A SCHOOL WITHOUT A DRAMA IS A SCHOOL WITHOUT A SOUL
Introduction
Drama has long been a popular learning approach in most British schools ( 2001, p. 16), and it is still growing to be one (‘ 2004, p. 20). A participant in a drama engage in a process of expressing a variety of emotions. It is as though a living spirit is confined within the body of an artist that pushes her or him to exude its living radiance. They give life to real or imagined and dead or alive entities to convey a certain message and perception about existence. This is the essence, in brief, of a drama. This written piece is not tasked primarily to unfold merely the essence of a drama. Rather, it is going to argue that schools are ought to have a drama in general. This written piece is going to fortify the ground that – a school without a drama is a school without a soul.
What’s in a Drama?
“He who has never envied the vegetable has missed the human drama.”
According to the (2003), a drama is to be construed as a kind of art, a sensible endeavor and a rational branch of learning (p. 4). By a kind of art, it is a means of expression. By a sensible endeavor, it forges a meaningful story. By a rational branch of learning, it offers a frame of reference, in other words, a perspective. All of which are directed towards human life processes and activities. A drama is both a form of interpretation and reinterpretation to generate a meaningful understanding of the things that surround us.
In reality, every human endeavor generates a meaningful experience. What sort of experience can students derive from a drama? In the voice of (2004),
“The students learn to laugh. They laugh at their mistakes when exhausted after rehearsing a scene five times in a row and still not getting it right. And they laugh at each other when something funny happens. They become less self-conscious and more aware of how they walk and talk and move. Yes, drama allows people to learn lots of things. Then there’s the story line, often involving intelligent arguments, conflict, difference of opinion, and resolution of problems. Some dramatic plays are based on literary classics, teaching us about human suffering and love and generosity and sacrifice. Yes, drama sometimes speaks to the mind, the heart and the soul, and the spirit. It’s a little bit like real life (p.21).”
This author has vividly described the process a drama student is going through in producing a drama. The drama student suffers from pain, failure and melancholy. But in the end, he or she is able to taste the sweetness of happiness and success. What matters the most is the personal growth and development that the drama brings.
In the book written by (1991), its fundamental assumption is that “the creation of experience” is the end-goal of art (p. xiii). In the eyes of this author, art (referring to the drama) gives an individual the chance to be in the shoes of another. The artist is going through an experience of experiencing another’s experiences. He or she is tasked to interpret that particular sensible undertaking.
A School with a Drama
“Like theatre, drama in schools can unlock the use of imagination, intellect, empathy and courage. Through it, ideas, responses and feelings can be expressed and communicated. It carries the potential to challenge, to question and to bring about change”
A drama resounds the issues, experiences and interactions of humanity, and this constitutes its base. Students engaged in this kind of art obtain are able to decently inquire on these concerns. At the back of the drama is a learning process in which, they get to operate among themselves imaginatively and resolve problems not merely as individuals but as groups ( 2003, p. 7). A drama is neither simply a kind of art nor a matter of role-playing. Young pupils or teenage students alike, who are engaged in a drama, are passing through a stage of learning whereby they encounter thorns along their paths. They have to seek among themselves the ways to internalize and externalize at the same time a certain role in order to act it out in the most sensible way possible. Aside from this, there is a need for them to act as a group in order to portray the best situation in that drama.
Dramas need not to be associated only with plays in the strictest sense. According to (1982), expert instructors unconsciously employ drama in formal instruction settings (p. 13). By the teacher’s simple act of assuming the other position, to a certain degree, it can be considered as a drama already. The teacher is employing a dramaturgical approach as a learning process among her or his students.
What is in a formal institution of learning that utilizes a drama? It is when the school is making the students undergo the underlying values of the drama. First, the student, being a young member of the society by which he belongs to, visualizes in his mind a certain character that may or may not be in congruence to his very own being. Second, they enter through an intrapersonal communication process. The third step is they engage in an interpersonal communication process, i.e. with his friend(s), in order to capture their perceptions about what he is going through. The spectators, on the other hand, are likewise experiencing a meaningful undertaking from the actor. They identify, envisage, make remarks and assess his performances. Lastly, and which this paper opts to quote, “the student is able to manipulate an object for the purpose of stimulating his imagination to figure out where he is, who he is, and what he’s doing (cited in 1982, p. 20).”
Such citation above describes the beautiful process that a pupil or student is or would be experiencing in a drama, being a parcel of the school curriculum. It facilitates his personal growth. This is more than just teaching them the existing values and beliefs in a plain one-way fashion. They get to realize further those values and beliefs. And, by having this as part of the school curriculum, is the school not inculcating to the students the value of recognition and respect for the individuals outside of them? In this case, the drama proves to be a tractable way of socializing the young individual and citizen to harmonize with the rest of the world.
There are more accounts that further support the functionality of the drama in formal learning institutions. (1999) perceives the drama to be a crucial learning methodology in the light of multiculturalism. Drama pedagogy refers to a multiperspectival as well as holistic learning methodology that aims to awaken and pull out at the same time the intellectual, social, emotional, physical, moral, creative, communicative, and aesthetic capacities of students (cited in 1999). Harley prescribes among the readers that drama pedagogy is the ship that will enable the world to sail in a sea of multiculturalism. Other than this author, another by the family name of (2003), proposes for an “interactive drama” to be employed in schools, which similarly with Hanley, for the reason that it is observed to be beneficial in pushing multiculturalism within schools.
What’s in a Soul?
In the viewpoint of religion and philosophy, it refers to a knowing “ethereal substance” that exists distinctively in a living being ( 2006). This offers a neutral conception of a soul. It simply answers the “what is”. (2006) cites the definitions of soul as “the immaterial part of a person; the actuating cause of an individual life”. These authors have also referred to the soul as the “human being”, and a “deep feeling or emotion”. This one, on the other hand, has a position, and pushes further on what the soul does and/or what the soul does to the individual.
In this paper, the operational sense of a soul refers to that living force within that drives an individual to act in accordance with righteousness. A person without a soul has always been assigned a negative meaning wherein he is said to be wicked; and so herein, it is being meant in the path of righteousness. It causes the individual to awaken his emotions and set him in motion for a certain purpose. In doing so, he may touch another individual or another soul to embark on the same journey.
A School without a Drama is a School without a Soul
“Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.”
Having laid down the pertinent literatures above, this section has much reason to lay the basis behind the claim that a school without a drama is a school without a soul.
Drama makes the students to imagine by running through their emotions within their own selves. is most likely saying that the drama has the capability to break free the soul of the person. As reviewed above, the soul awakes the emotions within in order to make a person act. If the school repudiates drama among its students, then the school repudiates the chance to awaken its students’ souls. This is just on the basic level, the level of the individual.
It has been learned from the citation of (1982) that the first step in staging a drama is to imagine a particular role in acting it out (p. 20), which is undeniably true. It always starts with the person confronted with the question – how am I going to portray this character? Because the drama is a matter of assuming particular roles, a school that recognizes a variety of roles or circumstances is a school with a soul. It is a school with a soul because it triggers the act of touching another soul.
(2003) has identified the following as the advantages behind an interactive drama in counseling: recognition and comprehension of others, others’ perspectives, and their objective view of others. Although this author’s findings have a specific reference to counseling, what matters is the means that have lead to these aforestated ends. Imagine now the case wherein the school hinders its students from these advantages. A school that prevents its students from assuming the roles of others, thru the drama, is preventing its students to harmonize with their fellow students. What a chaotic state this world would be! It is going to be a world filled with soul-less humans, because of its primary learning institutions that harbored among its citizens disrespect toward each other.
In the review of literatures, it has been found out that most author-experts in the drama raise the point that the drama is a matter of problem solving. As (2004) has uttered, the drama is “a little bit like real life” (p. 21). The drama sets the individuals in motion. This leads to the idea that the drama activates their souls. Shifting to the schools, one of the reasons why schools exist is that it provides the students the necessary knowledge or pieces of information that is going to guide them in real life. But this is not enough. They may have the knowledge but not the driving force to make use of that knowledge. It is thus of utmost importance for schools to include the drama in the curriculum. Otherwise, a school without a drama is a school without a soul.
The drama has the capacity to make its participants recognize the stances by which the others stand. In a world of multiculturalism, judging from the term alone, it is a condition wherein there is recognition of cultural diversity. It is “a world of difference”, as how multiculturalists put it. This paper has cited who have advocated the drama as the vehicle of multiculturalism. Tying this with the concept of the school, one way to look at the nature and/or objective of the school is for its students to generate an understanding of the world they are living in. The school exists to be able to understand the present differences carried by the souls of this world. As stated by the (2003), a drama is to be construed as a kind of art, a sensible endeavor and a rational branch of learning. The drama has the capacity to initiate the act of understanding the shoes that the others are wearing. Therefore, it goes to show that a school without a drama is a school without a soul.
The previous paragraphs have shown how the school without a drama robs its students of awakening their soul. And, from the individual level, the discussion has moved up to the level of the community or locality. Actually, the discussion on multiculturalism can go even further to the level of the international. The subsequent section is about to fortify the argument of this paper on the national level.
Most advocates stand in the view that the significance of drama in the formal institution of learning lies in its ability to alter the students in such a way that it is able to hone their dexterity in the particular social environment by which they belong. This is an instance of a drama with a purpose – “drama for capability” or “drama for empowerment” – that molds the children being young members of their society and as its active citizens (1992, p. 45). There is truly indeed more to learn from the drama. The attitude or personality, emotional intelligence and social skills are being developed. Apart from that, they become aware of the situations they are in. They tend to carry out their attitude within the drama outside, in the real drama of life.
The aforementioned paragraph has tackled the politics behind the drama. The drama has the capacity to trigger the burning passion within the actors and actresses alike. It awakens their souls. Eventually, they become active members of their own cultural group or nation. Is it not this task falls mostly in the hands of the school? In the case wherein the school departs from the (principles of) drama, what occurs is that it is not producing learned citizens who are capable of and passionate in transforming the nation for the better. This section further concludes that a school without a drama is a school without a soul.
Conclusion
The drama is a kind of expression that sensibly interprets and reinterprets events. The soul has been operationally defined as the living force within that drives an individual to act, in accordance with righteousness. The drama has the capacity to unleash or awaken the soul of the individual. On the individual level, students who are denied of the chance to express their emotion are denied of the chance to animate their souls. On the local/community/international level, students, who are asked to refuse to recognize the individuals outside of their own selves, are directed to live in disrespect, absolute individualism and chaos. On the level of the national, students, who have not went through the principles of drama, lack the passionate will to transform the real stage by which they act on. The conclusion that can be derived through these arguments is that a school without a drama is a school without a soul.
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