A Cranbrook-based teacher education course is using dramatic arts to help prospective educators take school lessons beyond the textbook.
Over the course of two semesters, students learn the fundamentals of drama education through lectures and group discussion, and work with children from Steeples Elementary School to present plays on important social issues. The course is run by the University of Victoria through College of the Rockies and the class makes use of Studio Stage Door, operated by Cranbrook Community Theatre.
Students and children work together on eight-minute-long skits, on topics pertaining to immigration, homophobia, racism and disability. The children have the option of acting or operating the sound and lighting.
“It’s pretty creative. It’s different from a lot of courses we have and it just provides a different perspective for me,” said college student Levi Sinclair.
“As a new teacher, it’s really daunting to think about how to incorporate conversations about social issues into the classroom because it’s not your place to bring in any of your own bias. It can be really tricky to find materials to discuss these important problems, but in a way that’s not you projecting your beliefs onto students.”
Sinclair said she thinks the course is going about it in the right way.
Each skit is led by a character who experiences an emotional challenge or wrestles with an ethical or moral dilemma; a boy who feels uncomfortable delivering books to a peer’s house after finding out the peer has gay fathers; a girl from Chile who is told she can only take one suitcase of possessions with her when she immigrates to Canada; a child who struggles to find a topic for a homework assignment that resonates with them.
“It focuses on this student grappling with their identity and trying to find something that’s really important to them,” Sinclair explained, referring to the homework skit.
“[It involves] looking at the power that your words have and looking at your own morals as a kid, especially something that you believe in.”
The main characters’ outlooks are shaped by their interactions with others. The boy who feels uncomfortable with homosexuality grows to be accepting of differences after talking to his friends about his feelings and bonding with one of the fathers over basketball. The Chilean girl travels to Canada with the knowledge that the memory of her grandmother will stay with her even if she is not joining her on the trip. The child with the homework assignment has friends who help them understand that their struggle to choose a topic reflects their need to understand their personal beliefs and values.
Although the course teaches acting, it is not an acting course. It is designed to show prospective teachers alternative modes of instruction for teaching children, specifically non-textbook styles of learning. The idea is that concepts used in the course can be applied to other subjects beyond the dramatic arts.
“All kids have to learn kinesthetically. They have to move,” said instructor Philippe Duchene. “You can tell me stuff and I’ll forget it. You show me pictures, and it’s a bit better. If I do it, it sticks. That’s how I learn. It’s essential.”
Duchene said the course provides foundational concepts that teachers can use to plant the seed of inclusivity within the classroom and provide a non-judgemental space for children to discuss controversial issues.
“You can talk about the most profound issues through that space, that comfortable space, that safe space, where those issues are happening to somebody else and they’re a mirror, they’re a reflection of life,” he explained.
Sinclair said she enjoys interacting with the children, who are as excited to learn as she is to teach.
“They were really excited, really insightful, asking really interesting questions and at the end I think they were super proud of themselves. They also really liked being in a theatre,” she recalled.
@gfrans15
gillian.francis@cranbrooktownsman.com
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