Comments for Becoming A Drama Teacher http://sjnicholas.vineblogs.net Another excellent Vineblogs.net weblog Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:15:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 Comment on A Pre-Service Teacher by Kim Flintoff http://sjnicholas.vineblogs.net/2007/08/19/a-pre-service-teacher/#comment-4 Kim Flintoff Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:18:05 +0000 http://sjnicholas.vineblogs.net/2007/08/19/a-pre-service-teacher/#comment-4 While I might baulk at the military metaphor, yes teachers do play a role - but is it really as the keeper of the armoury? What about "personal agency" - what about a shuift to heutagogy? Where the goal is that students become self-directed learners... the goal is to learn to learn, and to love to learn, or at least not fear to learn. Yes, there are many competing demands and interests... all valid in some context - not necessarily educational... other people's expectations of high production value perfroamnces has very little to do with the core of Drama education... sometimes it falls to the drama teacher to stand up to the demands to sell out education to become the marketing arm of the school or to pander to some fragile ego that has been manufactured by parents and an uncritical commodified culture of "performing arts". Learned fragility isn't something they'll teach you about at university - but you've already seen it haven't you? Teachers can be adaptive, responsive, resilient, comfortable with risk, ambiguity and uncertainty, to some extent they can be courageous... teachers can be culture jammers when they need to be.. they can be resistant, they can be provocative, they can instigate meaningful change... what they can't do is be responsible for other people who refuse to claim ownership of emotions, beliefs and other behaviours that are predicated in deferring personal responsibility... .. and yes, that can draw flak to return to your military metaphor... resilience, conviction, knowledge and information can be like a flak jacket and ward off most potential damage... ...and sometimes surrender can be tactical... While I might baulk at the military metaphor, yes teachers do play a role - but is it really as the keeper of the armoury? What about “personal agency” - what about a shuift to heutagogy? Where the goal is that students become self-directed learners… the goal is to learn to learn, and to love to learn, or at least not fear to learn.

Yes, there are many competing demands and interests… all valid in some context - not necessarily educational… other people’s expectations of high production value perfroamnces has very little to do with the core of Drama education… sometimes it falls to the drama teacher to stand up to the demands to sell out education to become the marketing arm of the school or to pander to some fragile ego that has been manufactured by parents and an uncritical commodified culture of “performing arts”.

Learned fragility isn’t something they’ll teach you about at university - but you’ve already seen it haven’t you?

Teachers can be adaptive, responsive, resilient, comfortable with risk, ambiguity and uncertainty, to some extent they can be courageous… teachers can be culture jammers when they need to be.. they can be resistant, they can be provocative, they can instigate meaningful change…

what they can’t do is be responsible for other people who refuse to claim ownership of emotions, beliefs and other behaviours that are predicated in deferring personal responsibility…

.. and yes, that can draw flak to return to your military metaphor… resilience, conviction, knowledge and information can be like a flak jacket and ward off most potential damage…

…and sometimes surrender can be tactical…

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