Throughout the five classes, I feel like I have grown both personally and professionally in relation to drama. I always had mixed feelings about drama as I loved to play around, acting like different people. Whether or not I was good is unknown, but I did have fun doing it. However, at the same time I am a bit shy and do not really like presenting in front of others. I was very curious to see what my reaction would be for these drama classes.
Looking back at the activities we did and how I acted, I feel like I was able to open up more and come out of my shell. I am more confident now in answering questions or acting in front of others, especially since we did a lot of the drama strategies in groups. I think part of the reason for this was my understanding of different theories and how it could relate to drama. For example, the atmosphere that was created by my peers and my professor made the class more fun, accepting, and safe. Personally I think that this helped me obtain the needs of safety & security, love & belonging, and self-esteem that were found in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. I always say that I want to enforce that inclusive, friendly, safe, warm and caring learning environment for my students. Now that I realize how these types of environments have helped me, I have a better understanding of how this can help my students in the future, whether it be for drama or for other subjects.
The classes were fun and supported a hands-on learning approach while also giving us the opportunities to do group presentations and teach different strategies to the rest of the class. These two factors are the two highest levels in the Learner's Theory which gives as a much greater chance of remember all that was learned throughout the five past classes. As a teacher, having that cross-curricular component demonstrated how easy it is to carry out different drama activities with other subjects. Personally, I think that this just gives us more ideas and more hope for the arts, drama in particular, to be integrated into our lessons. For example, if students seem agitated, we can do a DPA (daily physical activity) break that includes the mirroring technique for the different movements and stretches.
I have learned about so many different strategies that it was almost impossible to narrow down which ones were my favourite. But I've finally decided on my fave five! For now, News reporter, Connection Webs/Chains, Mantle of the Expert, Gibberish, and Alter-Ego are my go-to drama strategies! I find that these are all very interesting activities and fun to do. They can all be modified to address both younger and older students and I am excited to use these strategies when I teach! Together, they develop numerous skills such as critical thinking, creativity, communication, teamwork, expression & non-verbal cues, as well as body language and motor skills.
With this greater comfort for drama and my appreciation for the arts, I hope to be able to integrate all of the arts into my classroom, doing more activities than the appalling 'little to no lessons per month' some schools take part in. With a new found confidence I am ready to try my hand at teaching the arts while still learning more and more about it!
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