Artist and Education

Why is theatre and education such a powerful thing in our schools? The idea that theatre might be used to teach young people dialectically - basically to think, is something that goes directly against the dominant capitalist ideology. In the 1980s and 90s drama in the curriculum was hotly debated and contested. So many young kids were culturally disenfranchised as a result. When Theatre Education is deeply imbedded into the curriculum, and not just a happenstance visit by an artist, change can truly happen. It allows children to articulate deeply felt social aspirations as well as giving shape and form to circumstances and difficulties faced by young people right here right now. Asking profound questions is the purpose of this education, really, as the seed of drama is the seed of a big question - whether it be social, potlitical or existential. But what contribution can theatre make in education in the twenty-first century? How can it affect the lives of young people today, especially when there are so many other mediums and technologies dancing in their faces? Also young people are faced with so many different value systems, beliefs, emotional attachments -- instant social networks, multiple sources of information, mediated images. There are many many uncertainties. An increased uncertainty in terms of identity and belonging has become more of a problem for young people in a globalised world. Working in schools up at Jane and Finch and Keele and Sheppard I have learned how important it is to validate the perspectives of young people who are in a difficult social position. They are at an impressionable age where their values and views of themselves are beginning to form - and especially their understanding of the world and their position within it, their relation to others. By bringing theatre into these often 'militaristic' school structures, I am finding the kids resistant at first, but then witnessing each others voices, opinions and views in a new context. The power of imagination, of our own stories, of our rich cultural histories are powerful. How can we raise creative, strong, compassionate and self-reflexive children? When education stops being a corporation, a structure closer to the military and prisons, then will we be able to give our children the gift of finding their own voices in a chaotic time ... Off to teach tomorrow at St Jerome's Catholic School!