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Analysis of facilitating the workshop - After the seminar reflection.

During this session we were all reunited with our workshop groups to discuss all-together different aspects of the day, what worked well and what we could have improved on.

One thing we learned/ and surprised ourselves about facilitating:

We all agreed that giving the group name tags before entering the working space worked very well as it quickly illuminated the end for a name game and allowed them to know our names which was important because we didn’t want them to call us ‘miss’, even though some of them actually did with force of habbit.

Having taken part in the check in and check out game ourselves we felt that although sometimes can get annoying and repetitive it is a very useful tool for the facilitator as it simply demonstrates whether you have completed the task at hand and changed the moods of the students. All students were tired or ill in the beginning check out then although some were still ill the majority had change to happy and ready to go.

What we enjoyed -

We all agreed that watching the groups’ final performances was a big highlight as it gave us and the participants a sense of achievement and you can see the enjoyment of putting on a performance and seeing the end product of their work.

I also enjoyed the spontaneity of the ‘Oggy,Oggy,Oggy’. As we had already experienced the surprise of the group with our practice workshop in uni, we were expecting a little surprise from the class. For 30 seconds it made us look like fools but as soon as we made ourselves look stupid it broke the ice in the group and made the class feel at ease. We felt the ‘Oggy,Oggy,Oggy’ was a really effective way of gaining the class’ concentration back.

During this session we all admitted that we actually enjoyed the facilitating aspect of it; the way in which we communicated with the group so easily. We honestly weren’t expecting ourselves to enjoy the experience of being the facilitator as much as we did.

What we found difficult -

At times the group would get side tracked and distracted and that we, as facilitators sometimes had to take a more authoritative tone. We felt the trick is finding the balance between how much authority we were to take vs facilitation.

Aspects that we could possibly improve on -

We felt that perhaps we should have kept more in mind what our actual aims were rather than get side tracked with the enjoyment of the participants. Also perhaps we could have steered away from creating another drama lesson and more applied theatre.

After assessing the group and how they reacted to the activities on the day we could possibly increase the difficulty to the exercises and games as I think we did underestimate the class a little.

If we were to nip pick we all felt that although our workshop was an hour exactly we do feel that we could have managed our time a little better regarding the time between each exercise and the swapping of facilitators.

Overall -

Overall I can say that we completely agree that this module was worthwhile in the sense that we have all learned more about the applied theatre world. This assessment has allowed us to explore many different skills such our team work, facilitating techniques, imagination, acceptance in the way that nobody is wrong and most of all confidence as I would never have dreamed that I could have facilitated a whole year 11 class. This experience has been brilliant.

The beginning, Middle and End to each fairy tale:

BEGINNING.

Little Red Riding Hood. Little red riding hoods mum tells her that her nanny is ill. Little red packs a picnic basket and decides to take it to see her grandma. She skips merrily to the woods.

Hansel and Gretel A poor woodcutter and his wife had two children named Hansel and Gretel. Their mother died when they were young. Hansel and Gretel were very sad. Soon their father remarried but their stepmother was very cruel. One day, she took the children deep into the forest and left them there. Clever Hansel had some breadcrumbs in his pocket and had dropped them on the way so that they could find their way back home. Alas! The birds ate all the crumbs and they couldn’t find the path that led back home.

Snow White There was a princess whose mother and father loved her more then all the land. Her hair was black as coal, her skin as white as snow, her lips as red as a rose. Unfortunately, the princesses mother passed away and her father quickly found love in someone else. But this women, was evil. Not as gentle and sweet as Snow Whites mother. And her new step mum hated Snow White. On Snow Whites 16th Birthday, the queen approached her mirror as usual and asked... “Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all.” However, the answer was not what she was used to as it confessed to Snow White now being the prettiest in the land. Filled with rage The queen ordered a huntsman to kill snow white in the deep forest.

MIDDLE.

Little Red Riding Hood. A hungry wolf approaches. Can here that there are nearby walkers so decides to come up with a cunning plan. He asks little red where she is heading and she kindly tells the wolf of her plans and where her grandma lives. He suggests that her nan may like some flowers so little red agrees that this is a good idea and she takes her time picking only the prettiest flowers. The wolf runs to the grandma’s house and gobbles her up, gets into a grandma disguise and sits a waits for little red.

Hansel and Gretel. Hansel and Gretel went deeper and deeper into the forest. They were hungry and tired. Finally, after walking for a long time, they saw a cottage made of chocolate, candies, and cake. “Look, Hansel! A chocolate brick!” shouted Gretel in delight and both ate it hungrily.

Snow White.

The huntsman took her out there to be killed, however, as he towered her, knife in hand, he could not do it as she was far too pretty and innocent. He told her to run and never to return. He found a pig and killed it, and took away its heart and took it back to the queen in proof that he had killed her. Snow white ran and ran until she grew tired and stumbled across a small cottage. She was so exhausted that when she knocked and no one answered she could not help but to enter, she looked around and found seven little beds in which she fell asleep. When she awoke she found seven dwarfs at the foot of the bed staring. The dwarfs took her into their home. Looked after her until she was happy again.

END.

Little Red Riding Hood.

Little red enters the cottage and approaches the bed where a figure lays. She greets herself and then begins to notice that her grandma does not look quite herself. What great big nose you have. What great big ears. What great big teeth. The wolf then jumps up to gobble little red, but the huntsmen hears the screams, runs to the aid of little red. With his axe cuts open the wolf and saves little reds grandma.

Hansel and Gretel.

Now, a wicked witch lived there. When she saw Hansel and Gretel, she wanted to eat them. She grabbed the children and locked them in a cage. The witch decided to make a soup out of Hansel and eat him first. She began boiling a huge pot of water for the soup. Just then, Gretel crept out of her cage. She gave the wicked witch a mighty push from behind and the witch fell into the boiling water. She howled in pain and died instantly. Hansel and Gretel found treasure lying around the cottage. They carried it home with them. Their stepmother had died and their father welcomed them back with tears of joy. They never went hungry again!

Snow White.

A few days later, the queen, happily returned to the mirror, in which she repeated her words. The mirror replied, how can this be, she is dead, and then the mirror showed Snow White happily living out in the woods by the little cottage. The queen ordered to see the huntsman and killed him. When the dwarfs went off to work one day the queen put on a disguise of an old lady and took to the little cottage holding a basket of poisoned apples. Snow White, took the lady up on her offer and shortly after her first bite fell to the ground in a deep sleep. Never to wake. The dwarfs came home and preserved her in a glass casing to protect her forever. Shortly after, a prince was wondering through the woods, lost after battle. He stumbled across the cottage. Where he found the glass case and the beautiful woman he found inside. He found her so beautiful he could not help but be drawn to her lips. She woke up instantly. She told the prince of what had happened and in rage the prince killed the queen and the two got married and lived happily ever after.

Photos of their final performances.

Personal analysis of facilitating after the workshop:

Overall I feel that our final workshop went really well, in fact as well as i could have gone. I feel the group were well engaged throughout.

Here are the positives and possible improvements we could have made:

Positives -

We began with the statement ‘If you respect us we will respect you’. This immidietly allowed the class that we will respect them, and in school may don’t necessarily feel respected byt their teachers.

When choosing which fairy tale the group want to take further in the workshop I was impressed at how well they responded to voting for each one. Their enthusiasm truly came across here.

When asked to make costumes the majority of the students got excited as it was something they weren’t used to. Although this presented us with some risks, such ad with the scissors it proved a necessity to the workshop as all the pupils seemed to be enjoying themselves.

When they performed their final scenes we created and audience and their teacher had turned the room light down and the studio/stage lights on. This dramatically changed the perception of the students and increased the sense of worth to each performance. All the pupils were excited to perform what they had created and share it with the rest of the class.

I personally found it liberating to see the students excitement and sense of worth, and I was also surprised at how well they had put their own spin and interpretations on the fairy tale.

I feel what we did best was sharing the facilitation between for each exercise. This prevented us from over lapping and enforcing upon the client group too much. This also gave us an equal opportunity to bond with different section s of the class.

Possible points we could improve upon:

I feel that we could have possibly engaged the class more from the outset, as at the beginning of the workshop the class seemed slightly unengaged and tired. Which was understandable as it was their first class of the day at 9am in the morning.

The beginning was also slightly miss-jointed in the fact that quite a few of the students were surprised to see us. Perhaps the teacher hadn’t reminded them that we were coming.

When splitting them into their first three groups to play the ball game we felt that this took a hile to get started and that we as facilitators had to take part to add to the energy of the class.

At times when working some students would get distracted therefore the certain facilitator would have to put them back on track but without sounding authoritative. This I found difficult as whenever I would say ‘let’s get back on track’ I immediately felt a sense of guilt that I was lecturing them.

I feel that we underestimated the ability of the class to the extent that I believe we could have hardened the difficulty to the challenges and exercises and possibly made it more influential for them.

Being involved in this workshop has highlighted to me the benefit of Applied Theatre in today’s society. I have always had an interest in teaching but never with applied theatre, but I can honestly say that after this workshop experience I feel that this is a possible career that I could go down.

I honestly thought I was going to find the actual facilitating harder than it was. I think begin in a group certainly helped as we all kept each other focussed on the day and continuously helped to examine the similarities and differences.

Overall I have loved this module and have found it very educational on my behalf regarding the world of Applied Theatre.

The space in which the workshop was held:

After meeting the client group the week before our workshop we had a good idea of the space and what we could do with it. The workshop was held at Fairfield Secondary school in Bristol. The area surrounding the school would be described as a run neighbourhood which is populated mostly by deprived families. Having said this, the school itself and the facilities were great as the school had only recently been built. It was extremely secure and offered a range of different facilities. Our workshop was going to take place in their main drama studio.

The space we were given was a drama studio at Fairfield high School. The room was a typically built drama studio with wooden floor which brightened it up rather than it being a dark black box studio room. We quickly spotted that they had a stage area that we would use to perfume the students’ final performances. During this first session we could all see that the space enforced a place of work and enjoyment for the pupils but still a space associated with work.

A dramatic-inquiry approach to teaching and learning.

"Lessons feel more relaxed and more purposeful. The children feel they can be themselves, because they know their real opinions and ideas will be valued. They don’t need to assume an opinion just to please me or their classmates."

- An unknown teacher from a school where they use Mantle of the Expert. This quote truly emphasizes what we as a group want in our workshop.

The Mantle of The Expert:

The Mantle of The Expert is a new theatre theory by Dorothy Heathcote allowing the children to control the script, the process, and the performance. It is used by community theatre companies such as ‘Pickled Image’ working with the idea that the audience and participants are never wrong whatever they suggest, this empowers the audience and young people and makes them feel that their opinions matter and are accepted whatever. ‘Pickled image’ are a theatre company that work with a puppet named ‘Grandad’ who asks the audience to help him complete the story of how he arrived at the designated place. There whole concept is to allow possibilities and the audiences’ imaginations run as freely as possible.

We used this method in our workshop as we allowed the students to control the emotions they wanted to portray in each tableaux and their own interpretations of their scenes. We then also gave them the choice in which fairy tale they enjoyed the most and which they would like to take further and perform. We also attempted to engage the group as much as possible throughout the workshop linking again with Mantel of the expert’s idea that the workshop should be made as enjoyable as possible.

Mantle of the Expert’s is simply, “The main shift is that the context invented creates a reason for doing the learning in the minds of learners-rather than as a directive decided by the teacher. In turn this gives learners more responsibility for their learning as they take up the tasks in the work."

Wendy Rouse and Amanda Wilde state that “Mantle of the Expert is a drama-based mode of inquiry appropriate for all ages of children in the primary sector. Teachers and children work in role as colleagues employed in a fictional enterprise. These enterprises tend to operate as open, democratic and non-hierarchical (although highly structured) organizations in which team-work and collaboration, in order to get the job done, are prized.” - Word on the Street (pdf. 25 pages) – Wendy Rouse & Amanda Wilde – An action research project, http://www.moeplanning.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/wots20final20report.pdf

Mantle of The expert – “A dramatic-inquiry approach to teaching and learning”. - http://www.mantleoftheexpert.com/

Some of the exercises used:

It was also important to us from the outset that the pupils themselves were truly at the heart of the workshop and that anything they wanted to include needed to be possible. We believe there should be no limitations to the creativity and imagination of the students. Their minds should be allowed to run wild because there are so many limitations and rules throughout school and in real life. The scenes were to be performed in the groups own interpretations, whether they chose a modern interpretation, chose to perform it from a comedy point of view or whether they perform it traditionally….Nothing is wrong.

The exercises we used were chosen specifically to allow the participants to work with a range of their skills. The mind maps were purposely to allow their wider range of thinking forcing them to look deeper into the fairy tales exploring the emotions behind each section. As you can see from the pictures below the diagrams were well received and the pupils were engaged although at times the individual group facilitators had to control their concentration and bring them back to the objective of the exercise.

Little Red riding hood:

Hansel and Gretel:

Snow White:

“With a firm focus on educational values we consider ourselves to be an invaluable resource for teachers looking to inspire and enthuse their children”.

where our workshop fits in with wider applied theatre practices

As we are working with young people aged 15-16 we feel that we best fit in to educational applied theatre companies such as ‘YPT Urban Arts’ and ‘Hobgoblin Theatre Company’. They both focus their work solely around the children, working with the use of props, materials and other elements to ensure that the participants have the best time possible.

YPT Urban Arts:

YPT Urban Arts specifically aim at working with young people between the ages of 13-21. They have produced a number of performances to a wide range of audiences. Although they cater for a range of clientele their participants are referred to them by key partnership organisations. This theatre company uses the egg theatre in bath for many of their performances and workshops. They also operate in a sense that the enjoyment of the participants is at the heart of the process at all times in each project.

Hobgoblin Theatre Company:

Hobgoblin are built up of three main theatre practitioners; James Anthony, Hannah Bowen, and Dan Ellis. They have all had previous experience with theatre in education. They aim to put their knowledge and understanding of the arts to better use by educating people. They work with young people and put on regular live performances. An enjoyable experience is extremely important to them both for them as facilitators and the participants themselves. This company write all of their scripts from scratch and create their own props and costumes. This tends to add to the authenticity of their productions.

Among all the issues that teenagers face personally I feel that this is the one topic that teenagers have most knowledge on. It is during your teenage years that many lose their virginity and form their first serious relationships. Instead of hiding from the fact that many teenagers are having sex as a society we have accepted the situation and now there are many things in place, such as different types of contraception and clinics where students can get free advice and help. Although many people are aware of the high risks of pregnancy, some may still get pregnant.

Drugs are becoming more and more popular with students throughout school with students as young as year sevens smoking. Although drugs were in my school they were not as accessible and not seen as a trend. Nowadays students don't hide what they are taking, it is as though they are increasing in coolness and popularity by taking a drug at lunchtime or dealing on the yard to fellow students during break. Although many of my friends take drugs and I am acceptable of them it doesn't seem that clear to young teenagers that it is an offense to possess drugs and can lead to convictions.

'Stranger Danger': Although this for many seems a cliche it is still something that many young teenagers are aware of. I remember in school that everyone would say 'beware of the white van man'. Although this statement is extremely judge-mental it is something that has stuck and does emphasize that we should all be weary of unfamiliar situations and unfamiliar people.

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