Drama for Schools and Beyond: Transformative Learning Through the Arts

Transformative Professional Learning in Arts Integration invites educators and artists to name and center dilemma, discovery, and learning at the core of their collaborative efforts to improve the learning culture of classrooms through the arts. A dilemma comes in many forms. Personal and programmatic dilemmas are often the result of a rupture between personal belief and the requirements of a system. The rupture - or dilemma - seeds a desire for something new, something better. However, as Queensland Aboriginal activists remind us, we must address our own bias and power in relationship to those we presume to support: "If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time; but if you are here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” This text, therefore, shares the stories of individuals working towards collective educational improvement and change. It is a story of failure and possibility, about individuals “bound up with” with each other, harnessing the power of the arts, in the common effort to make education more just and equitable for all. Drama for Schools and Beyond: Transformative Learning Through the Arts, tells the story of twenty years of research and practice grounded in the Drama for Schools (DFS) professional development learning model based at The University of Texas at Austin, USA. This book offers a critical look at the evolution of Drama for Schools through the learnings of its leaders and participants. It also gathers stories from partners across the globe who have adapted and built upon this model at their own sites. It is a primer for how to centre teacher and student inquiry and learning at the core of educational improvement. It is an invitation for teachers, administrators, and researchers to address their own bias and power in relation to those they aim to support. Throughout, the authors show that by integrating the arts across education, new networks of possibility can be grown, to create a more just and equitable education for all.