DESTINOS DE LAS EXPORTACIONES TRADICIONALES NO PETROLERAS.

The 2016 OECD report on ‘Teaching Excellence’ finds that 96% of teachers in England see their role as a teacher as facilitating students’ own inquiry (Schleicher, 2016), illustrating a strong belief across the profession in the constructivist pedagogies Dewey, Vygotsky and Bruner pioneered. In today’s systems, official school measurements of a child’s ability strip away context to reductive data driven labels such as ‘pupil premium’ and

‘contextualised value added’. Teachers working with the individual human beings who inhabit their classrooms day in and day out readily tell stories of individual successes and failures, instinctively situating those successes and failures within the social context of the child and their peers; they explain the humanity behind the numbers and some of their voices have been heard in this chapter. For policy makers, however, there is a temptation towards the clarity of generalised behaviourist approaches. In a reaction against such approaches, Adey and Dillon (2012, p.xxiii) explain: ‘Many myths in education arise from over simple categorization and stereotyping […] Over the last 25 years, teachers have been subjected to an increasing barrage of instructions, guidance, advice and statutory regulations all designed by an administration that acts as if the fine details of classroom life can be fully controlled.’

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Even before the age of compulsory education for all, Dewey (1938, p.45) had recognised a flaw in traditional models that saw children as empty vessels to be filled with received knowledge: ‘This lack of mutual adaptation made the process of teaching and learning accidental. Those to whom the provided conditions were suitable managed to learn. Others got on as best they could.’ Over the last century since Dewey was writing, engagement and enjoyment have been recognised as key elements of any classroom experience, not least for promoting intrinsic motivation. Hattie, however, raises caveats that:

Decisions are so often made to engage students in interesting activities, to excite them to participate in learning, and to ensure that, when the bell rings, they have completed the assigned tasks and at least enjoyed the activity. Such dull

aspirations for students may entice the willing, the bright, and those with high levels of ‘inhibitory control’, but will not continue to challenge students to reinvest in the game of schooling (2012, p.35).

He suggests that both transmissive models of education and learning through enjoyment can be seen as best suited to independent learners motivated to learn in any

environment. Many students need more support from the ‘expert’ teachers Hattie describes who are able to respond to the unique abilities and experiences of their students, and provide a climate of trust, collaboration, engagement and challenge that allows them to grow as independent learners within a broad and balanced curriculum. These teachers put the practice into theatre-based practice, using their pedagogical skills and tacit knowledge to realise the potential of theatre approaches.

In considering the question of ‘how do young people learn?’ it is easy to understand how teachers and senior leaders might see prioritising the material knowledge that leads to good examination results as pragmatic and democratic. Reviewing the findings of Dewey, Vygotsky, Bruner and Hattie, however, it seems that the values of democracy are best served by an education system that prioritises metacognition and collaboration. In this way, students are able to build, not just knowledge, but the skills and confidence to critically and creatively engage with it. Dewey’s Pragmatic approach foregrounds the need for teachers to shape experiences of sufficient quality to progress young people’s learning. He emphasises the need for pluralism and inquiry in a social democracy, and for art to communicate possibilities rather than abiding values. Vygotsky describes the value of playful challenge, particularly in the development of social communication skills and in understanding language as a contextually dynamic means of communication. Bruner

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develops Dewey’s Pragmatic perspective on education, focussing on the importance of the quality of a narrative in how we learn and share that learning. He promotes the value of metacognitive approaches which seek out problems and ask ‘what if?’ of a cultural inheritance. Hattie confirms and consolidates the importance of collaboration and

metacognition, and the crucial role relationships and personal experiences play in shaping learning. LPN teacher Emily explains the value of the dialogic, constructivist approaches she learned through her training on theatre-based practice as achieving:

what generally day to day teaching misses, it can allow pupils to truly engage in lessons where their thoughts and ideas are valued and built upon immediately by their peers and teachers. For many pupils this feeling of power is transforming their attitude to education (Irish, 2014b, p.13).

This growth in confidence as young people feel that their thoughts and ideas are valued should, as Bruner says, be ‘one of the primary functions’ of schooling (1996, p.38). It can support them in building experiences that value the thoughts and feelings of others and in developing the creative and critical skills that will help them play a role in a democratic society.

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Chapter four: The values of theatre-based practice

He lived and lives in a community of artists (Bate, 1997, p.184).

In this chapter I consider how theatre-based practice has evolved in dialogue with formal education and introduce key ideas for how it can support young people in appreciating Shakespeare as a literary heritage which is an artistic resource for understanding the culture that surrounds them. I situate theatre-based practice as complementary to the spectrum of active approaches to teaching Shakespeare by reviewing the influence of three leading advocates of the practice: Rex Gibson, Peggy O’Brien and Cicely Berry. I then set out the key principles of the practice as dialogic pedagogy which makes

‘acquaintance with the past a means of understanding the present’ (Dewey, 1938, p.78) by introducing the concepts of ‘the emancipatory principle’ and ‘the social brain’. I end by discussing how Shakespeare’s own education can usefully illuminate our relationship with him.

I have chosen to use the term ‘theatre-based’ for the pedagogy I am assessing because the approaches are based in the performance and rehearsal techniques of the theatre world; allowing that this sets up an analogy where the similarities and differences of practice between directors and actors, and teachers and students can be explored. I distinguish ‘practice’ from ‘approaches’, as ‘practice’ includes key attitudes, behaviours and knowledge alongside the techniques and strategies which can form a toolkit of ‘approaches’. Teachers’ ownership of pedagogy becomes absorbed into their practice through reflection that adapts approaches to suit the social and curriculum context in which they are working. Personal adaptation is the difference between theatre-based

practice: a reflective, constantly shifting process, relying on tacit knowledge; and theatre- based approaches: a set of tools to use. I propose theatre-based practice as

acknowledging and celebrating the incompleteness of our knowledge by exploring cases of dramatic situations as hypotheses about the human condition. In this way, it works with negative capability, not in a passive acceptance but in an active and restless search for a quality of truth through finding rather than forcing analogies. It could be seen as restoring a balance in education between valuing how our left and right hemispheres work to construct our worlds.

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