Category: DRAMA ED CLASSROOM

This story drama is a memorable experience for me because it was during this class and after when the connection of our cohort truly shown through. At the time of the “Wilfred Gordan McDonald Partridge” story drama workshop, our cohort had only known each other for 3 weeks. In a primary classroom environment, at this point in the year, there would have been a sense of “cliquing” starting and it would be at this time whereas stress in forming friendships could be occurring. I wouldn’t say that there were feelings of this in our group, however; you could defiantly feel that we were all wondering along the lines of what was going to happen in this sense. Looking back at the experience I realize that this workshop may have been our very first time attempting group tableau work and we can probably thank tableau itself to bring us so close as a group. In drama, the tableau is a great way to create small group connectedness and is a way to create a safe and comfortable environment for students who may feel more shy or nervous about drama performance. Tableau also forces students to draw upon their own life experiences to create a visual recreation of the text linking it to their lives and the text, this is a way for students to share their own stories and be more open with the group. In this workshop tableau was also a way that we as a class got to know each other more. We were put into groups and asked to think about a time in our lives of significant, that, like Miss Nancy would be an event meaningful enough to bring back memories. Brainstorming and sharing these kinds of ideas with groups brings the people closer together as they can relate to one another and share personal stories. This is how my class and I felt as we learned the beginnings about one another and worked together to create the tableaus to bring back Miss Nancy’s memories.

In drama, the key to a successful dramatic experience is building a trusting and loving classroom. There is no lie in saying that the bond a class has impacted the overall quality of effort they bring to their work. This quote highlights the fact that to gather a group of student’s best and highest amount of effort, the group in question must already have a connectedness that is built of support, trust, and openness to all personalities and different work types. “Teaching is a community of support, a foundation of skills and dispositions that have been fostered by training and previous experiences” (Schonmann, 2011, p. 19), the community our cohort shares is one that will last for not just the years ahead but for when we meet in our reunions and share joys and sorrows through communicating onwards past our schooling experience.

In our story drama unit there were many story dramas that spoke to me as being wonderful mentor texts and great storybooks to read as a class to find the meaning or message the book was wanting to convey; however, there was only one book that made me think more of just how good of a read the book was, in fact, it made me reconsider how valuable drama can be. Our storybook drama on “Magic Beads” begun with a workshop from Phil where we talked mostly about miming techniques and improvisation and not much about the actual book. However, this workshop was still quite wonderful! I remember distinctly an improvised scene that Jess, Teya and I did where we were exampling what we would take to a show and tell day at class. I remember the response we received from the instructors and the class as our improvised scene humouring and quite enjoyable to watch. I found it interesting that after experiencing such a light-hearted workshop that the story is related to was quite different in theme. In the next class, we got to read the story with no story drama pausing which was a change from what we were used to experiencing. The story explains two different plots; one about how a little girl is new to her school and nervous for show and tell and how she doesn’t have anything to share, and the other about her and her mom living in a shelter house because they have fled an abusive father/husband. Reading Magic Beads to one of my future classes at first made me very uncomfortable, how am I as a teacher who has experienced nothing even close to the realness of this story am supposed to tell this story to potential children dealing with lives similar. In my head, I thought that since this is such an emotional topic and since I have no relevant knowledge of any sort that the topic of abusive, poverty and so fourth should be just covered up and not discussed. Conversely, “[I] know that [teachers] have enormous power to influence the future of the students in our care. We need to be mindful of that power and to remain consistently conscious of what it means to teach fairly in an unfair world” (Lundy & Swartz, 2011, p. 5) and it is because of this that the realization of having an open discussion on topics like this came to me. It is the role of teachers to have uncomfortable discussions that students need to hear for them to feel comfortable about asking us for help. By opening the discussion up in a harmless way of a storybook we (as teachers) are inviting students to relate and feel safe discussing their situations. This workshop and the reading of Magic Beads helped me also recognize the importance of mentor texts and how they can support students in their learning and lives.

One of the most memorable moments in this course for myself was the class where we had a professional mime come in and teach us all about the basics of miming and even some improvisation scenes. I remember that class distinctly because we were all very excited to be participating in a drama workshop with Phil and the professional mime because we had been told how marvelous they were. When the workshop begun the feelings of our class at that moment remind me of a quote that I read in one of my readings; “tension is the secret, the mystery, the surprise, the dangling carrot, the time frame, and the space limit,” (Booth, 2005, p. 40) we as a class were not used to other teachers in our class and different pedagogical techniques and you could tell we were antsy with anticipation. The workshop continued and I could feel that the tension we held at the beginning was turning into energy that was bouncing off each other. We learned about the artistry and history of miming as well with of course the dramatic aspects of mime. A concept we learned was how mime is the theatrical display of movement, space, and time; this was interesting to me because I always just assumed mime was simply acting without speaking. I think the most memorable part of this class if you put aside learning how to run, walk, and so fourth was the feelings of collectiveness that were brought into the classroom. The professional mime had a knack at making every student in the class feel supported and feel like they were succeeding greatly, and it was when these people were shouted out by him when our class came together and congratulated one another. It was obvious in the moments when each of us would perform the movement solo and everyone would cheer and clap that you could tell we were a group that is genuinely supportive of one another. As all future teacher “we all long for the perfect class, the one where everyone gets along and where there is joy in learning about the curriculum…” (Lundy & Swartz, 2011, p. 5) and from the miming experience, I can say with confidence that we all wished that one day we could have a class that had the same emotional and physical connection as our class has.