Secret Teacher: Issue 94

Like every other Drama teacher, I miss being in the room with my students, but there is something about teachers that won't be beaten. If something is a challenge, or seems impossible, I immediately think ‘just watch me.’ I am certainly no Dr Pangloss but there is a need to inject optimism into the online experience. Lockdown in March last year, however devastating, offered an opportunity to start trying out new ideas. We were very fortunate to have amazing networking groups for Drama teachers, who began to offer CPD and talks, as did several professional companies.

Fortunately, we got back in the room to get to know our new Year 12 classes in September. It soon became apparent that we needed to work on their confidence. So many of them had a fear of getting things wrong and that fear was stifling their ability to be creative. We encouraged them to get things wrong and be playful because that is how we learn. This was re-enforced in every lesson and they soon started to get a lot braver and rise to creative challenges.

To engage students in devising online, I put together a bank of resources gathered from practitioners. I set them off with a very simple stimulus and they worked over Zoom. They were incredibly motivated to carry on creating and it became clear through providing exciting resources and encouraging them to be playful that they were eager to experiment. They were amazing and produced some exciting work. They are not phased about preparing plays in lockdown.

Would they be ready to tackle the challenges of online working? I set about interrogating my resources. How could I deliver practitioner lessons online without droning on over a PowerPoint? I started with Artaud and decided to inject a lot more fun into the stylistic examples I showed them, sending PowerPoints to them in advance as to not bore them witless.

I found that to contrast the bleakness of the situation, unconventional and relaxed resources were more motivational; surrealism can be very funny. In four days, they each made short, surreal videos. They blew our minds! Effectively utilising a plethora of household objects. It is astonishing what teenagers can do on a mobile phone; how they can edit and soundscape. We watched them together and the chat function was on fire. I am really excited to read their evaluations!

Do you have views you'd like to express anonymously? Get in touch with the editor at sarah.lambie@markallengroup.com and ask if you can contribute a Secret Teacher column. We'd love to hear from you!