A Reflective Practitioner's Guide to (Mis)Adventures in Drama Education - or - What Was I Thinking?
A Reflective Practitioner's Guide to (Mis)Adventures in Drama Education - or - What Was I Thinking? (Book)
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.
Edition
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.
Peter Duffy (Ed.D.) is Head of the Master of Arts in Teaching Program in Theatre Education at the University of South Carolina.
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.'
