PhD Application

I am posting this in my continued conviction that the more people I tell about my PhD, the more certain I am to do it!
This is an itch that must be scratched, though merely writing the research proposal is feeling like such a mountain I'm wondering how I'll cope with the work itself...

So what's it all about?

'Play as a mode of learning in secondary education'

'Various developmental psychologists have showed the importance of play throughout our development, this has been taken up very positively in the early years' national curriculum, yet it begins to fall very steeply out of focus from KS2 and by secondary school is almost totally ignored. There is no reason for this to be the case and I want to show that. (and if possible start to change it!)'

Some people have laughed in my face when I've told them I'm applying for PhD funding in the current climate. Especially one in Education. Especially especially one in Arts Education. But I say now more than ever - with the knife poised to rip up an appreciation of the role of creativity and arts in education that has been slowly gaining in momentum - is the time to be ensuring there is advocacy for quality creative arts education work.
It strikes me secondary schools are particularly vunerable when it comes to promoting creativity - a variety of sources vaguely proclaim to them it is either beneficial or necessary they do so, but there is startlingly little hard research to quantify what qualifies as quality creative provision. And so schools are at the mercy of education businesses who make money from schools 'buying in' creativity provision to the tune of costly workshops and resource packs. Leaving teachers feeling disempowered and students, in my preliminary observations, confused.

So that's more or less the why. The what is to explore exactly what learning through play in secondary students looks like, what we can do to facilitate it, and along the way hopefully address some sticky issues such as can those on the Autistic spectrum learn through play (for the record, I say yes, and have seen the evidence at SEN schools to prove it - but how do you recreate that alongside non-autistic students in a mainstream school?...) and get on some of my related hobby-horses such as how learning through play is ideal at empowering social imaginations (that's society with the little and big S)
And so by the end of the three years I'll have dragged play kicking and screaming into secondary schools, spat in the face of those cheeky beggars trying to do horrible things to our schools in the name of political party posturing or profit, and have re-empowered teachers to use all their beautiful skills and develop some new ones. Simples....

When to stop

I wanted to talk today about the new youth theatre I've started volunteering at. I'm working with their new young group of 5-8 year olds.

What attracted me to this group is it's real commitment to inclusively. Young people are defined as individuals, rather than by traditional SEN labels, and support provided accordingly. There's also a commitment to training all volunteer practitioners in Makaton, which I love using and find really useful with almost all early years work, regardless of any language issues within the group.

Yet, there are some real, practical issues with the operations side of this group:

1 The school hall we're using is a deeply inappropriate space - big, full of distractions and as echoey as you like. The group is largely drawn from the school that hosts us and they feel total ownership over the space - anything that can be climbed on, jumped off, run over or hid under will be.

2 The group is large - to my mind very large for such a young age and range of needs - around 35. Even allowing for the large number of volunteer practitioners - 6 or so each week - their diverse needs and issues with behaviour management makes the group nigh-on impossible to lead.

3 Due to myriad factors around children from other schools attending the group and times we can access rooms there is a complicated and disparate signing in process which involves children waiting in the school library for up to 20 mins before the sessions (like some book-strewn pressure cooker) The school is a large one and practitioners must accompany children at all times, meaning a complicated process of ferrying children round corridors set the tone as chaotic and unfocused before a session's even begun.

All this combines to make what is to my mind utter pandemonium. No only was there very little engagement with anything creative, there was a very limited grasp on safely.
 And let me be very clear - this is not down to the children, who while having various educational needs are by no means unsuited to drama work of this kind. It's not down to the practitioners, who are doing their absolute best with the parameters set for them. I don't believe it is even down to the school, who are managing their operations as best they can to make room for us. Nevertheless a combination of the above has made this youth theatre a battle for any moment of engagement: last week we achieved about 2 minutes' worth when me and a fellow volunteer managed to get out group lying in a circle, heads together, imagining different animals we could be. That was the only thing that allowed us to cut off the noise and chaos of the rest of the room.
 And so my question is, when do you calmly step back and use that theatrical phrase "I can't work in these conditions"?
 I feel this is a classic example of drama in schools at once being overvalued and undervalued. Overvalued because it is assumed we can work wonders, with the most difficult children and with the most limited of resources. And therefore because of this jedi mind-trick we're supposed to be able to do, or because it's seen as harmless fun we are also undervalued, and given deeply unsuitable spaces to work with.
 And at the end of the day, everyone likes to be overvalued, and no one (especially arts education charities) likes to kick up an awkward fuss when they're being undervalued so we by and large just accept what we're given rather than admit that actually nothing about this set up is conducive to doing anything positive or inclusive through drama. After all, we (practitioners in general and this youth theatre in particular) are a positive bunch and like to focus on what can be done - yet I feel there has to be a point where we put our hands up and admit this just isn't working for us.
 Would love to hear if anyone else has ever been in a similar situation, and how they dealt with it?


In other news, I am going to Goldsmiths University Postgraduate Open Evening this week, with a view to beginning the process of applying for my PhD. I want to look at how play as a mode of learning can be used in secondary schools. The more I think about this, the more excited and determined I am, so expect more news very soon!

"Nay, pray you, seek no colour for your going...

...but bid farewell and go" (Antony and Cleopatra - I,3)

Today is my last day as Practitioner in Residence. As my post comes to an end – sadly a change in funding means the role will be no more – I thought I would reflect on my time here.

 This being my first role out of my MA, it's been a massive learning curve in terms of the practicalities of running theatre workshops and project. From beefing up my bank of games, songs and exercises, to an arsenal of behaviour management ploys (nothing that works on year 9 boys though - anyone know what works on year 9 boys?) and even things I never thought I'd learn - like how to say 'is this a dagger I see before me?' in German and how to cater for an event with nothing more than a spare afternoon and the petty cash drawer in M&S.
 But the most important thing - why this year has made me love this work more than ever: Working with young people, through drama, is never the same twice. Different schools, different groups, different days bring new, challenging and amazing people into your life. It is endlessly exciting, especially on those occasions when the work they produce, the questions they ask or the comments they make truly knock you sideways with their quality and enthusiasm.

My best memories include the first time a member of youth theatre stood on stage and belted out a soulful solo opening to ‘Flashdance – what a feeling’ for a music performance and utterly electrified the whole place; a year two child asking if Romeo is black (a subject for a dramaturge’s MA thesis, surely?) and the glint in the eyes of a 12 year old summer school student when she told me Henry IV part 1 at The Globe was ‘the best thing' she’d ever seen.

It’s easy to draw on sentimentality in work with young people, particularly when you work, as I have often done in the past year, with KS1, early years and SEN pupils. I call it relying on the cuteness factor, and it is what happens when practitioners lose faith in the ability of the drama work of young people to shock, awe or inspire us; it’s a pathetic thing to see happening and thankfully something the Globe is very short on. But when you trust those people you’re facilitating – support, challenge, and empower them – no matter how hard that is, how hopeless some cases can seem, in my experience you will nearly always be rewarded.
 My MA tutor once described theatre as 'not medicine, but food' and over this past year I have seen the truth in that more and more. Drama for young people doesn't magically 'fix' their confidence, attainment or engagement. But it can nourish and enrich them and perhaps give them the interest to walk through doors that otherwise might not have been open to them. And that's not everything, but it's something.


In other news, I’m very excited about the dawn of my freelance life – with a smattering of training and workshops booked at The Globe, a digital mountain of CVs, cover letters and general twitches on the spider’s web of my contacts fired off and a few promising leads to follow it feels like the beginning of a very exhilarating time. And although I’ll sorely miss my in residence role – my very own desk (somehow a comforting badge of ‘a real grown-up job’ in an area of work that demands you spend much of your time running around school halls!) and the opportunity to bridge the worlds of practitioning, coordination and development – the idea of branching out after a year of working exclusively with one venue is a tantalising prospect.

'Please allow me to introduce myself...

...I am a [wo]man of wealth and taste'

At least, my abundance of the latter makes up for any lack of the former...

This will be my second blog - you can find my first here. The thinking behind this blog was to reflect on my experiences during my MA: Drama and Theatre Education at The University of Warwick.

For the past year I have been Practitioner in Residence at Shakespeare's Globe. However, over the next month I will be making the transition to freelance practitioner, still very much involved with the Globe, but also expanding my as an education practitioner and arts edministrator on various other projects, with the eventual aim of beginning a PhD in the near future.

So it seemed like a good time to start blogging again, about my journey into the great freelance unknown.

The first thing I want to talk about is the title of this blog. 'Moments of Guffaw' is TIE scholar John O'Toole's wonderful phrase - suggesting an alternative to Dorothy Heathcote's much-cited 'Moments of awe' - her phrase for describing the moment of realisation and/or discovery that can occur through TiE.
While accepting Heathcote is the mother of nearly all theatre arts in education, I love O'Toole's phrase. What he does is take us away from the solemn, the balefully dramatic and epic sphere to the place of the sudden and joyful discovery, the moment of lightness, or realisation and with it the explosion of laughter.

That is what I'm all about: play's place in theatre and its place in learning. I have to date written two dissertations and planned countless workshops around this idea, and it still constantly fascinates and frustrates me.