The Role of the Arts in Teacher Transformation

Abstract

This paper looks at research into student teacher responses to drama courses taught in their pre service years. Believing that drama education contributes valuably to the teacher knowing and identity prospective teachers need, the author researched student teacher responses to drama course over time. Drama education has at its core embodied, transformational, aesthetic and situated ways of knowing, and engages in possibility thinking. Well taught experiential courses using such approaches can help teachers to tolerate uncertainty, teach creatively, take risks, and learn to think and work collaboratively. Teacher education is circled with increasing demands and pressures but is the very place that must strive to produce teachers who can cope confidently in a changing times. This research showed how students thrive in a dynamic and energising pre service environment, and how student teachers can provide perceptive insights into how we teacher educators may revitalise and renew drama pedagogy and practice.