Nell Smyth shows us step by step, breath by breath, how to turn classrooms into fascinating and joyous theatres of indelible learning.
- Nancy Mellon,
author and storyteller
I wrote this book for all teachers who are interested in integrating drama as a vital part of a cross-curricular, thematic approach. Coming from the experience of working with young people from 7 years old to late teens, the book uses the metaphor of a boat journey but encourages you to read either chapter by chapter or just dip in, starting anywhere. Teachers like tips. So the book offers a trove of games and activities, a toolbox of resources and questions, and lots of lively, case histories, based on my working in schools both in the USA and in Europe, as a Steiner class teacher, and with adolescents.
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If you have more time, then the book begins by grounding in breathing and movement, showing how to build presence and awareness to feel fully attuned in the classroom. As captain of your ship the book explores with you how to cultivate deep observation for creative insight and knowledge of your group, as well as, activate potentials through games. The chapter Magical Isles and Enchanted Woods shows how to create a reflective and inspired space for writing and collaborating. For the teacher worried about time and pressure the book is premised on the idea of how we honour both the 'the practical and the poetic', and how to include a wide range of curriculum subjects and skills in an active and expressive approach that embraces every type of learner. You may find in this book a path for bringing your class together in the process of making a play.
All our activity of teaching and education is first directed to a very lofty domain-namely to the teaching of right breathing, and to the teaching of the right rhythm in the alternation of sleeping and waking. All this will only be in the background.What we have to learn will be concrete measures of educational practice. But we must be conscious of what we are doing, right down to the foundations.
- Rudolf Steiner
Some Reviews for Drama at the Heart
This
book has the merit of being complete in all aspects relevant to the
target audience and will make an excellent reference guide for
teachers and prospective teachers. The more enthusiastic student might also gain much from this work and it would prove invaluable in providing a clear focus and end point whilst being able to offer the content so often lacking. An incredibly useful piece of work which will get much use across the sector and Nell Smyth must be commended for her depth of understanding and passion whilst being able to ground the reader with practical experiences.
- Adrian
Hall FRSA, Principal at ALRA
The great Irish poet, W.B. Yeats, once observed that education was "...not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire...." In this lucid and intelligent book Nell Smyth has illuminated what this might mean in the learning and teaching of drama to school-age children from six to sixteen. Nell Smyth views the histrionic art as being at the centre of our humanity and that it should therefore be the mainspring of our educational project if we are to fully realize our potential as human beings.
She uses the analogy of a sea journey to map out her arena of study - the world of imagination, spirit and the body in a harmonious and cooperative learning experience. Drawing on the work of the great philosophers, educationalists and drama practitioners Nell Smyth has written an inspiring and deeply humane account of her long experience teaching drama to children, transformed into a practical handbook for use in educational establishments that still value education as a gentle drawing forth a child’s human potential.
The book begins with asking the profound question, "What do we think we are doing here?" and in the quest to maximize learning and enjoyment follows the journey from individual preparation through breathing (inspiration being 'the breath of God') to analyzing and critiquing the performance at the end of a deeply thought-through rehearsal process, covering all aspects of the creative process from improvisation and prop-making to rehearsal schedules and programme design. The Teachers Toolbox at the end of the book and the Further Reading List are exemplary.
This is a book which privileges process-orientated learning, relevant knowledge, critical reflection, ownership and validation of the child's felt experience, relationships based on respect, understanding and shared core values, collaborative learning and a sense of joy which incorporates the whole person and their wellbeing. It is also a book that is a pleasure to read and will be of immense practical help to those working in the field or who wish to understand more fully the possibilities of drama in helping us to understand what it means to be human.
She uses the analogy of a sea journey to map out her arena of study - the world of imagination, spirit and the body in a harmonious and cooperative learning experience. Drawing on the work of the great philosophers, educationalists and drama practitioners Nell Smyth has written an inspiring and deeply humane account of her long experience teaching drama to children, transformed into a practical handbook for use in educational establishments that still value education as a gentle drawing forth a child’s human potential.
The book begins with asking the profound question, "What do we think we are doing here?" and in the quest to maximize learning and enjoyment follows the journey from individual preparation through breathing (inspiration being 'the breath of God') to analyzing and critiquing the performance at the end of a deeply thought-through rehearsal process, covering all aspects of the creative process from improvisation and prop-making to rehearsal schedules and programme design. The Teachers Toolbox at the end of the book and the Further Reading List are exemplary.
This is a book which privileges process-orientated learning, relevant knowledge, critical reflection, ownership and validation of the child's felt experience, relationships based on respect, understanding and shared core values, collaborative learning and a sense of joy which incorporates the whole person and their wellbeing. It is also a book that is a pleasure to read and will be of immense practical help to those working in the field or who wish to understand more fully the possibilities of drama in helping us to understand what it means to be human.
- Dr Adrian James PhD Dip.Act. FRSA FHEA PGCHE
Head of Cert H.E. (Southend Campus) East 15 Acting School
University of Essex
Head of Cert H.E. (Southend Campus) East 15 Acting School
University of Essex
In
language both witty and trenchant, Nell Smyth explores with us the
artistry of producing a class play. In doing drama, (our author tells
us), we do not work with abstractions, rather we physicalise, we
experience, we make manifest. Play-making with children is a joyful
toggle between the left and right hemispheres of the teacher’s
brain, with a good seasoning of intuition thrown in to bubble the mix
into a dramatic dish fit for a king.
Step by step, Smyth takes us through the creation of a class play, setting the stage with breathing exercises and team building games that shape the childrens’ natural exuberance into tools that help them to project and perform.She moves on to the selection of a play (or the writing of one) with many sensitive suggestions on how to cast, how to plan and how—in every aspect—to move from inception to performance. And when you think she’s covered everything, she adds a most useful bibliography as well as tips on how to debrief when the play’s over.
I wish I’d had this book when I started my career as a Waldorf Class Teacher. For those in our schools today, this book fills a gap in the pedagogical literature—and it’s fun, creative and very well written. Read and enjoy; it’ll have you longing for play-time to come around so you can be an imaginative impresario like the author!
Step by step, Smyth takes us through the creation of a class play, setting the stage with breathing exercises and team building games that shape the childrens’ natural exuberance into tools that help them to project and perform.She moves on to the selection of a play (or the writing of one) with many sensitive suggestions on how to cast, how to plan and how—in every aspect—to move from inception to performance. And when you think she’s covered everything, she adds a most useful bibliography as well as tips on how to debrief when the play’s over.
I wish I’d had this book when I started my career as a Waldorf Class Teacher. For those in our schools today, this book fills a gap in the pedagogical literature—and it’s fun, creative and very well written. Read and enjoy; it’ll have you longing for play-time to come around so you can be an imaginative impresario like the author!
How
I wish I had had access to Drama at the Heart when I was feeling my
way into my teaching career. Not that it would have made my life
easier; not that it would have provided me with shortcuts that, in
the long run, would have deprived me of the joy and benefit of
learning through my own hard work and earned insights. Nor is it the
kind of book one can simply forage through in a rushed fashion. It is
the perfect book, though, for deepening the experience of what one
provides as a teacher and what one expects from the students. I would
certainly have benefited greatly from the many principled and
pragmatic insights Nell offers into the inherent value of working
closely, consciously, with students of all ages.
Time
and again while reading through this ‘journey’ I heard myself
saying “I know that” or “I did that” – statements I
immediately qualified with the observation: ‘but I didn’t explore
its nature as thoroughly, and certainly not as cogently, as Nell.’
The very memory of this (recurring) commentary makes me wish even
more that I had had Drama at the Heart as a source.
There
are many books on dramatic technique that provide exercises for the
students so they are ready for their parts. They are unashamedly
practical. Nell’s Drama at the Heart is not one of these; or better
put, Nell’s book is not exclusively practical. She is too
experienced a teacher and too good a dramatist to bother with such a
one-sided approach. In explaining her own work (when she discusses
mapping a story when it is possible for students to write their own
plays), Nell reaches right into the world of Seamus Heaney and
declares that her work too is “practical and poetic.” Indeed it
is. That is what makes it different and valuable.
Nell’s
exercises time and again creatively move the students into the
movements and breathing – the verity – of their characters,
characters that, eventually, they can appreciate from the inside-out.
And dramatically offer on stage, to the best of their various
abilities. Insights into the basics abound; there is much on
breathing that captures the essentials; there is much on touch – a
quality that is often overlooked, yet basic to one’s humanity,
one’s presence among others. The simple yet profound insight into
the three-fold nature of observation - Indirect observation;
Exploratory observation; Expressive and expansive observation – is
the kind of transferable cognitive skill set that aids a teacher in
every block, indeed every encounter, with the self and others.
It’s
always been so that drama - moving on a stage with purpose and
another identity- is a therapeutic experience for many students who
up to that grounding experience had little contact either with
themselves, their friends, their bodies – anything that constitutes
a world. Nell does point out the benefits that certain students with
different learning challenges can gain; she uses biographies to prove
her point.
I
could not help feeling, though, that here is an area that is just
crying out for attention. Perhaps not by Nell, unless she feels so
drawn to the issue. But it is clear to us teachers that more and more
students have different learning styles. Our task is not so much to
learn those styles as it is to observe those students and find ways
for them to safely be at home with their own selves. I think –
though I can’t prove it – that Nell’s Drama at the Heart is the
kind of work that can inspire teachers to have the insights they need
to ‘move their students’ along. I certainly will recommend Drama
at the Heart to every teacher who wants, who needs, to work
creatively with students.
- Paul Gierlach - Teacher Mentor
...Irrespective
of knowing the author, I believe that anyone interested in drama,
Waldorf education or Anthroposophy
in general will find this is a book full of interest and ample
practical insights. Non-specialist readers too could find much useful
for their personal voyage of discovery. Thus the book subtitle:'Teaching drama
in Steiner-Waldorf schools' is misleading if it suggests exclusivity
of audience. This volume transcends any narrow focus, although it
arises from a life’s work in Waldorf teaching, I believe it
intimates a direction for the development of Anthroposophy in
general, but it contains much a person with little previous interest
in Steiner’s work might appreciate. The author has absorbed,
applied and transformed ideas from educators and thinkers such as
Dorothy Heathcote, Michael Chekov, Cecily Berry, Moshe Feldenkrais, and Ilse Middendorf. Their discoveries inform and inspire Nell Smyth’s
teaching: she engages with their work in depth, tests it out through
a process of in action research and active reflection. The book not
only describes this process, but also exemplifies it, so anyone
concerned with questions about developing positive communication and more imaginative living will find Nell an insightful and enlivening guide. The most experienced Waldorf teachers will find
content to renew their inspiration; those starting out will find
this book an indispensible resource, a text that repays the reading
and re-reading.
...Because
drama involves enlarging what in the workaday often works below our
habitual attention, the techniques and ideas in Drama at the Heart
provide a dynamic account of rich human communication in action.
Moreover, Nell Smyth conducts an ongoing dialogue throughout the
book, modeling her message through her narrative and the style
of writing. Key to that message are the words included in her
conclusion, which emphasise the human need to learn to navigate
the world, to feel empowered in our skills, and to work with
others’
...Drama at Heart is, of
course, not about instruction in methods by which to deceive, it has
a moral core directed toward bringing about positive humane learning
and the best possible outcomes for young people. If that sounds
puritanical, it certainly is not, for this is literally a
‘play-book’, full of joy and light-hearted exploration.
But that lightness leads to a place of personal and interpersonal
freedom, the corner-stone of our humanity. For students of Rudolf
Steiner’s work, this might put us in mind of how much importance he
attached to both the arts and social renewal. If 'The Philosophy of
Freedom' could be introduced to children, this is a book that reveals
an artistic methodology by which that can be done.
...Many
Primary teachers, and Waldorf Class Teachers in particular, find
themselves expected to do plays.
Unfortunately, doing a play can become an end in itself, as if the task resembled that of an
ambitious sports coach, aiming to get the best possible performance on the day.
Drama specialists too sometimes fall prey to focusing on the end
rather than the means of their subject. But every subject taught according to Waldorf principles
gains its place through what it can do to foster the development of the young growing
person and its contribution to removing obstacles to that development. Thus Nell
Smyth’s first question in her ‘toolkit’ for 'Developing your play' is ‘Who are
these children?’; The great variety of practical
exercises, scenarios and games are all prefaced by that question and together set out the nature of a voyage for the child’s
self-discovery and potential for fullfilment.
Nell Smyth’s epigraph for
the fourth chapter well evokes the essential spirit of her text. This
is a quotation from the great Irish poet, Seamus Heaney: “Within
our individual selves we can reconcile two orders of knowledge which we might call the practical
and the poetic...Each form redresses the other and the
frontier is there for the crossing.”
For Waldorf teachers this
might be a description of one of the fundamentals of the education.
Any attempt to set out the principles within the advice Rudolf
Steiner offered to the first teachers,
those inherent in the curriculum, must ensure to reflect the
importance he placed on relating teaching to the real world, to real
life. Baldly stated, that might be taken as an injunction for a
Gradgrindian assault on childhood with nothing but flat, monotone
facts, facts, facts. However, facts alone are abstractions and as
such are as lifeless and unreal as they can be harsh and inflexible. Life also involves imagination, or to use Heaney’s
words, poetry must stand alongside the practical. In Drama at the Heart the ongoing metaphor of the voyage; provides such, a frontier for the crossing helping to integrate the different elements, much as drama itself is shown in this book to offer the means to integrate varied aspects of students’ educational experience. The classroom comes to life!
That there has to be a battle within education and culture generally to create and protect space for the arts is one of the saddest symptoms of our age. It is a battle in which the odds are stacked against both humanity and what the arts offer. Although there are plenty of knowledgeable people trying to speak up about that situation - for example, Michael Morpurgo, Philip Pulman, Sir Ken Robinson - and although organisations such as the Paul Hamlyn Foundation produce powerful reports, where public policy is concerned, the art education remains marginalised or footnoted in most State curriculums. What Drama at the Heart demonstrates is that the artistic is no added extra in education (or life in general), but the essence of what makes is human. Life without some sort of art is life depleted, shredded and desiccated of deeper meaning.This is book is an antidote to that: it deserves to be widely read and better still, en-acted.
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