficial and aesthetically banal. Which or whose perspectives are key to the dramatic inquiry? One perspective may not represent ‘all women’ or ‘all men’. Critical and inclusive processes are very important when exploring gender in the drama classroom, particularly when students themselves are diverse in their gender identifications and expressions. It is important to create a safe but critical space for inquiry, one which values diversity and diverse expressions of gender (and other identity markers such as race, class and sexuality). When focusing on gender, it is important for teachers to remember that we are all deeply implicated in the issues under investigation, and as an embodied performing art, drama of this kind can be risky or threatening to do. Teachers need to ensure the work is respectful and dialogic at every phase, and processes used are open to true exploration and experimentation. This may mean using particular pronouns to assist students who are gender diverse, and/or offering a range of stories, roles and materials that do not prescribe (or re-inscribe) limited or normative ideas of gender. When imagining possibilities, we need to provide learning experiences where students truly play with and safely reflect upon the ideas that emerge in the drama.

Gender-focused research in drama education My praxis is informed by a long-held interest in the machinations of gender in the drama classroom, and an interest in the way gender informs and plays out within drama research (Hatton & Sallis, 2018). In my PhD study (Hatton, 2005) focusing on play building and verbatim approaches with teenage girls, I considered the ways in which a feminist pedagogical approach in drama education might work productively for and with girls. In that study and those that followed it, I have sought to refine my practice to be more attuned to the needs and interests of girls’ and women’s unique and diverse lived experiences of the world, and to tailor the drama work towards creative investigations of girlhood and change. In my own teaching and research with adolescent girls I try to position the concept of gender centrally in the work. For me, it became imperative to try to use the dramatic processes and performances to empower girls to experiment with more agentive representations and stories. Some of the strategies I have used in gender-based drama projects involved one or more of the following:  

Using drama to empower and enhance girl agency and creativity. Enhancing girls’ authority, authorship and voice within the drama work by positioning them centrally within the dramatic inquiry (as subjects).

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Focusing on and exploring girls’ experiences of the world and embodiment within those worlds, with a focus on empathy and diversity. Building girls’ creative skills and locus of control in their performances of selves/roles, developing their ensemble playing skills and capacities for cocreation, plus their abilities to control their audience. Ensuring there is a rigour of ideas and practice embedded in the work they shape and perform. Providing and exploring an expansive repertoire of roles and characters, particularly characters that play against the grain of normative ideas about gender. Encouraging the use of humour and physical theatre, so that girls command the theatre space. Creating a space for girls’ storying and acts of witnessing one another’s stories. Allowing the drama to be transgressive or subversive when helping students to consider the ‘what if?’ in the fiction – experimenting with symbols, representations and metaphors. Delving into the workings of intersectionality by considering diverse contexts, bodies, gender expressions and identifications, and different power dynamics.

My praxis and research have focused on the use of drama to strengthen gender relations between girls, with the drama frame providing contexts and processes for girls to make important connections, the most resonant of which has proved to be: ‘You are not alone’. The recently revised Drama Australia Equity and Diversity Guidelines has offered a range of approaches for drama educators interested in using drama to explore gender (Drama Australia, 2017). I will now offer an example of a research study I completed that positioned gender centrally in the dramatic processes.

Case study research example: The Girls’ Own project The purpose of this study was to examine how classroom drama learning processes can be used to enhance girls’ self-understanding, gender esteem and sense of agency. It was conducted as a single-site case study, in one multicultural urban, single-sex secondary school and it examined the applications of classroom drama in relation to girls’ education. It considered how drama might be used to challenge the limiting hegemonic narratives about gender that girls experience and how drama might support girls’ understandings and performances of femininities in the context of 21st-century girlhood. The study aimed to create drama work for/with/by girls in a supportive learning environment, where girls could use their girl know-how to inform the unfolding drama about girls just like them. Using Shaun Tan’s book The Red Tree as a pretext for a girl-centred process drama, this study utilised drama’s enactive and critical learning processes to strengthen girls’ sense of gender esteem and well-being.

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The study explored the following research questions: 1 2 3 4 5

What are the critical issues shaping girls’ experiences of adolescence and schooling in 21st-century schools? What discourses and factors affect girls’ construction and performances of contemporary femininities? In what ways does drama provide a recuperative space for girls to make significant meanings about self and others? What types of ‘identity assets’ can be developed through girl-focused drama learning experiences? How can girl-centred drama processes help girls to construct agentive storylines and offer strategies for safely managing identity performances both on and offline?

Informed by post-structuralist, feminist and critical theoretical frameworks, this was a small scale, qualitative case study conducted in a single site, an urban girls’ school. The study was informed by arts-based research methodologies (Barone & Eisner, 2012), process drama and narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Butler-Kisber, 2010). Drama teaching methodologies were used in the classroom to induce student learning and to generate data. The researcher led a girl-focused drama with a single class of female students (14–15-year-olds) over a series of workshops. The drama invited students to explore the experiences of Rita, a fictional girl at a girls’ school just like theirs, and to consider her challenges when changing schools and negotiating online behaviours and on social media. Concepts drawn from literature and theories such as feminist pedagogies, sociology and poststructuralist theory were used by the researcher to craft a drama that wove together a complex web of tensions, challenges and ambiguities the fictional character faced in her world and online. The drama process used invited the girls to problematise a fictional ‘girl in a mess’ and reflect upon the insights the drama experience gave them as girls. Data was collected via photographs and videos of the drama work, where students’ responses in and out of role were captured for researcher analysis. Other data collected were student work samples (e.g. writing in role examples) and small groups were invited to participate in a focus group after the drama process had concluded. These focus group interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed.

Findings of the study The students engaged in this dramatic process in earnest. This drama study and others I have completed with girls reflect an enthusiasm and deliciousness of experience as girls are given the opportunity to be at the centre of the dramatic exploration. In a girl-focused drama, students are invited to interrogate their own knowledge and mine their lived experiences for the purposes of creative inquiry. The responses students made in and out of role were insightful, courageous and wise as they used their girl know-how to examine the characters and story of a ‘girl in a mess’. Tan’s book

140 Christine Hatton with its evocative images and overtones of girl depression and trouble offered a resonant fictional world for the drama to explore. As the drama unfolded students created an interesting and complex central character for Rita. Their in role responses, writing and viewpoints in group discussions during the drama offered considered perspectives about a young female character with depth and nuance. The girls’ responses at different times in the dramatic process reflected this: Table 9.1 The girls’ responses at different times in the dramatic process Early in the drama (outsider view)

Midway in the drama (insider view)

Beyond the drama (a future, reflective view)

Quiet In her own world Rebellious Troubled Depressed Independent Closed

Afraid Persistent Shy Anxious Lonely Alone

A survivor Has faith Reserved Strong Happy At peace Courageous

Focus group interview data revealed that the drama had spurred new ideas and reflections for students about being a girl and about girlhood. Students spoke about the way the drama invited them to use their own knowledge and how … ‘giving advice to someone who might need it in the future … it [felt] good to give someone advice …’. When asked what they would take away from the drama experience, students commented: ‘it shows us not to be ashamed of yourself …’, the message for other girls is … ‘just to keep going, like, don’t stop, keep trying …’. Data collected from the focus groups showed that the drama had enabled deep reflection to take place about living and surviving as girls, in both everyday life and online. The girls welcomed a girlfocused dramatic process, where the activities provided rare opportunities for them to explore girl knowledge and wisdom (as well as the complex messes girls sometimes find themselves in).

Conclusion Helping students to interrogate gender equality and equity in and through drama is not a simple task, but it can certainly be a worthwhile one. But what dramas are worth doing? Long ago, Bolton raised the thorny issue of ‘worthwhileness’ in drama education and our pervasive assumption that producing change in students’ understanding is inherently of value. This is worth considering in the discussion. His provocation still resonates for drama educators today: Change to understanding what? And who decides? Whether we like it or not the drama teacher is faced with a moral dilemma. Drama is a powerful

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medium for change in his hands. Is it society’s views that he is to inculcate? If he believes that society is corrupt is that what he is to teach? … It seems possible that by drama for understanding that we mean a constant enlarging or shifting of perspective so that participants have to reassess their current understanding. (Bolton, 1979, p. 134) Shifting students’ perspectives about gender through drama may not always be welcomed in schools, communities or systems. Indeed, in some schools such a line of inquiry would be counter-cultural and/or radical. Some theorists have argued that drama practitioners and researchers must be mindful of the discourses we use to describe drama learning and the claims we make of ‘local miracles’ (Neelands, 2004). These warnings are useful to drama educators, reminding us to strip back the pedagogical architecture of our own methods and interrogate them. What are we doing and why? And, how do we support learners to experience and imagine possibilities? These are pertinent questions for teachers who use drama to trouble students’ ideas about gender. In the contemporary context of schooling in the 21st century, the challenges of living and learning as humans have become increasingly complex and fraught. The drama classroom may be an important safe and creative space for re-imagining the world and our relationships to and within it, providing new ways for learners to be agents of change and possibility in their own futures.

LESSON TITLE: I FELT LIKE A WARRIOR AGE OF STUDENTS: 12–18 AIMS: This lesson aims to introduce

students to the notion that gender is changeable and constructed and equality may be a creative alternative to the limiting and oppressive constructions of gender we experience in the contemporary world. MATERIALS: This drama uses a news story published in the Guardian (19 October 2018) where a young girl, Saga Vanecek, pulls a 1,500-year-old Viking sword out of a muddy lake in southern Sweden. The news story is her account of the event (in her words). The story can be found online here: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/ 19/experience-pulled-a-1500-year-old-sword-lake-saga-vanecek. CONTEXT: This lesson might be used as an introductory workshop that could be the basis of a much larger unit of work involving process drama and/or playbuilding. It could be the initial lesson in a sequence exploring the theme of gender equality. This lesson uses a recent news story as the basis for improvisation and play building. It invites students to imagine the possibility of a different new world where gender is less problematic and equality is established.

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Step #1 – Accessing the story Description: Step #1 This is a whole class shared story – a re-enactment of Saga’s story (true to the article). As each paragraph is read by the teacher, the students must jump inside the story circle and enact whatever is mentioned in the story (characters, objects and places). The class repeats in unison any lines of direct dialogue. The teacher ensures all students participate by calling Woosh to clear the space for new players to jump in. Afterwards the class considers the sequencing of the story (this sequence could be written on a board and used later). Teacher activities Teacher reading of the story in full.

Conventions used Shared story

Student activities Students jump into the story circle to enact Saga’s story.

Purpose To familiarise students with the story told by Saga.

Step #2 – Exploring familiar territory Description: Step #2 In small groups students choose a context out of a hat (provided by the teacher) and use these to create images of the way gender is constructed and enacted in today’s world. The context options are: work, family, education, bodies, loves. Each group uses their knowledge of everyday life and their understandings of normative gender codes to create tableaux which they then present to the class. Students discuss the ideas and meanings generated from each tableau. Teacher activities Teacher offers the groups the hat to draw a card from.

Conventions used Discussion

Improvisation, Teacher facilitation of devising (this may tableaux, reflection need to be more substantial and scaffolded for younger students through whole class discussion of each context).

Student activities Students discuss the ideas their card generates for them. What do they know? Can they use their imaginations to physically represent this idea in action in their world? Students create a tableau based upon their card context and perform it for the class.

Purpose To encourage students to discuss familiar issues and represent them in dramatic form.

To excavate students’ existing understandings of how gender impacts these contexts and people’s lives.

Imagining the possible Teacher questioning and guidance of student reflection.

Discussion

As each group shows their work, students reflect upon what they see and understand in the presentations.

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To allow students to consider what they know (implicitly) about codes and workings of gender.

Step #3 – Exploring new territory

Description: Step #3 Flash forward now to a possible future. In this step students imagine that Saga’s sword was indeed a magic one. With her discovery the world changed and she became a warrior for equality. In this new territory the old ways and codes of gender had significantly changed and the world and relationships were more equitable and the oppressions of the past were eliminated. In small groups students rework their ideas from the tableaux and playbuild a full scene (with dialogue and movement), where they must show this shift towards equity and how it operates in the new world. Students are to consider shifting the gendered behaviours, representations and codes to create a believable scene. Teacher activities Conventions used Student activities Purpose Students contribute To provide some Teacher introduces Discussion scaffolding to the to a whole class the activity and discussion about the students’ creative leads a discussion process in devistask and what this about what students ing this alternate possible world may wish to conmight be like. What scene. sider in their playwould be different? building process. To enable stuTeacher Playbuilding and Students return to dents to experifacilitation. performance their original group ment and embody and chosen context and now rework the new ways of conceiving gender tableaux into new scenes. The finished and representing scenes are performed gender equality. for the class. To reflect upon Whole class After viewing each the performances reflection scene, students as a participant engage in a reflective discussion about and audience the creative choices member. made and the meanings generated from the work.

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Step #4 – Looking back – recounting the story Description: Step #4 Students return to Saga’s original story and consider how a folktale might be handed down to the children of the land about the change. In larger groups (or as a whole class facilitated by the teacher) students now create the folktale, making sure they represent both Saga and the process of change over time from the old to new worlds. How did the change happen? What magic was conjured by the sword that had been discovered. The work must also convey what the people learned through the transition to a future world of equality. These folktales are performed and reflected upon. Students may include non-naturalistic elements to their playbuilding such as song, dance, mask, chorus work and movement. Teacher activities Teacher facilitation of class discussion, group playbuilding, performance.

Conventions used Shaping the action, movement, voice, sound, narrative, symbol.

Student activities Students work in groups to devise a performance of the folktale. These are shared and reflected upon. Students are to consider how each group used dramatic elements and structures to convey the process of change for the community.

Purpose To use playbuilding as a process of inquiry into how cultures might change their conceptions and expressions of gender in more equitable ways. To use the drama experience for personal and collective reflection.

References Barone, T. & Eisner, E. (2012). Arts based research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Berry, K. (2000). The dramatic arts and cultural studies. New York: Falmer Press. Boal, A. (1995). The rainbow of desire: The Boal method of theatre and therapy. New York: Routledge. Bolton, G. (1979). Towards a theory of drama in education. Harlow, Essex: Longman. Bolton, G. (1984). Drama as education: An argument for placing drama at the centre of the curriculum. Harlow, Essex: Longman. Bolton, G. (2006). A history of drama education: A search for substance. In L. Bresler (Ed.), International handbook of research in arts education. Dordrecht: Springer. Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble. London: Routledge. Butler-Kisber, L. (2010). Qualitative inquiry: Thematic, narrative and arts-informed perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Carroll, J. (1986). Framing drama: Some classroom strategies. NADIE Journal, 10(2), 5–7. Clandinin, D. J. & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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Connell, R. (2002). Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press. Dickinson, E. (1924). The complete poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston, MA: Little, Brown. Drama Australia. (2017). Equity and diversity guidelines. https://dramaaustralia.org.au/a ssets/files/DA_EquityAndDiversity.pdf. European Institute of Gender Equality. n.d. https://eige.europa.eu/gender-mainstream ing/concepts-and-definitions. Freire, P. (1973). Education for critical consciousness. New York: Seabury. Gallagher, K. (2001). Drama education in the lives of girls: Imagining possibilities. Toronto: Toronto University Press. Gallagher, K. (2007). Theatre of urban: Youth and schooling in dangerous times. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Gramsci, A. (1973). Letters from prison. New York: Harper & Row. Haseman, B. & O’Toole, J. (2017). Dramawise reimagined. Sydney: Currency Press. Hatton, C. (2001). A girl’s own project: Subjectivity and transformation in girls’ drama. NJ Drama Australia Journal, 25(1), 21–30. Hatton, C. (2002). Staging the subjective: A narrative approach to drama. NJ Drama Australia Journal, 26(1), 81–89. Hatton, C. (2003). Backyards and borderlands: Some reflections on researching the travels of adolescent girls doing drama. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 8(2), 139–156. Hatton, C. (2004a). Subversive acts: Researching girls learning in drama. Drama Research: The Research Journal of National Drama, 3, 31–42. Hatton, C. (2004b). On the edge of realities: Drama and the construction of girls’ subjectivities. NJ Drama Australia Journal, 28(1), 87–104. Hatton, C. (2005). Backyards and borderlands: Transforming girls’ learning through drama. (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Sydney. Hatton, C. (2007). Can I get a witness? Mapping learning in and beyond the drama classroom. Journal of Creative and Artistic Education, 1(1), 171–204. Hatton, C. (2012). Performing ‘girl’ in the Facebook era: Drama as a safe space for negotiating adolescent identities and agency. NJ Drama Australia Journal, 36, 36–49. Hatton, C. (2013). Educating Rita and her sisters: Using drama to reimagine femininities in schools. Research in Drama Education, 18(2), 155–167. Hatton, C. & Lovesy, S. (2015). Schooling the imagination in the 21st century … (or why playbuilding matters). In M. Anderson, & C. Roche (Eds.), The state of the art IV (pp. 1–19). Sydney: Sydney University Press. Hatton, C. & Nicholls, J. (2018). ‘If this was real …’: Researching student meaning making in a digital rolling role drama. Ethnography and Education, 13(3), 377–395. Hatton, C. & Sallis, R. (2018). A research tango in three moves. In P. Duffy, C. Hatton & R. Sallis (Eds.), Drama research methods: Provocations of practice. Leiden: Brill. Heathcote, D. (1971). Three Looms Waiting. Film. Directed by Richard Eyre. London: BBC Films. Heathcote, D. (1982). Signs and portents. Scypt Journal, 9, 18–28. Heathcote, D. (1984). Signs and portents. In L. Johnson & C. O’Neill (Eds.), Dorothy Heathcote: Collected writings on education and drama (pp. 160–169). London: Hutchinson. Heathcote, D. (1989/2012). Keynote speech: ‘The fight for drama – The fight for education’ commemorative re-issue. Journal for Drama in Education, 1(1), 1–42. Heathcote, D. (2010/2015). Productive tensions. In C. O’Neill (Ed.), Dorothy Heathcote on education and drama. London: Routledge.

146 Christine Hatton Heathcote, D. & Fiala, O. (1980). Preparing teachers to use drama: The Caucasian Chalk Circle. In M. Barrs (Ed.), Drama as context: Dorothy Heathcote. Aberdeen: NATE Papers in Education/Aberdeen University Press. Neelands, J. (1996). Agendas of change, renewal and difference. In J. O’Toole & K. Donelan (Eds.), Drama, culture and empowerment: The IDEA dialogues. Brisbane: IDEA Publications. Neelands, J. (2004). Miracles are happening: Beyond the rhetoric of transformation in the Western traditions of drama education. Research in Drama Education, 9(1), 47–56. Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. O’Mara, J. (1999). Unravelling the mystery: A study of reflection-in-action in process drama teaching. (Unpublished doctoral thesis). Griffith University, Brisbane. O’Neill C. (1995). Drama worlds: A framework for process drama. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann. O’Toole, J. (1992). The process of drama: Negotiating art and meaning. London: Routledge. O’Toole, J. & O’Mara, J. (2007). Proteus, the giant at the door: Drama and theatre in the curriculum. In L. Bresler (Ed.), International handbook of research in arts education (pp. 203–218). Dordrecht: Springer. Sallis, R. (2011). The drama boys: Drama pedagogy and the education of boys in a coeducational government school. NJ Drama Australia Journal, 34(1), 47–60. Sallis, R. (2004). Con and Charlie do the splits: Multiple masculinities and drama pedagogy. NJ Drama Australia Journal, 28(1), 105–118. Schon, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. Tan, S. 2001. The red tree. South Melbourne: Lothian Books. World Economic Forum. (2017). Gender gap report 2017. www.eforum.org/reports/ the-global-gender-gap-report-2017. Wright, D. (2015). Drama and ecological understanding: Stories of learning.In M. Anderson & C. Roche (Eds.), The state of the art: Teaching drama in the 21st century. Sydney: Sydney University Press.

Part VI

Creativity

The creative incentive has its origin in innate curiosity, desire for enterprise, and stimulates individual initiative. Creativity leads to an interest in studying when children understand the meaning of tasks and their value. It involves forming tasks and sharing them and making something new or different than the individual has done before. Creativity is to invent, enjoy, encourage curiosity and interest, engage the imagination and play with possibilities. Creativity is based on curiosity, challenge, excitement and search. Happiness and joy depend on finding an outlet for one’s talent as an individual and as a part of a whole. Creativity enables children to form a vision of the future, participate in creating a democratic society and find a role of their own in it. There are two chapters concerning creativity. The first, written by Adam Bethlenfalvy is called ‘Living through creativity’. The author asks if theatre theory and dramaturgical structures can be explicitly included in a primarily experiential drama lesson to enhance the students’ ability to create structures and focus the content of their own creative learning. Furthermore, he offers a summary of perspectives on creativity in relation to drama teaching. Merete Cornét Sørensen has written the second chapter, ‘Drama, inclusion and development of play-competence in kindergarten’. The author stresses the importance that all children in kindergarten can take part in the children’s play community and are not at risk of being bullied. To address this challenge, an action research study was conducted where play-based drama was used as a tool to support all children’s learning, whilst simultaneously serving as an inclusive activity for children at risk of being excluded.

10 Living through creativity Adam Bethlenfalvy

Introduction Teaching arts or drama in schools is often connected to creativity. However, there are many different approaches within arts education. Two competing approaches to drama education are teaching about drama and theatre, and placing emphasis on experiencing and doing drama. Both approaches can claim to enhance creativity. On the one hand, understanding forms and underlying theory can help foster the development of new drama. On the other hand, experiencing drama can heighten a sense of creating and understanding from within the art form. This chapter investigates whether the two approaches can be connected, asking whether theatre theory and dramaturgical structures can be explicitly included in a primarily experiential drama lesson to enhance the students’ ability to create structures and focus the content of their own creative learning? Following this short introduction, I offer a summary of perspectives on creativity in relation to drama teaching. This is followed by one example developed through an action research project which aimed to enhance creativity in students. This example combines the use of ‘Living Through Drama’ – an approach to drama in education developed by Dorothy Heathcote in her early work – with the work of contemporary playwright Edward Bond. A final section will analyse the participants’ feedback on the lesson.

Creativity ‘That is very creative!’ said my 6-year-old son, pointing at a train compiled out of wood logs. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘It is made from simple material, it is unusual, and you can use it!’

150 Adam Bethlenfalvy Creativity is a widely used word that is often at the centre of scientific research but is also in common everyday use. A large body of literature is available on creativity itself, and also on its creativity’s role in education. Here, I will only refer to some elements of this wide body of literature. Though Saebo et al. (2007) warn us that creativity has become a highly charged word with political currency and that it is also strongly culture specific, it is important to find reference points to discuss the term and locate it in our practical work. Hernández-Romero describes creativity as a threefold process that entails integration and consists of ‘finding connections, seeing what is not there and actualising the entirety of the self’ (2017, p. 5). In an overview of current research on creativity in the field of neuro-biology Zhou comes to the conclusion that creativity and intelligence are associated only to a certain point, around an average IQ of 120, ‘while correlations in the higher IQ is negligible’ (2018, p. 24) and while intelligence is responsible for the efficiency of general cognitive functions, according to recent research, ‘environmental factors are mostly responsible for creative quality and output’ (ibid.). Zhou, importantly, points out that ‘creativity involves the whole brain’ (2018, p. 21). The National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education report (NACCCE, 1999) titled All our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education has been very influential in promoting a positive view of creativity in education and also in offering reference points in terminology (Fautley & Savage, 2007, p. 13). The report’s definition of creativity offers useful keywords related to creativity: ‘Imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value’ (NACCCE, 1999, p. 30). Interestingly the main components were present in my 6-year-old son’s definition too. Fautley and Savage (2007) differentiate three aspects of creativity in relation to education, two of these based on the NACCCE report. They differentiate teaching creatively which, that involves teachers ‘using imaginative approaches to make learning more interesting, exciting and effective’ (NACCCE, 1999, p. 102), from teaching for creativity, which entails ‘forms of teaching that are intended to develop young people’s own creative thinking or behaviour’ (NACCCE, 1999, p. 103), this includes teaching creatively. The third concept offered by Fautley and Savage (2007, p. 13) is creative learning which includes students engaging in aspects of knowledge enquiry, but also being experimental, innovative and inventive. The references above are but samples from a large body of work on creativity, but they offer many points of connection to aims present in the work of drama teachers. I will come back to some points more directly in the outline of my particular approach, but before I do that I will discuss the connection between creativity and drama more particularly.

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Creativity and drama The DICE research (DICE Consortium/Cziboly, 2010), the largest quantitative research in the field of educational theatre and drama education to date, with almost 5,000 participants and control groups participating in 12 countries, came to the conclusion that drama has an impact on all Lisbon key competences, including entrepreneurship, a competence that incorporates creativity, innovation and risk-taking. Lehtonen et al. (2016) focus on aspects of creative teaching in the drama class, arguing that while the key elements are improvisation, presence and child-centred learning, these encompass the following in practice: accepting ideas, tolerating mistakes, changing directions, spontaneity, giving up control, uncertainty-tolerance, creating space for students views and ideas, sharing, connected teaching, mutual trust, holistic interaction, sensitivity (2016, p. 564). These words would probably be appropriate for any teacher who wants to enhance creativity, not only the one working in the drama class; nevertheless they provide a useful and practical focus for practitioners. Concerning the content of drama lessons there has been an age-old debate within the field whether the priority should be on teaching about theatre or on participants experiencing drama. This debate, often simplified to a performance vs process/experiencing dichotomy, is also connected to questions of creativity: does experiencing drama or understanding theatre forms enhance the creativity of participants? While the differing approaches to teaching drama can include both, the primary aim will define many aspects of the impact on the students. In his book about an integrated approach to drama, Mike Fleming writes about the contribution of Drama in Education (DiE), an approach prioritising the experiential component of drama teaching rather than teaching aesthetics or performance, that DiE ‘brought a strong element of Dionysian animation, surging energy, creativity and significance onto the drama teaching scene’ (2001, p. 148). He goes on to state that although boundaries were exceeded and mistakes were made, the alternative to this would have been ‘to risk a form of complacent certainty which derives from the tyranny of form over content, structure over experience and logic over meaning’ (ibid.). But even within the field of drama in education there are differences in how approaches relate to the relationship of form and content and the responsibilities of the teacher and the students to it. While the early phase of DiE, often referred to as ‘Living Through Drama’ or lately ‘Process Drama’, with Heathcote and Gavin Bolton at its helm, brought new creative energies to drama teaching by placing the interests and experience of participants at the centre of the praxis, David Davis (2005) argues that the Conventions approach, based on Jonothan Neelands’ and Tony Goode’s (1990) Structuring Drama Work, led to a ‘bits and pieces approach to drama’ where teachers often rely on using individual drama techniques,

152 Adam Bethlenfalvy or placing them after each other as from a manual, rather than basing their work on underlying dramatic structures. Fautley and Savage’s (2007) differentiation between teaching creatively, teaching for creativity and creative learning are useful in reflecting on the drama education field too. The Conventions approach offers drama forms to be used by teachers that help in teaching creatively. All approaches to DiE aim to teach for creativity and engage students in meaning-making connected to the contents at the centre of the stories or situations examined. But it is the ‘making’ participatory mode that Bolton (1999, p. 270) highlights as the central aspect of Living Through Drama (LTD) that places the most emphasis on creative learning. When the participants of a process drama are ‘making’, Bolton (ibid.) argues, they are working as playwrights, directors and actors simultaneously, not with the aim of performing their work but to experience the situations that they have created themselves. Furthermore, in Bolton’s and Davis’s work the creative learning is often linked to socio-critical learning, offering participants the opportunity to examine their values, and to ‘re-cognise the world they live in and their relationship to it’ (Davis, 2014, p. 30). The different approaches and relationships to the theatre form and creative learning referred to above all link to my exploration within the field of drama education. On the one hand, I felt that my drama teaching was becoming mechanical and I was using drama instrumentally rather than creatively. I wanted to experience teaching drama as a creative exploration myself, this for me meant including more theatre in my drama lessons. On the other hand, I wanted to strengthen the creative learning the participants of the drama lessons were experiencing, with a focus on the theatre elements on the creative side and the socio-cultural elements on the learning side. I decided to engage in an action research connecting two seemingly distinct approaches in my drama classroom. This exploration later developed into a PhD thesis (Bethlenfalvy, 2017). I examined how LTD, an approach within drama in education could be connected with the theory and practice of the contemporary playwright Edward Bond. I explored how the improvisational nature of LTD can be combined with specific components of Bond’s theatre practice, so participants of the lesson can use these forms and direct their own sociocultural creative learning that is both art based and experiential. The lesson plan shared below was tested in the last phase of the research. It encapsulates the findings of the previous cycles and had a desired impact according to the data collected. Before sharing the lesson, I offer a brief introduction to the two territories and the approach I developed.

Living Through Drama and Edward Bond In her first article, published originally in 1967, Dorothy Heathcote defines drama as ‘human beings confronted by situations which change

Living through creativity 153 them because of what they must face in dealing with those challenges’ (1984, p. 48). The early phase of her work that focused on placing participants into challenging fictional situations to explore them from within, often referred to as ‘Man in a Mess’ (Bolton, 1999; Davis, 2014), can be seen as the core of LTD. This genre of DiE is focused on the participants’ living-through moments of desperation or awe, offering a sense ‘being there in the present and presence’ (Bolton, 1999, p. 232), in the fiction they build with the facilitation of the teacher. The analysis of examples of LTD lessons from Heathcote, Bolton, Cecily O’Neill and David Davis show that livingthrough improvisations are important episodes in what these authors call process drama, but the lessons include many other forms and portray a conscious relationship to theatre (Bethlenfalvy, 2017). Edward Bond’s work is based on his theory1 of human reality which is rooted in two orders; nature/material reality and human consciousness (Bond, 2018). According to Bond, human beings need to make meaning of the world around them to be at home in it, and imagination is the central human faculty used in making meaning of our surroundings and our relationship to them; and our relationship to our surroundings can actually be seen as our self. However, the culture we live in offers us the meaning for most things and also defines the way we make meaning and what value we give to things. Bond argues that the fiction of drama can be used to create moments the dominant narratives of our culture cannot occupy, and the audience have to make meaning of these gaps created within the story. Bond calls these moments, when the audience has real creative freedom, Drama Events2 (Bond, 2000). Bond and LTD belong to different genres, but they connect at important points: both place an emphasis on the re-examination of cultural values and providing the individual with opportunities for creating them. They also emphasise ‘being in the fiction’ which makes it possible for the re-examination to happen at affective level, rather than just cognitively. There is also an emphasis on situations that are extreme in the sense that the usual explanations do not fit them, they demand change.

Introduction to the Wild Child Wild Child is a description of a lesson conducted within a wider body of research, at the end of two cycles of research, after working with 10 different groups over 16 lessons. I found the approach embodied in the lesson shared below to be the most effective. It should be seen as one possible exploration of making the drama classroom a creative space for young people. It should not be read as a recipe, copied without adjustment to the specific needs of the teacher or the group participating. This is one possible way of integrating theatre structures into a ‘living through’ process to enhance participants’ engagement in socio-cultural creative learning that is both art based and experiential.

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WILD CHILD Secondary school, 15+ (It is useful to try this lesson with a group that might be interested in theatre form as well) AIMS: The drama lesson explores how the dominant social narratives, or ways of thinking, can be questioned (through drama)? This is related to the question at the centre of the story: Can you find/be yourself in contemporary society? LENGTH: The lesson was originally conducted in two 3-hour lesson blocks. It can be broken down into more sections, each section is under a new heading. MATERIALS: Large and smaller sheets of paper, printed photos, biscuits, or apples, plates, spoons CONTEXT: The students are invited as co-researchers into the lesson, to explore a problem related to structuring drama lessons. In my case I was genuinely asking their help and this defined the attitude I facilitated the lesson with. AGE OF STUDENTS:

I. Framing as co-researchers Although this comes out of the research situation it is an integral part of the lesson as it is framing their approach to the problem. I am asking them to take part and reflect on what we will be doing together as ‘experts of their own age-group’ helping me to develop my drama teaching. Introduction – explaining the frame: I talk shortly about the research I am conducting – trying to connect a drama education and a theatre approach – and ask them to be partners in the research as experts of young people who can help me in understanding how to create something that is interesting and relevant for their age-group. I tell them the main question for me is how can we make meaning for ourselves and put aside the culturally determined ways of understanding actions. I explain that the aim of the research is to create Drama Events within a process drama, to make it possible for participants to create a gap in meaning within an improvisation. As all research has a theoretical background this also has, which needs to be explained:3 

Some researchers say that as we grow into cultures we are not conscious of how some of its elements become part of values, the ways of understanding things. We have a culturally influenced image of reality in our minds; this is our understanding of reality but we often mistake it as reality itself.

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Edward Bond, a contemporary playwright, explores in his plays how to open questions for the audience relating to what we see as reality. He is not trying to tell people what reality is, but to engage the audience in the story and then create a moment within the story where their understanding needs to be re-configured, there is a gap. He calls these moments Drama Events. This is what we will be trying to create in our drama. Drama Event: This is a moment in a performance when you realise that what you thought to be true was actually only the usual explanation of an event, and through the actions/images/text in the play a gap is created for you to make new meaning of what is happening. We will try to create such moments for ourselves in the drama at a certain point! We sometimes have moments of realisation in real life too – when we find that what we believed to be REALITY isn’t, and we need to reconfigure things. (I gave an example here from my own life: I caught myself checking if I still had my wallet when a group of Roma young people hurried past me – my action made me realise that what I thought about myself – being free of this prejudice – was not true, the social prejudices around me are also part of my life).

Group work task: I ask the participants to work in smaller groups and create a still image of someone having a similar realisation. What are the moments in life when people realise that things are not as they had seen them? What situations create new ways of seeing things? Sharing: The groups share their images and their thinking, and these can trigger a discussion in the whole group. This section aims to offer participants an overall objective and a focus in their exploration. Artists usually have an idea why they are creating art; it is useful to offer young people a clear rationale of what they are exploring, both as the content of the lesson and also the theatre form used. The section also aims to make a personal connection with this focus. If these aims are kept in mind you may want to restructure the way these ideas are shared and the task is conducted.

II. Setting the fictional frame The overall ‘research frame’ set up above does not provide a fictional context, which is important as it creates a safe space for exploration. This section is about setting up the fictional context and projecting the participants into roles. Explaining the frame: The facilitator explains that the story we will be building together is set in Hungary (or in the country where you are conducting the lesson), in our days. We will play people who work in a very successful NGO. This NGO has experts from various fields who work at

156 Adam Bethlenfalvy resolving social issues linked specifically to helping young people with difficulties to fit into society. They are often working under difficult circumstances but have achieved many things. To be able to play the people working in the NGO it would be useful to invent some of their past as a collective. Small group task – letters from previous cases: We break into groups of two–five people depending on the overall group size and write letters the NGO has received from previous cases it worked on. Perhaps a letter by a ‘problem-child’ who managed to integrate into their class, or someone with disabilities who was helped into a workplace, etc. … I ask the group to discuss the case but only write three lines from the letter they received. These letters are not shared out of role, I ask the participants to use them when we step into role in the next task.

III. Stepping into role and the new case (the ‘wild child’) Setting the space for the group meeting: We will be improvising the first meeting of the members of the NGO after the summer break. What is the space like where they meet? What is on the wall? How do they sit? This task can be useful if you are working with a group who like to get into role slowly. It also brings space and signs into focus, components of a scene they will be using later. Whole group improvisation: The facilitator leads this improvisation as the director of the NGO (Teacher-in-role). 



After a short reflection on the summer, I ask the group about any mail that has come in over the summer about their previous cases – offering a chance for them to bring in the letters they wrote. The director uses all opportunities to praise the professionalism of the colleagues, asks questions about cases when there is need for clarification, but all from within the role. THE NEW CASE: The director explains that we might need to put aside some of the ongoing cases as something has come in that is probably the biggest challenge of our professional life. We have been asked to help in guiding a 9-year-old child found in the forest and brought up (probably) by a pack of wild dogs back into society. I make the case sound as realistic as possible – the normal care system cannot handle the case because it needs special knowledge and attention – as it is a highlight case for which the Ministry for Welfare has offered financial support and this means we can really dedicate our energies and create circumstances that the case needs. I also shared some photos (of Oxana Mayala – the ‘Ukranian dog girl’)4 as if she was our case. The child seems to understand some words, but doesn’t speak yet, although there is the possibility of teaching her.

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We start a discussion about what the most important things to teach this child would be, what she will need from us, what the downsides, upsides might be, etc.

In case you have time and the participants are interested, it is possible to work in groups and look at the most important needs of the ‘wild child’, and the most important things she needs to learn to integrate. This could be done in role or out of it.

IV. Working on a scene of teaching/training and reworking it This section is the central component of the drama lesson. The participants plan and work on scenes and then re-work them to consciously include the theatre components and then try them out as improvisations. Creating a scene – small group work: I ask the groups of three–four participants to plan a scene around an important moment of the NGO’s work with the ‘wild child’. It is important that this is a scene – they are not trying to prove that they have done a good job but present the contradictions in their work and this situation. I suggest that they use props; I take biscuits, plastic plates and apples in case they need them. Sharing the scene and discussion: The groups share the scenes they created and the observers are asked to comment on where they saw moments in the scene that made them think, raised questions, made them feel uncomfortable – these might be moments that could be developed further. The scenes they created offer an opportunity to explore the central question of our research: how can gaps in meaning be created in improvisation? We continue with the discussion of the scenes, but I offer some points that might be used in the re-work. a

b

c

The centre of our drama needs to be reflected in the scene – our centre is: Can you find/be yourself in contemporary society? Where was this centre present or at which moments could it be reflected within the scenes we saw? It might be very useful to recognise the underlying social assumptions in the scenes, so these can be questioned – What are the recognisable social roles (like parent, teacher, etc.) played out by the participants? What recognisable social structures are present in this situation? Dramaturgical structures used by Edward Bond in his work can be used in developing the scene, these are the following:5 i Unexpected/extreme action – a completely unexpected action, that can be extreme because it is so unexpected, or because it expresses something supressed but present behind the situation.

158 Adam Bethlenfalvy ii Turning social roles upside down – social roles assign an ‘expected’ behaviour – this is how a parent should behave etc. These can be played with, contradicted, or can slip off at moments. iii Creating gaps in time or space or meaning – using language (foreign language, sounds, gibberish), time (pace) and the physical space to open gaps in meaning in the situation by creating contradictions. iv Everyday objects, familiar to us, can create a useful focus point if they are used in any of the structures above. The dramaturgical structures, the centre and the social roles/structures are written on paper and stuck on the wall, so they can be used as reminders in the re-work. Group work – re-working the scene: The groups plan the re-work of their scene, how the contradictions could be highlighted in them and how gaps could be created for the audience. The facilitator asks them to prepare everything necessary and plan the process but share it with the others as an improvisation. Sharing the small group improvisations: The scenes will be shared by the groups and those observing will be able to reflect on them. This is also an opportunity to reflect on the difficulties of creating gaps for the audience to make meaning, or for ourselves to engage in improvisations.

V. Developing the story and the improvisation Narration: We continue the story a year later. There has been progress in the girl’s situation; she has learned some words and is able to put together very basic sentences. But there are some habits/behaviour that the experts are unable to change. The documentary about the girl’s first months back in civilisation has generated great interest in her, and the organisation’s efforts and dedication have received international attention and praise. They have done a lot, they have a carer permanently living with her in a small house on the outskirts of Budapest. (In case you are developing the lesson over a longer period it might be a useful task to put the details of the past year together. The organisation has kept a blog of the process for the sake of accountability but also to satisfy the public’s interest and maintain their support. The group could create posts, photos, videos posted on the blog. These could be put into a timeline as they are shared.)

Living through creativity 159 Meeting with everyone in role as the members of the team still working with the ‘wild child’ and the facilitator as Teacher-inrole as the director: The director explains that she/he has called everyone together to share the fantastic news that we are going to receive a huge sponsorship funding from a private donor; this will help us operate much better and even open a new centre. The director shares the information that there will be an award ceremony and the only constraint we have is that they have asked for the ‘wild child’ to be present as well and if possible say a few words. I do not open this decision for discussion; it is happening, the question is how. The director can either be quite confrontational or trying to make compromises depending on the attitude of the participating group. It is useful if the participants are left with some sense of unease concerning the ceremony as we want it to develop into an improvised scene that has dramatic force. There is space here for further work in case you have more time on your hand and want to do more before the final improvisation: pair improvisations, scenes can be created in small groups about discussions among the NGO workers or preparing the ‘wild child’ for the ceremony. Setting up the whole group improvisation: This is the final point of the story for us together. None of us know what will happen in the improvisation, it will depend on us. Here again, we will be trying to create gaps in meaning, moments that highlight the contradictions of this situation. Let’s set it up for ourselves in a way that can be the most productive for us later in the improvisation. a b c

d

e

Discussion: How does this situation relate to the centre of the drama? What are the contradictions present in the situation? Setting the space: How can these contradictions be expressed in the space through images, words, objects? Creating and placing these. Setting roles: Participants are offered a variety of roles, including the donor and ministry official and people who have been helped by the organisation. Unless there is someone very keen and able, the facilitator can assume the role of Master of Ceremony to be able to keep the improvisation going. Depiction: Participants are asked to set themselves in a depiction in the space expressing their role’s relationship to the centre. While they are in a depiction I will ask them to pick one contradiction in the situation that personally bothers them the most and decide what the objective of their role is for this event. Whole group improvisation: We will start from the depiction. We can try out a few variations, always trying to react to what happens. We can remind ourselves of the different dramaturgical strategies that can be tested out when we try out a new variation.

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VI. Reflection After the improvisation it is useful to reflect on the story of the ‘wild child’ – what questions does the story raise for them? What moments did they feel were the most powerful for them? The group needs to return to the research-frame and discuss whether it was possible to create Drama Events in any of the improvisations or not; and also how could this lesson, or elements of it, be used with young people of their age? This reflection can be conducted as a whole group discussion, but also as a small group task with a whole group sharing of thoughts, or parts of it done individually (e.g. writing the most powerful moments on post-it notes and sticking them on sheets of paper).

Final remarks I engaged in the research resulting in the lesson above to offer participants the opportunity to create a new socio-cultural understanding through experiencing improvisations that they structure for themselves, using dramaturgical devices offered explicitly and within a story set up by the facilitator. In the action research process, based on combining LTD and a Bondian approach, I came to the realisation that I should offer three types of components of Bondian theatre explicitly to the participants of the drama lesson, so they can use them to create improvisations to produce gaps in meaning within the process drama lesson. On the one hand, it was important to offer participants the purpose of working with theatre: re-examining our values, creating gaps for others and ourselves that then demands meaning-making. It was also important for participants to have a clear understanding of the centre or the focus of the specific story we were engaging with, because this could offer a reference point and coherence to our joint investigation through drama. I also realised that I need to offer specific dramaturgical structures that they can use in planning and playing their scenes and improvisations, as they are functioning as writers, directors and ‘actors’ of the drama at the same time. The data collected in focus group discussions with participants following the lessons6 can be clearly connected to different aspects of creativity referred to at the beginning of the chapter. Hernández-Romero’s definition of creativity as a threefold process that entails integration and consists of ‘finding connections, seeing what is not there and actualising the entirety of the self’ (2017: 5) is portrayed in what one participant said: You really need imagination to see the whole in one piece. I went through it in my mind first, trying to work it out and then I tried it in the scene, to see if it works.

Living through creativity 161 Another participant talks about a similar notion: You first have the idea and then think it through for yourself, but then it’s built on improvisation so you don’t know what will actually happen. Different aspects of creative learning appear in other responses: I didn’t know what my partners would say in the scene and I had to think and react on my feet. I had this feeling of not having boundaries; that we can bring anything into the situation. You have to keep re-defining everything for yourself, because the improvisation will throw you some other responses than what you had expected. I got engulfed in the excitement of the situation, of finding out something special and new in the examination of Wanda. I also remember the uncertainty that I realised in the middle of the scene that I don’t know how I should behave in such a situation. We had planned the scene with M. (for example that I will be recording my comments on the side) – but how does a researcher comment? What is significant and what isn’t? The importance of things changes when you have a human living like an animal. The lesson detailed above offers an example in which young people are taken seriously and their ability is valued to use drama creatively, to enhance the questioning of both the world that surrounds them and also the possibilities of drama to make sense of the world. The lesson aims to promote what Fautley and Savage (2007) describe as creative learning. The lesson builds upon the understanding that the facilitator’s role is not merely providing the form through which the participants can engage in the story, but enhancing their understanding of the form, the purpose and the structure of dramatic exploration. This lesson is a creative study by one drama teacher to connect approaches from the differing fields of DiE and theatre, both of which he had found energising and stimulating. While many may not find these two specific approaches exciting, the question of how drama education and theatre art connect is always a useful problem to explore. Hopefully this chapter offers creative ideas to other drama teachers as well.

Notes 1 For an in-depth analysis of Bond’s theory read chapter 2 in Living through Extremes (Bethlenfalvy, 2017). 2 In earlier writings Bond calls these moments Theatre Events, but later moves to Drama Events when he differentiates theatre and drama as genres and uses the latter for his work.

162 Adam Bethlenfalvy 3 The in-depth research and details behind the arguments can be read in the PhD thesis (Bethlenfalvy, 2017) that is available online. 4 I only used some images to create the reality of the problem, but not the story of Oxana Malaya. You can find some images here: https://www.google.hu/search?q= Oxana+Malaya&rlz=1C1GGRV_enHU751HU751&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source= univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2ydzsz8HdAhWRl4sKHeGFAcAQiR56BAgIEBY& biw=1366&bih=626#imgrc=tmVetYn3x6OnhM. 5 There is a list of seven strategies and examples from plays as well as performances that could be useful background information for the facilitator, so she/he can offer examples: Bethlenfalvy, 2017, pp. 77–90. 6 Data collection methodology and detailed analysis of the quotes are available in Bethlenfalvy, 2017.

References Bethlenfalvy, A. (2017). Living through extremes: An exploration of integrating a Bondian approach to theatre into ‘living through’ drama. (PhD thesis). Birmingham City University. www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/5698/. Bolton, G. (1999). Acting in classroom drama (American Edition). Portland, ME: Calendar Island Publishers. Bond, E. (2000). The hidden plot. London: Methuen. Bond, E. (2018). The human plot (edited 1 August 2018). Unpublished essay. https:// edwardbonddrama.org/s/THP-Final-Version-XYZ-11-3-19-mm2l.pdf. Davis, D. (Ed.). (2005). Edward Bond and drama in education. In Edward Bond and the dramatic child. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books. Davis, D. (2014). Imagining the real: Towards a new theory of drama in education. Stoke on Trent, UK: Trentham Books. DICE Consortium / Cziboly, A. (Eds.) (2010). The DICE has been cast: A DICE resource. Research findings and recommendations on educational theatre and drama. Budapest: The DICE Consortium. Fautley, M. & Savage, J. (2007). Creativity in secondary education. Exeter: Learning Matters. Fleming, M. (1997). The art of drama teaching. London: David Fulton. Fleming, M. (2001). Teaching drama in primary and secondary schools: An integrated approach. London: David Fulton. Heathcote, D. (1984). Improvisation. In L. Johnson and C. O’Neill, (eds.) Collected writings on education and drama. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Hernández-Romero, L. (2017). Re-evaluating creativity: The individual, society and education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lehtonen, A., Kaasinen, M., Karjalainen-Väkevä, M. & Toivanen, T. (2016). Promoting creativity in teaching drama. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 217, 558–566. National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE). (1999). All our futures: Creativity, culture and education. London: DFEE. Saebo, A. B., McCammon, L. & O’Farrell, L. (2007). Creative teaching: Teaching creativity. Caribbean Quarterly, 53(1/2), 205–215. Zhou, K. (2018). What cognitive neuroscience tells us about creativity education: A literature review. Global Education Review, 5(1), 20–34.

11 Drama, inclusion and development of play competence in kindergarten Merete Cornét Sørensen

Introduction Recent research states that groups of children in kindergarten do not take part in the children’s play communities, and are at risk of being bullied. To address this challenge of integrating all children into the kindergartens play communities, I conducted an action research study, in two kindergartens, where play-based drama was used as a tool to support all children’s learning, whilst at the same time serving as an inclusive activity for children at risk of being excluded. The results of this study indicate that process drama can be a useful way to include all children in the institution’s playgroups. The theoretical background, the practical drama work, the main research methods, and the results will be introduced and discussed in this chapter.

Background The aim of the study this chapter builds upon was to strengthen the children’s play competence and thereby support their inclusion in the kindergarten play communities. The method used was an action research intervention conducted in two kindergartens where the kindergarten teachers and I worked with play-based process drama with the selected group of children for a period of seven months in total. The starting point of the study were the results from a range of research studies which all indicated that there are children in Scandinavian kindergartens who do not have friends to play with, who are not a part of the children’s own play communities, and who feel unhappy and lonely (DCUM, 2018; Öhman, 2011). Moreover, research shows that playing with peers in a play community holds huge learning potential of a cognitive, social, emotional and creative nature; potential that children who are not a part of a play community might miss out on (Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek, 2016; Whitebread, 2012). Finally, several play researchers emphasise that play is a joyful and autotelic activity. Children play because it feels good – for fun which, from the point of view of the child, might be the most important issue (Cecchin, 2013; Whitebread, 2012).

164 Merete Cornét Sørensen According to Lindqvist (2001), an observable common trait of children excluded from play communities is that they have problems decoding and using the dramatic modes of expression that are at the core of pretend play. It is problematic, therefore, some children in kindergarten are not part of play communities, as this not only makes these children feel unhappy but also poses a risk that these children might lose both the pleasure and learning potential that play can accommodate.

Theoretical framework The project was based on a sociocultural understanding where pretend play is seen as a cultural activity that children can use as an interactive cultural tool to develop imagination, construct meaning, and communicate (Vygotsky, 1978). In this understanding, play is seen ‘like a language: a system of communication and expression, not in itself either good or bad’ (Sutton-Smith, 2001, p. 219). This means that pretend play can be compared to other languages and seen as a cultural tool with a dual function – partly communicative, where dramatic play symbols and narratives are used to share experiences, and partly reflexive, where the symbolic expressions are used to process and maintain an experience as an inner thought, which is the basis of learning. This means that when a child acquires the modes of expression in pretend play, as a cultural tool, it enables him or her to think and communicate in new ways (Vygotsky, 1978). In addition, acquiring and applying new tools affects those who use them; it develops their minds, and creates new possibilities for processing, communication, learning and acting. In this way, a cultural tool has a transformative and mind-expanding quality. ‘Language, used first as a communicative tool, finally shapes the minds of those who adapt to its use’ (Holzman & Newman, 2005, p. 37). Furthermore, according to Vygotsky (1978), all learning happens in two steps: firstly as a context-dependent activity within a sociocultural community, and secondly through internalisation, which allows the child to transfer knowledge and competencies to other contexts. This means, in relation to this project, that it might be possible for children to transfer a competence developed in a drama lesson to their own play communities.

Collective Zone of Proximal Development According to Vygotsky (1978), pretend play is not an innate competence but a cultural activity, which is handed over and developed in dialectical interaction between the child and more competent peers, in what Vygotsky named as the Zone of Proximal Development. In this interaction with more competent peers, the children acquire a range of play competencies, which are initially mastered only when cooperating with more competent playmates, but gradually, through a long series of repetition and exercise, are mastered by the child on its own as an internalised competence.

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In this project, the more competent peers were both the kindergarten teachers, the other children, and the whole group of interacting children and teachers. Sometimes, the kindergarten teacher led: framing the fiction, instructing and acting in role. In other situations, the roles shifted, and the children led, while the adults followed. There was no constant more competent other as the roles changed dynamically, but it was evident that what the children were able to do in the fields of dramatic play in the drama sessions far exceeded what they were able to do on their own. In this way, the drama collective created each other’s Zone of Proximal Development. Based on this finding, I, as a theoretical contribution, constructed a new model for the social learning process in drama and play that I call the Collective Zone of Proximal Development Model. This model is illustrated in Figure 11.1. The model shows how two participants, interacting with one another, are able to do things together that they are not yet able to do on their own. In this way, the interactive collective creates the Zone of Proximal Development for the participants.

Drama and pretend play Drama in this project is seen as an educational aesthetic activity directly related to both the performing arts and children’s own pretend play. These activities all share the same language of art, in a continuum from process-orientated dramatic experiments in play and drama to professional performing arts in the theatre, and back again (DICE, 2010). The fundamental feature of these activities is the quadruple fiction, where the dramatic fiction takes place in an

What A can do today

What B can do today

Collective ZPD What A + B can do together

What A can do tomorrow

Figure 11.1 Collective Zone of Proximal Development. Note: NB right-hand circle: ‘What B can do tomorrow’

What B can do tommorow

166 Merete Cornét Sørensen interaction between fictitious characters, in fictitious spaces, at a fictitious time, and with fictitious storylines. Based on this line of thought, drama is limited to covering activities that share the common trait of involving some form of make-believe, pretending or acting. This is the case in drama and performing arts but also in pretend play which, according to Guss (2001), is characterised by the dramatic quadruple fiction, improvisation and an epic dramaturgy, where children continuously step in and out of the fiction; one moment metacommunicating about the fiction and creating roles and narratives, and at the next moment acting it out. According to a large number of drama researchers, drama can facilitate a wide range of potential connected to the social, emotional and cognitive development of the target group (Sæbø, 2016; Heggstad, Rasmussen, & Gjærum, 2017; Kiger Lee et al., 2015). When a group of children interact with dramatic fiction, an abstraction process takes place that allows the children to develop their ability to think outside the boundaries of reality, to systematise and interpret, and to express their interpretations. In other words, the children develop their ability to deal with, understand and communicate about themselves and the world through dramatic fiction. This communication takes place in dialogue with the other participants’ fiction, creating an aesthetic doubling, which enables them to mirror and position their own interpretations within the interpretations of the other participants (Sæbø, 2016). Moreover, drama and pretend play are characterised by being collective activities, which demand and develop interpersonal communication skills; and the mere requirement of having to identify oneself as a character, pretending to be somebody else, allows the children to develop empathy. Finally, but importantly, the creative process of dramatisation supports the children’s imagination and creativity. Thus, selecting drama as a pedagogic tool for this project is substantiated by the close form-based convergence between drama and children’s own pretend play, by the collective character of the activities, and by the vast potential embodied in the utilisation of dramatic modes of expression as a means of strengthening both personal, aesthetic and cognitive competencies. Bearing the potential of drama in mind, it was the goal that this drama project could become both an inclusive activity and a developmental tool for all of the children involved.

Initial hypotheses and research question Based on the described challenges, the theoretical framework and my own year-long practice as a drama teacher, I developed the following initial research hypotheses:  

Due to the close resemblance between drama and pretend play it will be possible to support children’s play competence by teaching them drama. Based on the theory of internalisation it will be possible for children to transfer a competence developed in drama to their own playgroups.

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Based on these hypotheses and the project challenges I developed the following research question: 

In what way can teaching drama in a kindergarten group contribute to children’s play competence and promote inclusion?

Methodology The project is a pragmatism-inspired action research study. This type of research focuses on emancipatory learning, involving the target groups as active participants in the process in order to foster new understanding, learning and change. According to Dewey (2006), the overall goal is to search for new methods as a way to develop ‘the good life’ for the participating target group. When conducting pragmatism-inspired action research, you need to establish a theory-based hypothesis, tested in practice through interactive collaboration with the participants. The basic hypotheses for this project was, as earlier mentioned, that drama competence developed in a drama lesson, through a process of internalisation, could be transferred to play competence used in a play community context. During the project, the kindergarten teachers actively participated as coresearchers in all parts of the research. They were included as drama instructors, as participating and non-participating observers, as critical evaluators, informants and as co-designers of the pedagogical practice. I was in charge of the final analysis and documentation, where I used various qualitative methods in order to improve the trustworthiness of the project through methodological triangulation. The methods were phenomenological observation, structured observation, interviews with children and teachers, as well as aesthetic evaluation methods such as puppet play, drawing and storytelling (Sørensen, 2015). Before the practical drama intervention, the kindergarten teachers from the two participating institutions selected six children who were all experiencing problems in terms of participating in their respective play communities. We named these children ‘focus children’. The group of focus children consisted of an equal number of boys and girls, two of who were from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Operationalised goals and structured observations Based on the research questions, the aim of the project was to investigate how the development of drama skills among the children in a kindergarten group might contribute to their play competence and inclusion. Thus, the operational goal of the intervention was twofold. First, to create and facilitate drama sessions for kindergarten children where they could experiment with the use of dramatic symbolic form as a tool to develop dramatic play competencies. For operationalisation purposes, play competence was defined as competences in; pretending/make believe, creating narratives, improvising and meta-communicating about the play (Guss, 2001).

168 Merete Cornét Sørensen Secondly, the aim of the project was to support all children’s inclusion and active role in the children’s own play communities. As a tool to describe and evaluate these roles we used a terminology, retrieved from the interacting roles in a theatre process, as a continuum for status and participation from director over actor and extra to spectator (Guss, 2001). To register the process towards project goals I made two sets of registration models, one addressing the child’s development with regard to dramatic play competence and another addressing the child’s development with regard to his or her role in the play communities. Tables 11.1 and 11.2 show an example of two of these registration models. The kindergarten teachers observed the focus children once a week, both during and outside the drama activities. The observations were registered in the structured observation models. During the continuous and final evaluation, the observations were shared and discussed in research workshops with participation of the kindergarten teachers as co-researchers. Table 11.1 Dramatic play competences. Structured registration 1 The child shows competencies in None

Low degree Middle degree High degree Notes and comments

Pretending/make believe Creating narratives Improvising Meta-communicating about the play

Table 11.2 Role in play group. Structured registration 2 The role of the child in the play group

None

Low degree

Middle degree

High degree

Notes and comments

The child acts as audience in the play The child acts as an extra in the play The child acts as an actor in the play The child acts as a director in the play

The practical drama intervention The drama activities took place over a period of seven months, once or twice a week for 1.5 hours in each kindergarten, with the whole group of 5–6-yearold children. There were 20–21 children in each of the two kindergartens’

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drama groups. As continuous framing, we developed a prototype of a dramapedagogical design based on the characteristics of children’s pretend play. The design consisted of a thematic-focused model that I call the Menu model, four basic exercises, and a specific mode of dramatisation. All exercises included narratives. They were collective, based on improvisation, and designed in a way that allowed the children to have equal access to participation. For internalisation purposes, we used the same model, the same basic exercise, and the same mode of dramatisation in every drama lesson during the whole project. The drama concept will be described at the end of this chapter. The role of the teacher The kindergarten teachers involved were trained drama teachers with strong aesthetic skills and the ability to act with puppets, and as teacher-in-role, and most importantly, with the ability to interact and improvise with the children. These skills turned out to be of the greatest importance, as the teachers succeeded in both giving impulses to the children when conducting the drama processes and joining in with the collective drama improvisations as an equal team member. In some situations, they even interacted with the children in dramatisations where the children acted as masters and the teacher played the part of a novice. This way of juggling with status made it possible to raise the level of influence of the children in the drama sessions, and to create learning arenas where all participants in the shared drama session established a collective Zone of Proximal Development for each other. (Figure 11.1) Drama content and learning All drama lessons were framed by a thematic content, which was elaborated through a variety of drama conventions. This gave the children the opportunity to acquire skills in dramatic modes of expression, improvisation and creative interaction. Furthermore, the drama lessons had an inclusive potential as the children always interacted in groups in cooperation with the kindergarten teachers, creating an inclusive drama community where everyone could participate in his or her own way. Finally, the children had the chance to gain an insight into the content of the dramatisations at two levels. First, as an external theme, as for example, dragons, knights and fairy tales as a cultural genre. Secondly, as an inner theme, the children acted out characters and created narratives where they processed feelings and experiences from their own lives in a symbolic form as the role character. This inner theme appeared as a parallel action, where the feelings and actions, lived through in fiction, contained an internal reference to similar experiences from a real context. When the children, as in an example detailed later, played ‘lonely dragons’, whom nobody wanted to play with as an external theme, the children would, as an inner theme, be able to draw on their own experiences of existing on the outside of a play community. In the external theme, the fiction is about dragons, while

170 Merete Cornét Sørensen internally it is about being a human in the world. Heathcote calls such a substantive transfer ‘the code of brotherhood’ (Wagner, 1999, p. 51), and points out that in identifying with a role figure’s general human condition, the opportunity arises to process existential issues and develop understanding of them (Bolton, 1979).

Findings After seven months of practical drama work in the two kindergartens, I evaluated the outcome through a triangulation consisting of observations, qualitative interviews with children and kindergarten teachers, aesthetic evaluation based on drawings, and thematic analysis of interviews and observations. First, I present the findings based on interviews with the children and the adults. After that, I present the findings connected to observations. Finally, I discuss the findings and conclude. Findings based on interviews In the subsequent focus group interviews with the children, they retold, in detail, the thematic, emotional and narrative content of the drama lessons, a content the children were able to address and relate to their own real life experiences. As an example, a child explained the following in an interview based on his drawings about his role as a lonely dragon: ‘I was a dragon and I felt sad there’ (pointing to the drawing). ‘It is like when no one wants to play with you … and you are all alone.’1 That the children in this way were able to remember and articulate experiences, weeks after the actual drama lessons had taken place indicates that they had acquired an internalised understanding of the themes, emotions and narratives involved. As a very important factor from the point of view of the children, they said they had enjoyed the drama activities very much. When asked why, they typically answered: ‘Because it is fun’, ‘Because we are all laughing’, ‘Because the adults play along too’, ‘Because we all join in’, ‘Because we are playing.’ As part of the interviews with the children, I asked them specific questions about whether or not they would sometimes fall out with one another during the drama activities. They all agreed that this was not the case. When I asked them why not, they typically answered: ‘Because we are all playing together’, ‘Because we are having too much fun’, ‘Because not only one child makes the decisions … all the time’, ‘Because the adults are playing as well.’ In the interviews with the kindergarten teachers they expressed that both focus children and the whole group of children had developed play competence, self-confidence and social skills. Furthermore, they noted that the focus children were now largely included as active participants in the children’s own play communities. ‘For some children, it is actually difficult to play and pretend. And that was exactly what we worked on in this project. That’s what I feel was so great.’ ‘There were so many children who developed dramatically at

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this. Especially the quiet children and some of the bilingual children. They are much more active in both their own free play and in drama, and the other children give them much more space … It is a huge progress.’ Moreover, the kindergarten teachers emphasised that some children who in other contexts seemed insecure and problematic flourished in the drama lessons and entered in the collective play activities with great joy and self-confidence. ‘I think it’s amazing how B has evolved. Before, he was often so sad and angry. Now it is great to see how he plays much more with the others, and how happy he has become.’ Lastly, as an added bonus, the kindergarten teachers expressed that the project had been a very inspiring learning process for themselves. ‘It was wonderful as adults to follow the progress we all made, how much braver we all became and how much better we became in puppet play and storytelling and all this - it was so inspiring to see.’ Findings based on observation The phenomenological observations and narrative documentation of the drama lessons showed that the entire group of children participated in the drama lessons and the children who had only played a marginalised role within the groups before were accepted as equal members and active partners in the drama groups. All the children were included in the community that emerged throughout the drama process, and we observed very few conflicts amongst the children during the drama activities – all at the outset of the project. During the drama activities, all children were equal because their own hierarchies were passivised by the kindergarten teachers defining and managing the activity, and by splitting up the usual playgroups during the drama activities. This made the children feel free, allowing them to develop new groups and to get to know one another in new ways, which, in turn, could provide further opportunities for new play groups to develop within the children’s own play communities. For the focus children, who had been experiencing serious problems concerning participation in pretend play with their peers, this development happened gradually. In the beginning, the children who were quiet and reserved were also very cautious during the drama activities. It was only by focusing on small signs such as hand and face movements during the dramatisations that we were able to identify their active participation. However, as the process progressed, they gradually became more and more courageous, and in the end they were participating actively with body, voice and imagination, as an integrated part of the group. Thus, the ongoing and final registration of the focus children showed significant development in relation to dramatic play competencies during the project. Concerning the children’s own play communities, we saw several examples of how both the focus children and the rest of the group would integrate elements from the drama activity roles and narratives into their own pretend play, thereby contributing to the play activities at a more complex level than before.

172 Merete Cornét Sørensen Furthermore, the observations and registrations of the focus children showed significant progress in relation to the degree in which they were active role members in drama and their own playgroups. Where, for example, a focus child in the outset of the project was registered as a spectator or a low status extra, he or she would at project completion be registered as an equal acting participant and an active co-creator of the narrative structure of the play. Lastly, we saw several examples of how play groups, which previously did not allow our focus children to participate, would now include them into the play through a role or narrative they had developed and transferred from the drama activities. Overall, analysis of interviews and observations shows that the experiment of using drama as a tool for developing play competence and promoting inclusion has worked convincingly, not only for the focus children but also for the group as a whole.

Discussion As is the case with all action research, critical questions can be asked about this project. First, and in accordance with the Hawthorne effect, one might question whether the kindergarten teachers’ evaluations of the project results were trustworthy. The Hawthorne effect is well known from a range of experiments carried out in Chicago from 1924 to 1933, which showed that the mere creation of a dialogue-based change causes participants to evaluate results as positive. However, this effect eases off after a while, and then the participants return to a more critical opinion of the results (Duus, 2012). Within this project, the dialogue-based and interactive approach was applied as a basic principle that made the kindergarten teachers take ownership of the project. Probably, this condition had an impact on the kindergarten teachers’ project evaluation. However, one year after project finalisation, the kindergarten teachers still expressed the same positive evaluation of the project results and argued that the effect of the drama-pedagogic intervention lasted until the children left kindergarten for school. I see this as an indication of a long-term effect, rejecting the notion that the result was primarily a product of the Hawthorne effect. Secondly, the interactive research design caused me as the researcher to be involved in both the development and evaluation of processes throughout the project. This involvement might have impacted my evaluation of the project results; however, it was also the phenomenological presence in the processes, which allowed me to accompany the development processes from within, as a major part of the drama-pedagogic context itself. According to Duus (2012) involvement is an unavoidable condition in pragmatic action research, which requires awareness and articulation of pre-understanding and project goals as well as a systematic analytic tool. To comply with this ambition, I have, firstly, articulated project goals and fundamental hypotheses. Secondly, I have applied a triangulation of methods, analytically comparing data from observation forms with

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analyses of video documentation, practice reports and qualitative interviews. Whenever the results of these methods agreed, I considered them trustworthy. Finally, seven months is only a short time span when wanting to evaluate children’s benefits from the project. However, systematic observations of the participating children showed significant developments. I cannot be sure that those were not caused by other factors; however, because the developments were so unequivocal and, based on the kindergarten teachers’ impressions of each individual child, so unexpected, I suggest this project is a vital factor in those changes.

Conclusion Bearing the discussion in mind and as an answer to my research question, I conclude that the results of this study show the drama activities in the involved kindergartens had a positive impact on the children’s participation and role in the play communities within the institutions, thereby helping to prevent early stigmatisation. In relation to the project hypothesis, this research project documents that the focus children developed a multitude of drama and play competencies during the drama lessons which indicates that context-based learning did indeed take place. Furthermore, the project documents that, through a process of internalisation, the focus children transferred various themes, roles, narratives and modes of expression from the drama activity to their own dramatic play. The internalisation and transformation of social and dramatic competences from the drama lessons to the play communities meant that on project completion, the focus children were included as active participants in the play communities at their kindergartens. In terms of the project goal, both kindergartens managed to establish an inclusive drama community involving the entire group of children. The drama lessons served as a free venue where everyone was equal and daily hierarchies among the children were set aside. This gave the children the opportunity to experiment freely and develop interpersonal skills and dramatic competencies. Finally, yet importantly, both children and teachers valued the drama lessons as highly meaningful, joyous activities which possessed learning potential for all parties involved. Overall, this project showed that play-based process drama in kindergarten could be a joyful tool for playing, learning and inclusion – all at the same time. This leads me to conclude the following: This study demonstrates that teaching drama skills through play-based process drama in kindergarten can be an enjoyable and useful tool to develop play competence and gain inclusion in kindergarten.

Drama practice The drama lessons were structured in an educational model that I call the Menu model (see Table 11.3) which was used as a continuous framing of the

174 Merete Cornét Sørensen drama lessons during the seven months of drama work in the two kindergartens. The content of the exercises was always connected to an overall theme that changed during the project. In the following, I will systematically explain the structure of the model and give an example from a specific drama lesson, with fairy tales as the theme, which took place in the second month of the project. This theme was one of many and the model can be used for any theme the drama teacher might want to work with. In this example, fairy tales were chosen, because the children in both kindergartens showed a great interest in fairy tales and magic characters in their own pretend plays. In addition, the archetypal roles in the chosen fairy tale were at a suitable distance from the children’s own reality, which made it suitable as a tool to process emotional issues under the protection of fiction. (Bolton, 1979) Table 11.3 The Menu model Appetiser  Impulse. Basic exercise: Colour game.  Warm up. Basic exercise: Statue-stop game. Main Course  Narrative  Dramatic exploration. Basic exercise: Cross the circle game.  Dramatic contemplation. Basic exercise: Group work.  Sharing-acting. Basic method: Playing Narrator. Dessert  Relaxation. Basic exercise. Dream travel.  Evaluation: Drawing.

The Drama of the Lonely Dragons Appetiser The purpose of this introductory phase is, firstly, to establish a shared focus and to serve as a joyful appetiser for the rest of the drama lesson. Secondly, it presents the theme for the drama lesson in a way that can serve as an impulse for later dramatisation. Thirdly, it creates shared energy and serves as a physical warm up in preparation for dramatic exploration of the theme. Impulse As an impulse, the kindergarten teachers and the children start by sitting on the floor in a circle. The children get a coloured mark on their hands, dividing them into four different colour groups. After this, the kindergarten teacher, as a ritual, initiates a basic exercise called ‘colour game’ where the different colour groups first, in turn, clap, sing and stamp their feet on the floor. Next, they

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cross the circle and swap seats as fast as possible. Afterwards, the teacher presents the theme of the day. In this example, the theme was fairy tales, and the kindergarten teacher used a hand puppet (Siggi) as a tool to interact with the children during the presentation. This puppet had a very low status and did not know anything about fairy tales, so the children interacted with the puppet as masters, explaining and showing what a fairy tale can be. Warm up As a warm up, we used a basic exercise that I call the statue-stop game. This is a role-playing game where the teacher plays a drum and the children act. When the drum stops, all children stand in frozen positions as statues, and when the drum plays, the children move around using their bodies to explore end express the chosen roles. Everyone acts the same roles / themes / feelings at the same time, but there is no pre-defined movement pattern and everyone improvises, inspiring and being inspired by one another. In this drama lesson, the teacher used the basic exercise as a framework for making the children experiment with, and act out, different fairy tale characters for the puppet Siggi. Main course The purpose of this phase is to give the children the opportunity to immerse themselves in the chosen theme in different ways, all involving dramatisation, which enables them to experiment with roles and narratives. The aim is to allow the participating children both to acquire dramatic language and to use this language as a tool for exploring and communicating their own interpretations of the selected roles and themes. Finally, the aim is that the children work in playful ways in teams, where they can develop creativity, social competencies and well-being. Narrative After the physical warm up phase, the children are seated in a circle again. Then, the kindergarten teacher tells a short frame story where three or four role-characters from the previous exercise are involved. In this lesson, there was a story about lonely dragons who desperately wanted some friends to play with. The story begins in a castle where the princes and princesses play in the garden. They are not to play in the forest, as all adults are afraid of the dragons who live there. Nevertheless, the children are curious, and one day they climb the garden wall and walk into the forest. Here, they meet the dragons, who invite them to their cave to play. When the kings and queens discover that the children have disappeared, they become terribly worried and ask the knights to find them, so the knights travel into the woods where they

176 Merete Cornét Sørensen find the children in the cave of the dragons. The knights draw their swords to kill the dragons, but the children stop them and explain that the dragons are their friends now. They all become friends and fly back to the castle on the back of the dragons. Once back safely, the kings and queens throw a gigantic ‘welcome home’ party. From that day forward, the dragons were never lonely anymore. Cross-circle game The first basic exercise in this part of the Menu model is an acting game that I call the cross-circle game. The children start out it in a circle on the floor. The teacher invites the children in groups into the centre of the circle, using the colour groups from the appetiser. Here, they act out a chosen figure, for example dragons, while the rest of the group are watching as an audience. Once all of the groups have acted in the middle of the circle, the teacher can invite two groups together, for example dragons with princes, to act in the middle. This gives the characters the possibility to interact with each other. The aim of this exercise is to allow the children to play with the different characters from the story. In this lesson, the teacher had chosen dragons, knights, kings/queens, princes and princesses, as the roles to be acted out in this basic exercise, where all children in turn got the chance to play all the different characters. Group work Based on the narrative and the roles from the cross-circle game, the children choose one character they want to explore further. Based on these choices, the children are divided into smaller groups, with an adult in each group. The groups then create their own little story about their characters: what the characters like to do, what they dislike, are afraid of, or maybe what an ordinary morning in their life would look like. The goal is to give the children the opportunity to use their creativity and cooperation skills to make their own small narrative, to produce their own small plays, and to empathise with their roles. Sharing – acting Eventually, the work of the groups is pooled into a small interactive performance within the framework of the common narrative. Here, we use a basic dramatisation method that I call Acting Narrator. This is a dramatisation method where the teacher, through storytelling, sets the stage and the framing of the story, while the children play the different scenes. The narrator interacts and improvises with the children during the whole story, in a balance between telling and making ‘holes’ in the story in which the children can help it to unfold. The aim in this phase is to share stories, perform for each other, and to tie the small group dramatisations together into a joint story, in which everyone is engaged as equal contributors. There is a focus on developing empathy

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through role work, and a focus on developing a number of social and dramatic skills through the willingness to cooperate, to use dramatic symbolic form and to accept fiction. In this lesson, the teacher first introduced the four character groups, who acted out their small performances for each other. Afterwards, she conducted an interactive performance based on the framing story where the children, in groups and in collective interplay, performed the whole story. Finally, they played out the scene of the final party with songs and a dance, where the children ended up sitting on the floor in a circle again. Here, the narrator ended the story, and everyone applauded. Dessert For rounding off the drama lesson, we use a set of exercises with the intention of processing and maintaining the experiences that the children have had during the drama process. This happens partly in conversations with the teachers, and partly through puppetry, where the children reiterate their experiences during the drama session to the teacher’s hand puppet. After this, we use a basic exercise called Dream Journey. Here, the children lie down and relax. There is quiet music, and the teacher guides the children’s relaxation as a dream journey, recapitulating the core experiences from the drama lesson in a short narrative. The aim is to reduce energy levels, and to strengthen the children’s bodily awareness, but primarily the goal is to establish an inner focus for, once again, reinventing the action of the day’s drama process. After the dream journey, we carry out an individual visual art activity where the children express their emotions and experiences from the drama lesson. At the end, these drawings are collected and used as part of an exhibition or for evaluation purposes.

Note 1 All statements from interviews are translated into English.

References Austring, B. & Sørensen, M. (2006). Æstetik og Læring [Aesthetics and learning]. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Austring, B. & Sørensen, M. (2011). Aesthetics and learning. In Pixel (Eds), The future of education (pp. 11–15). Florence: Simonelli Editore University Press. Bolton, G. (1979). Towards a theory of drama in education. London: Longman. Cecchin, D. (2013). Pedagogical perspectives on play. In I. Schousboe, & D. WintherLindqvist (Eds.), Children’s play and development: Cultural-historical perspectives (pp. 55– 71). Dordrecht: Springer. DCUM. (2018). Børns syn på børnemiljø i dagtilbud 2017. [Children’s view of children’s environment in day care 2017]. Retrieved from DCUM. http://dcum.dk/under soegelser/boerns-syn-paa-boernemiljoe-i-dagtilbud-2017.

178 Merete Cornét Sørensen Dewey, J. (2006). Demokrati og uddannelse [Democracy and education]. Århus: Forlaget Klim. (Original work published in English 1916). DICE. (2010). The DICE has been cast. www.dramanetwork.eu/about_dice.html. Duus, G. H.et al. (2012). Aktionsforskning. En grundbog [Action research. A basic book]. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. Golinkoff, R. M. & Hirs-Pasek, K. (2016). Becoming brilliant. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Guss, F. G. (2001). Drama performance in children’s play-culture. Oslo: Høgskolen Oslo. Heggstad, K., Rasmussen, B. & Gjærum, R. (2017). Drama, teater og demokrati. Antologi 2. [Drama, theatre and democracy. Anthology 2.]. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. Holzman, L. & Newman, F. (2005). Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary scientist. New York: Routledge. Kiger Lee, B., Patall, E. A., Cawthon, S. W. & Steingut, R. R. (2015). The effect of drama-based pedagogy on preK-16 outcomes: A meta-analysis of research from 1985 to 2012. Review of Educational Research, 1, 3–49. Lindqvist, G. (2001). When small children play: How adults dramatise and children create meaning. Early Years: An International Research Journal, 21(1), 7–14. Sutton-Smith, B. (2001). The ambiguity of play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sæbø, A. B. (2016). Drama som læringsform [Drama as a learning medium]. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Sørensen, M. (2015). When the competent pedagogue or teacher sets an example. In Slots og Kulturstyrelsens: Art and culture give children a life that works. København: Kulturstyrelsen. Sørensen, M. (2015). Drama, æstetisk læring og udvikling af dramatisk legekompetence i børnehaven [Drama, aesthetic learning and the development of dramatic play competence in kindergarten]. København: Århus Pædagogiske Universitet. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. London: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (2016). Play and its role in the mental development of the child. International Research in Early Childhood Education, 7(2), 3–25. (First published in Russia 1966). Wagner, B. J. (1999). Dorothy Heathcote: Drama as a learning medium. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Whitebread, D. (2012). The importance of play. Cambridge: University of Cambridge. Öhman, M. (2011). Det viktigaste är att få leka [The most important thing is to play]. Stockholm: Liber.

12 Conclusion Ása Helga Ragnarsdóttir

Modern society makes numerous and often contradictory demands on its citizens. The role of the educational system is, among other things, to prepare individuals for the challenges and tasks of everyday life and assist them to understand the relationship of nature and society. The pupil not only needs to possess knowledge, skills and competence but also to be able to acquire new knowledge, skills and competence, analyse and communicate. Education has to incorporate all these factors (The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2011). Such education is based on a learning community which is characterised by the fundamental pillars of education: literacy, sustainability, democracy and human rights, health and welfare and creativity. In order to acquire diverse competences, it must be important for the children to get an opportunity to work on different tasks that are connected to the culture of society, the environment of children and everyday life. In all educational work, children should be encouraged to attain learnability both in general and in specific fields. Learnability is thus a fundamental pillar in all educational work and is based on selfunderstanding and interest. Learnability also includes knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses and to be able to make decisions accordingly (The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2011). Learnability is based on the natural curiosity of children, their motivation, their belief in their own abilities and capability of applying their competences in a constructive manner when working on various tasks. This demands a stimulating learning environment at school. An effort should be made for the pupils to integrate their knowledge and skills as they gain experience in communication that is based on respect for human rights and equality. At the same time, pupils are to learn to express their views and explain their working methods in a responsible, critical and clear manner. Drama can maybe be of help in gaining experience and understanding of the society.

References Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. (2011). The Icelandic national curriculum guide for compulsory schools, general section. Reykjavík: Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.

Index

References to figures are in italics. References to tables are in bold. #Live project: performing literacy example 22, 25–26, 28–33; step 5 (art of the good selfie) and handling risk and fiction 25, 26–27, 26, 32; step 7 (global and local perspectives) and handling complexity 26, 27–28, 33; see also performing literacy and social media (Knudsen and Schofield) #MeToo campaign 22 Abbott, Tony 96 action research 114, 116, 149, 152, 163, 167, 172–173 ‘affect’ notion 113, 117 All our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, 1999) 150 alter-ego devices 63, 67 Anderson, Michael 24 anthropological distancing 64 anti-immigrant hate crimes 95 Appelbaum, D. 41 artful teaching of drama-based storyline (Anna-Lena Østern): chapter overview xviii, 37; artful teaching/learning 39–40; defining storyline as educational pedagogy 41–42; democracy/equity and storyline 42; drama-based storyline and fictionality 42–43; dramaturgical thinking 39, 42, 43–46, 44, 47, 51; ‘Huseby @uarell’ climate change project 47–51, 50; performative inquiry mode 39, 40–41, 46–47, 51; ‘Space me’ project 46–47; urgent themes 51; worldview in artful teaching of drama-based storyline 46–47, 51

arts, learning in, through and about the arts 6–7 arts-based inquiry 112–113 arts-based research (ABR) 39–40 assertiveness 58 Attenborough, Sir David 47 Austin, J. L. 40 Australia: anti-immigrant hate crimes 95; dehumanising treatment of refugees 94, 95, 96; Equity and Diversity Guidelines (Drama Australia) 114, 138; Stop the Boats policy 96; Sydney Cronulla riots (2005) 95; ‘Teachers for Refugees’ protest group (Victoria) 96–97; see also Fusion Theatre (Melbourne, Australia); Sydney Theatre Company Bandura, A. 6 BBC, Earth (2018) 47 Beck, U. 23 ‘becoming’ theory 113, 117 behaviour management strategies 58 Bell, Steve 41, 42 Belliveau, G. 40–41 belonging, sense of 58, 59; see also connectedness, sense of Berki, E. 6 Berry, K. 131, 133 Bethlenfalvy, Adam xix, 147; see also living through creativity (Bethlenfalvy) biodiversity 37 body image distress 63 body language 80, 82–83, 85 Bolton, Gavin: drama as ‘a collective experiencing of what we share’ 115; ‘epistemological purpose of drama in education’ 133; Living Through Drama

Index 181 151, 152, 153; process drama 93–94, 97; ‘protection’ notion 134; ‘worthwhileness’ in drama education 140–141 Bond, Edward 152, 153, 155, 157–158, 160 Bratholm, B. 16 Brecht, Bertolt 93–94 Buber, Martin xvi Buckingham, D. 23 bullying 58, 59, 61, 64, 163; anti-bullying learning activities 64–72; cyberbullying 59 Burchardt, T. 112 Burmingham, Simon 96 Cahill, Helen xviii, 55, 78, 86; see also social and emotional learning (SEL) and well-being through drama (Cahill) Cameron, David 24 Carroll, John 24 Castells, M. 23 Chang, L. S. 15 Christie, J. 77 circular dramaturgy 44 citizenship 42, 78, 86, 100; participatory citizenship 93; see also democracy civil disobedience 97 climate change 37, 47, 48; ‘Huseby @uarell’ 47–51, 50 coaching (from observers) 63 collaborative learning strategies 58, 59–60 Collective Zone of Proximal Development Model 164–165, 165, 169 communication: communication skills 16, 58, 59, 63, 166; multimodal communication 23, 24; see also interpersonal skills community-based drama 114 connectedness, sense of 58, 59, 78, 86 Connell, Raewyn 135, 136 context, and drama education xv–xviii, xx Conventions approach 151–152 cooperation 1, 2, 16, 78, 85–86 coping skills 59 Cox, M. 95 creative learning 5–6, 150, 152, 161 creative thinking 6, 16, 40; see also critical thinking creativity 1, 2, 5–6, 147, 166, 179; see also All our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, 1999); creative learning; creative thinking; living through creativity

(Bethlenfalvy); play competence and drama in kindergartens (Sørensen) critical pedagogy 93 critical thinking: and creative learning 5; increased emphasis on 1; and learning through drama 2; and performative inquiry mode 40; and social inclusion 112; and social/emotional well-being through drama 60, 61, 62, 63–64; see also creative thinking ‘crowd sourcing’ advice 63 cultural diversity: and inclusive/multicultural education 75–76; see also diversity, equality and drama (Raphael) cyberbullying 59 Davis, David 151–152, 153 Davis, Susan 24 Deakin University, Participation and Partnership Program 117 ‘Dear Diary’ activities 86–88 decision-making skills 59 Deleuze, G. 113, 117 democracy 2, 42, 91, 94, 100, 111, 179; see also citizenship; equality; process drama and new nationalisms (O’Connor and Gregorzewski) design-oriented learning theory 23–24, 28 Dewey, J. 6, 51, 115, 167; “Context and thought” xv, xvi Dezuanni, M. 28 DICE Consortium 15, 151 digital (media) literacy 23–24, 28 disability: Fusion Theatre and actors with disability 111–112; Fusion Theatre Diverse Encounters project 117–120; Fusion Theatre Teaching for Diversity workshop 115–117; Fusion workshop example 121–125; see also diversity, equality and drama (Raphael) distancing methods 64; anthropological distancing 64; Brechtian devices 93–94 diversity: and inclusive/multicultural education 75–76; see also diversity, equality and drama (Raphael) diversity, equality and drama (Raphael): chapter overview xix, 109, 111; drama and diversity 115, 120–121; drama and inclusion/equity 113–114; drama as social art form 114–115; Fusion Theatre and disability 111–112; Fusion Theatre Diverse Encounters project 117–120; Fusion Theatre Teaching for Diversity workshop 115–117; Fusion

182 Index workshop example 121–125; research questions and methodology 112–113 dragons, ‘Drama of the Lonely Dragons’ lesson 174–177 drama: as rehearsal for life 60, 62–63; as social art form 114–115; see also drama education Drama Australia, Equity and Diversity Guidelines 114, 138 drama education: and context xv–xviii, xx; and relational dynamics xvi–xvii; see also gender equality and drama education (Hatton) ‘Drama Events’ concept 153, 154, 155, 160 Drama in Education (DiE) 151, 152, 153, 161 ‘Drama of the Lonely Dragons’ lesson 174–177 drama-based storyline see artful teaching of drama-based storyline (Anna-Lena Østern) dramatic dramaturgy 43, 44 dramatic quadruple fiction 165–166 dramaturgical thinking: circular dramaturgy 44; dramatic dramaturgy 43, 44; montage dramaturgy 43–44; relational dramaturgy 44; and storyline as educational pedagogy 39, 42, 43–46, 44, 47, 51 dream (in drama) 64 Duffy, Peter xv–xx; see also foreword (Peter Duffy) Duus, G. H. 172 Dzurinda, M. 95 Earth (BBC, 2018) 47 ecological turn (in education) 47 education: ecological turn in 47; fundamental pillars of 1–2, 179; inclusive education 75–76, 116, 120–121; multicultural education 75–76; Towards 2030: a new vision for education (UNESCO, 2016) 113; see also All our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, 1999); learning; teaching Eisner, E., The Arts and Creation of Mind 7 Elliott, J. 61 emotional literacy 58, 62 empathy 62, 166 Engelsrud, G. 46 ensemble-based learning 114 environmental protection 37

equality 2, 109, 116; gender equality 136–137; see also diversity, equality and drama (Raphael); gender equality and drama education (Hatton) equity: and drama education 113–114; and drama-based storyline 42 Equity and Diversity Guidelines (Drama Australia) 114, 138 Eriksson, S. 94 Erstad, O. 23 ethic of care 130, 132 European Institute of Gender Equality 136–137 European Union (EU), S-Team project 48 experiential learning 60, 62 Facebook 22, 24, 27, 30–31 fairy tales 174; see also ‘Drama of the Lonely Dragons’ lesson; A Giant Love Story (book and lessons); Icelandic Tales Fautley, M. 150, 152, 161 Fels, L. 40–41 femininities 138–139 feminist drama education 137–138 feminist theory 135 Fiala, O. 130 fiction: and drama-based storyline 42–43; dramatic quadruple fiction 165–166; handling risk and fiction (#iLive lesson step 5, art of the good selfie) 25, 26–27, 26, 32 Finley, S. 113, 118 Fleming, Mike 151 foreword (Peter Duffy): context and drama education xv–xviii, xx; overview of chapters xviii–xx forum theatre techniques 63, 125 freeze frames 60, 65, 66, 68, 80, 82, 83–84 Freire, P. 100, 115–116, 133 fundamental pillars of education (Ragnarsdóttir) 1–2, 179 Fusion Theatre (Melbourne, Australia): disability and drama 111–112; Diverse Encounters project 117–120; Teaching for Diversity workshop 115–117; workshop example 121–125; see also diversity, equality and drama (Raphael) Gallagher, Kathleen xvii, 129, 132 gender: and body image distress 63; gender equality 136–137; and intersectionality 136; as social construct

Index 183 135–136; see also gender equality and drama education (Hatton) gender equality and drama education (Hatton): chapter overview xix, 109; drama, pedagogy and gender issue 128–129; drama, purposes of 130–132; drama performances 134–135; drama processes 132–134; gender constructs, gender equality and dramatic inquiry 135–137, 140–141; gender-focused research and praxis with girls 137–138; The Girls’ Own project 138–140, 140; ‘I felt like a warrior’ lesson (based on Saga Vanecek’s ‘Viking sword’ story) 141–144 gender studies 135 Gergen, K. 40 Gergen, M. 40 Germany, anti-immigrant hate crimes 95 A Giant Love Story (book and lessons) 16–20, 20 Giddens, A. 23, 95 girls: and feminist dramatic education 137–138; The Girls’ Own project 138–140, 140; ‘I felt like a warrior’ lesson (based on Saga Vanecek’s ‘Viking sword’ story) 141–144; and performance in drama 135; and predominance of masculine stories 129; see also gender equality and drama education (Hatton) global warming 37, 47, 48; see also climate change Goode, Tony 151–152 Graves, M. F. 76, 85 Greene, Maxine 94 Gregorzewski, Moema xix, 91; see also process drama and new nationalisms (O’Connor and Gregorzewski) The Guardian, ‘Swedish girl and Viking sword’ story 141 Guattari, F. 113, 117 Guðjónsdóttir, Hafdís xviii, 55; see also immigrant students’ stories in drama classes (Ragnarsdóttir and Guðjónsdóttir) Guss, F. G. 166 Gusterson, H. 95 Gylfadóttir, R. 6 Hanson, Pauline 95 Harkness, Sallie 41 Haseman, B. 40 Hasson, Uri xvi

Hatton, Christine xix, 109, 128; see also gender equality and drama education (Hatton) Hawthorne effect 172 health and welfare 2, 55, 179; see also immigrant students’ stories in drama classes (Ragnarsdóttir and Guðjónsdóttir); social and emotional learning (SEL) and well-being through drama (Cahill) Heathcote, Dorothy: ‘code of brotherhood’ 170; dialogic and radical engagement of learner in drama 131; didactive purpose of drama 130; Living Through Drama 149, 151, 152–153; ‘man in a mess’ 128, 153; ‘now time’ and ‘productive tensions’ 128; process drama 93, 97 Helgadóttir, Gudrun, A Giant Love Story 19, 20 Hernández-Romero, L. 150, 160 Hoechsmann, M. 23 Holzman, L. 164 Home and Away (John Marsden): lesson plan based on 101–105; Sydney Theatre Company workshop based on 94, 97, 98–101 homophobic teasing 59 human rights 2, 91, 94, 95, 179; see also process drama and new nationalisms (O’Connor and Gregorzewski) ‘Huseby @uarell’ climate change project 47–51, 50 Husserl, Edmund xvi Iceland: immigration and inclusive/multicultural education 75–76; national curriculum guide 2 Icelandic Tales 9, 10, 11, 12–13, 14; see also A Giant Love Story (book and lessons) imagination: and democracy 94; imagination games and language learning 77–78; power of imagination 7; and pretend play 166 immigrant students’ stories in drama classes (Ragnarsdóttir and Guðjónsdóttir): chapter overview xviii–xix, 55; body language 80, 82–83, 85; cooperation 78, 85–86; ‘Dear Diary’ activities 86–88; diversity and inclusive/multicultural education 75–76; drama and language learning 76–77, 85–86; freeze frames 80, 82, 83–84; imagination games 77–78; improvisation 78, 80, 81–82;

184 Index role-play 80–81; study methodology and methods 78–80; see also language learning through drama (Thorkelsdóttir and Ragnarsdóttir) immigrants see anti-immigrant hate crimes; immigrant students’ stories in drama classes (Ragnarsdóttir and Guðjónsdóttir); language learning through drama (Thorkelsdóttir and Ragnarsdóttir); refugees improvisation 78, 80, 81–82, 93 inclusion: and drama education 113–114, 120–121; and Fusion Theatre ensembles 111–112; see also diversity, equality and drama (Raphael) inclusive education 75–76, 116, 120–121 Instagram 27, 30 interpersonal skills 58, 166, 173; see also communication intersectionality, and gender 136 intersubjectivity xvi–xvii islamophobia 95, 97 Jensen, Amy Petersen 24 Jeppesen, A. 85 Jóhannsdóttir, I. 5 Jordanhill College 41 Kampylis, P. 6 kindergartens see play competence and drama in kindergartens (Sørensen) Knobel, M. 23 Knudsen, Kristian Nødtvedt xviii, 3; see also performing literacy and social media (Knudsen and Schofield) Kristmundsson, G. B. 7, 15 Laban, Rudolf, Laban movement (efforts) 123 language learning through drama (Thorkelsdóttir and Ragnarsdóttir): chapter overview xviii, 3; A Giant Love Story lessons 16–20, 20; learning creatively 5–6; learning in, through and about the arts 6–7; literacy and drama 7–8; research methodology, questions and participants 8–10; results 10–11, 12–13, 14, 14; results, discussion of and conclusions 14–16; see also immigrant students’ stories in drama classes (Ragnarsdóttir and Guðjónsdóttir) Lankshear, C. 23 Lash, S. 23 learnability 179

learning: collaborative learning strategies 58, 59–60; creative learning 5–6, 150, 152, 161; design-oriented learning theory 23–24, 28; ensemble-based learning 114; experiential learning 60, 62; lifelong learning 112, 113; see also education; teaching learning trajectories (teachers) 16 Lecoq, Jacques 123 Lehtonen, A. 151 lifelong learning 112, 113 Lindqvist, G. 164 Lisbon key competences 151 literacy 2, 3, 7–8, 179; emotional literacy 58, 62; media/digital literacy 23–24, 28; see also language learning through drama (Thorkelsdóttir and Ragnarsdóttir); performing literacy and social media living through creativity (Bethlenfalvy): chapter overview xix–xx, 147, 149; creative learning 150, 152, 161; creativity 149–150; creativity and drama 151–152; Living Through Drama 151, 152; Living Through Drama and Edward Bond 152–153, 155, 157–158, 160; teaching about vs doing drama 149, 151; teaching creatively vs for creativity 150, 152; Wild Child lesson 153–161 Living Through Drama 151, 152; and Edward Bond 152–153, 155, 157–158, 160 Lundy, K. G. 113–114 Maldives, rising sea levels and tsunami 48, 49, 50 Marsden, John see Home and Away (John Marsden) masculinities 135, 136 Mayala, Oxana 156 media (digital) literacy 23–24, 28 Menu model 169, 173–174, 174; ‘Drama of the Lonely Dragons’ example 174–177 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice xvi montage dramaturgy 43–44 Montier, J. 95 multicultural education 75–76; see also inclusive education multimodal communication 23, 24 multimodal design-oriented learning theory 23–24, 28 narrative inquiry 75–76, 78 narrative theory 61

Index 185 National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, All our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (1999) 150 nationalism: refugees and right-wing nationalist backlash 94–96; see also process drama and new nationalisms (O’Connor and Gregorzewski) nationalist populism 95 Neelands, J. 78, 99, 114, 115, 130, 151–152 negotiation skills 58, 62 Neumann, K. 96 Newman, F. 164 Nicholson, H. 120 nightmare (in drama) 64 Norway, Verdal mudslide (1892) 48, 49 O’Connor, Peter xix, 91, 94; see also process drama and new nationalisms (O’Connor and Gregorzewski) O’Mara, J. 130 O’Neill, Cecily 153 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 21st Century Skills 59 Østern, Anna-Lena xviii, 37; see also artful teaching of drama-based storyline (Anna-Lena Østern) Østern, T. P. 46, 47 O’Toole, J. 85, 94, 97, 130 Pakistan, flooding and water-spread diseases 48, 49 patriarchy 136 performance, in drama 134–135 performative inquiry mode 39, 40–41, 46–47, 51 performing literacy and social media (Knudsen and Schofield): chapter overview xviii, 3; complexities of social media communication 22; digital/ media literacy and designs for learning 23–24; drama in education in digital society 24–25; educational design #iLive example 22, 25–26, 29–33; handling complexity (#iLive lesson step 7, global and local perspectives) 26, 27–28, 33; handling risk and fiction (#iLive lesson step 5, art of the good selfie) 25, 26–27, 26, 32; performing literacy in #iLive project 28–29; research methodology 22 Perry, M. 117

phenomenologists xvi Piazzoli, E. 77 Pilkington, P. 95 PISA rankings 97 play competence and drama in kindergartens (Sørensen): background to study 163–164; chapter overview xx, 147; Collective Zone of Proximal Development Model 164–165, 165, 169; cultural and transformative nature of pretend play 164; drama and pretend play 165–166; ‘Drama of the Lonely Dragons’ lesson 174–177; findings based on interviews with children 170; findings based on interviews with teachers 170–171; findings based on observation 171–172; findings discussed and conclusion 172–173; Hawthorne effect issue 172; initial hypotheses and research question 166–167; Menu model 169, 173–174, 174; methodology 167; operationalised goals and structured observations 167–168, 168; practical drama intervention 168–170; role of trained drama teachers 169; thematic drama content and learning 169–170 populism, nationalist populism 95 post-structural theory 113, 117, 136 Poyntz, S. R. 23 problem-solving 58, 62 process drama 42, 77, 151, 153, 154, 163, 173; see also Living Through Drama; process drama and new nationalisms (O’Connor and Gregorzewski) process drama and new nationalisms (O’Connor and Gregorzewski): chapter overview xix, 91, 93; Home and Away lesson plan 101–105; Home and Away Sydney Theatre Company workshop 94, 97, 98–101; process drama 93–94; process drama and democracy 94; process drama reflective account of workshop 97–98; refugees and right-wing nationalist populism 94–96; ‘Teachers for Refugees’ Victoria protest group 96–97 “provisional voice” concept 62 quadruple fiction 165–166 Qvortrup, L. 23, 28 racist ideologies 93, 94–95 Ragnarsdóttir, Ása Helga xviii, 3, 55, 76, 85, 179; see also fundamental pillars of

186 Index education (Ragnarsdóttir); immigrant students’ stories in drama classes (Ragnarsdóttir and Guðjónsdóttir); language learning through drama (Thorkelsdóttir and Ragnarsdóttir) Raphael, Jo xix, 109, 111; see also diversity, equality and drama (Raphael) refugees: Australian government’s dehumanising treatment of 94, 95, 96; demonising of 91, 93; geopolitical context 94–96; Home and Away lesson plan 101–105; Home and Away workshop 94, 97, 98–101; ‘Teachers for Refugees’ protest group (Victoria, Australia) 96–97; see also immigrant students’ stories in drama classes (Ragnarsdóttir and Guðjónsdóttir) rehearsal for life, drama as 60, 62–63 relational dramaturgy 44 relational dynamics, and drama education xvi–xvii relationship skills 62 Richardson, Laurel 98 role drama 40, 41, 42, 49 role-playing 7–8, 15, 60, 62–63, 80–81 Rolling, J. H., Jr. 40 Roskos, K. 77 Saebo, A. B. 150 Sallis, Richard 129 Savage, J. 150, 152, 161 Schofield, Daniel xviii, 3; see also performing literacy and social media (Knudsen and Schofield) Schon, D. 133 Schwanke, U. 42 “Scottish storyline” method see artful teaching of drama-based storyline (Anna-Lena Østern) second-language teaching 75, 86 Selander, Staffan 23–24, 28 self-awareness 59, 61 self-regulation 58, 59 sexual harassment 59 Slade, P. 97 Snapchat 22, 27, 31, 33 social and emotional learning (SEL) and well-being through drama (Cahill): chapter overview xviii, 55; collaborative learning strategies 58, 59–60; connection, protection and perspectives 57, 58; content and teaching method 59–60; contribution of SEL to well-being outcomes 59; drama as

rehearsal for life 60, 62–63; drama for critical thinking 60, 61, 62, 63–64; drama for description 60–61; drama for experiential learning 60, 62; research methodologies 57; school-yard bullying 58, 59, 61, 64; school-yard bullying, anti-bullying learning activities 64–72 social awareness 59, 61 social inclusion see inclusion social media see performing literacy and social media (Knudsen and Schofield) Somers, J. 8, 76 Sørensen, Merete Cornét xx, 147, 163; see also play competence and drama in kindergartens (Sørensen) ‘Space me’ project 46–47 S-Team (EU project) 48 Sternberg, R. J. 6 Stinson, M. 85 Stinson, Susan 100 ‘stop moment’ concept 41, 42, 49 Stop the Boats policy (Australia) 96 storyline (“The Scottish method”) see artful teaching of drama-based storyline (Anna-Lena Østern) storytelling (storying) 7–8, 61 Strømme, Alex 47, 48 student performances 134–135 surrealism 63 sustainability 2, 37, 179; see also artful teaching of drama-based storyline (Anna-Lena Østern) Sutton-Smith, B. 164 ‘Swedish girl and Viking sword’ story, lesson based on 141–144 Sydney Cronulla riots (Australia, 2005) 95 Sydney Theatre Company, Home and Away workshop 94, 97, 98–101 Tan, Shaun, The Red Tree 138, 139–140 teachers: learning trajectories 16; professionalism 1 ‘Teachers for Refugees’ protest group (Victoria, Australia) 96–97 teaching: teaching about vs doing drama 149, 151; teaching creatively vs for creativity 150, 152; see also education; learning; teachers Thorkelsdóttir, Rannveig Björk xviii, 3; see also language learning through drama (Thorkelsdóttir and Ragnarsdóttir) Torr, G. 5 Turnbull, Malcolm 96–97

Index 187 UNESCO, Towards 2030: a new vision for education (2016) 113 United Kingdom (UK), anti-immigrant hate crimes 95 United Nations, on climate change 47 United States, 2016 presidential election 22 Vanecek, Saga, lesson based on her ‘Viking sword’ story 141–144 Värri, V.-M. 47 Verdal (Norway), mudslide (1892) 48, 49 Viirret, T. L. xvi Vygotsky, L. S. 77, 164–165 Way, B. 97, 115 welfare see health and welfare

wellbeing see health and welfare; social and emotional learning (SEL) and well-being through drama (Cahill) Wild Child story/lesson 153–161 Winston, J. 15, 120 Wittek, L. 16 Woolland, B. 7 Yon, Daniel xvii YouTube 24, 28, 31 Zhou, K. 150 Zone of Proximal Development 164–165; see also Collective Zone of Proximal Development Model; Vygotsky, L. S. Zuckerberg, Mark 22