Drama in Education Workshop Weekend in Nanjing, China

🎭 Finished my trip to China 🇨🇳 this month with a Drama in Education Workshop Weekend in Nanjing in collaboration with Ouch Theatre. Ended the trip with a bang! Feeling very hashtag#grateful to travel often and to share my passion for hashtag#artseducation at the same time.

The founder of Ouch Theatre (an applied theatre company based in Nanjing), Dodo, and I completed our masters in The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama together a few years ago. Due to the pandemic, we have been working together in an online capacity ever since. It was a true joy to finally engage with their community in person!

1️⃣The first workshop brought together parents and children aged 5-7 in a playful and immersive experience exploring different landmarks from around the world through their hashtag#bodies and hashtag#imagination. 🇫🇷 Paris’s Eiffel Tower? Check! 🇵🇪Peru’s Machu Picchu? Check! Creating our own landmarks? Check! Seeing families explore and connect with each other and the world around them through drama was both heartwarming and inspiring.

2️⃣The second workshop’s objective was to develop hashtag#criticalthinking through a storytelling framework. Participants were educators interested in incorporating applied theatre and drama in their classroom. We stepped into the shoes of 15th century villagers; magic dragons and shepherds alike, and problem solved as a team. It was a privilege to hashtag#exchangeideas with passionate teachers about how drama can better prepare our young learners in being hashtag#globalcitizens.

In China, where there is often a strong emphasis on academic achievement, integrating hashtag#play through drama into education can provide this essential balance. Studies show that drama in education enhances hashtag#creativity, hashtag#empathy, and hashtag#problemsolving skills. It also supports hashtag#emotionalwellbeing and hashtag#socialdevelopment — benefits that are invaluable for all students, especially those who might otherwise focus mainly on academic rigor only.

💭 My favorite moment from the weekend? When a little boy, hesitant and shy to begin with, began to come out of his shell and by the end, was a rockstar who was the first to volunteer for everything! He shared during the reflection stage at the end that “[I] had a bad experience with performing on stage before where I cried, but [I] like drama now because it can be just for fun, and [I] learned too! [I] don’t feel as scared to say what [I’m] thinking.” Just wow! It’s comments like this that make me so proud to be an arts educator. 🥹🙌

Thank you 🙏  to Ouch Theatre for the warm welcome and to everyone who participated in these workshops. Looking forward to future collaborations and continuing to explore the transformative power of drama in education!

hashtag#DramaInEducation hashtag#AppliedTheatre hashtag#ProfessionalDevelopment hashtag#Education hashtag#Nanjing hashtag#OuchTheatre hashtag#ArtsAdvocate