“We research to help others”

The main discussion at the Drama Teachers’ Hub / MTL seminar on 16^th January 2021 took a  look at the rest of the Drama MTL blog site 

We asked, what is most useful for our research?

Stacy: anything that is self-reflective, because that is a model for my own auto-ethnographic research.  The most useful material that grabs you as a reader is often emotive, speaking of personal relationships.  A good example would be Nathan Wyer’s account of the expectations placed on teachers: 

https://dramamtl.wordpress.com/2020/03/25/losing-your-cool-in-the-class/

The home/online learning resources are useful: https://dramamtl.wordpress.com/2020/03/23/living-or-surviving-sharing-ideas-in-the-current-crisis/

Lee: I’m also more drawn to writing that is about people’s situation.  The world has created the need for a ‘meta narrative’ because we are not getting these conversations a lot of the time, despite all sharing a common environment and headspace. 

Suzie: In thinking about my second critical incident, I have been looking at the accounts by Chris and by Katja Ropret Perne of the ‘Socially Distant’ play and ‘Living Question’ event.  These raise questions about what ‘social distance’ means in the classroom … and indeed at home (what is the need for Drama at home? Are workpacks and online lessons enough?)

https://dramamtl.wordpress.com/2020/10/24/you-show-me-but-i-can-not-see-katja-ropret-perne/

https://dramamtl.wordpress.com/2020/10/02/socially-distant-teacher-fragility-in-a-covid-supernova-mrcjbolton/

This led onto a discussion about social and physical distance and how we can do social Drama while physically distancing.  

Richard: What is the relationship between neoliberalism and social distance?  Schools have been expected to form part of a neoliberal model for 20+ years.  We are seeing a separation between self and our subject (i.e. Drama) and between teachers and pupils.  The ‘other’ becomes a threat rather than part of a potential shared community.  Social media is full of individual stories, but we don’t know how to listen to each other.  What stories are we telling … or do we need to find stories that we can all share?  Common points in our classrooms and our lives?

Frankie: I am just starting a foundation course in Drama therapy and hopes it will bring some perspectives on such questions.

Ed: What we choose to inspect as part of Drama has become increasingly important.  I am currently working with Y9 pupils and using ‘DNA’ to explore teenage decision-making, the morality of teenage thought.  This suggests to me that Drama can live in the online world as a means of inspecting self and other, a manifesto for deeper thought.

(Comments: “DNA is the most overrated ‘modern’ playtext;” “This may be an opportunity to uncover the depth of drama that is sometimes brushed over”).

The group agreed that a recorded read-through of the as-yet unperformed ‘End of Reason’ play, ‘The Land Between Two Rivers’ would be welcome as part of the next session.

References:

Chris Cooper (2020). ‘The Land Between Two Rivers’.  Big Brum TIE.  Downloadable at: https://www.bigbrum.org.uk/end-of-reason-publication

Dennis Kelly (2009). ‘DNA’. Oberon Books.