Drama in Education

Introduction

Drama in education go hand in hand for within the school curriculum it is an art form highly
accessible to young people no matter what age. For young learners, drama is a mode of learning
that actually challenges students to make meaning of the world around them. Drama is the
enactment of real or imagined events through role play, and situations. And enables individuals
on the one hand and groups on the other to explore shape and symbolically represent ideas,
feelings and their consequences. Unlike other disciplines in the school curriculum, Drama has
the capacity to move and change those participating in it and even the audiences. It goes
further to affirm and challenge values that a people maintain, their cultural and even identities.

As an art form, drama includes a wide range of experiences such as the script, stage play,
improvisation, television drama and films. It includes the processes and presentation of drama.

What is drama

Drama is a process through which human imagination is translated into action based on internal
empathy and identification and leads to impersonation through interaction with the
environment and other people meaning is created. In education spontaneous dramatic action
takes the form of child play, improvisation and role play.

Theatre: a formalized and codified product of drama which includes use of costumes, play
scripts, dance, songs, lighting and décor. Here theatre signifies what is done rather than where it
is done that is play house.

Dramatic Literature: This consists of play scripts which form the basis of theatrical production.
In Drama in Education, distinction must be made between a play script written for theatrical
performance and performance itself.

Performance: Is those human actions in the external world that create meaning. In Education,
these include overt forms such as play improvisation and role play and covert actions suc that
develop with maturation. In theatre, these include enactments of costumed plays that
represent dramatic action of human life. In common parlance, these meaning can be extended
to the performing arts, music and dance.

Improvisation: To create a play without using a script. To make something from whatever is
available without advance planning. Improvisation in drama aims at utilizing our own resource
and imagination: the spontaneous response to the unfolding of an unexpected situation and the
ingenuity called on to deal with the situation in order to gain insight into problems presented.

Spontaneity: The quality of being spontaneous: a happening not planned but based in sudden
impulse from within, not planned or caused or suggested by something or somebody outside. In
our study in this course, we shall need a lot of spontaneous drama which is used in
improvisation.

DRAMA IN EDUCATION

Drama in the school curriculum develops learner’s artistic and creative skills and provides
knowledge and skills that are transferable to a variety of social and life related contents. What
this essentially means is that an education in drama can accomplish a variety of tasks. First, it
will humanize learning by providing a lifelike content in a classroom setting that values active
participation in a non-threatening supportive environment. Secondly, drama in education will
empower learners to understand as well as influence the world they live in through exploring
roles and situations. It will also develop learner’s nonverbal and verbal individual and group
communication skills.

Education drama will also further strengthen learners’ intellectual, emotional and moral
domains through learning that engages men’s thoughts feeling, bodies and action. This is an
addition to enabling the learners to become critically reflective members of the communities in
which they live through their engagement in dramatic content relating to identity, society and
ideologies. It gives learners knowledge and understanding of drama and skits in drama to
participate through life in one of the oldest yet most dynamic art forms. Lastly, drama in
education gives students experience in understanding of the other arts.
AESTHETIC LEARNING

It is important to note that learners engaged in dramatic actions are actually participating in
aesthetic learning. This is a mode of learning in which learners engage their senses cognitively
and effectively. It is a means of enquiry that contributes adequately to learners understanding
of the world they live in. The focus of learning is on learners making understanding of and
valuing drama in a variety of concepts. It first begins by looking at learners as artists. In making,
creating and presenting drama, students learn to control and manage the elements of drama in
order to make their own or interpret and reactivate listing drama. As artists, learners will
develop process skills as well as skills in a range of areas such as acting, directing, playwriting,
technical theatre and design. They will also learn specific skills related to the effective use of
voice, gestures and movements. In working through themes and issues.

IMPROVISATION

The basic difference between stage play and improvisation is that the latter has no script
available. It is important to note that improvisation is the hallmark of Drama in Education. When
learners are involved in an improvisation as a group, what is important is what happens next?
When participants move to and how do they get there.

Stage play is different from play meant for drama in Education. Stage play is scripted by a
playwright and acted by a team of actors under the direction of the director and producer. As a
result, an actor has no role in the process of creating the play for an audience. A scripted
production therefore stifles creative growth and deprives participants an opportunity to explore
spontaneously and imaginatively together. Unscripted production or improvisation gives group
members freedom of expression and allows them to share certain responsibilities together. In
this way, the group is allowed to develop imaginative thinking and thus drama becomes a
medium of learning.

In an improvisation where drama is used as a medium of learning, learners are challenged

because they produce ideas within the context of a particular improvisation (here, the
participant is both creator in the playwright, the actor and his own audience) as he probes
problems, a participant gains insight into ways in which human beings are motivated.
There are three important questions that those involved in an improvisation ought to ask:

1. What happens next?

2. Where do we go from here?

3. How will we do that?

The hallmark of drama in education is improvisation. So, within this context, drama is used as an
active process which draws on the learners’ capacity for role playing.

Within this context, a learner projects himself into imagined roles and situations. As we are
dealing with the nature of improvisation, it is important to realize at the onset that unlike many
subjects, drama recognizes the child’s inner world of emotions and imaginings within the
context of learner-centred education. Drama recognizes the realm of the child’s experience and
uses that experience to develop the very child. So essentially, the child simply uses his own
experiences to understand the world he lives in. The world also has its experience that
combines with the child’s to develop him. The drawing below shows happens when a child uses
his own experience to develop himself.

Experience Of outer

World

On

Environ’
CHILD’S

EXPERIENCE

Fig. 1 Use of the child’s experience

Both experiences enlarge the child’s understanding of the world he lives in. The basic concern in
drama in education is actually the function that these experiences perform in the overall
development of the child.

WHAT DRAMA IN EDUCATION IS NOT

Theatre is about plays, playwrights, actors and usually is to do with the final product-the play.
Drama in education on the other hand is to do with the process of exploration, of sharing and of
challenging ideas than with the products and presentation of profession and skills.

HOW LEARNING TAKES PLACE

A main feature in the exploration of ideas is that it involves a learner as a participant. Learning
therefore takes place through participation and not through spectating. In the stage play, an
actor acts for an audience. He communicates a message to an audience and is divorced from
the effects of the message. Consider the following diagram:

Brings out the message

ACTOR AUDIENCE RECEIVES

PLAYWRIGHT
THE MESSAGE

Figure 2: Stage play and the process

The participant who in drama in education is the learner has therefore to participate/learn
through projecting himself into imagined word and act out through assuming roles and
situations. In this way, improvisation helps in making an imaginative leap from actual situations
and roles into supposed ones.
THE PROCESS IN DRAMA AND EDUCATION

The starting point is to imagine a specific situation which could represent conflict in attitudes
that interest the group. As you begin acting out you project yourself into and identify with
specific roles within my situation. The role here represents an attitude or a set of attitudes.
However, playing the role is a little more than identifying with an attitude or setoff attitudes. It
is the orchestration of many factors; motivation, age and manners.

In other words, to present a role is to assume and develop a more complex personality. When
taking a part in drama in education improvisation one must be:

1. Ready to accept a shift in conventions of behavior towards one another

2. Suspend the normal social roles with one another and identify with the new imagined
ones

3. Agree to make different use of environment i.e using a desk as a bed or chalk box as a
hat (essentially because in drama in education you do not need a technical prop).

The product
The meaning

The medium
The message

Participatin
g

Acting for
himself
Figure 3: Participation-the message, the medium, and the meaning of the product

However, in the learning process in drama in education, there is no audience. The participant is
his own audience. He acts for himself. He des not carry the message. He is the message himself
and he is his own medium of the message. The participant is the product as the content is
embodied in him.
Lesson summary
Improvisation is to do with probing and gaining insight in the ways in which human beings are
motivated.
Improvisation enables the learner to use his own experience to develop himself
Drama in Education is to do with the process of exploration of showing and of challenging ideas
The starting point is to imagine a specific situation and to project oneself into a role
The participant acts for his/her own enrichment and development.