4. Distressed Students…….
those with diagnosed learning difficulties or
those privileged adolescents alienated from a
society which stresses superficial beauty, fluke
talent and blatant consumerism or
the gifted who cannot conform to traditional
schooling
7. Drama
Drama is not only a tool for expressing and communicating ideas,
thoughts and feelings: it is also a powerful medium by which to
explore social understanding – why people think and behave as
they do – in the safety of it being one-step-removed. It can be
used to access meanings embedded in stories and events and to
explore human intentions, motivations and consequences in a
range of social situations across the curriculum. This
understanding of the patterns and sequences in life, in narrative,
is fundamental to human experience.
National Curriculum for English
UK
8. Drama Frames for Transformation
Action
*Context building
*Narrative Action
*Poetic Action
*Reflective Action
9. Context Building Action
Fix time, place, people in the dramatic context
Create atmosphere: space, light, sound
Contextual constraints/opportunities
Find or make symbols and themes for the work
Check different perspectives
e.g. Games
Still image
10. “Captain’s coming”
• Chief’s coming :stop and salute
• Huddle up!: get together in a huddle and listen
in
• Shots!: Duck down, hands over head
• Stones!: Pick up and throw stones
• Banners!: March forward in rows with arms up
• Broadcast!: Stop and listen intently
• Chant!: Stand still and chant slogan
11. Narrative Action
Significant events, incidents, encounters
Introduce and develop PLOT
“Living through” cultural patterns
Mainly actor/ spectator roles
E.g. Monologues
Mantle of the Expert
Overheard conversations
12. Poetic Action
Looking beyond the plot
Awareness of form, symbol and imagery
Often stylized use of time space and presence
Allow for incongruities and discord
Eg: Come on Down!
Ritual
Role Reversal
13. Reflective Action
Need to stand back/aside to take stock
To review the issues and meanings
To articulate characters’ thoughts
To provide a psychological commentary
Similar to “soliloquy”
E.g: Voices in the Head
The Walls have Ears
14. Five Emphases in Humanism (the 5Hs)
• (H1) Feelings, personal emotions and aesthetic appreciation.
Rejects whatever makes people feel bad, or forbids aesthetic
enjoyment.
• (H2) Social relations, friendship and cooperation, and opposes
competition.
• (H3) Responsibility. The need for public scrutiny, criticism, and
correction. Disapproves of “light”.
• (H4) Intellect. Knowledge, reason, and understanding. Fights
against interference with the free exercise of the mind. Is
suspicious of anything that cannot be tested intellectually.
• (H5) Self-actualization. The quest for full realization of one’s
own deepest true qualitites. Conformity leads to enslavement/the
pursuit of uniqueness brings about liberation.
Stevick EW 1990 Humanism in Language
Teaching OUP Pg 23
15. Stevick’s Questions
Stevick asks three questions about a
number of approaches in order to define
how humanistic they are:
• Which uniquely human attributes of the
learner does this approach emphasize?
• What sort of freedom does it offer the
learner?
• How does this method contribute to
human dignity?
16. Drama
*can tranform attitudes through thinking action
expressed through the mind, the body, the voice
and the soul of adolescents around the world.
Susan Hillyard 2010
17. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Tran-
scendence
Self-
Actualization
Aesthetic Needs
Need to Know & Understand
Esteem Needs
Belongingness & Love Needs
Safety Needs
Physiological Needs
18. Looking through others’ eyes
A Gun to
What is? •a child?
•a murderer?
•a policeman?
A Compact Disk to A Red Light to
•a native in the jungle? •a pedestrian?
•a deaf person? •a blind woman?
•a music lover? •a tribesman?
Red Meat to •A Snake to
•a hungry man? • a zoologist?
•a vegetarian? •a mother with a baby?
•a farmer? •a mouse?
19. Role play……
In role play, children collaborate on two levels, the real and the
fictional, as they explore social meanings such as different
social roles and perspectives; how responses may be construed;
possible consequences in terms of social behaviour; how to
manage themselves and their emotions in situations; and
cultural conventions and possibilities. In play, children
consciously stretch themselves, and allow
themselves to be extended by a more able player, beyond their
current abilities. Thus play becomes development itself.
(Vygotsky, 1978).
20. Maslow and Moskowitz
• Experience pleasurable, awesome feelings related to
everyday life;
• Are creative in their approach to things;
• Are natural and spontaneous rather than conforming;
• Accept themselves and others;
• Have great empathy and affection for humanity;
• Are not prejudiced;
• Have a strong sense of responsibility;
• Are independent and look to themselves for their own
growth;
• Have a mission in life. Adapted from Moskowitz G. 1978 Caring and Sharing
in the Foreign Language Class
Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House Pg 12
21. Aesthetic activity
Aesthetic activity proves that we are alive by
awakening our senses and forcing us to make
our own sense of what they seem to be telling
us. Conversely, that which is anaesthetic
deprives us of our consciousness and ability to
act. No doubt we have all had anaesthetic
experiences in the theatre: let those of us who
teach drama to young people with special needs
try to avoid subjecting them to the same.
22. The Banking Concept
T teaches and the Sts are taught
T knows e.thing and Sts know 0
T thinks and the Sts are thought abt
T talks and Sts listen….meekly
T disciplines and the Sts are disciplined
T chooses content and Sts comply
T acts and Sts have the illusion of acting
T confuses the authority of knowledge with profesional
authority
T is subject and Sts are objects
Adapted from Freire P, A Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Continuum, New York
23. “Conscientizacao”
……learning to perceive social, political
and
economic contradictions, and to take
action against the oppressive elements
of reality
Freire Ibid Pg 17
24. The Paradox of HAVING and
BEING
In their eagerness to possess, the oppressors
develop the conviction that it is possible for
them to transform everything into objects of
their purchasing power; hence their strictly
materialistic concept of existence. Money is the
measure of all things and profit the primary
goal…..for them, to BE is to HAVE and to be
the class of the HAVES ( my emphasis)
Freire ibid pg 40
25. Conclusions
• Kindness more effective than coercion
• Firmness more effective than permissiveness
• Sense of “feel good” improves learning
outcomes
• No pain no gain
• Undreamed-of possibilities
• Growth related to concentration, introspection,
courage and patience
• Skilled and sensitive understanding necessary
• Rational, critical inquiry essential
• Emphasis on strengths is superior to emphasis
on weaknesses Adapted from Stevick EW.1990 Humanism in
Language Teaching OUP Pg 143
26. Haim Ginot
I’ve come to the frightening conclusion that I am the
decisive element in the classroom.
It’s my personal approach that creates the climate.
It’s my daily mood that makes the weather.
As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make
a child’s life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of
inspiration.
I can humiliate or humour, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides
whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated
and a child humanized or de-humanized.
