Life is diverse, or is it?

David Porter
Friday, March 1, 2019

One of our contemporary buzzwords is ‘diversity’ and we are indeed an increasingly diverse nation in terms of gender, ethnicity, faith, politics, ability/disabilities all sharing the same spaces. This is perhaps more true in cities than in more rural areas, but the fact is that people, while sharing common characteristics, are very different from each other, even within families. Children develop at different rates, people hold opposing views, all have to tolerate others and learn to work and live with each other or we have no society. This scheme of five 90-minute sessions (with some warm-ups) is developed around diversity. Drama needs conflict, so sessions are not intended to be comfortable feel-good displays of harmony, but lessons in living that will develop drama skills and provoke thought. There needs to be story in each session. But within that, each character has a unique story to tell. It may convey a message, humour, tragedy, be informative or act as a warning. But what is the story? Learning objectives are common to each session and warm-ups are not suggested in every session, as some teachers prefer to make their own or go straight to the main theme if time is short. Instead some ideas are suggested which could be used through the scheme and may be revisited if teachers feel there is mileage in them.