Teacher in role
Teacher in role is a method of teaching that utilizes techniques of drama to facilitate education. It is a holistic teaching method designed to integrate critical thought, examination of emotion and moral values and factual data to broaden the learning experience and make it more relevant to everyday life situations.
If the role of a teacher is to teach, the role of a student must be to learn. However, it has been agreed that learning is not only an exercise in reading and reciting facts, but in gaining a deeper insight of events and situations. This is where drama becomes an invaluable tool. Through the use of drama and dramatic conventions a teacher does not only teach and learn the "what" but also the "why" and "how".
Drama techniques in education allows students to take a step back out of usual teaching techniques. Students are able to communicate better in conceptual, personal and social levels as they are able to be a listener and speaker and reviver of knowledge. By using role-play, the teacher gives them a way to view and think about a situation using the "implied" behaviour for the role they are given. In turn, the teacher can allow the students to become in charge of their own learning and facilitate them in it. We empower the individual making their expertise greater than our own. Through role-playing, they gain knowledge of what the role entails.
"Teacher in role" strategy allows students to build there imaginary further while questioning,challenging and processing their thoughts. Whilst gaining knowledge it also improves personal social techniques in students like eye contact and gestures. They adopt to different characters personalities and communicate that to the class, teachers are able to protect any sense of failure by encouraging and supporting any type of work and what they came up with, as every student has a different mind.
One of the best teacher in roles practices in a TV talk show interviewing various people from educational books/stories. Whilst students are teaching they are also learning themselves whilst getting a complete different way of learning. Children like when things are interesting, fun and different, drama techniques in education provides fun although still educational purposes.
What is a role?
We each adopt different 'roles' in everyday situations, these roles change with the situation, we all have numerous roles in life. We can imagine those roles as hats that we wear at appropriate times (e.g. son, brother, teacher, employee). These roles have "implied" behaviour, which we all know. It is this implied social behaviour which we can use in drama and dramatic situations to create deeper understanding and meanings. The role of a teacher in society is both significant and valuable.It has far-reaching influence on the society he lives in and no other personality can have an influence more profound than that of a teacher. Students are deeply affected by the teacher's love and affection, character, competence, and moral commitment. A popular teacher becomes a model for his/her students. The students try to follow their teacher in his/her manners, costumes, etiquette, style of conversation and his/her get up. He/she is their ideal.
During the early education, the students tend to determine their aims in life and their future plans, in consultation with their teachers. Therefore, a good and visionary teacher can play a prominent role in making the future of his/her students while as a corrupt teacher can only harm his/her students much more seriously than a class of corrupt and perverted judiciary, army, police, bureaucracy, politicians or technocrats. A corrupt and incompetent teacher is not only a bad individual, but also an embodiment of a corrupt and incompetent generation. A nation with corrupt teachers is a nation at risk.
Teacher's importance
The importance of a teacher as an architect of our future generations demands that only the best and the most and competent members of our intelligentsia be allowed to qualify for this noble profession. It is unfortunate to find that generally the worst and the most incapable people of the society find their way into this profession. Anyone who fails to find an opening in any other walk of life, gets into this profession and recklessly plays with the destiny of the nation. An important reason for this is understood to be the poor salaries of our primary and secondary teachers which are no better than that of clerks. A large number of our teachers is, therefore, frustrated and uninterested. A currently relevant example is prevalent in South Africa where teachers are resigning or taking early retirement options en masse between 2012 and 2016.[1]
They have to go for part-time jobs to meet their basic needs. Again, the teaching profession also does not enjoy due respect in the society. The primary and secondary teachers are particularly at a disadvantage. Their status is lower than that of doctors, engineers, advocates, civil servants; even lower than that of semi literate and illiterate traders. It would therefore require great commitment for an intelligent individual, however fond of education and training he may be, to forsake the career of a doctor or engineer in favour of teaching. Therefore, while selecting good teachers, it must be borne in mind that better opportunities, prospects and perks are offered to the teachers.
Expectations of teachers
When we speak of good teachers, it means that a teacher must be a model of faith and piety and should have a fairly good knowledge . A teacher should consider it his duty to educate and train his students and should feel responsible for it. He should feel that his students have been entrusted to him and he should avoid any breach of the trust the society has reposed in him, he should be able to be a sociable person with his roots in the society, people should take him as their well-wisher and a sincere friend who cares for their children. It should be ascertained at all cost that a candidate for this profession has a natural acumen and aptitude for teaching.
Teachers need to actively participate in the social activities in a positive way and know the art of teaching with a deep insight into child psychology. Always dealing with the students in a just manner not losing any self-control is an important part of being a teacher, respecting their students, feelings, ego and trying to understand and resolve their difficulties with grace is important in being a teacher. He should be able to smile in the face of bitter criticism on his opinions, and should not feel ashamed or humiliated to accept his mistakes wholeheartedly. He should be proud of his culture, his national dress and his national language.He should be a missionary, a mentor, a reformer and a guide besides being a dedicated tutor. In other words, he should be a perfect teacher and a perfect education.
Mantle of the expert
Mantle of the Expert is a drama in education device designed by Dorothy Heathcote. In Mantle of the Expert, students are in-role as experts in any given area. They cannot be simply told that they are experts, they have to really take on the role, and feel as if they are experts. This can be done through a number of character development games or exercises. The teacher is generally in-role in Mantle of the Expert, and provides a structure upon which the students can build to gradually progress to more independent learning. Mantle of the Expert is described, explained and exemplified in the book Drama for Learning: Dorothy Heathcote's Mantle of the Expert Approach to Education, by Dorothy Heathcote and Gavin Bolton.
External links
- Dramaresource.com - description of several effective drama techniques and how to put them into practice
- Extensive bibliography of drama in education
- Teacher is Role, theory and practice
- The implications of introducing Heathcote's Mantle of the Expert approach as a community of practice and cross curricular learning tool in a primary school