When we begin each year, the first thing we do is create a great team. We meet the children for about an hour a week, and more than half the time is spent helping them bond with each other, understand in which ways they are different and the many ways in which they are all similar. By the end of the semester, after two or three classroom performances, they are ready to see each others' perspectives.
Another semester later, they are so well bonded that (usually) the year-end performance only serves to bring them very close.
What do they learn through the whole process of Drama?
- Working together - as a team: filling in for each others' weak spots, and appreciating, even celebrating, the strengths
- Discovering their own strengths
- Leading groups - and being able to experience the joys and challenges of being at the helm
- Creating something meaningful, often out of nothing more than stray thoughts
And yet, unless there are PUBLIC performances, people outside the drama department feel that we are "doing nothing".
After putting one's heart and soul into making learning meaningful for children - that sort of perception has the power to hurt, and it has the absolute power to hurt absolutely! So much that drama teachers the world over (I'm willing to bet I'm not the only person who has gone through this) probably sacrifice "process" for "performance".
In the final analysis, though, the children stand to lose.
So many of them will not take up any aspect of drama as a career. But what they learn through the process is definitely likely to make them successful in any work they take up; at the very least, the self-awareness that is inherent in a process-based programme will help children become "happy" adults.
So, how do we make a case for drama as a process?
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