Drama in the Classroom - Essay Example

Drama in the room In the modernizing world today the concepts of learning and building up personality traits varies from psychological processes to real life happenings. Different techniques have been designed through out the world to teach children how to build up their personality and skills which would be required by them in their lives. One such process which helps in building up the skills of a child is drama. Drama is known to be a useful tool which helps in building the skills of children. It not only makes the children confront different realities of life but also teaches them how to react on certain instances. Different states in this world have promoted drama as a tool for learning and it has been added in the education policy of these states. Drama not only increases the awareness of children but also increases their skills in such a manner that they can read write build up their self esteem confidence etc. This essay further with the help of different researches conducted through out the world help would prove that Drama is a tool for learning. In the United Kingdom the education policy added the feature of drama so as to make the children learn with an environment which they would like. It has been reported since then that the students who took part in these drama programs turned out to be good learners. The dramas influenced the children in a good way and the children increasingly after watching these dramas took part in educational processes. It was found through different researches conducted that the children were acting as they were told to act by the teachers and thus they were losing self esteem. Self esteem is considered to be very important in achieving certain gains in life (Davies and Brember 1999). And furthermore if this self esteem is not build upon in the younger ages one cannot build it up in the future stages of life. Seeing such a situation prevailing in the world the government of UK particularly pointed out arts to play an important role in building up the skills of children and it encouraged schools to bring in programs of creativity in their curriculum. In the UK National Theatre took the charge of helping schools in adding creativity in the learning process of the students and this proved to be beneficial in achieving the tasks. It was also found through different researches that active participation and creativeness helps in building up the learning skills of the children. And thus drama can be viewed as a particular tool which encourages both participation and creativeness in the children. The drama programs in schools have their own way of learning as portrayed in the dramas. The artists in the drama particularly point out particular ways of learning which can help in building up the skills of children. Furthermore the importance of drama can be seen in a statement given by the HMI which says 'The teaching and learning of drama' (1990) supported this dual nature of drama as a teaching method and an arts subject.Whilst the National Curriculum omits drama in the primary curriculum as an individual subject area, it is mentioned as a teaching tool in the Orders for Maths, History, Geography, Science and English. Furthermore it is also ascertained that drama provides an interactive feature to the children which can help the children to express and present themselves as they want to. This can help in building up the self esteem of children (Clipson-Boyles 1998: 4).The concept of dramas is coming back to the platform once again as different Art Councils all over the world are taking notice of the importance of these dramas in building up the skills of children. Dramas also comprise of games in which the children are allowed to answer questions such as their favorite character theme or scene. These games allow the artists to tell children how interesting and exciting a drama would be. Interviews done in the UK after a drama game was played showed that games were most liked by the children (Word Alive 2003,Primary Classics 2004). As one of the children gave his comments in these words: [I liked the] Riverbank [game] because if you are out people laugh and it's OK and then it's over' (Word Alive, Interview, 2003). This clearly shows that the children can build up their confidence skills after playing a drama game as they are not afraid when other children would laugh on them. These games not only allow the children to have fun and excitement but also help them to imagine things which would happen in the drama. Thus it also helped to build up the imagination skills of the children. Confidence is also a key factor in helping the children to learn and act in a bold manner. The children who are exposed to dramas may have higher confidence level than the others. This is because dramas give such an environment to the children that they are able to interact and act freely. They act on the stage throughout the drama and this helps them build up their confidence. The programs which were taken by National Theatre in UK showed that because of the exposure to dramas creativity flourished in the children. This was because the exposure that the children were given in those dramas. During the literary curriculum the children only go through reading but not experiencing the events while in the dramas the children experience each and every event which takes place in the story. This engages the children into experiential learning and makes them feel the events taking place in the drama. This experiential learning helps the creativity in the children to develop (Prentice et al 2003: 189). Furthermore the programs taken by National Theatre showed a great improvement in the speaking power of the children. It also showed that the children learned to act in groups and particularly it made their thinking ability to develop further. The children after the dramas were asked to discuss the dramas and this helped to develop their critiquing abilities. Research further shows that self esteem can be increased because of greater amount of learning in the school (Brooker and Broadbent 2003; Riley 2003; Stoll, Fink and Earl 2003). Different researches as mentioned above clearly show that drama has a deep role in building up a child's skills. It helps the child not only to understand the different realities of life but also helps them to act in certain instances. Dramas increase self confidence and self esteem in the children by providing them different situations in the drama. Thus it can be concluded that dramas play an important role in developing the learning, reading and thinking skills of children. Bibliography Davies J. and Brember I. (1999) Reading and mathematics attainments and self-esteem in Years 2 and 6 - an eight year cross-sectional study, Education Studies, 25,2: 145-57. Clipson-Boyles S. (1998) Drama in Primary English Teaching. London: David Fulton Publishing. (Word Alive, Interview, 2003) Prentice R. et al. (2003) Creative development: learning and the arts. In J. Riley ed Learning in the Early Years. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Brooker E. and Broadbent L. (2003) Personal, social and emotional development: The child makes meaning in a social world, In J. Riley ed Learning in the Early Years: A guide for teachers of children 3 - 7. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Stoll L., Fink D. and Earl L. (2003) It's About Learning (and It's About Time):What's in it for schools London: RoutledgeFalmer. Read More