Why should children receive drama education?

What can drama education bring to children?

1. As a means of children's development, what value does drama have for children's development?

What kind of drama education can make drama really become a means of children's development? It can be said that drama, as a means of children's development, is the first concern of educators. American children's drama scholars put forward "creative drama" in the 1920s and 1930s, aiming at achieving the educational purpose of promoting children's development through children's "playing drama". Creative drama is defined as "an impromptu, non-performing and process-centered drama form, in which participants imagine, act and reflect on real or imagined human experience under the guidance of a guide." American scholar Eleanor? Chase? York especially summed up the development value of creative drama to children, including creativity, sensitivity, fluency, flexibility, imagination, emotional stability, social cooperation ability, moral attitude, physical balance and coordination ability, and communication ability. Take creativity as an example. In creative drama activities, children should completely put themselves into an idea and freely express their innermost thoughts, feelings and beliefs, so that their creativity can be fully developed. Later, Katherine MacKay, an American children's drama scholar, further emphasized that creative drama is to cultivate children's critical thinking and creative expression through drama, that is, to pay attention to all kinds of contradictions, conflicts and problems faced by children in drama. For example, in a creative drama theme activity of "Birds in Winter", the teacher designed a scene in advance: an injured bird met a selfish tree and a friendly tree, and the children imagined the next story. Children dressed as injured birds try to find help in the face of pain, cold and hunger, and they also have their own ideas in the face of injured birds' trees. Creative drama is precisely through children's attempts at various solutions in drama performance that children are prompted to think about various relationships and problems between people, people and society, and people and nature in "performance", thus enriching children's experience. Although the form of drama creation is drama, its educational purpose is not to create drama works, but to cultivate children's critical thinking and creative expression through drama. Creative drama pays more attention to the process than the result, focusing on the essence of drama "thinking about life", that is, through drama, an art that can face life directly, let children learn to think and learn to live. The emergence of therapeutic drama in the field of children's drama education has more effectively proved the psychotherapy value of drama, especially for special children with psychological barriers. Dr. Molino in Vienna specializes in drama as an auxiliary means of medical treatment. He uses drama to give psychological counseling to children in 19 1 1. He asked the children to play a game of "impromptu drama": first, determine a story, such as "Little Red Riding Hood" in Grimm's fairy tale, and let the children play a role. They don't have to recite lines, but make up dialogues spontaneously according to the needs of the role. The instructor will give some hints or guidance at any time to make a psychological analysis of the child's activities. Dr. Moreno found that for those children actors, his emotional intoxication occurred during the first performance. With the increase of performances, this sense of intoxication will become weaker and weaker, aggressive children will become more peaceful, and timid and nervous children will become more and more brave. The psychotherapy value of drama has another biggest advantage. It allows children to experience it repeatedly in hypothetical drama situations, which not only avoids all kinds of negative effects brought by real mistakes, but also releases and vents emotions, killing two birds with one stone. As a means to promote children's development, drama can play its unique value in children's cognitive, social and emotional development dimensions, and has all-round, multi-level and three-dimensional educational value.

Second, as a medium of teaching, what is the value of drama to teaching?

In the western drama teaching, drama can be used as a medium for teachers to teach and children to learn, which is the connotation of drama as a teaching medium at two levels. Dorothy, a British children's drama scholar? As the founder of "drama teaching" school, Hector strongly regards drama as the medium of teaching, that is, she uses drama to enrich children's perception in education and teaching, so that they can discover reality through imagination and explore the profound significance hidden under the behavior appearance. For example, in the theme of "medieval costumes", the teacher first put the children in a medieval church scene, and the children dressed as medieval knights, and then continued to explore the learning theme. Although role-playing appears in drama teaching, its purpose is not to create a script or play a role, but to deeply experience the learning theme. Dorothy. Haizikuote defines the goal of drama teaching as providing a stage for reflection and analysis of life experiences, and verifying these experiences through performances, so that children can know themselves and society in drama activities. Generally speaking, improvisation is the best form, and performance and reflection are equally important, each accounting for half of the activity time. In addition, in drama activities, teachers can play a certain role and participate in the drama performance, which is called "teachers entering the drama". When it is necessary to clarify the performance ideas, teachers can interrupt the performance at any time, discuss with children how to perform, and then continue to improvise, which is called "teacher drama". At this point, drama teaching is completely different from creative drama. In creative drama, teachers generally don't interrupt children's improvisation. Cecil? Ernie is also an important representative of drama teaching school. She believes that the most important task of "drama teaching" is to create a drama situation for people to share, that is, to explore and test ideas, problems, various relationships and interesting fields in a fictional world, hoping that children can experience happiness, perceive the world and be satisfied, gradually and consciously master pretend play, and share the feelings and cognition of others. Role-playing is an important concept in drama teaching. Children can discover their potential in role-playing and gradually change their prejudice against the world around them. In drama, teachers are not looking for answers, but helping children find their own problems. Therefore, the teacher does not enter the play for a more perfect performance, but explores a fictional world with students with enthusiasm, imagination and sincerity. From the perspective of drama as a teaching medium, the application of drama in the classroom can not only meet the needs of teachers' effective teaching, but also attract children's interest in learning and desire to explore to the greatest extent.

Thirdly, drama as an art form.

Drama is an art form, which is the essential attribute of drama. However, drama, as an art form, has entered western children's education (non-drama major) because of its artistic characteristics, especially because drama, as a theater art, has been paid more and more attention, thus forming "theater education". Theater education is a genre of British drama education, and its representative figure is Brian? Vi theater education is different from the traditional children's theater: children's audience can also participate in stage performances as participants; Drama changes with children's creation, but it does not deviate from the original drama scenes and roles; Generally speaking, the text of the drama has been revised to meet the needs of children's participation; Its purpose is not to entertain, but to encourage children to think and feel various emotions. Here, the artistry of drama is highlighted, just as we see that the theater has become an educational space, and children are both audiences and actors. Brian? Wei discussed his theory and practice of drama education in the book The Development of Drama-combining formal drama with creative drama, developing participatory drama, opening it to children's audience and making them participants. First of all, the number of children in the audience is limited to 10 at most, sitting in a circle; Secondly, actors should master the skills of inviting the audience to perform, know how to invite, how to cooperate with the participants, how to send the participants back to their seats and so on. In participating in the theater, children's audience can give advice to the actors at any time, and even perform on stage. Of course, this requires the consent of the main actors and participants. The younger the child, the more natural it is to participate in the performance. In participatory drama, when the audience becomes participants, the difference between creative drama and children's drama disappears. In drama education, because drama is an art, the main elements of drama-actors, audiences, scripts, theaters and so on. It also entered the field of vision of children's drama education. Children are no longer "participants" in drama creation or drama teaching, but develop from "participants" into actors, audiences, directors, playwrights, stage designers and critics. , and strive to be original. In addition, the performance rules and production rules of the theater have also become the content of children's drama education. From the perspective of drama as an art, drama endows children's drama education with the characteristics of aesthetic art. While paying attention to the development of children's creative ability in drama art, children's participation, initiative and creativity are fully considered. Through the above three dimensions, we are amazed at the excavation and utilization of the value of drama education in western children's drama education: drama can promote children's development; Drama is one of the best means to improve teaching effect; Drama can also cultivate the aesthetic ability of children's drama art, which is enough to show that drama has brought broad and rich value to western education. In addition, if we discuss these three dimensions from the perspectives of "instrumental theory" and "essential theory" of children's drama education, we can easily find that drama, as a means of children's development, and drama as a medium of teaching, is an "instrumental theory" orientation, which focuses on promoting children's all-round development and improving teaching effect through drama; As an art form, drama is an essentialist orientation, and this orientation of children's drama education sees the artistic characteristics of drama and attaches importance to improving the aesthetic ability of children's drama art. Of course, at present, western children's drama education has shown a trend of integration of "instrumental theory" and "essentialism". For example, today's "creative drama" adds various elements of drama to impromptu performance, which enhances the artistry of performance, not only emphasizes children's critical thinking and creativity, but also satisfies children's desire for dramatic art creation. However, the western children's drama education still lacks the understanding and utilization of the educational characteristics of drama art elements and the growth of children's drama experience, which leads to the formalization of the integration of instrumental value and essential value, which is also the key to the breakthrough of children's drama education in China. In short, in the profound significance of emphasizing the integration of the two orientations of "instrumental theory" and "essence theory" in children's drama education, we can see that the educational value of drama at all levels presents a trend of integration, which also points out the direction for the development of children's drama education in China.