Foundational Principle: (What is) The inherent value of (drama to) each individual
Drama education is about self-realisation through active participation. It frees the creative spirit, teaches mastery of self control, confidence and expression while nurturing the individual’s unique expressive skills. These skills become the tools with which actors tell the stories of invented characters and the worlds they inhabit. Dramatic storytelling empowers the individual in multiple ways: It impels the actor to embrace another character, to occupy the behaviours of another person and to invest in their most intimate thoughts and foibles. By this, drama nurtures a sense of self, requiring conclusions to be drawn and lessons to be learnt. Educationally, the creation of character empowers boys to become better judges of character as they prepare to participate as global citizens. However, the value of drama extends not only to the individual as performer but also to the individual as audience. Witnessing a character performing on stage impels audiences to reconsider their own responses and, ultimately, to recalibrate values.
Foundational Question: How did the world evolve to be as it is and how might it be made to evolve for the greater good?
For all cultures and through all times, theatre has been the medium through which our relationship with the world has found formal expression. Being an amalgamation of art, music and literature, theatre is the most inclusive form of expression and one of the oldest means by which cultures through time have chosen to express a reaction to the questions of existence. By performance, cultures make real their world view and communicate with following generations.
Drama education recognises that theatre styles, conventions and practices come from a varied and rich heritage. Its challenge is two-fold: To harness this heritage in order to give expression to the present in a world that is on an unknowable forward trajectory. It must also keep revisiting the past and try to find relevant connections and lessons from which to base a more informed position. As such, it is an interpretive force for good. Its inherent inquisitiveness requires observation and introspection. This cannot continue within a vacuum only drawing from the present: It must connect with its past and make those relevant connections that give real context to the lived-in world. From this, it would hope to encourage an inquisitiveness to fearlessly explore what might await down the road not taken.
Scotch College Melbourne:
ABN 86 852 826 445 CRICOS 00624A
