"When education becomes about objectives, then the objective is no longer education." -Unknown
The science of education is a complex one. In a lesson, students absorb and are exposed to many different things. Their eyes observe many different things and they learn a myriad of subjects.
Although the lesson objectives are dictated by the teacher, the student learns a much more important component: human behavior. Human behavior may include social interaction and social expectations. These interactions and expectations would not be without values like respect, care, tolerance, understanding and so on.
An important value, however, that needs to established would be respect. Respect ensures a safe and conducive environment for student(s), teachers and parents to share knowledge instead the transfer of knowledge. It is fundamental to an innovative and creative environment that sees all its participants as contributors. The appreciation and non-judgemental utopia depends on the presence of respect, without which will only create a form of rote learning, that, instead, requires obedience.
In some schools, the values are instilled, or rather, intended to be instilled, through the presumption that students have a loyalty to the school or created as an unwritten rule that they must or should. It is often heard that if the school advocates a certain value to be a part of its student's character, a student must/should show that value. That is comparable to tell cancer patients in a death house to be cheerful and have a positive outlook because the values of the death house are "Be positive; things might turn around." (Ok maybe not the right example.)
Critics may agree that while they may agree that the well-meant plan sounds vaguely ridiculous, there is much better alternative in ensuring children are constantly and rightfully taught these values, or more specifically, the value of respect. Through learning the more important values that should be a part of a mature adult human being who wishes to contribute willingly and productively to his/her community and society.
With many factors affecting the nature of children being shy in class, afraid of mental judgement, which may be influenced by their background while growing up, which, in turn, may affect their social circles and social life, teachers are finding it harder and harder to get the kids to talk. Ironically, this isn't the case at the playground or the mall. So there must be something wrong with the school then, since the members of the social community doesn't change; only the context or environment does.
Through personal observation, manby will realize the common factor between constant chatter of students especially those aged 14 and below, or any youth actually, is that it is a common subset of topics that range from games, shopping, relationships etc. The more interesting observation is that these conversations are generally grouped under 2 different categories: problem scenarios and achievements.
One interesting analysis would be that youngsters are more proud to share their social victories at younger levels though their ability to trust generally takes time, thus hiding their social inadequacies. Up the age scale, it's the other way around: teenages have more complex social and personal problems, and are generally quietly proud (ego?) about their successes, probably in fear of being judged and are relatively more trusting of their peers (once there is a similar in trust), probably due to the need to belong to a particular identity or group.
And this is exactly what drama in education aims to tap on and empower students with.
Given the opportunity of empowerment over one's education without changing or altering instructional objectives through a problem or scenario while without knowing it i.e. incidental or subtle learning behavioural produces interesting behavioural results.
the core idea of this study is that humans learn best through play. Humans only play when there is freedom and safety: physically, intellectually and emotionally. [need to talk about relationship between peers and how school policies, teacher personality play a large role. or should I?]
For this example, we will refer to an activity which had the theme of pirates.
The lesson begins with a series of games that not only enables students to share vocabulary, it empowers them with the ability to give it meaning. It is relatively common for students to know or learn a vocabulary and yet not know its intended meaning, aside from its other meanings. By giving them an opportunity to create meaning with actions and bodily movements, pupils share different meanings without realizing that they are learning which is an interesting manifestation of cognitive dissonance. Herein lies collaborative work and self-directed learning through the introductory of their own movements.
At this juncture, it is important to note that there are perspectives towards cognitive dissonance. However, this study is an advocate for cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance not only allows students to check and counter-check their own meaning, it allows them to compare their meanings with their peers. Students are thus naturally engaged given their nature of communication which constantly has problem scenarios and achievements and the nature of the youngsters to either share achievement or share problems or seek solutions.
Another possible case study is the process drama activity where participants are taught, or rather, put in a scenario where they play human beings who have a role in a reservation forest environment. The two roles they play, which can either be divided into two or given to all participants simultaneously, are constantly given problems and issues that are informed to them as if they were of utmost importance.
The educator and facilitators are no longer a mere teacher, plays a vital role in making sure that the 'play' remains real and current yet allowing participants to participate freely in a fantasy while being in a safe environment, physically, intellectually and emotionally. The result is a very interesting one where the participants experience the 'click' at the end of a trance or hypnotic state. They felt alienated after realizing reality because the amount of cognitive dissonance created several many perspectives angles from which the passion of the subject matter will be fuelled from. And this will lead to an intrinsic motivation towards learning and thus supporting the policy of self-directed learning.
Questions to ponder:
- Must rote learning be a part of education to achieve society's expectations of an education?
- Shareholders to all degrees must agree to what kind of education is best for the future of the country. Yes / No? Or only the government should decide?
- Drama allows subjects to be discussed critically, creatively and deeply. Does the education system prepares a child for this? Is it being done superficially aka just as long it's being done.
- Would policies such as minimum wage affect education policies? Would they lead to a human paying attention to more important knowledge, skills and opportunities for practice rather than textbook and regurgitation of paraphrases?
- How can we educate society? Personal take is that the fear stems from fear of having a job to support oneself i.e. government policy.
Drama: Past Traditional Teaching, Towards Praxis and Values of Humanity by Muhammad Khairy Farhan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at forcreativehomework.blogspot.com.
