Schemes for classroom drama - Maggie Hulson

The schemes of work in this book provide clear, coherent, thought-provoking opportunities for drama teachers. They outline class lessons that are rooted in child centred, humanising theory and practice, to help equip today's young people to respond to the world as it is. I have experienced Maggie Hulson's work at first-hand through national drama conferences and at second-hand through articles written by her about her practice. She has never shied away from examining difficult contemporary phenomena with children and she has been brave enough to share her thoughts about how to do this with other children. I have been aware of this especially in the last 15 years when there have been so many shocking challenges to our understanding of what it means to be human: war, barbarism, the violent displacement of people all around the globe, the shocking disturbances to be found in many young people in this country. It can sometimes seem as if the whole thing is out of control. I have been particularly drawn by work where she has used Greek myths to explore contemporary events. When she does this, she always begins by creating a context where we can be aware of the material circumstances of a different place, time and people. Because she uses Greek myths, the question of the extent to which our future lies within our control is there in the background from the start. I have heard her work described as 'easeful', because of her skill in finding the roles, situations and tensions which will cause us to bring the background into the foreground. In other words, whilst operating (playing) within a fiction, we are faced with the enormous questions that children face: Why do we live as we do? What does it mean? Could things be different? Facing these questions in a skilfully constructed fiction allows us as teachers - with children - to understand how to pose these questions in real life.