Human Acts of Imagination: Drama and the Culture of Education｜DaTEAsia Vol. 9

APA Citation

Cooper, C. (2020). Human acts of imagination: drama and the culture of educatione. The Journal of Drama and Theatre Education in Asia, 9, 99-124.

The “subject” of educational drama and theatre is what it is to be human, our focus is on the self. The self of course is socially constructed and as drama and theatre are social art forms, the relationship between self and society and society in the self is at the core of what we do. Form and content is indivisible, meaning making is paramount. How we learn, the philosophy and pedagogy that underpins the art form of drama, and the culture of education that nurtures it is therefore critical to everything we do. The point of any story explored through drama is to use a fictional other in order to know ourselves, the world that we are part of and is in us, in order that we can be active agents in our own lives based on our understanding. Drawing on the experience of Drama Rainbow over the last decade, this article explores the role that drama and narrative thinking can play in creating a culture of education that challenges fixed and conventional notions of what knowledge is, and offers a radical perspective on the kind of meaning making needed to enable children and young people to meet the environmental, socio-economic and political challenges of living in the 21st century.