What's The Point?

Educators and artists attest to the power of drama §and theatre to develop and educate the whole person. §However, learning in drama cannot be taken as a §given simply because students participate in §dramatic activities. This book presents an §ethnographic study that questions the nature of §dramatic experiences and the ways in which §adolescents develop in and through these §experiences. Its implementation combined a §theoretical and methodological inquiry into the §nature of dramatic experiences with a case study §involving a group of fourteen high school students §who participated in a semester long after-school §drama workshop. The focus of the project was to §create a piece of ethnotheatre based on the §students experiences and issues important in their §lives. Findings from this study provide a strong §argument for drama as a vital pedagogical vehicle in §which education becomes an experience of the §learning self in the making, which should be §insightful for educators in all disciplines, and §anyone wishing encourage young people to develop §diverse viewpoints of complex situations and a §reflective understanding of themselves and the world.