While many of you were in Chicago, I went to the other side of the planet:
Yekaterinburg (formerly Sverdlovsk) in the Ural mountains in Russia to take
part in a conference on theater in education. This was an all-Russian and
International conference with about 150 to 200 participants and I want to
share some of my impresions with you (now that I seem to be recovering from
the worst case of a jet lag I ever had before).
It was a very important and lively conference. The participants were
teachers (from preschool to high school level), psychologists, sociologists,
theater professionals. There were many demonstrations of the kinds of work
these people do in their schools, master classes, very focused discussions
and arguments. Most of the participants were themselves educated in the
tradition of Vygotsky, Elkonin and Davidov, and their work represents
inovative ways to apply cultural-historical theory of development in their
classes. Whatever the particular methods (and there was no agreement on
universals here), the overall motivation of these educators could be
described as a wish to make schools and communities places where academic
leaning is interwoven into a cultural-humanistic approach to individual and
group development.
Various practical approaches to the use of play and theater in education
fell between two extremes: on one hand, using play and theatrical
(dramatical) methods in teaching different academic subjects (from
mathematics and biology to geography and history) as well as for personal
and group development; on the other, using theater and play to specifically
teach literature, aesthetics and dramatic arts and to produce theatrical
performances. However, regardless of where exactly was one on this
continuum, all the participants stressed the importance of the development
of social, emotional, motivational and other "non-academic" skills.
I'll try to give you just a few titles at the end (if I can correctly
translate from Russian - our native speakers of Russian, please correct
me!!), so that you get a picture of the kind of works presented in this
conference.
I enjoyed being with our Russian colleagues very much and made a lot of new
friends. They are highly motivated to share their experiences, classes,
research and ideas in general, with the rest of the world. And they have a
lot to tell us. If you want more information, I would be pleased to make
copies of the abstracts (in Russian) from the Conference and pass them around.
Ana
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Dr. Ana Marjanovic-Shane
151 W. Tulpehocken St.
Philadelphia, PA 19144
(215) 843-2909 home
(215) 843-2288 fax at home
e-mai: pshane who-is-at andromeda.rutgers.edu
City of Philadelphia Deaprtment fo Public Health
Office of Mental Health and Mental Retardation
Research and Information Management
1101 Market St.
Philadelphia, PA 19107, 7th fl.
(215) 685-4767
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Some titles from the Conference: "Children, Theater, Education", Feb 22-25,
Yekaterinburg, Russia
"Educational Play Situation as Creative Space", L.M. Andryukhina,
Yekaterinburg [Igrovyie obrazovatelynyie situacii kak prostranstvo
sotvorchestva]
Theatrical Play as a Pedagogical Method in Supplemental (Additional)
Education, N.G. Arefyeva, Yekaterinburg [Teatralynaya igra kak metod
pedagogiki dopolnitelynogo obrazovaniya]
To Teach, to Learn, to Play. The Use of Methods of Theatrical Pedagogy in
Child Development, N.E. Basina, Yekaterinburg [Uchity i uchitysya, igraya.
Ispolyzovanie metodov teatralynoi pedagogiki in razvitii rebenka]
An Open Class in "Play Training" - The Zone of Maximal Arrousal, Activating
Lives of the Students of the Theater Class, M.B. Belyakov, Tambov
[Otkryityii urok po predmetu "Igrovoi trening" - zona maksimalyno
vozbuzhdennoi, aktivizirovannoi zhizni uchashchihsya tetralynogo klassa]
Gnoseodrama, V.V. Vorobyev, Moscow and V. U. Puzyirevskii, Sanct-Peterburg
[Gnoseodrama]
Play Methods in Studying Mathematics, Olga Daniv and Andrey Kuranov,
Humanitarian Center "Theater', Yekaterinburg, [Igrovyie Metodyi v izuchenii
predmeta matematiki]
Directing a School Class Organized According to the Technology of Theatrical
Pedagogic, V.A. Ilyev, Perm, [Rezhissyra shkolynogo uroka, organizovannogo
po tehnologii teatralynoi pedagogiki]
Music, Art, Movement and Drama in Biology, V.G. Smelova, Volzhsk Resp. Marii
El, [Muzyika, iskusstvo, dvizhenie i drama v biologii]
and so on.