Volume 1 Number 5
Hi Folks,
Feeling better this week. Although, I must confess to some concern over the affairs of the world in recent weeks. Students are not helped by being "sheltered" from such events. As Drama teachers we can play an active role in allowing students to explore their own understanding of events. To that end this week I propose an activity that explores attitudes to war - not just the war we are seeing now but any and all wars... although the current conflict can be the stimulus.
One approach is the Living
Newspaper, considered “something for which we will be grateful for
many years to come,
something which will mean a tremendous amount in the future,
socially, and in the education and growing up of America…
far more than any amount of speeches
which…I – or even the President – might make.”
(Eleanor Roosevelt)
LESSON/ACTIVITY IDEA
"In all wars the object is to
protect or to seize money, property and power, and there will always be
wars so long as Capital rules and oppresses people."
—Ernst Friedrich, War Against War (1924)
"Once lead this people into war
and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight
you must be brutal and ruthless and the spirit of ruthlessness will
enter into the very fiber of our national life, infecting Congress, the
courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street."
—Woodrow Wilson (five days prior to asking Congress to declare war on
Germany in 1917)
"The enemy aggressor is always
pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine, and barbarism. We are
always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the deity
to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to
civilize savage and senile and paranoidal peoples while blundering
accidentally into their oil wells or metal mines."
—John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching
In order to create a Living Newspaper production it is essential that students have a broad and considered view of the event being dealt with. Events such as the action being taken by the "coalition" in Iraq are complex and have developed over time. It is paramount in dealing with such matters that students are encouraged to question ALL reports relating to the topic. There is no room for flag waving and ill-informed patriotic fervour. Students need access to a broad range of reports - preferably primary sources...
Your first job is to gather a well rounded collection of resources - accounts from participants in other conflicts - and by this I mean anything from ancient times to the recent. Look at the The History of the Peloponnesian War ... the various European wars... civil wars... World Wars... Vietnam... Boer War... the web is littered with documents. We are not aiming at agit-prop, rather an informed evaluation of our own world view and the circumstances of our world.
Also gather together a collection of significant news reports about the current conflict. And while you're at it you might swing by the websites for the US, UK and Australian governments... get their take on things as well as from some of their ideological opponents... a few helpful sites are in the RECOMMENDED WEBSITES below.
I think you get the idea of what's required.... the approaches below are really just stepping stones to a more substantial project - "rich tasks" as we are now calling them.
I suppose the history of this lies in the fact I was once asked to sub for a History teacher - in typical fashion I found myself left in "babysitter" mode while the class was expected to watch an episode of "Men at War" - a documentary about World War I. An all boy class were not engaging with the material at all - so I stopped the video and got the students involved in a similar process to some of the activities I mention below. After engaging in a "personal" exploration through Drama we went back to the video - this time they noticed men dying, saw the significance of the clouds of gas rolling into trenches, understood better the looks on the faces of the soldiers... they also began to question - they entered into "enquiry"... and I believe then they started to learn...
Activity 1
Distribute sections of the diaries/personal accounts amongst the students - have them read and select an entry to work with. Based on the writing they should go through a regular "character profiling" - decide the who, what, when, where, why and how of the person writing.
Have students select a section that they work into a monologue presentation.
Present the monologues - discuss the experiences of the character - what was the issue of the war for each person?
Have the the students extrapolate the character - locate them in a different time and place and improvise a reminiscence.
Activity 2
Using transcripts or reports from heads of state and significant politicians/public figures... such as Presidents, Prime Ministers, Heads of Defence, Foreign Ministers, Secretary of State... go through a similar process to Activity 1 - get students to role play these figures using the transcripts - do not parody!
Based on what is said have the the students identify the issues that are stated as the rationalisation for war...
Structure press interviews... "hot seat" these characters.
This section will need the teacher to guide the students to extend their thinking about the purpose of war generally... why do we come to war? have all other more reasonable options been truly explored and applied? whose voice and interests are really being heard?
Activity 3
What we want to do now is look at the differences and similarities between conflicts - how was war "evolved", i.e. how has the experience changed for the participants?
Role play some of the original characters - improvise their descriptions of a battle or encounter they experienced... have the rest of the class identify significant differences, eg. in some conflicts the fighting was hand-to-hand, some as machine driven, is artillery different across the ages, how does it affect the fighting forces.
Introduce students to the articles
about the
The Legendary Christmas Truces -
see http://www.mondaymemo.net/011217feature.htm
or
A Different Christmas Story - see http://www.inq7.net/opi/2002/dec/24/opi_mltan-1.htm
that describe a particular Christmas in the trenches during World War 1,
when the German and English soldiers suspended hostilities to celebrate
Xmas and share a meal and a soccer match only to resume the battle the
next day.
Improvise fictional versions of the same type of thing in other contexts - look at the "personal" aspect of war - what do the soldiers talk about, think about, what is important to them, etc
Discuss the possibility of this type of event in modern warfare - how does the technology affect the personal experience... what is the difference between fighting the enemy you've shared a meal with and the enemy that appears as a green spot on a radar screen?
Activity 4
Explore the experience of the family and friends of people at war. Use similar processes to above - or use role circles, tableaux, emotion machines, etc.
Role play families dealing with the experience of having a father, brother, mother, sister, etc at war. What role does the media play?
Activity 5
Using current newspaper stories - have students dramatise the story - using the concept of a Living Newspaper have the students create an enacted version of the story and include as much of the background, history and issues. The idea is to make the news a living experience - to recover all the aspects that are deleted, distorted and generalised in the news...
The whole process of human experience is one of deletion (we only attend to certain aspects of our experience), distortion (we restructure our perceptions to fit our world view), and generalisation (we colour our world based on generalised rules rather than specific analysis)... in this dramatic process we want to try to reclaim what we filter out... to move closer to the "actual".
Activity 6
This is probably the most challenging phase - review with the students the reasons for the decision to go to war. Now we want to go back in time before the decision was made- we want to look at the circumstances and explore alternatives... and example might be to look at the UNSC (United Nations Security Council) - have students represent the various factions and start with the same problems.
Using a Forum Theatre approach explore the problem and possible solutions - can they manage to avoid the same outcome... try to challenge the students to be believable in this exploration - neither side can give in too easily, they should account for vested interests, perceptions of "weakness", uncooperative behaviour, social and cultural differences...
Ongoing...
It might be a useful exercise to now turn to some plays - Mother Courage, Arturo Ui, Oh, What a Lovely War, etc
RECOMMENDED WEBSITES
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
July 10-12, 2003
Hosted in the Hyatt Regency
St. Louis at Union Station
Six Preconferences:
• Multiple Intelligences Series
• Best Practices of National Schools of Character
• Coaching For Character
• Ethical Fitness
• Take Character Education To The Next Step
• African American Academic AchievementFive Keynotes by:
• Pedro Noguera
• Michele Borba
• Linda Biehl
• Don Bartlette
• Alvin Poussaint
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
Acting
Out: The Workbook: A Guide to the Development and Presentation of
Issue-Oriented, Audience-Interactive, Improvisational Theatre
by Mario Cossa, Sally S. Fleischmann Ember, Lauren Grover, Jennifer L. Hazelwood, Sally S. Fleischmann
Sociodrama: Who's in Your Shoes
by Antonina Garcia, Patricia Sternberg
In its fully
revised second edition, this book is devoted solely to the study of
sociodrama, a group learning process, that provides practice in solving
problems of human relations through action while uncovering the
commonalities among people, allowing the thoughts, feelings, and hopes
of all who participate to rise to the surface. This insightful guide
helps participants in group work to come to a new understanding about
themselves, each other, and the world at large by providing a living
laboratory for practicing new and more satisfying ways to approach
problems, clarify values, express feelings, and practice new behaviours.
The theoretical and practical guidance offered in this book will help
management and staff trainers, educators, psychotherapists,
sociologists, theatre artists, pastoral counsellors, and others in, or
planning on joining, the help professions to provide a vital modality
for energizing even the most passive groups.
Check out books by Augusto Boal - Theatre of the Oppressed, Rainbow Of Desire, etc
Kim Flintoff