PhD begins

So my big news of this autumn is in October I'll be starting my PhD research at The University of Warwick. Thanks to a studentship from the Economic and Social Research Council I'm going to be studying full time. It's going to be a fantastic new chapter and I can't wait to get stuck in.

Here's a summary of my planned research:

Playing Shakespeare:

Assessing the impact of theatre-based approaches to teaching Shakespeare at key stage 3

 

 

Essentially I am interested in whether a greater understanding of how learning through play occurs within early secondary age children could give new insight into assessing the impact of theatre-based approaches to teaching Shakespeare with that age group.

 

 Theatre-based approaches to teaching - in Shakespeare and more widely - have grown in popularity since the mid-90s. These approaches broadly favour a more constructivist approach to learning; as the RSC's Stand up for Shakespeare manifesto (2008) describes it, they ensure experiences are 'inclusive', 'collaborative' and use 'exploratory, problem-solving methods'. Alongside this, 'creativity' has become an increasingly important subject in educational research and policy. Though there is a growing literature exploring the positive impacts of theatre-based and 'creative' approaches to teaching Shakespeare, there is little consensus on what the value of working this way is, or the most effective way to assess its impact. Particularly within the arts education sector there has often been little support for organisations - where time and resources are often limited - in developing rigorous evaluation practices.

 Now more than ever with funding cuts looming it is vital that any theatre education company wishing to survive has robust evaluation methods. I hypothesise that framing evaluation in the terms of 'creativity' limits its' scope, partly as it has become inextricably connected to the reductive skills vs knowledge debate, and partly because becoming more 'creative' is only one aspect of theatre-based approaches to learning. Other theorists, notably Neelands and his concept of ensemble within learning have provided more nuanced frameworks, however I feel play theory has something to offer in this field.

 Within early years' education the importance of play as a mode of learning has been much developed and is a fundamental part of the early years' national curriculum. Play theory has a rich genesis in education literature, in particular theorists such as Vygotski and Bruner, while more recent theorists such as Pat Kane have postulated that we are increasingly living in a 'playing' culture. Yet it has been practically ignored in education research from mid-primary age onwards. My MA study looked at play in key stage 4 children and found it could be described as imaginative, social and transgressive in nature, that it can be defined by mode rather than specific acts, and used these characterists to evaluate the quality of learning in GCSE and BTEC drama workshops. Therefore I hypothesise that developing an impact assessment framework based on a an understanding of the play 'mode', in addition to a review of current best practice professionally and in academia, could suggest new impact assessment frameworks for theatre-based approaches to teaching Shakespeare.

 I'm hoping to explore this hypothesis by carrying out research in the evaluation practices of several theatre education organisations, and ideally carry out some action research on evaluating theatre education Shakespeare projects with key stage 3-age children. So far I've been talking to Shakespeare's Globe and 2nd tier organisation LEAN and am going to be looking for other potential research partners throughout this year.

 If anyone's interested in reading the full proposal (it's got references to back all this up and everything!) please drop me a line. I'm hoping to be a very social and collaborative researcher (see my thoughts on collaboration from January) so if you have any thoughts, suggestions or questions please do drop me a line!

5 things I love about working with Early Years'

A very busy 2012 for me so far (for all kinds of reasons - watch this space for more exciting news!). Have been getting involved with some great new companies, nearly all of which focus on work with Early Years and Foundation Stage children (EYFS), and I'm loving it. Since my first days at Globe Education I've been taking their nursery and KS1 Shakespeare projects into schools, and now as a Discover Story Builder and practitioner with companies like TDLP and Dramabuds I've really found my stride.

 Having been a childminder and nursery worker in a past life the challenges of early years that seem to scare off some of my peers - snotty noses, sicky tummies or (worse of all!) soggy nappies - don't phase me. In fact I think drama work with EYFS is some of the most exciting and rewarding out there, and here's why:

1. Imaginative Freedom
Baring in mind my earlier comments on the 'cuteness factor' I'm wary of hyping this too much. Sometimes what is touted as incredible creativity and imagination in EYFS is just the result of children not yet knowing that the answer to a question needs to somehow connect to what is asked (e.g Q: "What colour is the sky?" A: "spiderman"). But even so, the physical and cognitive freedom to go anywhere, be anyone and of course question everything with very little self consciousness is exhilarating for a dramatist. Seeing how limited, in contrast, this freedom can be in older children/teenagers makes me wonder if Ken Robinson was really onto something when he said we educate children out of their bodies, into their heads and so out of their creativity.

2. Zero Politeness
What I mean by this is: if they're bored, you'll know about it. When you know a group is liable to be distracted by their own shoes or the contents of their nostrils, walk away or even fall asleep ( though come to think of it, none of these are restricted to EYFS students!) it makes you pick up your game. Every ensemble only operates by consent of all its members, and this is never more true than with EYFS - There's never playing along; only playing totally in the moment or else nothing.
 The flip side of this is how ready EYFS children are to engage in 'rituals' (drama-speak for doing the same thing over and over!). There's endless mileage in revisiting songs, games, opening and closing sequences session after session - extending and altering until they're totally owned by the group and give them more structure and concentration than you'd ever think a pre-school child could have.

3. The Full Arsenal
No, this is not about recruiting young children to my partner's favourite football team, but how the majority of early years work calls on you to use the 'full set' of drama tools. Songs (oh, always songs!) props, sound effects, costumes, music, pictures, physical theatre, puppetry all pop up on a daily basis. And by the way, taking a step back from the Brooktian 'empty space' idea so loved by progressive drama departments and other dramaturgs with no budget to speak of, aren't the bells and whistles of theatre (always in service of telling a proper good yarn, of course) something we all delight in?
 Every day I'm adding to my box of tricks, from Makaton signs to 150 ways to get 3 year olds into a circle. For me there's a sort of alchemy when you bring together a song here, a puppet there and everything clicks into an amazing session.

4. Language Use
Another challenge I love - and which appeals to my rigourous, academic side - is the need to be precise, appropriate and consistent in language use. I'm a big believer that in theatre a word or gesture should never be wasted and that's especially true in EYFS theatre work. An instruction given in different ways with different words can throw a group into confusion, as can repeated use of an unknown word or phrase without checking understanding (a wonderful, though rather erudite, fellow practitioner fell into all kinds of problems with a year 1 group when using the word 'gabardine' to describe a raincoat).
 Language is so important to this age group because it's so new, and that means alongside the need for clarity, there's endless fun and excitement to be found in discovering the richness of language, which is only widened when - as is so often the case in London - there's a lot of EAL children in the group.

5. Rate of Development
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly this age group take on new information. I find - again being wary of the cuteness factor - it does reinvigorate my own sense of wonder and excitement in the world rediscovering it through the eyes of young children.
 Since my MA I've been a big believer in the educationalist Bruner's idea that you can teach anything to any age group if you scaffold it appropriately enough. Luckily for me, this seems to be bourne out through working with nursery and KS1 children, particularly in Shakespeare and other 'literature' - especially in developing their own responses to the stories and characters' choices.

And so it's because of all the above that I've been working on (BLOG EXCLUSIVE!) a new project with amazing practitioner John Kirk, called Story Boxshops - sessions for EY and KS1 children to creatively explore Shakespeare, Dickens and Greek myths. More about this project will be coming soon on my website www.jenniferkitchen.co.uk but here's an exclusive look at the new flyer (designed by Tom):

 

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!