Drama helps develop students’ learning skills

By Maurice Aluda

It is not surprising some teachers and parents do not understand what drama teachers do. It is even more interesting when such people question the relevance of drama festivals and teaching of drama in schools.

For instance, some parents may not understand the essence of buying their children The Merchant of Venice instead of a science-oriented textbook. This is an example of what Prof Egara Kabaji refers to as inverted reasoning steeped in stereotypical ignorance. Those who study and teach drama instinctively know it is a significant tool for human resource development.

Way back in 1985, The American Association of School Administrators, The Alliance of Education and The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts jointly published Performing Together: The Arts and Education. In this insightful document, they argued: "The future of our nation depends on our ability to create and to be creative. During the coming decades, our most important national resources will be the human resources. If our nation is to meet the challenges of the future, today’s schools need to develop creative leaders."

To better understand the invaluable nature of drama, particularly in our schools and society, perhaps we should borrow from the Chinese proverb that says, "Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I will remember. Involve me and I will understand."

Undoubtedly, one of the most important functions of drama in schools is its ability to stimulate creativity in problem solving. It does this by challenging students’ perceptions about their social environment and themselves.

A dramatic exploration of texts in the classroom provides students with safe outlets for emotions, thoughts and dreams they might not otherwise have means to express. While studying and enacting drama, the learners are — even if for few moments — provided with the opportunities of becoming others, exploring new roles, trying out and experimenting with personal choices and solutions to real problems from their own lives, or problems faced by characters in literature.

In the course of engaging with drama, students and teachers are supposed to recreate life within what literary theorists refer to as ‘safe atmospheres’ — where actions and consequences can be examined, discussed and experienced without the dangers and pitfalls that such experimentation would obviously lead to in the ‘real’ world.

Lesson

This should be the most important reason for training and teaching drama in schools. Still, there is much more drama can offer.

At the centre of drama is the power of communication skills.

Like all other arts, drama allows students to strike viable relationships. It gives them the chance to communicate with and understand others in new ways. Perhaps more than any art form, drama also provides training in practical aspects of communication necessary in the increasingly information-centered world.

In fact, students who have participated in dramatic activities are less likely to have difficulty speaking in public. They are more persuasive in their communication, written and oral. Such students usually have a more positive and confident self-image.

Developing discipline is another role of drama in schools. Participation in dramatic activities often requires self-control and discipline. Students performing in drama always learn to work as a team and accept others viewpoints and contributions. In essence, drama enhances virtues of tolerance and empathy.

For one to play his or her role competently, he or she must be able to ‘fully inhabit another’s soul’. They must be able to see the world through other’s eyes. However, this does not suggest they have to agree with other characters. For instance, an actor can play Osama bin Laden without subscribing to Al Qaeda doctrine.

In today’s increasingly polarised and intolerant culture, the ability to understand others’ motives and choices is critical. That is why an actor cannot play bin Laden without understanding his point of view.

Besides its intrinsic educational value, if well exploited, drama can reinforce the rest of the school curriculum. Since communication and empathy are central to drama, a student who has explored drama in the classroom is better equipped to understand ideas in history and current events. The link between drama and subjects such as English, History and Social studies is obvious.

The study of poetry would be almost impossible without drama.

Indeed, it has been observed that dramatising poetry is an exciting language learning experience. It is through this that students experiment with non-verbal communicative aspects of language (body language, gestures, facial expressions) and verbal aspects (intonation, rhythm, stress, slang, and idiomatic expressions) while interpreting poems.

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