Why Theatre in Education?

The National School of Drama established its Theatre-in-Education Company in October 1989 with the belief that it could provide a unique and valuable service for the children and teachers of Delhi’s schools in their pursuit of knowledge and development.

Here is not the place to argue the point that Theatre and the Arts in general take a very low priority in the curricula of most schools. Suffice is to say that what and how children learn are reflections of a society’s values and aspiration. We happen to be in an age of science and technology, of commerce and industrial development. It is hardly surprising, then, that our schools resemble factories and office complexes, and that they make of education a profitable business. Nor is it surprising that we see the role of the child as a uniformed, obedient little machine on a 10+2 years long assemble-line, being fitted with pre-packaged inputs of Science, Maths, Language, etc., and programmed to compete, to memorize, to pass exams. Or else to fail and be rejected. The children are made to be mini-replicas of adults in their own little rat-race; a rat-race that determines the direction and quality of the rest of their lives.

One might question the basic lack of human and democratic rights in this system; its injustice and its denial of childhood. But what is the choice? And our question here is: What can Theatre contribute to education in such a context?

Theatre, a major art form in most cultures of the world, has, since recorded history began, been a vehicle of personal and community education. It has a central role in oral literary forms, in the recording of society’s history (whether actual or mythological), in religious and secular celebrations and rituals. Man’s fascination for transformation or role-playing, for witnessing and being affected by theatrical representations of life and mind, is seemingly universal and eternal.

As in the infancy of civilisation we find Theatre, so in the infancy of each person’s life do we find it. To infuse life and character into a doll, to dress up and role-play Rama and Sita, are theatrical devices we have all instinctively used in our coming to terms with life during childhood. It is nature’s in-built method of learning; a meaningful and pleasurable way of dealing with life, its joys and its sorrows.

These natural methods of artistic expression and education have, in our era of specialisation, been divorced from each other. In Theatre-in-Education they are reunited and provide a powerful and effective learning medium for all categories of children, whether infant or senior, academically bright or illiterate.

The plays that the TIE Company perform are not ends in themselves, but a stimulus to further enquiry, research, project work, alternative artistic expression and writing, and so on; whether organised as follow-up work by the Company itself, or by the teachers, or by both working in cooperation. But the advantage of a TIE Company is that it provides professional standards and expertise that the average school would otherwise find difficult to raise.

The TIE Company places the children and their developmental needs at the heart of its work. Cutting across the school’s divisions of children and subjects, our concerns are focused on the children and their awareness and understanding of themselves and the world around them. Theatre is successful in educating the whole person; it engages children physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually at times. It is integrated and experiential education aiming at the development of lively, imaginative, sensitive and socially-adjusted individuals who can enrich their own and other lives, responding to life’s challenges in humane and constructive ways.

Theatre demands good team work and fosters the skills of being able to listen to another’s point of view, of give and take, of being able to accept criticism and to give it. It is a way of working out and dealing with suppressed mental and emotional problems. It encourages `divergent thinking’ as opposed to the `convergent thinking’ that most other subjects foster. It improves the children’s means of communication in verbal and non-verbal languages so that they become more expressive in their own persons and as actors. What other subject on the curriculum is concerned with what the children think and feel, dream about and long for? What other subject places the children at the hub of its freewheeling syllabus?

Above all, Theatre is fun so far as the children are concerned, and that is to its great credit and importance in education, faces as it is with the increasing problem of motivating children (and teachers) in positive ways. It has great potential to assist in the formidable task of reforming and revitalizing the syllabi, the curricula and the teaching methodologies that prevail in schools; to liberate the children and teachers form desk bound, book bound routines into something more exciting, creative and relevant to their needs.

I am reminded of a Chinese proverb that perhaps best answers the question: Why Theatre in Education?

I hear:  I forget
I see:     I remember
I do:       I understand
Perhaps it should become our motto.

Barry John 1990
(Barry John was the Director of TIE Co. NSD from 1989 to 1992)