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!

Musings from Morocco

Just returned from a cheeky start to 2011 surfing, sunning and stuffing my face with tagine up and down the Moroccan coast. My winter sun reading was Pat Kane's The Play Ethic and I've been musing on it's meanings for me - both professional and personal.

The book written with a verve and energy that is inspiring, and while much of the theory occasionally feels fuzzy in that it's quite broad and doesn't rough out a clear way forward, the underlining message: that by rejecting the work/play binary of the Protestant work ethic we can allow ourselves to fully embody our lives and be creatively in control of every aspect of it - felt very right to me. My partner, who is also freelance, could not understand why this was such a strong and (for some) radical message - all those successful in his field are by necessity those who are successful 'players': combining commercial popularity with artistic integrity.

I think it's really exciting to live this way - I often feel frustrated by those who can only see the instability and financial uncertainly in my freelance lifestyle. Living by the 'play ethic' doesn't mean having to work within the arts, or being self employed or freelance. But it does mean having a sense of authorship over your life - a feeling that your life has meaning in it, and you are able to control and manipulate the elements of it to some extent.

My life's motto for several years has been 'Nothing worth doing will ever be easy'. After a fascinating training session on inclusivity* recently I came to realise the main generator of exclusion was FEAR. True inclusion will always involve taking risks - on the part of the participants and the providers. And so: 'Anything worth doing will always be difficult and scary'. Doesn't scan as well as the first motto perhaps - but I think there's a fair bit of truth in it. I've now been self-employed for nearly 6 months and 'difficult and scary' certainly sums up many moments - particularly facing my financial realities - but the challenge of seeking out work, being creative (nearly!) every day and getting involved with some great companies has made it worthwhile - here's to 2011!

*This training was run by the same youth theatre I've been volunteering for and blogged about last time. Just to keep you updated we've now halved the group size and no longer use the library as part of the sign in procedure. The group is now working on a performance of Hansel and Gretel. No more bookshelves have been jumped off. So sometimes you do need to say no (and step back, rework until you can say yes again)