A Reflective Practitioner's Guide to (Mis)Adventures in Drama Education - or - What Was I Thinking?

Edited by Peter Duffy

Publication date:

15 July 2015

Publisher

Intellect Books

Dimensions:

229x178mm
7x9"

ISBN-13: 9781783204731

This collection of essays from many of the world’s preeminent drama education practitioners captures the challenges and struggles of teaching with honesty, humour, openness and integrity. Collectively the authors possess some two hundred years of shared experience in the field, and each essay investigates the mistakes of best-intentions, the lack of awareness, and the omissions that pock all of our careers. The authors ask, and answer quite honestly, a series of difficult and reflexive questions: What obscured our understanding of our students’ needs in a particular moment? What drove our professional expectations? And how has our practice changed as a result of those experiences? Modelled on reflective practice, this book will be an essential, everyday guide to the challenges of drama education.

Foreword

Introduction

Part One: Hoops of My Making

Chapter 1: “Chicken Merry, Hawk deh near”: A Letter of Apology – Brian S. Heap

Chapter 2: The Vicious Circle: A Study in Stupidity – Peter Duffy

Chapter 3: Teaching in Role: Just Another Name is Never Enough – Pamela Bowell

Chapter 4: Storying the Dramas of Teaching Drama – Christine Hatton

Chapter 5: Giant Mistakes – Patrice Baldwin

Chapter 6: “A Lord of the Flies Moment”: The Consequences of Wrong Gaming Directions – Johnny Saldaña

Chapter 7: Teaching by Terror: Ordeal, Ego and Education – John O’Toole

Part Two: Assumptions and Expectations: Failing Better

Chapter 8: Kindling Fires and Facing Giants: Learning About Drama from Children with Special Needs – Robert Colby

Chapter 9: An Alaskan Education: From Service to Sustainability – Kathryn Dawson

Chapter 10: What Was I Thinking: Why Am I Thinking As I Do? – Gustave J. Weltsek

Chapter 11: Encountering the Unexpected and Extending the Horizons of Expectation: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Developing Teaching Practice – Michael Anderson

Chapter 12: Democracy Over-Ruled, Or How to Deny Young Children’s Agency and Voice Through Drama! – Julie Dunn

Chapter 13: What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You – Christina Marín

Chapter 14: “Texting” in the Drama Classroom: Pedagogical Adjustments to Unfamiliar Cultures from a Guest Artist Perspective – Allison Manville Metz

Chapter 15: The Day that Shrek Was Almost Rescued: Doing Process Drama with Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder – Carmel O’Sullivan

Chapter 16: Failing Better – Juliana Saxton

Afterword: Looking Back to See Ahead – David Booth

'The book’s deliberate rebuttal of the happy endings that dominate the literature makes it a significant addition to both drama education and the field of reflective practice. It offers examples of how reflection can be structured and where these practitioners turned for guidance, making it a key resource for students and teachers alike.'