Southeast Center for Education in the Arts

Integration inherently occurs in nature, daily life, and society – certainly in our interrelated, symbiotic 21st century world. So why then do our schools separate instruction into siloed disciplines? Our educational systems must be reinvented to meet the needs of our increasingly complex, diverse, globalized, media-saturated society. People have to be able to function, create, and communicate personally, socially, economically, and politically in local, national, and global venues. Schools must develop an interdisciplinary culture of inquiry where students work both independently and collaboratively, employing critical thinking and multiple intelligences for imaginative problem solving. How is this possible?

For an exemplifier of 21st century learning consider theatre which is, by its very nature, an interdisciplinary art form drawing on multiple aspects of human experience, knowledge, and skills. Theatre is a collaborative art that fosters social awareness and responsibility and requires group cooperation to achieve ensemble. Group members continually make choices, selecting and rejecting ideas, negotiating meaning, and evaluating the effectiveness of their communication.

There are eight roles associated with the creation, performance, and criticism of theatre:  researcher, playwright, director, designer, technician, actor, audience, and critic. Discipline-based theatre education provides opportunities for students to engage in activities that enable them see and explore the totality of theatre from the perspectives of all these roles. 

The concepts, processes, and values inherent in theatre are studied and explored through four methods of inquiry: production, history, aesthetics, and criticism. Each of these interrelated approaches provides a different perspective for experiencing, understanding, reflecting upon, and valuing the art of theatre. All four methods of inquiry are employed in varying degrees by researchers, playwrights, directors, designers, technicians, actors, audience members, and critics.

Theatre Is a Way of Knowing

Dramatic play and informal theatre are integral aspects of the human experience prevalent in every culture throughout the ages. Shakespeare observed that all the world is a stage and all the men and women players, each in time playing many parts.

From birth, children instinctively use pretend play as a means of making sense of the world. They observe and respond to their environment. They imitate words and actions. They are entertained by nursery rhymes, stories, television and movies, and soon progress to play-acting, recreating favorite tales and role-playing characters in situations of their own devising. They interact with peers and arrange space and objects to create environments for their stories. They direct one another to bring order to their dramatic play. And they respond to one another’s dramas. As they mature, they learn to change roles to meet the expectations of different audiences. They fantasize, envisioning roles in future events. They improvise, reacting to realities in the daily drama of life. And when not “on-stage,” they become an audience observing the actualities of the human drama as well as recreations enacted on television, in films, and upon the stage.

This world full of theatre comes in the doors of schools with the children who have learned language and behavior through the natural developmental process of drama. They arrive with rudimentary skills as playwrights, actors, designers, directors, and audience members. They possess powerful instinctive learning techniques, which all too often are curtailed through regimentation and rote teaching.

Outside the classroom children are typically active, self-directed learners. Educational theatre fosters these qualities in school situations, helping students to maintain and refine techniques and skills for exploring a wide range of interests. By responding to other people’s cues and receiving response in return, children begin to establish their own identities. They learn to take risks as they explore new possibilities through conversation and role-play. They learn about life through the stories of others and their own storying in dramatic play. In creative dramatizations of literature and improvisational explorations of playscripts, students actively engage in situations that make sense to them in terms of their experiences and their present levels of understanding.

As individuals role-play, things happen and words are spoken that affect and modify the actions and behaviors of others. The introduction of ideas and issues challenge students to consider the implications of their decisions and to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. To take on a role is to detach oneself from what is implicitly known and understood. It invites analysis, evaluation, modification, and synthesis of concepts already held.

Education in general is the process of helping individuals find essential meanings in life. These meanings accrue as people live and draw inferences from actual and symbolic experiences. Through theatre, students are engaged in make-believe situations, yet the real world continues to exist. The learning that occurs stems from the interaction of actual and symbolic meanings. Time can be altered and ideas juxtaposed. What is important is not so much the literal enactment of a plot but the process of exploring the meanings of the story – the themes, concepts, and issues. And ultimately the significance of the dramatic experience depends not so much on the event itself but on the analysis and reflection that occurs during and afterwards.