After many rewarding years of running Learning Off Book drama clubs in international schools across Barcelona, I’m wrapping up this chapter… the final showcases this past week were bittersweet. So proud of the kids and missing them already! 💔🎭✨
What started as a spark of an idea with Phylly Jones and I nearly four years ago —to bring confidence-building, creativity, and student-centred drama education to young people—has grown into something I’m incredibly proud of.
With our younger learners, these are just some of the fabulous sessions we did:
🍎 imagining how an apple might walk and talk in our healthy bodies and minds unit,
🍫 going back in time to explore the moments the Mayan’s discovered the cacao,
🚀 blasting off into space and seeing what life on different planets might be like,
🕵️♂️ and becoming detectives solving the case of the missing adverb…
With our older students, we explore theatre techniques like devised theatre and forum theatre, and they created their own performances 💬🤝💡 on topics that interested them like school bullying and the impact of technology and social media on youth today.
Every class the students learned something new about the world around them while also developing key #21stcenturyskills like #creativity and #collaboration.
I’ve had the joy of watching shy students find their voice, big personalities learn to listen, and every child grow in self-awareness and autonomy. That kind of growth is what sticks!
Although I’ll miss the weekly rhythm of seeing the kids, their wild ideas, and their honest energy, this transition is a reminder to myself that not all things need to continue in order to succeed, that pause, change, and evolution is part of the process. Moving on isn’t failure. It’s simply the next natural step. 🌀🚶♀️✨
#CreativeLearning #DevisedTheatre #YouthTheatre #DramaInEducation #DramaTeacher #TheatreForYoungPeople #LearningThroughPlay #StudentVoice #SEL #ArtsEducation #Facilitation #EduDrama
Elana Shyong 