Fall 2006

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Drama and Real Life

Education researcher sounds alarm over urban high schools—
and lauds drama classes.

News Canada

Draconian security measures and widespread standardized testing are alienating a generation of urban high school students, says a Canadian researcher. But drama programs, with their free expression and creative thinking, offer unexpected help.

The University of Toronto’s Kathleen Gallagher just spent three years studying the students in four schools—two in Toronto, two in New York City, and has written about theatre education in urban schools.

A teacher herself for ten years, Gallagher, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Urban School Research in Pedagogy and Policy, says she was shocked at how much school life has changed in the last half-decade. Although security in Canada is still not as extreme as in the United States, she says, it’s a topic of concern here, and students in many urban schools are already experiencing things like video surveillance and locked washrooms.

Gallagher has strong doubts about the measures. “There’s no question schools need to be safe,” she says, “but we need to make them more humane, too.” Making students feel like criminals can only, in the end, have a negative effect, and, she says, we should perhaps think twice before following the US trend any further.

Most classes don’t do much to counter the alienation, partly because of the now-common standardized tests. Preparing students to write the tests leaves teachers little chance to address the challenges city students face, things like poverty, racism, and the clash of culture and religion.

But, Gallagher says, she was heartened by what she found in the four schools’ drama classes. These programs offer students a rare place to think creatively about themselves and their sometimes difficult lives.

“Regular rules are relaxed in drama class,” she observes. “Desks get shoved against walls, students are encouraged to express themselves.”

And while the point of the security measures is to avoid conflict and the violence that might ensue, conflict—and empathy—are the essence of drama. “Students play a part, and afterwards they analyze what they’ve learned—not just about themselves, but about others.”

To learn more about the Canada Research Chairs Program, visit www.chairs.gc.ca.