My apologies for yesterday’s post, which was unnecessarily downbeat; I was tired, a bit off-colour (I’ll spare you the details) and – despite all the warnings we’d been given – rather disappointed. I am supposed to be the professional after all, so NOT running the perfect drama lesson was inevitably galling.
Today was a considerable step up. We played Zip Zap Boing (I play that with everyone), tried out portraying some emotions, and then some stock characters – kings/queens and servants, before putting them into a (much simplified) story. With the help of Zaid and Christina, two of the Dubai / Jordanian volunteers, I demonstrated the idea first. The pupils tend to copy pretty directly, lacking the confidence to express their own ideas, and I’d rather they had a more sophisticated model to work from. Besides, it gave me the opportunity to perform, and that’s not something to be lightly dismissed.
The king/servant motif also occurs in one of the plays, so that’s a bonus. However, despite the satisfaction I feel with the progress made in just one day, the idea that we can put together a public performance of a scripted play is, frankly, pie in the sky. Still, we have another two and a half weeks and hey, miracles happen.
Sue
I found some sobering statistics today: 8,4 million children are in need in Syria and neighbouring countries, 2,4 million children of Syria now live as refugees in Turkey, the Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. 6,000 schools can no longer be used in Syria. 2,8 million Syrian children are out of school.