And so we have come to the end of my week teaching teachers how to teach Drama. It was a bit of an additional task: while I was in Lucknow for the production, would I mind taking some workshops? No, not at all, I replied. Not that I have ever taught teachers before, but I was willing to give it a go. Sixty teachers had signed up, I was told. Still fine, just so long as it was in two groups of thirty; otherwise all I could do was talk at them, when what I needed to do was show them how Drama could be taught. Not should. No should about it. For there are a million ways to approach the subject, since every teacher is different.
And so it was that for the past two weeks, the participants have been treated as both a class of students, being introduced to Drama, and a group of teachers, learning about it. And I have had an absolute blast. I absolutely adore introducing the subject to people who have not done it before, and witnessing that blossoming of confidence, of people realising that this is something they can do, whatever they may have thought in the past.
it has been such enormous fun, with gales of laughter. And we have all learned a huge amount. Including, to my huge surprise, me.
Writing the course, and deciding how to structure it, has meant that I have been analytical about my subject in a way I have never been before. And one of the things I have realised (though if I am honest, I have always been aware of it) is that I talk too much. (Now there’s a surprise!) That when explaining an exercise, if I give too many examples of what I want, I am stealing from the students the opportunity to come up with that themselves. That actually even one example is removing one idea from the table (for who likes to copy?) And that even one example shapes their imagination, sends it in a particular direction. Whereas if one leaves it to them, who knows what possibilities might arise? So much fresher. So much more original. So much better than the same tired old ideas I have been trotting out for decades.
The teachers have enjoyed it, I think. (Actually, that is false modesty – I know they have.) All of us have enjoyed it immensely.
Will it lead anywhere? That is up to CMS. I have shared with both groups of students, as well as with Medha, the deputy head who has been looking after me so efficiently and with such consideration, my own opinion: that if they want Drama to be taught here, then they need to provide the necessary resources. A suitable physical space, and a place on the timetable – the easy bits. Far more difficult is the commitment of ongoing resources, not to teach the subject, for actually it is very cheap to teach. But to provide for manageable numbers. The standard class size here seems to be about fifty, and that is too many. But to reduce that requires money, to employ another teacher. (And that in turn might engender envy from other subjects.) Hard decisions.
But when I came here, I told them I could not teach more that thirty teachers. And if I can’t do that, when I have been teaching the subject for fifty years, how on earth can inexperienced teachers trying it for the very first time?
