Reflection Journal 6 b (21/2/12)

 In addition, this journal submission should include a lesson outline for how you would engage students in a drama unit on the theme of bullying. What activities would you use and in what order? Why? You can do this in any format you wish e.g. writing in prose or using the unit of work template. It is also up to you how much time you are giving yourself for the unit and what age group you are targeting. This is not a graded assignment, just an exercise to get you started thinking about connections across activities. You can use activities from class or invent some new ones! 








Theme: Bullying 


Key Understanding:
Students will understand: 
- bullying and oppressing is a serious act that could inflict pain and hurt to others.
- what kinds of actions are considered as bullying (because some students thought it is okay to do this)
- the inner emotions of the oppressed and develop empathy. 
- the different types of oppression happening in the society and different ways to handle them.
- Choices have consequences.

Time duration	Activities	Resources	Strategy	Questions
	Warm up Activity Play of Status using space and gestures -       Divide the space into two parts. Tell students that someone is going to enter into one of the space and do an action to show that he/she is in power. Freeze in action -       After that, ask for volunteers to challenge the person in that space for higher power. -       Students get to feel the sense of power shifting in the space. The rest of the class will decide if the challenger’s action has more power to the other.	A very big space		Which do you think has more power or status? Can anyone challenge him?
	2nd Warm up Activity Play of status using space and gestures and number of people. -       Divide the space into two parts. Have a group of students (probably 5) and an individual. -       Invite individual into the space to show an action of power. -       Ask the group of 5 to enter and challenge the individual. -       Power shifting between the group and individual. -       Rest of the class may want to try to be that individual to retaliate with the other five. -       Get the class to vote which one signify higher power.	A very big space
	Activity 3 Tableaux of Oppressed. -       Have students to group themselves in fours. -       Have a volunteer from each group. These volunteers will have to be the ones oppressed in the society but they do not know who they are. These volunteers will then have to get out of the room for a few minutes. -       Each group is then given someone who is oppressed in the society (eg. Mentally ill patient or ex-convict). The group is supposed to think of a tableau and ‘mould’ the oppressed into the tableaux. They are not supposed to use words. -       While the volunteers are back, the students in the group will start to mould them and then position themselves around the person ‘moulded’. -       Students are then to watch each tableaux and the volunteers have to guess themselves who they are in the society. -       To give them more hints, teacher can tap on the members of the group except the oppressed.	Cards to show them what they have to mould the person into. (eg. Card shows ‘ex-convict) May use any chairs or blocks.	Give them time to discuss about the tableau they want to do and how they want to position their oppressed.	How would you see these people? How did you feel when you are moulding these people? Do you have the upper hand? Who do you think you are as oppressors in society?
	Activity 4 Give scenarios of bullies/ oppressions -       Have groups of 4. -       Scenarios: Workplace – Boss dislikes employee and have not equal treatment with the rest of the employees. School – Not included in soccer team, which you have always wanted to be. Always playing volleyball with the girls. Family Business – schizophrenia helping out in Mum’s food stall. National Service – Sergeant keeps attacking you for no reasons. -       Get the students to discuss and devise a scene based on these scenarios within 3-4 min. -       After that, each group presents. After each group presents, get the audience to think what could be done to be better?		To come up with scenarios of the different areas of life. eg. politically, workforce, family etc. Allow them to come up with solutions and different views upon the scenarios. Improvise without any scripts.	How will you react if you are the one being bullied/oppressed? Why will you react this way? What should the bystanders do? How do you feel playing as bullies, oppressed and bystanders?
	Activity 5 in relation to Activity 4 Forum Theatre -       After each group presents their performance, get the audience to volunteer themselves to play the role of the oppressed and ask them to improvise. How could they make the situation better? -       What are the other alternatives? -       The bullies and bystander may improvise in the second round. -       Other than playing the role of the oppressed, teacher could also ask students to try the bystander.		Ask them to freeze at a point that teacher wants to freeze, ask for volunteers to re enact and improvise, coming up with different solutions to this situation.
	Activity 6 Introduce Haresh Sharma ‘Off Centre’ to the students. -       Pick out one scene of oppression. -       Ask two volunteers to be angel and devil. -       Try the scene one more time but this time with the angel and devil talking to the oppressed on what he/she should do. -       The oppressed can choose to listen to anyone and act upon it. -       May be improvised or may not follow the script.	Off centre script.	Ask for volunteers to be angel and devil. Angel and devil as conflicting thoughts. Like conscience alley, allow 2 -3 people to come up and be the victim of the angel and devil.

Reflection Journal Week 6 (17/2/12)

What could your students learn from studying the play "Special" (and the activities we did for it)? What about for you as a teacher? 


'Special' is a good script for teaching moral education in schools. Instead of telling them straight in the face of the kids that they must do this and that, why not let them experience the situations and feelings of the oppressed. I feel that it is better to let them live through experiences than to nag at them on what to do because when they are in the character's shoes, they are able to understand the oppressed, bystander or oppressor's feelings and point of view. With regards to their acting and 'feeling' in the character's situation, they can then try to create ideas or alternatives to improve the situation. As what Hewson (2005) has described 'Narrative and other artistic forms are used to create virtual realities into which we may project ourselves, empathizing with characters and vicariously experiencing their predicaments.' (Pg 2). It is therefore good that students experience through the characters so that values can be instilled in them in a more effective way.


After enacting the play 'Special', it is always beneficial for the students to ask questions that will guide and help in their reflective thinking. Key terms in questions like how, what, who, when, why, could, could have been, should, should not and would will probe students into further thinking beyond the script, thereby bringing forth new ideas and solutions to react to the situation.


Hot seating
Hot seating is a very good convention for learning about the character's feelings, thoughts, ideas and background. Personally, I feel that hot seating the main character is the most interesting one because I am really curious about that character than the rest. When we did hot seating for Ian, there were many questions asked that revealed how he (Mr Kwok as Ian) felt towards the bullies, Mr Choo, himself and his dad. He even told us that he did something about his bullying after he was soaked (which is after the script), so all of us knew that he finally did something. Off course we interviewed other characters as well and we find out some more juicy bits that helps us understand the situation better.


Conscience alley 
The conscience alley is very different convention from hot seating because it does not help students to understand the situation better but to understand the inner feelings of the character. What is it like to be Ian, or Mr Wong, or Dewi, or maybe even the bullies? What do you feel? Could these characters hear these voices in their head? If you were them, What would you do? Who would you listen? As I went through the process, I could hear alot of shouting and some bits I could catch, others could not because overlapping of voices were too strong. 


This activity was later extended in Forum theatre where one would play the angel and the other is the devil, both instigating Ian to do the wrong and right. I tried Ian and I felt confused because I am listening to two opposing arguments at the same time and I do not know which one to listen to. I was trying my best to listen to one voice at a time but it was so confusing. But it was a good experience for students to feel this this confusion because we always face this confusion in life and sometimes we do not even know we are in a confused state. It requires us to take discipline to calm down our thoughts and anxiety and sift out the thoughts and ideas that will best improve the situations. 


Forum Theatre
Forum theatre encourages an interactive role-playing exercises to deal with oppression in everyday life, whether is it in the area of community, educational or political. It's aim is to bring about critical social awareness of and stop oppression in everyday situations. I personally feel it is good because it spurs thinking and spontaneity, allowing anyone (really anyone) to come up on stage to change the situation. Their responses enables themselves to learn, and I as a teacher is not spoon-feeding them but facilitating the activities. It is more student-centred learning (as what the MOE has always been emphasizing). There may be multiple interventions but these still provide knowledge, critical thinking and awareness to the rest of the class. One person may not have the same idea but additional methods in dealing Oppression are revealed and added upon our existing knowledge. While exploring and implementing the different methods, the students could learn what and what is not working and the reasons behind successful methods and failed methods. 


I like Hui Chi's convention where she had other characters acting as Ian's other classmates and each classmate has a theme to it. (Discipline, Moral value, strength, empathy, etc.) Through the process, they should react by improvising at any moment. What would they do as bystanders? Should they interfere? Why? If you do this, what will the oppressor do towards Ian or you? These different classmates are different types of solution or alternatives to deal with bullying.


Conclusion
These activities could help develop the awareness of bullying, whether in schools or elsewhere, oppression by experiencing it through the oppressed, oppressor and bystander. They can explore it in anyway they feel is better, finding new and different ways towards dealing this situation. Other than that, they can feel each and every character of their inner emotions by playing in the character's shoes.


Reference
Hewson, A. (20th Oct, 2005) Forum Theatre as a Means of 'Minding the Body
 in Reflective Practice. Retrieved from  http://oar.nipissingu.ca/PDFS/V931.pdf

Reflection Journal Week 5 (9/2/12)

2. How might you adapt the We're Going On A Bear Hunt activities for students of different ability levels or ages? What additional activities would you consider? 



We did 'We're Going On A Bear Hunt' activity through a little children storybook. Today's activity can be applied to primary children, even for secondary school students (maybe to a certain extent). Most of the children storybooks have a building-up climax that engages all children to the story, because it is what spurs them to read further. This spurring of moment can be acted out or 'played' in drama activities. 


Activity 1 
Groups of 9. 3 will be observing the 6 people, who are going to act the whole story out. Different groups will have a different way to act it out by using elements of drama. While the 6 people are planning, the rest will observe and note down the planning. After acting it out, we record and analyze the whole process through their observation and recording of video. 


I feel that this activity allows the performers to reflect and think what went wrong and what we can do better through external views and the recording of our performance. After what they told us about their observations, I realize that the activity requires us to have team-bonding skills. It is either we follow the leader and contributing along the way or we each come up with an idea and choose what is best, so there are split responsibilities and roles amongst us. During this activity, we plan as we go along, trying out various ways by acting it out instead of discussing what we want to do first and then rehearse it out. Both ways are not wrong, they are just different approaches. This activity is good for primary, as well as secondary school students because the activity is experimental where the students explores and try it out. If the acting or rehearsing is not to their liking, they change, so in a way, it varies their thinking and acting skills, therefore applying some decision-making skills. It also develops their imaginative and improvisation skills. After they have established their roles, tensions and focus, they can then be spontaneous, allowing ideas to just flow freely. One downside to trying out this activity in secondary schools is that students in the neighborhood schools or normal stream students may find the play kiddish and not want to participate. They may feel that because it is just a children story, they would not want to cooperate. 


Extended activity
After activity 1, they can discuss about what went wrong, how can they improve and then try it out again. After the second try, come back together as a group and discuss again. Their discussion should be on whether their focus is now clearer, more defined, more fluent and stronger than the previous. This is part of realism on stage.


This extended activity allows students to reflect upon and decide what is best and what is not in their play, coming up with fresh new ideas to make the play more engaging and more 'playful' to the audience. However, O'toole and Haseman (1989) warned that 'Realism is not easy... strength of feeling in your original improvisation may now appear limp and lacking in impact as you lose the spontaneity.' (Pg 145-146). At times, re-enacting may cause students to feel that it is no longer improvisation and therefore, dismiss it as merely acting like any television drama. It is still improvisation because students use other means of acting to portray their ideas more effectively to their audiences. In fact, it expands their exploration, experimental, improvisational and imaginative skills. 


Activity 2
We can use drama conventions suggested by Jo Raphael (2002). We can use Tableaux to create portraits of tensions and focus, Writing-in-role to express the character's feelings, flashback to develop scriptwriting skills, or even hot seating the bear to know the character better. 


It helps the students to explore and even create beyond the script. They are making meaning and purpose out of the script that they create or add on. This, I feel, may be more interesting for secondary school students because they are not restricted to the text alone compared to the first. They are more comfortable and these conventions pushes their imaginative skills further as they make meaning to their text. They have the freedom to express and explore deeper into the story. They also have storytelling skills as they act out their versions of the story. It creates more opportunities for them to create their own stories.




References 


Raphael, J. (2002). Drama Conventions. 


O' Toole, J. & Haseman, B. (1989). Dramawise: Introduction to General Certificate of Secondary Education Drama.  Improvisation.  Australia: Heinemann Educational Publishers

Reflection Journal Week 4 (3/2/2012)

Reflection Question: What are the factors you think a school should consider before offering drama as an O-level subject? Are these considerations aligned with your beliefs about education and specifically the value of drama in education? 




Before a school consider offering drama as an O'level subject, I think the school must think about the abilities of the students. Especially in the areas of English language or other forms of languages and the arts subjects (such as Geography, History, Music, Home economics), the school could make out the abilities of their students. For example, students' form of expression and reflective thoughts in their english essays or even the way they bake and decorate cakes. If however, the students just bake for the sake of baking or for the sake of just getting a grade, teachers can tell the creativity level and level of interests in their students. What for providing drama to uninterested students? It would only create chaos in the room because drama needs a big space and big space usually allows students to create chaotic and disruptive activities. We should not force or make an attempt to provide drama. Doing things without researching first is a dangerous thing to do.


Another factor is to consider the level of their language use and critical thinking skills, which is greatly dependent on the cultures and traditions of their families, how they were brought up and raised. As we can see in the O'level paper, the standard use of language is relatively high. Some students may not fully understand what the question requires and will therefore have difficulties answering the questions. Answering these questions also require higher level thinking skills because it is an open question, not a straightforward one. It requires deep reflection and thinking skills to answer questions. Developing a critical mind is hugely dependent on the culture of their family. Different cultures and traditions shape the way children think and perceive life. If a family is restricted and conformed to rules, refusing to allow change or flexibility, the child lives in a very closed mindset. The values that parents teach affect them and shape them. For example, the father's dominating control over the family teaches the child that males are the powerful family icon, which also implies much the same in society. On the other hand, if the child is allowed to freely express his or her thoughts during family dinners, the child will grow their critical thinking and expressive skills, because freedom allows all and any form of shapes on a painting whereas restriction forces the shapes to adhere to the space on a painting. But not all restricted families produce narrow-minded thinkers. Some smart children defy the laws of the household, and it maybe chaotic or success in developing the child.


We also have to consider the pro-activeness in the area of Arts education in schools. Doing drama in schools, let alone O'level drama, already requires to consider the support and resources of the school. How much the school is willing to fund and provide resources, how much the school is interested in introducing drama into curriculum and the goals of the school all play a part in contributing to good drama education. The goals or aims set by the school is important because it is where the school wants to head to. For example, in my practicum school, they actually aimed to develop the students aesthetically and provide holistic education for the students, so it is applicable to try to introduce drama because it has the potential to develop students holistically. It is also important to garner support from senior teachers and mentors because they will provide useful suggestions and help in you introducing drama education. Even support from parents can prove helpful because once they realize what drama can do for their children and the passion for drama in their children, they may seek appeal towards the principal for approval for letting them take O'level drama in school.


Inexperienced teachers may be a problem to introducing drama into curriculum because they are amateurs with no background on setting up something new. They have to set long, mid, and short term planning. Drama is not an easy subject to teach because we may teach but lack content or some elements and we do not know. Teaching drama can still be a learning process for teachers to learn how to teach. As discussed in class, we have come up with a solution to invite external vendors to come and give lessons so that both teacher and students learn. Once new material is learnt, the teacher can then change her teaching style and adapt to the new one. The teaching methods of the external vendor are merely guidelines and examples that a teacher can learn to adopt.


All in all, I feel that if the school wants to provide O'level drama, they should introduce drama into curriculum for the lower secondary as a 'trial run'. If it is deem success, they may then try to bring in O'level drama.




'Values are the foundation of a person’s character.' - quoted from MOE website.


Indeed, values instill characteristics in and develops a person. Without values of life, a person would just deteriorate. So far, MOE has been striving towards holistic education, coming up with the four desired outcomes. All of these outcomes could be achieved the Arts, especially drama. 'The curriculum... allows students to build on their existing and prior experiences and knowledge of drama towards the experience and knowledge that they will either need for further study or for a terminal point in their school-based drama experience.' (Neelands, 1998, Pg 309)


Drama is able to create creative thinkers, therefore contributing greatly towards the Singapore society. Eisner (2004) stated that, 'Addressing questions related to aesthetic theory is believed to help students become a part of a deep and enduring philosophical conversation.' (Pg 27) When students are engaged in an intense conversation, they use their deep thinking skills to evaluate, analyze, explain, justify upon issues. Not only that, they provide logical reasoning and imaginative skills to make the issues better. They are constantly asking and challenging themselves through a series of why, what, when, where and how. This also helps develop creative problem solving skills in them, where they use their creativity and reasoning to help make situations better. 


The arts also help students to appreciate different cultures and people in Singapore, and prevent them from stereotyping and developing racism. Through understanding the different cultural practices in Singapore, they are able to notice the values of the cultures and appreciate them. They begin to interact and participate in those societies, so that Singapore can enjoy racial harmony and assimilation. Hornbrook (1998) has added that 'We learned through the stories we and others tell; in a dramatised culture these stories will themselves take the form of dramatisations, so that we are presented with a series of interlocking dramatic narratives which are the substance of our social lives, and in which we are both participant and spectator.' (Pg 138) Dramatic art celebrates harmony in diversity 


Drama can also develop students into confident people. Drama, unlike the boring academic subjects, is a subject of movement and reflection. When we are engaged with our limbs, we feel and sense, becoming more conscious and aware of every part of our body. And through enough practice and getting use to, we become more 'trained' and confident of ourselves. How well we know and use our body comes from experience. Sadly, our movements over the years become lesser, remembering our active childhood days. Through drama, spontaneity drives the students to become active and therefore confident individuals.


Overall, Drama can provide and instill many values in students and help shape their lives into a more meaningful one. 




References


Neelands, J. (1998) Beginning Drama. David Fulton: London.


Eisner, E. (2004). The Arts and the Creation of Mind. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.


Hornbrook, D. (1998) Education and Dramatic, 2nd Ed. Routledge: London. 


MOE. A Whole-School Approach To Values Education. http://www3.moe.edu.sg/corporate/contactonline/2006/issue04/sub_professionalMatters_art02.htm . Retrieved by 5 Feb 2012.