Advice to the National Curriculum Players

National Curriculum in the Arts: MPA Companies 2010

This is “a position paper submitted by the education network of the Australian Major Performing Arts companies to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) during the shaping phase of the National Arts Curriculum” (MPA Companies, online). What a great find!

The authors argue that drama (along with dance and music) should be offered to students K-12, and that by providing access to professional productions on at least a yearly basis, several curricular needs will be met. Embedded in a comprehensive statement of the outcomes, they specifically mention the value of seeing multi-media theatre, which addresses the ICT curricular requirement (MPA Companies, online). They offer their partnership in bringing school audiences to the theatre and developing pedagogy. This is welcome news to me—that ICT literacy outcomes can be built into taking students to a theatre production. Brilliant! That’s something I know how to do, or at least feel confident I can figure out. I’m reminded of a New York Theatre Workshop production of a Moliere play that projected live video of the action onstage on a screen overhead throughout the play, and then when the actors ran offstage fighting, the camera followed them into the alley behind the theatre, taking the action of the play into a completely transformed notion of space—was the audience with them in the alley? Had the screen itself suddenly usurped the “stage”? Unlike some of the more contrived attempts to reconcile a purist conception of theatre with the imperatives of integrating new technologies, this kind of use of ICT creates possibilities for very deep and interesting discussions of the conventions of the art form itself.

Further discussion of the relevance of ICT’s in drama suggests that ICT’s legitimize the art form in a new way, or may introduce more measurable, academic standards: “No longer is drama in high school simply about ‘putting on plays’. Students are now budgeting, marketing and lighting their own work. Students that shine in the technical side now have the opportunity to excel at this subject which was once performance based. Drama is now recognised as an examinable subject for university entrance examinations.” (MPA Companies, online). Drama has long been an “examinable subject;” students have written papers, auditioned, interviewed and been admitted to Bachelor’s and Master’s programs in Acting, Stage Management, Directing, Dramaturgy and other theatrical disciplines for decades. Nevertheless, I take the point that the use of technology can expand the application of theatrical knowledge and skills, and in fact make Drama a broader subject that reaches more students in different ways: “Students can use technology to expand, record, manipulate and demonstrate their understanding and skills in drama” (MPA Companies, online).

The authors of this paper have deep knowledge in drama education, and represent the education programs some of the finest professional companies in Australia (Sydney Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare among others); they would be where I would look as a teacher for the most innovative, developed drama pedagogy in the country. Top theatre companies’ education programs are likely to be well funded, and staffed with very strong teaching artists. In my experiences as both a school teacher and a working actor, I would expect the MPA Companies to have higher standards and deeper knowledge of the art form and the industry  than ACARA, and a record of high-quality drama education.  I wonder how much of this has been incorporated into the National Curriculum? My understanding is that the Drama framework hasn’t yet been published. I know I’m taking the MPA Companies’ advice…will ACARA?

Reference:

Major Performing Arts Education Network, 2010.

Accessed on 18-4-2011 at:

http://www.dramaaustralia.org.au/assets/files/MPA_position_paper.pdf

The Reluctant Gamer

New Stages: Challenges for Teaching the Aesthetics of Drama Online

Anderson, Michael.

The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Volume 39, Number 4, Winter

2005, pp. 119-131

The author argues that digital technologies are an important new platform (or “stage”) for teaching drama, and that we educators must embrace them. He threatens that our students are so accustomed to thinking and learning with technology that we’ll become irrelevant if we don’t incorporate it: “If drama educators cannot or will not find ways to work with technology, students will find other places to express their creativity outside the drama classroom.” (Anderson, 120)  He points to a pattern of reluctance among drama teachers to expand their use of ICT’s, while students are increasingly involved in digital technologies; “much of this participation or immersion is actually in the very activities that take place in a performing arts classroom (e.g., role-based games).” (Anderson, 121) In other words, many students may be gaining fluency in some of the conventions of drama in digital contexts, and as drama teachers, we should be prepared to work with that.

Anderson is at great pains to stress that ICT’s are just tools, and the most important factor in successful classrooms is, as it always has been, good teaching. He looks at the relative readiness with which teachers of other arts have incorporated technology and asks, “how might we begin to shift our thinking as drama educators to recognize that drama happens in all sorts of media for all sorts of dramatic intentions?” (Anderson, 125), citing for example Janet Murray’s studies of games; she “defines…games as Cyberdrama if they give human participants agency, immersion, and the ability for transformation” (Anderson 127).

I can appreciate all this, and I want to find exciting ways to work with technology, but I’m afraid of compromising aesthetics or lowering the intellectual bar. I can suspend my disbelief and learn a little bit about online games, but I doubt that I’ll ever be fluent in or passionate about them enough to teach them with any intellectual rigour. Games might be helpful reference points for students when talking about character, setting, action, motivation, etc, but I’m still skeptical of them in a drama classroom, because you can be great at a computer game and not be very good with face-to-face communication. Drama is storytelling, and acting requires great fluency in real-life communication and body language to tell those stories. Maybe I just need to have my prejudice turned upside-down; or maybe I can negotiate a more suitable way to use ICT in my classroom, such as the content-rich CD-ROM’s discussed in the article.

Maybe it’s that my paradigm hasn’t shifted yet, and I still don’t have the skills to deal with these digital forms of theatre: “When digital drama becomes more commonplace, the experience and skills necessary to critically analyze that work will also grow” (Anderson 129). 

Reference:

Anderson, Michael. New Stages: Challenges for Teaching the Aesthetics of Drama

Online. In The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Volume 39, Number 4, Winter

2005, pp. 119-131

Accessed 18 April 2011

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jae/summary/v039/39.4anderson.html

ICT's in drama classrooms????? Yes indeed.

My prejudice until starting this Grad Dip has been that technology was important in other kinds of classrooms, but not very useful in Drama, one of my subjects. It’s about vocal and physical storytelling…right? Then I thought about all of the light and sound technology that’s been standard in theatre for a century, and I felt rather foolish. I’ve used video cameras to introduce students to acting techniques for the camera, and to help them study their performances. Revelation: I only think of something as “technology” if I don’t understand it or haven’t integrated it so deeply that it’s no longer new! So I’ve got lighting, sound and audiovisual technology already in my practice, but what other opportunities could there be to use ICTs in the drama classroom for students of all levels? And how will it help them?

“Drama Online,” by Jennifer Nicholls and Robyn Philip (Australian Journal of Educational Technology 2001, 17(2), 150-168) describes a 2-year study (1999-2000), in which an existing course called Elements of Drama at Macquarie University was modified by “the introduction of a compulsory, online collaborative assignment,” and the results for learning outcomes and student satisfaction were studied, with the following powerful results:

In summary, the authors noted the following learning outcomes for students in terms of the curriculum as a whole:

·      a stronger grounding in the discourse underpinning successful play production;

·      greater confidence approaching and effectively completing the more substantial final assignment (Director's Project) as a result of exposure in the first online task to a variety of views and opinions;

·      for weaker students, exposure to and support from the more competent writing styles of other students (scaffolding);

·      reinforcement of the skills required for group work; and

·      the development of computer literacy. “

Obviously, this is in a tertiary context, but I believe there are clear applications in a secondary setting.

Students used a very rich website in multiple ways--to post their performances as Quicktime movies, to post their written assessment tasks (e.g., reviews of professional productions), and respond to threads. The authors emphasize how “collaborative” they found the online work to be, because students were engaged in “an authentic task, it actively engaged the students in the construction of knowledge via a process of contextualised and shared meaning making, allowing students to test and evaluate their own hypotheses” (Nicholls and Philip, online).

Collaboration is one of the fundamental features of theatre work. We know that many different artists work together to produce big shows; but even at its most essential, theatre is collaboration between audience and performers, who all agree to play their respective parts in the interaction. Constantin Stanislavsky, the grandfather of modern realist acting, based his famous methodology on ensemble-building, and worked closely for decades with the great playwright Anton Chekhov, so collaboration is in the foundations of the art form as we know it. When drama students begin to think of themselves as part of an ensemble, they bring greater trust, openness, flexibility and empathy to the environment, and the quality of their work improves. I found these collaborative possibilities of web-based learning very reassuring. Learning to work together has clear benefits in a drama classroom.

I had a reservation: this is an inspiring way to use ICT in activities around seeing and critiquing theatre, or researching and discussing theatre history, famous productions or world theatre styles for example, but could you conduct an acting class online? Acting for the camera and stage acting are not interchangeable; they’re usually taught as separate courses. Still, ICT’s would be a great way to bring drama to students in rural settings, or to enhance the work of a class on campus. I’d like to know if anyone is using ICT’s in acting classes specifically, and how.

The authors point out that ICT’s are used by theatre artists “to create art, to retrieve and store information, to publicise and exhibit their work, and to administer arts organizations” (Nicholls and Phillip, online). It’s easy to see that for al students, ICT skills are highly valuable in life beyond school. This has personal resonance for me; I spent seven bumpy years as a professional actor, and if I’d had great computer skills, I imagine I would have had better support-jobs open to me and things might have been a lot easier. “The lack of consistent and reliable access to a computer, failure of the technology, and poor self efficacy in regard to the ability to manage the technology successfully are sufficient reasons for students not to choose an online assessment, given the option” (Nicholls and Phillip, online).  How could I, with my poor self-efficacy, expect to get a different result from students? So this kind of use of ICT has to be compulsory, for the benefit of students and teachers alike. The fact is, there is no career that doesn’t require ICT skills (including teaching!), and we have to give all of our students a shot at sustainable futures, even those crazy drama kids.   

Nicholls, J. and Philip, R. (200). Drama Online. In Australian Journal of Educational Technology 2001, 17(2), 150-168.

Retrieved 18-4-11 at:

http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet17/nicholls.html

And we're off!

I've started my prac early, and I love it! Really, I was terrified--insomnia, etc., but I got on with it and I absolutely love it. I have to put in a lot of time every day after school and early in the mornings to be ready, but it's worth it to feel semi-competent. I'm feeling confident and happy about teaching already, even though there are daily reality checks about what I need to work on.

Today it was a Year 12 student I'll call Nick. The word in the staff room is that his parents are forcing him to do Tertiary English, when he wants to do Accredited English. The head of English thinks he's strategically failing in order to prove that he's no good and should be allowed to do Accredited. I've overheard him bragging that his parents recently bought him a car, and also bribed him not to pierce his ears by buying him an iphone, even though he's literally failing in school and they know it. I listened to my mentor teacher on the phone with his mother last week, speaking frankly about his total lack of output and his rudeness to teachers. So today when students were working independently, I thought I would put in a real effort and stick with him for a while; I had some good questions that had worked well with other students, and knowing that Nick hadn't done much (if any) work on his big oral assessment, I tried to help him make a start and think through some of the issues he would have to deal with in the assignment. I got absolutely nowhere! "I don't know; I don't know; I don't know. I DON'T KNOW." Then lots of nasty looks and sarcasm. This happened several times over the lesson, and badly enough that I decided to give him a point in his planner, according to the school's discipline system, but he didn't have the planner with him, so that was useless. What's the point of little punitive marks in the planner anyway? He doesn't care about that. How do I avoid getting into a stupid power struggle with a student?  What's the real way to gain control of that situation?

On my ride home, I had Steve's voice in my head saying, "you don't have to understand everything about them," from the duck lecture. As a prac teacher, and probably a relief teacher too, there's very little you can possibly understand, so working with what emerges is really the only choice. It's an assets-based approach, more positive than thinking about what's lacking in the relationship with the student, desperately trying to fill in the blanks. I don't know what kind of learning style Nick has, or what his previous experiences with school have been, etc. But he's giving me the stink eye and saying "I don't know," and I have to figure out how to work with that. 

Bullying 2.0: Coping

Coping with cyberbullying

This study was done in Melbourne with about 600 schoolkids from government and independent schools. The authors gathered data on the frequency and characteristics of bullying they experience and what kinds of coping strategies students were using. They noticed differences in the prevalence of cyberbullying across gender and type of school.

The authors distinguish between active coping strategies like problem-solving and less ones, like distraction. (47)

Predictably, “Girls reported greater use of coping actions relating to seeking social support …and self-blame. In contrast, boys tended to use more coping actions that involved working hard to solve the concern, relaxing diversions, and physical activity” (50). It sounds like the gender patterns we see elsewhere. The authors also observed that the girls in independent schools (so, with a higher average household income and more access to ICTs) were the group with the highest reported cyberbullying victimization (53). But the other interesting thing about the gender divide that the authors point out is that, “For girls especially, the use of these technologies is likely to represent a central part of their social being, an important tool for friendships and peer group inclusion, and one that subsequently increases their likelihood of experiencing cyber-bullying problems.” (53) They cite research that shows girls talk more on their mobile phones and send more text messages than boys.

So I’d like to do further research into the experiences of girls with cyberbullying, and how it works in terms of the dynamics of social interaction among girls. Is there overlap between the perpetrators and victims of cyberbullying among girls, as there is among other groups who’ve been studied? How are girls being affected emotionally by cyberbullying? If ICT’s are so important to girls because of their tendency to be highly social, are the stakes even higher for them? How do the rates of cyberbullying-related suicide compare between boys and girls, for example? If we know a group of students is (even slightly) more vulnerable, don’t we have an obligation to target them with extra research and support?

The authors found that, “In general, an optimistic, relaxed, and active mode of coping tended to exemplify students in the current study who reported fewer cyber-bullying experiences” (54). This links with the Positive Psychology I’ve been reading in PPLE, by Martin Seligman. The big idea there is that building strengths is the best buffer against psychopathology. So we need to build our students’ emotional assets, accentuate the positive, and help them avoid getting caught in the cyberbullying cycle.

The authors propose developing in students “a specific coping skill set” to deal with cyberbullying:

• evaluate the benefits of remaining in or leaving online communities;

• identify the need to leave online situations;

• reflect on his or her own online behaviours;

• respond in an assertive, but not aggressive way; and

• know when and how to seek help from an adult.

                                                                        (55)

How practical! I want to make that a poster and hang it in my classroom.

References:

Lodge, J and Frydenberg, E. (2007). Cyber-Bullying in Australian Schools: Profiles of Adolescent Coping and Insights for School Practitioners. In The Australian Educational and Developmental Psychologist Volume 24 Number 1, pp. 45–58. Retrieved 14-3-11 at:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=frydenberg+cyberbullying&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

Seligman, M.E.P. (2002). Positive psychology, positive prevention, and positve therapy. In, Snyder, C.R. & Lopez, S.J. Handbook of positive psychology. p. 3-9.

Bullying 2.0: What about Freedom of Speech?

Free Speech and Cyberbullying

US states have different legislation around bullying, cyberbullying and free speech. This article outlines 3 Supreme Court decisions on students’ freedom of speech in general from the last few decades and several lower-court decisions that demonstrate a huge amount of variation in the law, particularly as it relates to off-campus activity.

Bullying occurring on-campus or at school events is within the school’s jurisdiction and full free speech rights are not applicable. In Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser (1986) the Supreme Court held that “the constitutional rights of students in public school are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings.” (p.298). But schools have trouble enforcing clear policies on off-campus activity when there’s so much ambiguity in what’s punishable. With cyberbullying, “where” is it happening? It’s an electronic incident. What if it happens at home, with no use of school materials? So schools have figured out how to make those incidents considered on-campus, and therefore under school jurisdiction. One major precedent from pre-cyberbullying days that this article discusses is the Tinker v. Des Moines School District decision of 1969 (p. 297) that found that if the acts are substantially disruptive to the school environment, they will be considered “on-campus” and therefore punishable by the school. This “substantial disruption” language is still at the center of the legal debate around cyberbullying because it can be used as a way to punish off-campus activity, and obviously “most cyberbullying occurs off-campus.” (2006 study conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation , cited p. 290)

The authors also discuss the “true threat” doctrine (p.306) that says that anything that a reasonable person would think was a threat is not protected speech.

The article describes hypothetical scenarios and plays out how they would be judged in different states, depending on the laws there, concluding that, “In an effort to protect students’ First Amendment rights and shield school districts from potential lawsuits, state legislatures should enact cyberbullying legislation allowing school administrators to discipline students for on-campus cyberbullying but not off-campus conduct, unless the off-campus cyberbullying constitutes an objective threat of violence to students, teachers, or school administrators.” (320) The authors propose more parental involvement in children’s use of ICT, including use of parental control software and discussing internet usage with other parents. (316)

This article if from a law review, so it’s very reasonable and detailed, concerned with the minutiae of various cases. I haven’t read much legal writing, but this put my brain in a pretzel trying to figure out the relationship between morality and the law. To some extent, morals are embedded in any justice system—but the law requires perfect rationalism. So it forces these feelings, beliefs, values, etc. into a logical, reasonable framework.  Square pegs, round holes. And yet, if we didn’t have a basically shared morality, we wouldn’t have the justice system in the first place...discuss.

Reference:

Beckstrom, Darryn Cathryn (2008). State Legislation Mandating School Cyberbullying Policies and the Potential Threat to Students’ Free Speech Rights. Vermont Law Review [Vol. 33:283 2008] pp 283-321 Retrieved March 10, 2011 from:

Rlawreview.vermontlaw.edu/.../14%20Beckstrom%20Book%202,%20Vol.%2033.pdf