Humanising Education: Theatre in Pedagogy

Abstract

This paper primarily demonstrates the role of theatre as an enabling resource to address classroom diversity with possible negotiation of individual identity. Inequity, linguistic multiplicity and ethnic plurality are the defining characteristics of the Indian mosaic. Several homogenising forces dominant in schools often negate the multiplicity of socio-cultural identities. Tensions between social diversity and academic conformity impose a problematic contest for children's cultural confidence, making schools sites that impact the lives of children in unintended ways. By using the medium of theatre to present multi-layered representations of life at school that honour the voices of children, the author attempts to generate a compelling concern to use methods of theatre and drama in pedagogy as theatre naturally directs adults towards knowing children's socio-cultural selves. Through the processes of theatre educators revisit the experience of childhood, reorienting their own adult psyches towards the spirit of childhood.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anand, U. 1969 The Romance of Theatre. New Delhi: National Council of Educational Research and Training.

Anhee-Benham, M.K. P. 1998

The Use of Drama as Reflective Learning.

Teaching Pedagogy 9 (2), 21–36.

Axline, M.V. 1964 Dibs in Search of Self. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Boal, A. 1979/2000 Theatre of the Oppressed. London: Pluto Press.

Bruner, J. 1986 Actual Minds Possible Worlds. Cambridge M.A.: Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. 1990 Acts of Meaning. Boston, M.A.: Harvard University Press.

Brunner, D. 1998

Drama in Education.

Teaching Education, 9(2): 1–2.

Corsaro, W.S. 1997 The Sociology of Childhood. London: Sage

Cullingford, C. 1992 Children and Society: Children's Attitudes to Politics and Power. London: Cassell.

10.

Dewey, J. 1916 Democracy and Education. New York: Macmillan.

11.

Dewey, J. 1938/1997 Experience and Education. New York: Collier.

12.

Dyson, A.H. C. Genishi 1994

The Need for Story’

A.H. Dyson C. Genishi (eds.) The Need for Story: Cultural Diversity in Classroom and Community. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English.

13.

Eisner, E.W. 1979 The Educational Imagination. London: Collier-Macmillan.

14.

Erikson, E. 1959 Childhood and Society. New York: Norton.

15.

Gardner, H. 1983 Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

16.

Greene, M.H. 1988 The Dialectic of Freedom. New York: Teachers College Press.

17.

Heathcote, D. 1972

‘Drama as Education: Subject or Sytsem?’

N. Dodd W. Hickson (eds.) Drama and Theatre in Education. London: Hienemann.

18.

Illich, I. 1971 Deschooling Society. Hammondsworth: Penguin.

19.

John, B. 2000 Classroom Drama: Bringing Learning to Life. The k 10 Quarterly, IIl(Oct-Dec): 10–12.

20.

Kent-Rosanoff 1951 Word Association Test.

21.

Kumar, K 1992 What Is Worth Teaching? New Delhi: Orient Longman.

22.

Lorie, P. 1989 The Wonder of Childhood: Recapturing the Magic. Lancaster: Impala Books.

23.

Magarshack, D. 1973 Stanislavsky on the Art of the Stage. London: Faber and Faber Ltd.

24.

Mander, H. Srinivas R. Murthy 2003 Riots, Psychosocial Care for Children. Bangalore: Books for Change/Action Aid.

25.

Mead, G.H. 1934 Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

26.

Mehta, M. 1993 Drama in primary education: Experiences with larger groups. Unpublished Master's thesis. Department of Child Development, University of Delhi, Delhi.

27.

Miller, P. 1994 The Power of Personal Storytelling’ A.H. Dyson C. Genishi (eds.) The Need/or Story (op. cit.).

28.

Murray, A.H. 1949 Thematic Apperception Test: A Prqjective Measure. Boston: Harvard University Press.

29.

O’ Toóle, J. 1976 Theatre in Education: New Objectives for Theatre, New Techniques in Education. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

30.

O’ Toóle, J. 1997

Rough Treatment: Teaching Conflict Management through Drama.

Teaching Education 9(1): 83–87.

31.

Paley, V.G. 1990 The Boy Who Would be a Helicopter: The Uses of Storytelling in the Classroom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

32.

Peterson, C. A. McCabe 1983 Developmental Psycholinguistics: Three Ways of Looking at a Child's Narrative. New York: Plenum.

33.

Piaget, J. 1932 The Moral Judgment of the Child. London: Kegan Paul.

34.

Piaget, J. 1952 The Oriains of Intelligence in Children. New York: International University Press.

35.

Piaget, J. 1962 Plan. Dreams and Imitation. New York: W.W. Norton.

36.

Rorscharch, H. 1921 Psychodiagnostics (Rorscharch Ink Blot Test). Berne: Hans Huber.

37.

Sutton-Smith, B. (ed.) 1979 Play and Learning: Johnson and Johnson on the Pédiatrie Table. New York: Gardener.

38.

Talib, M. 1997

‘Educating the Oppressed: Observations from a School in a Working Class Settlement in Delhi’

S. Shukla K. Kaul (eds.) Education, Development and Underdevelopment. New Delhi: Sage.

39.

Tharp, R. R. Gallimore 1988 Rousing Minds to Life. New York: Cambridge University Press.

40.

Vygotsky, L.S. 1978 Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

41.

Winnicot, D.W. 1965 The Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment. London: Hogarth.