Reflection Journal Week 10 (23/3/12)

4. What are some considerations when exploring sensitive issues in class? 


A teacher must be well aware and careful whenever it comes to bringing sensitive issues to the class because if he or she is not careful, the teacher may step on some 'tails' of the students and the class may turn to chaos. It is therefore important that a teacher represents himself or herself as a transformative intellectual (as what Giroux have stated) to understand, comprehend, take charge, build relationship and to stand up for his students.


A teacher must be seen as a transformative intellectual. As what Giroux (1989) said that 'it is important to stress that teachers must take active responsibility for raising serious questions about what they teach, how they are to teach, and what the larger goals are for which they are striving' (Pg 126) When a teacher portrays himself or herself as someone who is accountable to, someone who is responsible for his or her own actions, understanding, reliable, dependable and intellectual, the students will tend to feel safe and know that the teacher is in control. The teacher then creates this safe space (but still in control) that the students can freely express their views, knowing that their teacher is taking care of everyone's welfare. This space allows students to critically think about the perspectives of others, therefore developing empathy, and also be responsible for their own thoughts. If there is no such teacher around, the students will feel threatened and may even feel that the teacher is not up to the standard of taking charge of the class yet. They know their teacher very well and do not need anyone to tell them if the teacher is reliable or trustworthy or not willing to help, etc. They are smart enough to see and know.


One way to being a transformative intellectual is to be reflective practitioners who relates the classroom experience to political and ideological purposes, Vice versa. Reflection, critical thinking and work in action all contributes to helping students achieve that understanding and belief that provides satisfaction or better situations for all to live in. When a teacher practices using his intellectual mind to deal with these issues, the students will gain respect and think that 'their teacher has the knowledge and ability to deal with these issues',and therefore, they are able to express what they feel freely and with a critical mind. It is not about a space where a barrage of comments and feelings fire at one another but it is more of the softer and civilized way in dealing these matter. When sensitive issues are deal in a more humane and intellectual way, students will feel and see themselves as intellectuals as well and also the readiness to explore and deal with theses issues in a deeper level. 


A teacher should know his or her students well and how far they can discuss these issues. Every child have their own emotional state of mind and their sensitivity varies from one another. It is crucial that the teacher knows what to say and what not to say least anyone's emotions are stirred up. Even if the teacher really steps on one of their 'tails', the teacher must be able to deal with it. The teacher should come up with a list of possible factors that may spark anger, sadness and other negative and sensitive feelings of the child and also another list of what he or she should do if these emotions are triggered. If in any case the child experience hurt or emotional disturbance during the dramatic process, the teacher has to stop (in a calm way) and attend to the child so that the child does not get traumatized. We, as teachers, are not to condemn or make our students remember bad experiences but to offer a safe space where they can think for and benefit one another. 


Lastly, the teacher must know the possible potential harm or insults that may arise from delinquents. It is not our job to judge or reject these students from coming into the safe space just because they may make the space chaotic, but to take precautions against these issues. Knowing our students well is one thing. Another thing is to anticipate their speech and actions and to be prepared to counter the insults. This space is not a battlefield that students can anyhow fire missiles at one another but it is to open the discussion and allow suggestions and ideas flow in to benefit ourselves. 

Reflection Journal Week 9 (15/3/12)

C. Do you think that it is important for our students to study plays by local playwrights?


We were discussing this on Tuesday, 13/3/12, in the module Contemporary Theatre in SG and SEA with CK. I feel that students should know and study plays by local playwrights. It would be shameful if students do not know them because, afterall they are Singaporeans. It is like not knowing your own biological body. Local playwrights shoudn't be strangers to us. Moreover, the plays that they have written were based on real life issues in local Singapore. If they don't study plays by local playwrights, they would be seen as ignorant Singaporeans who don't care about their country. According to the desired outcomes of MOE (uuuggh..), teachers are to build students into self-directed learner, active contributor, confident, and concerned citizens (MOE, 2010, para 3). Dramatic art can definitely do all these by studying local playwrights. 


Firstly, local playwrights gives knowledge and information about current issues in Singapore. It raises the awareness of issues among students. As Hornbrook (1998) suggest that 'This eclecticism insists that the word 'drama' must be allowed a wide interpretation and cannot be unilaterally confined by a section of the dramatic community and employed exclusively to describe its own idiosyncratic and limiting practices.' (Pg 134) The skills, knowledge and whatever else that students obtained in any kind of dramatic form of art can be applied elsewhere. I feel that students should not only be concerned about issues within their context (Eg. school and home) but they should explore and bring it out to the society. Through the process of studying the play, they are encouraged to find out more about the issues in the play. They find different resources such as the internet, newspaper or by asking their parents about these issues. Once their curiosity is aroused, they are encouraged to share their thoughts with others (not necessarily in drama lessons) and reflect upon these issues. These issues must be in a form of two way communication so that they have a wider perspectives of issues and are able to critique their views. In a way, they are being self-directed in their learning process because they explore and ask questions. This learning process is a lifelong one. 


Secondly, responding to the issues in these playright develops them to be active contributors to society. After acquiring the knowledge about these plays and issues raised, drama can spur them to think and contribute their ideas. In one way or another, empathy develops as they begin to understand and see from different points of view. Their mind is more open to opinions and willing to accept. 'Play' allows students to become active and be involved in as they improvise. Baker (2010) said in his journal that '... the explanation of any given response is not a matter of simple alternatives, but whatever the reasons may be, 'play', like 'drama', is essentially a means of discovering how to make effective responses and adjustments to life situations and to make them in such a way as to provide a feeling of personal satisfaction and communal acceptance.' (Pg 36) It makes students think of how to solve issues that are in the heart of Singapore, their own country. Once they realize how serious the problems are, they will try to improve the situation. Improvisation then enables them to think, evaluate, see different points of views and respond accordingly and appropriately. They not only have to respond in these activities, but also into the open society in Singapore so that Singapore will be a better place to life in. 


Finally, I think that if teachers and educators were to use external plays to study, students may think that foreign plays are more superior than local plays. Personally, I feel that Singapore has not achieve much in the Arts and the world, especially the west, may not recognize local and asian playwrights because the fact that we are asians, who are 'suppose' to be the weaker power. If we keep on studying foreign plays, students will think that Singapore is not capable of writing such good plays. I have to agree that there are many good playwrights in Singapore, like Haresh Sharma and Chong Tze Chien, and they have to be recognize. There are so many capable people in Singapore that we fail to give them credit, or not enough credit. 


Not that I am trying to say that students must only study local plays. Foreign plays are good and they still can make students think about issues that can be seen here in Singapore. But it would really be a shame that we don't know our local playwrights, which means we don't know much about Singapore's context, which also means we may be ignorant people. All in all, I feel it is important to study local playwrights because it has more impact on students' learning and develops them into active, concerned, considerate and responsible citizen of Singapore.










References


Hornbrook, D. (1998) The Drama Curriculum (2nd Ed.) Routledge: London.


Baker, D (1973) 'Drama and Theatre in Education' Journal of Curriculum Studies, 5:1,  Pg32-45

Reflection Journal Week 8 (12/3/12)

1. What makes a good Process Drama and to what extent do you think that was achieved today? 


Firstly, let's define the term 'Process Drama'. Essentially, every participants are involved and engaged in problem-solving and character building through dramatic forms. In contrast to theatre, there is no external or passive audience. More than that, Heathcote has described process drama as 'lived at life-rate and operates from a discovery-at-this-moment basis rather than being memory-based.' (As cited by Bowell and Heap, 2001, Pg 7)


A good process drama should deal with knowledge about the art form, drama, personal and social learning and cross-curricular learning. Basically, it deals with life and is flexible, different from specialization in a subject. Hence, the planning of a process drama is very important because if the planning is strong, the knowledge, skills and values are not transferred to the participants. Therefore, learning objectives should be carefully selected to cater to the needs of the students and their ability to learn. The learning process must be contextualised, where learning is engaged within the participants, so that they are committed to what they are doing and thereby contributing their ideas. As a result, they gain more and deeper insights in the matter from their peers and teachers as facilitators through sharing and collaborative work. This creates a sense of ownership as they feel that they are responsible to their own learning. Moreover, drama creates a sense of awareness and sensitivity within the participants that make them feel and think more than they are in their real life situations because when real life situations are represented in drama, the participants critically think and reflect on these issues. 


Process Drama is also a process of making meaning for ourselves in relation to our society and surroundings. They are required to explore issues that occur in daily life and respond to it. Every thinking and action that we do requires us to think the four Ws (what, why, when, where) and How. Through that, we are making meaning and our lives become purposeful. In process drama, it is less on story and acting, more on problem-solving and living at that moment. While they do process drama, they have to be spontaneous and think on the spot. Their actions then begins to unfold the story, where they are more of the story tellers/ story makers. Therefore, participants have more control of the story than the story itself controls the actors.


According to Bowell and Heap(2001) described that there are six principles that makes a good process drama:
Theme - content that has topics which deal with personal or social development.
Context - a setting that is related to the theme. Allowing participants to explore within the area of context by their characters.
Roles - to let participants see the different perspectives and develop empathy and relationship with the character.
Frame - builds up tension by comparing protagonist and antagonist. 
Sign - Objects, sounds, language, symbols, gestures etc. to give meaning.
Strategies - Using elements of drama to make meaning and comparisons.


Teachers are the most important in process drama. Other than planning and strategizing, teachers also must guide and provide directional instructions. They are facilitators instead of 'teachers'. As Heathcote (cited in Wagner, 1999) said, 'an educator is a self-conscious master teacher who works daily to show others how to find material, select symbols, acheive dramatic focus, heighten tension, and slow pace to lead children to significant moments of insights.' (Pg 3-4) Without a facilitator, the learning process will be in a mess and could go out of the way. Students will see teachers as the higher knowledgeable person and will look towards the goals of the teacher. When they have questions or doubts, they ask the teacher. The teacher also engages student's critical thinking through questioning and reflecting, whether in dialogue or during the process of making. 


Another strategy that can make a good process drama is to have a teacher-in-role. Teachers are not only facilitators, they are also participants, which make a lot of difference in the play itself. The play then becomes a reality because nobody is watching outside of the play. According to Heathcote and Bolton (1995), they state that teacher-in-role enables the child by being 'framed as a human being responsible for the enterprise, he has no choice but to aim beyond his normal ability and to break the confines of rigidly held concepts.' (Pg 35) When adults are involved, the play gets serious and the student is required to think beyond his thinking ability and capacity in order to carry out the task. 


I think the activities carried out was very suitable and good for process drama because there is teacher-in-role which Mr Kwok acted as the MP and the chairperson of the resident committee. Getting him involved means (to us) serious work but it was also fun because a teacher gets to 'play' along with us. So instead of a theatrical based work, it becomes a process-oriented work where everyone is involved. When we become the residents, we become in character and we fought for our own positions and rights. It is a space where we, as residents, can state our opinions freely. We, as a committee, also come up with different solutions and perspective of the situation. However, we had the problem of how the teacher should get out of role so that the students know when they are in role or when they are not. I like the part where each group had to create a short piece on why they do not support the en bloc and why they support because then we are able to come up with possible situations to support our stand. 


Bibliography


Heathcote, D. & Bolton, G. (1995) Drama for Learning: Dorothy Heathcote's Mantle of the Expert Appriach to Education. Heinemann: USA.


Wagner, B. J. (1999) Dorothy Heathcote: Drama as a Learning Medium. Calendar Islands Publishers Maine: USA.


Bowell, P. & Heap, B. (2001) Planning Process Drama. David Fulton: London.
Pamela Bowell and Brian S. Heap (2001) Planning Process Drama_David Fulton_London.pdf