[Xmca-l] Re: Response to Spoilsport: Beyond oppositional dualitiesindrama in education and dialogic pedagogy to promote learning possibilities

[Lplarry]

I will just add a comment on our explorations as not (really) a *divide* but more a fruitful boundary *marking*.
For example to enter into the *PRE/tend* and then  moving out or away from this chronotope and moving to or toward the real chronotope (the ontological chronotope). 
The question I am asking is directly related to this notion of *boundary markings* and multiple *structures* by which I mean multiple ways of endowing or embodying our dwelling places.
What is *pre/tend* what is *imaginal* what is *fictional* what is *real* what is *ontological* what is *community of players* is not a rigid divide but is a fluid *structure*.
I am suggesting there are multiple  structures which may be considered *structures of consciousness* and we may become *captured* by differing structures of consciousness in which the imaginal and the real play out.
For example it may be possible to understand the Adam structure as a myth of falling away from the *source* or the source as *withdrawing* from *us* and the yearning or desire is to return to the *source*. This *structure* of consciousness runs deep and plays out in historical consciousness for example in the protestant belief/faith in the self being able to have a direct knowledge of the *source* 
I believe it is possible to be *captured* by this structure of consciousness.
In contrast from Greece emerged an alternative boundary marking of the *imaginal* the *ontological* and the *community of players*. They had a notion of the *soul* that animated the real and was the *source*.
This is another *structure* by which I mean the way the boundary marking of the *real* and the *imaginal* play OUT
Another way of being *captured*.

So to Helen's point to move in and out of what is imagined as *PREtend* and return to  what is imagined as the *real* is also playing with this boundary and marking what is pretend and what is real. It also is a *structure* of consciousness.
To take a historical perspective and be able to *perceive* the differing ways *community of players* mark the boundary of the horizon operating between the imaginal and the real shows this fluidity of frameworks and the historical structure is one more example of a particular structure of consciousness that may *capture* us in its horizon..
I would then also include the notion of paradigmatic shifts in how we come to understand as movements of boundary markings . The structure of consciousness AS *polar opposites* as yet another *structure* of consciousness that *captures* us.
The question then opens up if these structures themselves can be seem as types or kinds that show up as typical or proto/typical ways of marking the fluid boundary of the laminated chronotopes that can be imagined as existing *simultaneously* within layered structures of consciousness.
This may be wild con/jecture and require either suspension of belief or suspension of disbelief but this is the *field* that opens to speculation and skepticism and criticism.
Raymond Williams has something to say in these matters.
Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: "Helen Grimmett" <helen.grimmett@monash.edu>
Sent: ‎2016-‎03-‎01 3:40 PM
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Response to Spoilsport: Beyond oppositional dualitiesindrama in education and dialogic pedagogy to promote learning possibilities

I think what is being missed, is that the playing out of the 'imagined
situation' is not the whole extent of a 'drama in education' lesson or unit
of work. The imagined situation provides an opportunity for children to
'try out' and experience different roles, perspectives, opinions, emotions
and actions, with the safety net of knowing that everyone has agreed that
 this is 'pretend' and that they are able to 'step out' again and back to
their real lives. However, the equally important element of the DiE
lesson/unit is the dialogue that can take place after everyone steps out of
the imagined situation - where all of the feelings, thoughts and actions
that were expressed or experienced during the 'play' can be revisited,
discussed and debated from a more detached position and where
understandings of others' perceptions can be further explored, and
alternative responses and meanings can be constructed.

So, yes, it is necessary for the players to buy in to the imagined
situation and agree to play along within the 'rules' of the roles they are
playing in order to keep the drama functioning, but the whole point is that
everyone knows that there will soon be a time where they will step out of
the role again and be able to say "When your character did X, it made me
feel Y" or "I never realised how difficult it would be to ..." or "I wonder
what would have happened if ..." etc. In my mind this part of the session
is an equally crucial part of the learning and is why I believe DiE (done
well) is a dialogical pedagogy. It is the very awareness of the different
chronotopes (that we have all agreed we are pretending) that makes this
possible. It is a different kettle of fish altogether when people are
thrust into a 'simulation exercise' and are never quite sure if what they
are experiencing is real or not (especially in light of current events
which mean many children have had to experience confusing school lockdown
and evacuation events), which is why Heathcote put so much emphasis on
establishing 'agreement' about the situation that was being mutually
created and the roles that were being adopted. I do not find this
oppressing, but rather empowering, that the teacher is endowing students
with the power to 'pretend', to 'try out different ways of being', and to
contribute to both the imaginary situation and the reality of the lesson as
it unfolds in a very dialogical way, that may in fact allow them to develop
a new understanding of who they currently are and who they might
potentially be.

Cheers,
Helen







-- 
*Dr HELEN GRIMMETT *
Lecturer in Primary and Early Years Education
Professional Experience Liaison - Primary

*Education*
Monash University
Room 159, Building 902, Berwick Campus
100 Clyde Road
Berwick VIC 3806
Australia

T: +61 3 9904 7171
E: helen.grimmett@monash.edu <name.surname@monash.edu>
monash.edu


The Practice of Teachers' Professional Development: A Cultural-Historical
Approach
<https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/professional-learning-1/the-practice-of-teachers-professional-development/>
Helen Grimmett (2014) Sense Publishers




On 2 March 2016 at 03:42, Dr. Ana Marjanovic-Shane <anamshane@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Larry,
>
> I am reading your highly interesting comments and feedback on the ideas I
> started to develop in the “Spoilsport” article.  Yes, you are right that I
> use the concept of a chronotope - as one of the central concepts in my
> study. I understood this concept from MM Bakhtin as a unity of time, space
> and axiology, i.e., set of values, relationships, rules and expectations
> that exist for the participants in a time-space. Bakhtin described
> chronotope in literature as “the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and
> spatial relationships that are artistically expressed . . . [S]patial and
> temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought out, concrete
> whole.Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically
> visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of
> time, plot and history” (Bakhtin, 1994, p. 184).
>
> And while, in literature there may be ONE chronotope within the literary
> work, in our lives, and especially in play, education, art, etc - we always
> “operate” on more than one chronotope simultaneously - as if they are
> laminated layers of the same event. However, these chronotopes relate to
> each other in a different way - depending on a situation.
>
> You invoke the concept of being “captured” by the imagined worlds
> (chronotopes). I think that it may be true - but we are captured in
> different ways and have different means of freeing ourselves up - in
> different situations - depending on the relationship in which these
> chronotopes are set. My whole argument in the Spoilsport paper is that when
> the imagined chronotope becomes a place of “dwelling” it is as
> “captivating” as the our chronotope of the real - and that it is hard,
> potentially impossible and often seen as illegitimate (non-normative) to
> “spoil” this chronotope - to try to break its mangels. Both the imagined
> and the ontological chronotope can become oppressive. I think that the
> dialogic freedom may come from the possibility to create such a
> relationship between the chronotopes that allows their participants to
> examine the boundaries and see them in each-others’ perspectives. In that
> sense I don’t see the relationship between the imagined and the reality as
> a *divide* as you put it, but as a fruitful boundary and dialogic
> contact-zone, where a new meaning stems exactly from being able to draw the
> boundary between them.
>
> I am intrigued with your last comment about Jewish “Adamic” world
> contrasting with the Greek classical world. What did you mean?
>
> What do you think?
>
> Ana
>
>
> > On Mar 1, 2016, at 10:59 AM, Lplarry <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Ana,
> > In this response the paradigms hinge on the notion of differing
> chrono/topes.
> > * community of players (CoPl)
> > * reality (RC) or ontological
> > * imagined (IC)
> >
> > Therefore, the theme of being *cast out* may be playing with a theme of
> *falling away* or being *cast out* from the garden of Eden as a chronotopic
> theme.
> > There seems to be a theme of what dominates *over* what becomes its
> opposite.
> > Ana, you suggest both drama and dialogical chronotopes INVOKE OR SUMMON
> UP imagined worlds. I will add the metaphor that both *capture* or are
> *captured by* imaginal worlds. This is the *capta* aspect of. Chronotopes.
> > Now to *be* summoned or invoked or embodied or endowed are polar
> opposites in your horizon of understanding.
> > A clear di/vergence of the imaginal and ontological and community of
> players chronotopes.
> >
> > I question if BOTH the imaginal AND ontological exist within a relation
> of con/vergence as primary prior to becoming differentiated into polar
> opposites.
> > This version of the imaginal/reality *divide* plays with the notion of
> *apposition* prior to the forming of polar opposites with one side
> *capturing* the other side by dominating over the other, placing the other
> side *under* or relagated to the *shadows*.
> > The play of the Jewiish *Adamic* world contrasting with the Greek
> classical world seems to have a place in this turn taking
> > Larry
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: "Dr. Ana Marjanovic-Shane" <anamshane@gmail.com>
> > Sent: ‎2016-‎03-‎01 12:41 AM
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Response to Spoilsport: Beyond oppositional
> dualities indrama in education and dialogic pedagogy to promote learning
> possibilities
> >
> > Dear Sue and Brian and all,
> >
> >
> >
> > First – thanks for taking the time and effort to respond to my paper. I
> take your response very seriously. I have some questions for clarification
> and also some more comments regarding what I think is a “paradigmatic
> difference” – rather than an arbitrary dichotomy between the two approaches
> to education that I outlined in my paper.
> >
> > Please see my responses below, between your words - in blue!
> >
> >
> >
> > Ana
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________
> >
> > On Feb 29, 2016, at 1:09 AM, Susan Davis <s.davis@cqu.edu.au> wrote:
> >
> > As scholars and practitioners committed to the use of drama for
> educational purposes we wish to respond briefly to Ana Marjanovic-Shane’s
> article: “Spoilsport” in drama in education vs. dialogic pedagogy. Our
> intention is to provide some of our shared professional understanding of
> drama’s use in educational contexts that we hope will illuminate some of
> the misunderstandings we find in this article. At the same time, we look
> forward to future productive dialogue about what we regard as potential
> overlaps between these pedagogical approaches.
> >
> > We need to stress from the start that there is no unified field named
> ‘drama in education’ that would extend to those who work within playworlds,
> or practice psychodrama and so forth as claimed by Marjanovic-Shane. We
> confine our remarks to the field that we are knowledgeable about and from
> which Marjanovic-Shane draws her example: a classroom use of drama
> described by Heathcote as ‘drama in education’ or ‘educational drama’ and
> more recently as process drama, applied theatre, and dramatic inquiry,
> among other terms.  In fact these fields of practice have arisen from very
> different communities in progressive school education, educational
> psychology, early childhood, and play all of whom independently discovered
> the power of using drama in their practice. There have only recently been
> some nascent interactions between these groups (see for example the book
> ‘Dramatic Interactions in Education’ <
> http://www.bloomsbury.com/au/dramatic-interactions-in-education-9781472576
> 910/> which we published last year) to find areas of common interest and
> concern.
> >
> > ANA: Yes! This is what I also addressed in my article: I defined “Drama
> in Education” for the purposes of my article exactly that way – many
> different approaches “all of whom independently discovered the power of
> using drama in their practice”.
> >
> > As with those who identify with the field of ‘dialogic pedagogy’ we look
> forward to more fruitful discussions and debates about research, practice
> and approaches which work for the benefit of students and participants in
> learning processes.
> >
> > There is no space in this response to show in detail why we resist the
> dichotomy established in this article, believing such are rarely helpful.
> However, we do can not agree with Marjanovic-Shane’s conclusion that any
> dramatic pedagogy cannot be dialogic or that there are irreconcilable
> paradigmatic differences between these pedagogical approaches.
> >
> > In our view, she is correct in identifying that a pre-requisite for
> using drama in classrooms is an implicit, if not explicit, agreement to
> play the “game of drama” and in effect to begin to create an ensemble and
> enter into social worlds. However, rather than characterizing such social
> agreement as somehow different from real life, we argue that there is
> little difference from the tacit agreement to join in the “social drama” of
> everyday life (Turner, 1974), as for example university students do by
> agreeing to participate in a discussion. However drama has the additional
> sphere of possibility that can be physically and conceptually explored
> through the activation of ‘what if’ in action.
> >
> > Unlike discussion, drama is a social art that can only be created when a
> group comes together willingly to collaborate in dramatizing life events.
> There is indeed a consensus but only about agreeing to work together or to
> focus dramatizing on a particular storyline, topic, or concern; there is no
> consensus assumed about the meaning of the work.
> >
> > Ana: In my view – there are several planes (or to use Bakhtin’s concept
> - “chronotopes”) of meaning making in all educational events. Above, you
> are referring to two of them: a) group relationships and group dynamics of
> the co-authors: “when a group comes together willingly to collaborate in
> dramatizing life events”; and b) “meaning making” – I assume that you refer
> here to what each participant understands about the created dramatic world.
> >
> > I want to stress that in my article I was describing precisely these
> group relationships rather than the participants’ understanding of an
> imaginary dramatic world. What I claim in my article is that there are
> fundamentally different group relationships, i.e. that the pedagogical
> chronotope (not the dramatic world) in which the participants of drama in
> education live, is fundamentally different from the pedagogical chronotope
> in which the participants of dialogic pedagogy live. In drama in education,
> the consensus about “dramatizing on a particular storyline, topic, or
> concern”- is necessary in order to build this particular dramatization. On
> the other hand, in dialogic pedagogy such consensus about what is "a
> particular storyline, topic or concern" – is not necessary at all. In fact,
> I claim that the most productive and the most welcome aspect of dialogic
> pedagogy is the very dissent about what is being “discussed” in the first
> place.
> >
> > Using drama in a classroom does not assume that a student cannot choose
> not to join in or cannot opt out at any point. Participants may present or
> raise different views that may be addressed dialogically. Agreeing to join
> in is not an experience of being “trapped” by a teacher with no exit in
> sight.
> >
> > Ana: I would respectfully disagree here. This phrase and understanding
> of what should be taking place in drama in education, comes directly from
> Dorothy Heathcote. I actually just quoted her in my paper: “The proper
> tools of drama are emotional reaction and the state of being trapped, a
> state from which one can escape only by working through the situation.”
> (Heathcote, Collected writings on drama in education, 1984, p. 91, italics
> mine).
> >
> > Nor does it mean that a teacher would label someone a “spoilsport” to be
> “cast out.” We have conducted many practical sessions when not only have
> people chosen to sit out, some of whom have later chosen to join in, but we
> have protected young people from others in a group ready to “discipline”
> them.
> >
> > Ana: My arguments about the explicit and implicit values of the drama in
> education approach are actually based exactly on this point: In my view, if
> a person is under a threat of being “disciplined” just because they
> disagree with the majority – either by openly opposing their opinions, or
> their ways of acting, or by withdrawing collaboration, and if such
> opposition is not supported and addressed by the teacher as a legitimate
> and a serious bid to differ – then the group regime and the pedagogical
> approach are, in fact, not dialogic, but rather monologic and, yes,
> authoritarian! If a teacher has to protect someone from the others in a
> group that wants to “discipline” him/her, then the group values that
> prevail are based on “who ever is not with us – is against us”. Doesn’t
> that mean that there is no active pedagogical support of dissensus?
> >
> > Just as a person who does not join a theatre group cannot create a
> performance, or a preschool child choosing not to play with others may
> engage in other activities, not participating in drama just means that a
> person cannot contribute at that time to the collaborative creation of
> events in an imagined world.
> >
> > Ana: Exactly!  Thus this person’s ideas, reasons, points of view,
> desires, values, etc. are not pedagogically engaged. This person is NOT
> within the pedagogical scope of this approach. This is, actually, what
> means to be “cast out” from a pedagogical event – the person is just NOT
> IN.  They are OUT. Moreover, this is also often interpreted as that
> person’s (bad) choice! (As you say — “a preschool child choosing not to
> play.”)
> >
> > Marjanovic-Shane uses a highly selective video extract from a 1971 drama
> session featuring the master teacher Dorothy Heathcote to infer that
> Heathcote dragoons students into a drama within which their choices and
> alternative views are closed down. However, as O’Neill shared in the
> keynote address Power-sharing: Teacher power and student choices, where she
> describes another more recent 2007 drama conducted in the U.S., Heathcote
> worked with all major offers children made, never adopting an authoritarian
> position but asking participants to consider the consequences of their
> actions. When a group of boys invented a bomb which ‘blew’ up a celebratory
> event in a drama, Heathcote said: “There is nothing we do in this room that
> isn’t happening somewhere in the world” (Heathcote in O’Neill 2014, p 26).
> Even though others in the room were horrified and expected her to castigate
> the boys involved, Heathcote respected and worked with the material they
> offered, drawing out significance, considering the implications and working
> dialogically with very alternative views from her own.
> >
> >
> > Ana: Since you describe it, I want to briefly analyze this case —
> Heathcote’s 2007 drama workshop in NYC. In my view, it actually presents
> more evidence for the hypothesis I developed in my article. (I am attaching
> O’Neil’s keynote address to this e-mail - for the curious ones)
> >
> > In my analysis of the event you outlined above (fully described by
> O’Neil), three major questions/comments come to mind:
> >
> > 1)    First: If in Drama in Education approach students can dialogically
> contribute to creating an imaginary world (as you claim) – offering their
> own opinions, ideas and positions, then why would a teacher ever be in a
> situation to “castigate students for their actions” – in the first place?
> What was “wrong” with “blowing up a celebratory event” in the imaginary
> world? Why were the others in the room [graduate students who observed
> Dorothy’s master class] horrified? Shouldn’t the spectators be actually
> very curious about this sudden turn of the events in the imaginary world,
> which at that point is being truly collaboratively created?
> >
> > 2)    Second, O’Neil's very detailed and documented description of
> Heathcote’s workshop in 2007 -  testifies to a subversive resistance of the
> several boys – and their constant attempts to resist Dorothy’s pre-set plan
> of this imaginary world. This unacknowledged, yet very felt resistance, at
> the end of the workshop lead to their “sabotage” of Dorothy’s invented
> world – by “blowing it up”. As O’Neil writes:
> >
> > “One of the graduate students noted in


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