The Drama and Theatre in Education methodology is still a very small and quite unknown discipline. Most of the theatre practitioners and teachers, even art-pedagogues have never met with the methodology before. The methodology itself comes from the UK, also there has been ongoing some initiatives around Europe and some other countries worldwide to work with it. But the method has proved itself in one of the most valuable in sensitive and tacky issues such as violence and especially bullying.
The method will be implemented by skilled drama theatre professionals and educators of two theatre groups ApsArt and Hleb Teatar, organized by CEDEUM consists of creating a short scene, created with the ability to be performed in school classrooms, that is the introduction to the theme and the issue. The scene later leads into either a discussion about the issue with the class that have seen it and their professors, or even better-into a drama theatre workshop where the children and young people will work in practice with different drama /theatre techniques.
The plan is also to conduct an evaluation, where a questionnaire will be handed out consisting of questions about their own experience and knowledge about bulling and after the scene, workshop and talk, a second questioner will be handed out, to evaluate their changed perception about the subject and response to the issue at hand-bulling.
Part of the project is also a round table that will be will be organized in the school with invited stakeholders, from the Ministry of culture, educational staff of the school, pupils and parents where the scenes/outcomes of the workshops and the evaluation results will be presented, together with an open discussion about the subject of peer violence.
The scenes and the results of the workshop will be filmed and also put on you tube or other social media. A Facebook page involving all the participants will be activated and will present a safe net of togetherness where an ongoing discussion about the theme will be continued. Bulling in Serbian schools and amongst youngsters has become one of the concrete problems that has resulted in suicides of many teenagers over the recent years. We want to focus on the issue of youth and violence, especially the subject of bulling and implement the project in two schools in Belgrade, an elementary school and a high school. Our method will be the Theatre in education approach to the issue.
The first pilot project will took place in September and included seven workshop sessions in elementary school of Belgrade. Also the results will be presented to the entire schools, numbering thousands of students. The PR of the project will draw attention to the importance and relevance of the subject. We hope that the project will gain attention from the Ministry of Education that will support the next phase involving many other schools form Belgrade
Staff and members of the two schools, parents, experts and the representatives of the Ministry of Education, will be informed about this pilot project, take part in the round table and witnessing the work itself and receiving evaluation conducted with the young participants.
Aims of the project:
A) to prove the effectivity of drama based tools and to decrease bullying
B), to distribute theatre in non-formal education methodology for a wider use, and introduce theatre In education techniques as a relevant technique in solving these issues and empowering the children and young people
C) to provide a tool kit and a manual for youth leaders, trainers, teachers and educators,
F) to start an open dialogue between theatre professionals and teachers interested in art-pedagogy methods.
In addition, continuous workshops will be organized with classes that have already undergone the first initial training. The aim of the classes are to pass a process of composing a devised theatre piece with students, with the theme of bullying, based on the students contribution in generating scenes, text, music and dance with the mentorship of professional theatre groups. The process will be open to teachers from schools interested in drama/theatre education, giving them a training in diverse methods of drama/ theatre techniques and methods. The goal is to create a performance that will be presented to the wider auditorium of the school, with students, staff and teachers attending, thus opening further polylogues about this burning and important issue that is leaving deep scars in the lives of children and youth population.
The project has been since 2016. part of the EU Erasmus + project R.U.IN
HLEB TEATAR 