During October and November STC piloted our professional
development program, School Drama, in Broken Hill. School Drama is
a professional development program for primary school teachers,
which demonstrates the power of using drama pedagogy with quality
literature for improving English and literacy in young learners.
STC partners each participating teacher with a teaching artist over
a school term and together they explore how drama strategies can be
integrated into any area of English and literacy, such as narrative
writing, speaking and listening and/or student engagement.
Developed over a four-year pilot program in partnerships with
University of Sydney and leading academic Professor Robyn Ewing,
School Drama is designed to increase teachers' confidence and
capacity in using the Arts as a teaching tool, which in turn
improves literacy outcomes in primary students.
STC Teaching Artist Anna Martin and Acting Education Manager Toni
Murphy have just spent three weeks in Broken Hill partnering
with seven teachers from three schools working with
School Drama. Here are some of their thoughts about their
time…
First a message from Toni:
Today is my last day in Broken Hill and it will be a bittersweet
homecoming - though it's always great to be heading home, I've had
such a wonderful time in this town and met some incredibly
dedicated teachers and creative students.
Working with the three teachers at Broken Hill Public School over
the last three weeks I've seen their confidence grow in being
able to use drama strategies in their classes and watched as their
students surprised them with their creativity, engagement,
confidence and speaking and writing skills.
The teachers, students and I have had some great fun working with
drama and literature during the program. We've explored decisions
that characters are making, created still images and soundscapes,
written diary entries and letters in role as characters at crucial
moments of the text, created characters and improvisations, written
our own fractured fairy-tales and even recreated a medieval
wedding.
I've loved watching students get excited about great stories,
predicting what they think will happen next, getting into the
thoughts and feelings of the characters and recreating moments from
the text. I've loved that as we engage with the characters more
deeply students are surprising their teachers with the level of
insight and empathy in their responses. I've loved watching their
writing get more and more detailed as we explored the text more and
more deeply. I love that the young students who were writing a few
sentences at the beginning of the session are now asking the
teacher what they do when they get to the end of the page. I've
loved watching their confidence grow and seeing the most shy, quiet
students becoming more expressive and participating
enthusiastically and often. And I love that because the program is
about developing the skills of the teachers, that they'll be able
to continue working with drama in their classrooms even after we
leave today.
And that's one of my favourite things about School Drama: it's a
partnership that gives teachers the skills and confidence to embed
this work with drama at the heart of their practice so that the
benefits continue long after the residency ends and impact the
learning of all their future students.
We'll be going back to Broken Hill next year, but in the meantime I
can't wait to read the students' final stories and get the results
from the teachers on their progress.
To find out more about STC's School Drama program head to our
website: sydneytheatre.com.au/school-drama
And a message from Anna:
It's Sunday in Broken Hill. This is the land of oversized park
benches, stunning desert sculptures, Mad Maxmemorabilia
and perennially blue skies.
The mercury has shot past 38 degrees today so our planning for our
final week of lessons is being fuelled by a steady stream of
chocolate paddle pops.
It has been a busy week. We have been interviewing princesses and
princes, visiting haunted forests and peaceful islands, building
machines to manufacture cupcakes and helicopters and debating the
virtues of capturing a Sea Monster vs setting it free.
Working across three primary schools, with seven
different teachers and students from Yr 1 through to Yr 6, no two
days have been the same for Toni and me. There have been some
wonderful moments along the way.
In one class, a usually quiet student transformed into a feisty,
wise-cracking character named Bossy-boots. In another, classmates
whispered sage advice to a perplexed Frog Prince reminding him of
long-forgotten benefits of being a frog. Students became
professors, teaching their teachers about artefacts they had
discovered on an archaeological dig. Teachers found themselves
chairing a meeting as a Town Mayor translating messages from
Gibberish into English and back again and devising their own
scripts and activity ideas for us to explore in the week
ahead.
I have been so impressed with the creativity of the students in the
groups I have worked with. Not surprising, considering the
enthusiasm and openness with which their teachers have also leapt
into School Drama work. I'll never get tired of those jaw-drop
moments when students take an activity and run with it, surprising
their classmates and their teacher in the process. The delighted
smiles appear when a teacher becomes one of the characters in the
story with them are also pretty hard to rival.
One teacher described to Toni and I how important it is to them
that students see school as a safe place where they can absolutely
and unashamedly be themselves. My weeks here have further confirmed
my conviction that drama, while undoubtedly improving literacy
skills, might be most valuable in this regard. It gives students
freedom, support and tools to articulate themselves and their
unique vision of the world. Getting to witness that on a daily
basis at the moment is pretty darn special.
Feature: Drama in Broken Hill
Date posted: 15 Nov 2012Author: STC