Drama for Schools and Beyond
Drama for Schools and Beyond (Book)
Transformative Learning Through the Arts
This is the story of the evolution of the Drama for Schools professional learning program. Told through the learning of its leaders and participants and the growth of the art integration program beyond its inception. It is a primer on how to re-centre teachers and students as the driver of the effort to improve education through the arts.
Edition
Transformative Professional Learning in Arts Integration invites educators and artists to name and center dilemma, discovery, and learning at the core of their collaborative efforts to improve the learning culture of classrooms through the arts. A dilemma comes in many forms.
Personal and programmatic dilemmas are often the result of a rupture between personal belief and the requirements of a system. The rupture - or dilemma - seeds a desire for something new, something better. However, as Queensland Aboriginal activists remind us, we must address our own bias and power in relationship to those we presume to support: "If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time; but if you are here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” This text, therefore, shares the stories of individuals working towards collective educational improvement and change.
It is a story of failure and possibility, about individuals “bound up with” with each other, harnessing the power of the arts, in the common effort to make education more just and equitable for all.
Drama for Schools and Beyond: Transformative Learning Through the Arts, tells the story of twenty years of research and practice grounded in the Drama for Schools (DFS) professional development learning model based at The University of Texas at Austin, USA.
This book offers a critical look at the evolution of Drama for Schools through the learnings of its leaders and participants. It also gathers stories from partners across the globe who have adapted and built upon this model at their own sites. It is a primer for how to centre teacher and student inquiry and learning at the core of educational improvement. It is an invitation for teachers, administrators, and researchers to address their own bias and power in relation to those they aim to support.
Throughout, the authors show that by integrating the arts across education, new networks of possibility can be grown, to create a more just and equitable education for all.
Kathryn Dawson is a teaching artist and associate professor of theatre at The University of Texas at Austin, USA, where she uses the arts to create more equitable and just learning environments for all. She is the head of the graduate program in Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities, a Provost's Teaching Fellow, head of Creative Collaborations for the Planet Texas 2050 transdisciplinary research initiative, and Director of Drama for Schools.
Beth Link is an Assistant Professor of Art Education at the University of North Texas, USA, where she investigates how the arts can explore multiple perspectives, dismantle hierarchies, and enable students to bridge differences. She has nearly two decades of teaching experience in schools, communities, and museums and has facilitated arts-integrated professional development for teachers across the globe.
Stephanie Cawthon is the Catherine Mae Parker Centennial Professor in Education and Graduate Advisor in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Austin, USA, with a courtesy appointment in the Special Education. She serves as the Director of Research and Evaluation for Drama for Schools as well as the Executive Director of the National Disability Center for Student Success.
Lara Dossett is an Assistant Professor of Instruction at The University of Texas at Austin, USA, in the Department of Theatre and Dance. Through her practice-based research Lara is committed to building intentional communities of practice and systems that support art-based teaching and learning in K-12 contexts.
Introduction
Part 1: Drama for Schools
1. What is Drama for Schools?
2. Planting Seeds, Establishing Roots: Drama for Schools Alaska
3. Transformative Professional Learning in Arts Integration
Part 2: Three Stories of Transformation in Texas
Introduction
4. Systems Change Transformation Story (Where)
5. Constructivism Transformation Story (How)
6. Social Justice Transformation Story (Why)
Conclusion
Part 3: Teachers Transforming Education from Within
Introduction
7. Teachers as Researchers
8. Teachers as Artists
9. Teachers as Collaborators
10. Teachers as Agents of Change
Learning Forward
Part 4: Transformative Coalitions of Students and Teachers
Introduction
11. The Student Learning Community in South Australia
12. The Student Teacher Learning Community in Texas
Learning Forward
Epilogue
Appendices
Index
