Secrets our education system never told us about theatre and learning

“What is the point of bringing theatre or, in general arts in our classrooms?” This question of course rides on the shoulder of many other unstated, underlying questions such as “How is it practically useful?”, “Is theatre a complex and time consuming learning intervention?” “Is engaging in theatre just the need of a professional actor? “Is it redundant in the age of digitalized production and reproduction?”

This article intends to demystify the secrets of theatre and learning in the education setting. It is a shout out to bring this dynamic tool of theatre, from a position of being a backbencher veiled inside the brackets of extracurricular and performing arts – to use as an active teaching tool and life skill. This use of theatre lets children participate, demonstrate, and observe in a safe and a non-threatening environment. It provides another “liberal” opportunity for students to learn and to demonstrate learning. Theatre touches the intrinsic qualities of the child and helps them to get in touch with their creativity and spontaneity as well as to develop confidence in the expression of their ideas.

There are dimensions of theatre embedded with some unseen potential, which needs exploration, experimentation and using it purposefully as an effective aid in our learning engagements with children. Here are some secrets which we feel needs to be unveiled about the use of this vital art form.

Theatre- Stimulating and integrating Heads and Hearts

The process of making art allows the artist to give image, word, sound, or movement to something that is often intangible. Through activities with the arts, children learn to express the “unexplored and untold” – their rapidly growing understandings, thoughts, and feelings.

This stimulates cognitive growth and critical thinking. Imagining, creating and playing out stories prepares them to see their life situations more objectively, critically and empower them to make better life choices. It equips them to have harmonious relationships in different areas of their life.

Theatre and educational goals

Its potential is not just by positioning on how well it is performed, but also in its mere processes. It is soaked in some fantastic tools like communication, creativity, critical thinking and collaboration, which also happens to be 21st century educational goals. Multidimensional learning: Theatre and applied arts also give multiple perspectives. Steve Jobs once said, “A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. Therefore, they do not have enough dots to connect, and they end up with linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one understands of the human experience, the better design we will have”. Theatre helps one to enter a different world, embody and live it and see life more wholesomely.

How can educators in their classrooms use this technique?

Teachers can also use drama to bring writing to life for children. This approach is called “dramatic enquiry” where children and teachers create an imaginary world in response to an issue or a problem where there are no easy solutions. For example, A child being bullied in school .The children can create a backstory of the characters that are involved , build characters , form a story and embody them by being those characters .– As part of this approach, children and teachers use writing journals to capture ideas about story and characters, as well as language they can use in their writing. This is not only a fun activity for children, but the use of drama can help to provide a real purpose for their writing as well as boost their confidence in their abilities as they are more empowered to take control over their own ideas.

We see a hope with the new educational policy 2020, which brings integrated learning at its focal point. Arts and theatre can find meaning in this idea of prioritization in the learning environment -classrooms/ learning spaces /homes. It is time to change our outdated learning methodologies and aids. It requires many many educators, parents and educational institute’s heads to come together and build
this integrated learning for child centric quality education.

This article is compiled and curated by Ashima Vishnoi and Arti Bhandari. They are arts based facilitator using techniques of applied theatre for learning interventions in educational settings pan India.