Reflecting on "Secret Lives, Affective Learning"

This post was written by Melissa Otis, a PhD Candidate at OISE/UT. Melissa attened our second Approaching the Past event at Zion Schoolhouse in Toronto and these are her reflections from the event:

I was privileged to attend the second Approaching the Past event entitled "Secret Lives, Affective Learning" on 29 November 2011.The event occurred at the Zion Schoolhouse on Finch Avenue East located in what was once a farming community north of Toronto called L'Amaroux. The schoolhouse was built in 1869 and has been restored to the year 1910. Those of us in attendance witnessed several performances to illustrate the use of drama to teach history. Seated in early twentieth-century desks bolted to the floor, the audience watched the performances and wondered how we, too, could use drama to teach history in our various forums.

The first skit by the Zion Schoolhouse actors portrayed the life and hardship of being a school teacher in the early twentieth century. They were followed by the Single Thread Theatre Company who demonstrated what it might have been like to be the students of those teachers. Dramatic readings by P.J., an actress from Native Earth Theatre Company, helped to express the Aboriginal experience in Canada. What these three presentations had in common was the use of historical research to create a performance that made history a living, breathing experience instead of words written on paper or a computer screen.

My particular concern is how might I effectively incorporate drama into teaching history in higher education? I have witnessed a professor donning a costume and taking on the role of Machiavelli in class to respond to our questions. It was well done and unforgettable. Zion Schoolhouse brings children into their environment. The actor plays the role of an early twentieth century teacher and the children pretend to be her students for part of the day. In the process, they take on different names and learn about life and education in the early 1900s. After witnessing the performances at the Zion schoolhouse I was intrigued with the idea of having students in a history class adopt the roles of the various people they are learning about. This could be for one assignment or even continue throughout the course. However, my experience with teaching adults cautions me: most adults fear role playing.

I spoke with the curator Elizabeth Nelson-Raffele and one of the actors Maggie Newell, about my concern. Ms. Newell noted that they always told the children not to worry about making mistakes, after all it was the character’s error, not theirs. She went on to explain that she believes the change from experiencing role playing or pretending as fun and educational to intimidating occurs between the eighth and tenth grades. At that point, students become more concerned about what their peers think about them instead of concentrating on the performance and what they are learning. This is unfortunate as placing the past into a three-dimensional and emotional configuration should help bring history to life and reach more students – especially those who think they don’t like the discipline. More importantly, this structure allows students to apply their readings and make the learning more memorable. Given the possibility of such a rich classroom experience I continued to contemplate the use of drama in the classroom.

After some thought I believe a hybrid approach might work with a class of university students. Based on the class' topic, each student would be assigned different roles representing the people who lived during the period and in a place the class focuses on. For example, in a class about nineteenth century Ontario, students might be assigned the role of a female from Ireland or an Anishnaabeg man living in and around Toronto. I would also supply information such as the character’s age, members of their household, religious beliefs, type of work, and where they lived. If the role is a young person, they might be in school instead of working, or not. Students’ would research the details of their role and incorporate those aspects into assigned readings and use both to participate in discussion(s).

Questions for the students to consider could centre on how their characters are interacting in the community during specific periods. How might the different cultural communities be relating to each other and to historical events? Why might groups or even an individual from the same group react differently to an incident? For instance, in the example of the history of nineteenth century Ontario, a student might research the kind of work a maid did and how she spent her time off. Combined with class readings, the student would interject how their character of a single, sixteen-year-old Irish-Catholic immigrant maid fit into the discussion. Or, if the character did not fit into the class readings, why aren’t their voices being heard? Assessment of the students’ work would fall under class participation and focus on the information they are sharing. Further, the class could use the experience to practice analyzing historical records and secondary readings thus developing skills for writing papers and responding to test questions. Explaining how the exercise helps them become better students of history should motivate learners to take the assignment seriously.

I hope to hear other peoples’ thoughts about this idea, both the pros and cons and other suggestions to make it a useful exercise. More importantly I’d like to start some conversation about how we can use drama and other frameworks to make history come alive to reach all of our students.