Drama and Character Education

As a student, drama was never my favourite subject. In fact, the word 'drama' still creates a pretty powerful physical response for me. Sweaty palms, butterflies are some of the things that I experience when I am put on the spot and asked to act 'dramatically'.

However, as an educator, I believe it is crucial to reflect on our practice and consider how we can alter our outlook to benefit our students.

Here is some of my reflection:

-I am starting to value infusing drama because I see how it can help students step certain characteristics that they see for themselves.  For instance, I consider myself outgoing when surround by people with whom I feel comfortable. In drama class, I have found myself being increasingly comfortable with new people in small group settings.
-The seamless way of incorporating drama in across various curriculum strands is a great way for encouraging students to incorporate drama, without placing so much emphasis on being dramatic. For a student like myself, this would reduce a lot of anxiety around drama.

This reflection has made me think more about how I want to incorporate drama into my future classroom, and how to ensure that all of my students feel safe within my planning.

The following are two questions that I have been considering:
How does drama help develop students' character?
How can teachers use drama as a key pedagogy?

Drama allows students to explore multiple perspectives and situations. We experimented with this using the children's story book called "Giraffes Can't Dance".

We had used the drama strategy of voice over narration combined with movement to address interpersonal skills and encouraging students to take another perspective, and step into character's shoes. In order to make a distinction between the student who is playing the character, and the character themselves we used face masks. What a wonderful way of suing props to help students take on a different role, as well as for the audience to see a clear distinction between the student, and the dramatic role playing.

This strategy has huge potential for teaching students character development!