• when you need to seek permission
• the sorts of rights you’ll need to clear (e.g. moral rights as well as copyright)
• who to contact
• streamlining the permissions process
• dealing with common obstacles

I suspect every Drama teacher creating artistic works in Australia needs to have this guide on their bookshelf at work.

$40 including GST & delivery in Australia.

$51 overseas delivery.

73 pages.

View table of contents, sample pages and ordering info.

Australian Copyright Council homepage.

Last December, I blogged a disturbing post about how the Arts was absent from Australia’s National Curriculum planning. But after several months of various arts education organisations lobbying Government, including Drama Australia on behalf of all Australian Drama teachers, it was the NAAE, the National Advocates for Arts Education who became our national voice in Canberra.

After a meeting in Adelaide today between federal, state and territory education ministers, Peter Garrett, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts has issued a press release detailing the Arts, both visual and performing, will be included in Phase Two alongside Geography and Languages Other Than English in the new National Curriculum.

The next hurdle? Now we have to convince Government that the Performing Arts in Australian schools includes more than just music education……..

Please read the following media release for more information:

arts-national-curriculum-media-release

Comments are welcome, fellow Drama teachers!

After a very successful trial, I have a mutually beneficial agreement with the Visual Communication and Design teacher at my school, where Year 10 and 11 students design posters for events in the Drama department on the school calendar. For the students, I provide the poster copy (text) and along with their teacher, they may do a bit of research on whatever the topic is, before designing posters. I effectively become their client for the project and the resulting work becomes part of their assessment in their subject.

It’s win-win for both parties and the Drama department ends up with excellent student-designed posters. I choose the best posters from the class project for display around the school. This may be as little as three, or up to six or seven posters from a bunch of 15-20. I have ensured the students each place their name and subject on the posters, so it also becomes worthy publicity for the students whose posters were chosen for display and the teacher and subject also, for the wonderful work produced. My experience last year was that lots of students and teachers were commenting on the beautiful student posters. After gaining significant attention around the school, the hope is more students will attend the drama event.

I have a Year 12 Drama showcase coming up on the topic of the 1986 Challenger and 2003 Columbia Space Shuttle Disasters and below are four posters recently chosen by myself for display around the school. I seriously recommend this type of partnership in your own school.

Click on the thumbnails for a larger image.

My favourite poster of the four is probably the one showcasing the astronaut’s helmet because of its sophistication in design and reflection in the helmet and background of the the American flag. It is clear the student really picked up on the text “See how NASA failed the American people”.

I love the grey poster largely because the Space Shuttle on the launchpad was hand drawn by the student designer, plus the different colors used in the text, highlighting and differentiating various important words for the reader who quickly views the poster at a glance.

The poster with the astronaut walking appears to be on the moon (but of course, may not be). While research indicates Space Shuttle launches don’t land anywhere in space, but simply come back to Earth again after conducting multiple experiments, the student designer nevertheless got the explosion in the background right. Space in general terms will be swiftly detected by the viewer and considering both Challenger and Columbia exploded (technically, they disintegrated), the flames in the background of the poster indicated this.

I found the final poster interesting because of the fractured nature of the pieces that make up the Shuttle, itself. Although quite literal in its interpretation, I was nevertheless not after artistic posters, and the deisgn of this poster clearly focuses on the disintegration in flight of both Space Shuttles. A minor error is the omission of a “s” after “disaster”, but we have to remember, these are students in the first term of Year 11 learning their craft in graphic design.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you will be aware the Federal Government is planning a national curriculum for Australian schools. Here’s a brief run-down of what’s happened so far:

• currently there is only Phase One and Phase Two planned
• Phase One includes English, Maths, Science and History
• Phase Two currently includes Geography and LOTE (Languages Other Than English)
• Phase Two is apparently “locked off” with no intention of adding further learning areas to it
• the framing documents for Phases One & Two have been written, but the curriculum documents for these learning areas have not yet been released
• There is no official Phase Three and although there have been whispers of one, the fact is there is no budgetary funding set aside by the Federal Government for any likelihood of a Phase Three
• The only hope The Arts has of being represented in a National Curriculum is now to be included in a Phase Three, which technically does not exist.

To put it bluntly, this is scary stuff. We already have a recent example of The Arts being shunted when last year the Australian Primary Principals Association released the very first Australian Primary School Charter, detailing the key learning areas of the curriculum in Australian Primary (K-6) schools as:

• English
• Mathematics (including numeracy)
• Science
• Social Education

Should we be at all surprised that The Arts was completely left off this list? According to the APPA, 90% of Primary Principals surveyed online, supported the content of this charter.

Now we have a Federal Government planning a national curriculum that does not recognise The Arts (performing or visual), which completely supports the President of IDEA (International Drama/Theatre in Education Association), Dan Baron Cohen, and his recent statement outlined in a post last week on The Drama Teacher that:

… in every region of the world, most parents and teachers still think of the arts and creative industries as elitist luxuries or irrelevant to their lives.

Please read a media release and an advocacy document put together by the National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE) at the bottom of this post. The NAAE are planning a campaign in 2009 to try and solve this problem of The Arts currently not being recognised in a future national curriculum in Australia.

Australian Drama and Theatre teachers are encouraged to write a cover letter expressing your concerns and attach the advocacy statement below, then send it to your local Federal Member of Parliament. Our voices need to be heard. People’s jobs may be at stake and the future of The Arts, and Drama/Theatre in particular, at all levels of Australian schooling are at risk.

NAAE Media Release

NAAE Arts Advocacy Statement

Today (November 27th) is celebrated worldwide across the drama and theatre in education community as the very first IDEA Day. Below is a message from the President of IDEA, about today. It offers a fascinating insight into drama education on a global scale.

As the President of IDEA, I’m delighted to declare November 27th International Drama/Theatre and Education Day. We now have a specific date to celebrate our rich and distinctive contribution to the global project of cultivating a human education, human rights and peace for all, in particular for young people, children, and excluded communities that are threatened by violence.

Of course, this is not an easy time to celebrate. All generations and continents today are painfully aware of how global warming, widening social inequality, violence, poverty and AIDS intimately touch our lives and threaten our futures. Every drama teacher, pupil, theatre artist and community seems to be placing dehumanization, increasing pressure, youth despair and unsustainable competition centre stage in his/her everyday performances. And like 9/11, today’s financial crisis threatens to turn our homes, schools and work-places into another global workshop of hopelessness or theatre of denial.

But there are also real grounds for hope. In every corner of the world, communities, schools, colleges and cultural centres are generating new performances of solidarity and cooperation, drawing on decades of experiment, research and collaboration. Industrial waste is being recycled into musical instruments and epic sculptures of vision. Rows of desks are being placed against walls to transform classrooms of fearful competition and alienation into performances of community and innovation. And theatre artists and university drama departments are working with teachers, police, prisoners and communities of special needs to nurture confidence, human rights and networks of cooperation. In all of the 90 countries that make up the present IDEA community, our capacity to offer a new paradigm of education based on artistic languages is coinciding with an emerging consensus that we need to change the world’s performance before it is too late.

However, though there may be a consensus among us that our artistic languages need to be fully integrated into education to nurture our multiple intelligences and capacity to care and create to prepare all people for a permanently-changing, technologically-driven, ‘knowledge-based’ world, we cannot be naïve. In many parts of the ‘developed world’, the arts in education are being replaced by laptops and ‘basic skills’. And in every region of the world, most parents and teachers still think of the arts and creative industries as elitist luxuries or irrelevant to their lives.

So when we toast IDEA Day this 27th November, lets call on a few neighbours, teachers, journalists, industrialists, politicians or friends working outside our community of drama/theatre and education, to celebrate with us!

Let’s tell, or better still, let’s perform how our stories of drama and theatre educate and nurture, and listen to the questions of those who are not yet partners in this global project. Let’s make this November 27th a day of learning to share our knowledges and enlarge the stage of transformation.

Dan Baron Cohen, President of IDEA

Chair of the World Alliance for Arts Education

IDEA Website

OK, so I’m in this fortunate position. I don’t direct the school musical and I replaced the biennial senior play with VCE Drama nights three years ago.

If you teach in a large Drama/Theatre department, this may also be your situation. Perhaps you assist one of your colleagues with one aspect of the school production, but not actively direct an entire full-scale production yourself. Alternatively, you may have no involvement at all.

But chances are, if you’re in small Drama department or are running solo as the only Drama teacher in your school or on your campus, then you’ll no doubt be expected to direct a major play or musical.

I’ve often wondered just why, as Drama teachers, we are expected to direct plays or musicals as part of our teaching load? I’m coming from a high school perspective here, where Drama teachers the world over direct entire two act plays, three hour musicals and five act Shakespeare productions every year.

I understand the many benefits of directing a production at high school. I’ve been there myself over the years and if the truth be known I sort of miss it in a way because directing was my true love in my uni days and I believe it is one of my strongest skills as a Drama teacher.

There are numerous positives in directing productions … from skills to collegiality … for both students and staff. But if we would only stop and take stock for a moment to remind ourselves most of these shows were written to be directed, choreographed, acted, sung and danced by professionals on Broadway and the West End … not students in Year 10 … for a reason.

I honestly believe the school production, while often a wonderful and rewarding experience for our students, is unnecessarily stressful for the Drama teacher who directs or coordinates it. On top of a full teaching load and rehearsals for any number of other activities at the same time, why are we expected to direct a full-scale show as well?

Perhaps we should question more often whether the benefits of directing a school play or musical outweigh the disadvantages that come with the same package?

I remember back in 2004 shocking my Deputy Principal by openly admitting to her I wouldn’t be planning a single lesson in the week of the senior play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I just said it as it was … I’ll be ‘winging’ every lesson that week off the top of my head, using the 6 Step Approach To Teaching … planning my lessons in the last six steps as I enter the classroom.

Such is the nature of the beast. If only more of our colleagues understood how it all works. We can’t of course, necessarily expect them to know the finer details of a Drama teacher’s job, so perhaps it is our duty to politely inform people what it’s like from time to time.

Drama teachers preparing school productions don’t just have lesson planning problems, but sleepless nights, endless hours (sometimes in the dark) up at school building sets, constructing costumes, rehearsing with students, printing programmes, rigging stage lights … the list goes on. We become unnecessarily stressed and anxious, so much so we sometimes find it THE most difficult time of the year in all aspects of our life, be it personal or professional.

There are of course side issues to directing the school production. Am I receiving an appropriate time allowance from my employer? Will I be getting remuneration? Or perhaps, why am I receiving neither money nor time?!? There is also the issue of whether the school production should be ‘expected’ of the Drama teacher, or simply be voluntary?

But the central issue in my eyes is why are we doing it in the first place?

Today I have other extra curricular activities to fill my plate, from VCE showcases to creative arts festivals. But these are spread in numerous timelines over nearly the entire academic year with no single activity requiring the all-consuming commitment and pressure that directing a school production does.

I recall back in the early 80s, a wonderful young American tennis player Andrea Jaeger, who officially retired from tennis with a shoulder injury at the tender age of just 19, after being ranked as high as No.2 in the world. It was clear she was simply burnt out because she started her tennis career at such an early age. These days,  the Womens Tennis Association protect young girls from similar circumstances by not allowing them to participate in professional tournaments until they reach 14.

Just like Jaeger, young Drama teachers today are suffering burnout on a regular basis because they are directing school productions as early as their first year of teaching. Where is their protection? We should be looking after our young Drama teachers and nurturing them, not assisting their early burnout. Perhaps this is yet another reason why so many young educators are disillusioned with teaching, leaving our profession a few years into their new career.

After three years of not directing the high school production with my current employer, I have come to realise that for the first time in my career, I can focus almost exclusively on the quality of teaching and learning in the Drama classroom. Granted, I look back on the challenges of yesteryear where I practised the craft of directing with musicals and plays, but today these skills still occur in smaller chunks in any standard Drama class.

Directing the school show is such a mammoth task for Drama teachers. Many of us reach dizzying heights of success with slickly polished shows and talented students of all ages on stage. Meantime, our colleagues down the street are quietly struggling with a job so demanding and difficult, they begin to question its worth.

In reality, it really doesn’t matter too much about the quality of the show produced. At the end of the day, if our motives are genuine, we are directing school productions for the students, not our egos. But after all that hard effort by students and staff, we can’t ignore the fact that it’s nice to see a top quality product at the end of the road, if we can. After all, we are rightly proud of our efforts.

So now we delve into the dangerous territory where regardless of the quantity of work for all involved in a high school show, should we just be leaving them to the realms of professional theatre? Are many musicals and plays simply too difficult for some Drama teachers, particularly the inexperienced (though of course one can argue it is the number of not-so-brilliant productions in a row that make us better directors in the long run … hopefully).

Is directing the school production a natural extension of our face-to-face Drama teaching load i.e. performance? Are they the single, most time-consuming activity on the academic calendar, yet an add-on we are not even getting paid for? Are plays and musicals of the Broadway variety too difficult for high schools and should we be producing sub-standard shows? Are they a major distraction from our primary function as Drama teachers … to teach Drama/Theatre in the classroom?

Or is directing the school play or musical simply the best activity there is for both ourselves and our Drama students and well worth all the time and effort that goes into it?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not bagging or dissing the school production.

I’m not even calling for change.

But I am calling for a discussion………………

In my most recent post, I talked about developing and nurturing the right culture in the Drama classroom and now I wish to blog about leadership.

When I arrived at my current school seven years ago, I inherited a bunch of student Drama captains. This is how the structure works:

• Year 7 Drama Captain (Semester 2 only)
• Year 8 Drama Captain (who also covers Year 7 for Semester 1)
• Year 9 Drama Captain
• Year 10 Drama Captain
• Year 11 Drama Captain
• Year 12 Drama Vice Captain
• Year 12 Drama Captain

Linking with my previous post, if the culture in the school or Drama Department is right, being voted a Drama Captain (or Prefect) at your respective year level should be a prestigious and sought-after position. If it works, the system goes beyond students merely voting for the most popular student or the lead in the high school play etc., but rather for the most capable candidate.

If your school already has an established leadership system, having Drama Captains should merely be a process of adding them to the structure that already exists. But keep in mind approval for this may take several months in the school year prior.

Drama Captains should ease many of the everyday burdens for Drama teaching staff, particularly in the area of co-curricular activities so common to Drama Departments such as musicals, plays, Drama nights etc. This also applies to daytime any day-time activities run by the Drama Department in your school.

Drama Captains can assist with auditions, rehearsals, directing, run Drama clubs, promote the subject or shows among the student body, run set and prop painting sessions … basically anything but making you coffees during the day (although you could always arrange that, too!).

Here’s the list of Drama Captain responsibilities at my school:

• encourage and support students who take initiatives with regard to Drama
• be involved with a committee of Drama Captains at all year levels in the school that should meet on a regular basis
• assist backstage and front of house for all school productions
• organise in-house school Drama activities and festivals etc
• assist in the publicity of all school Drama events
• taking responsibility for finding and looking after props and costumes
• encourage student participation in the building and painting of sets
• assist in the organisation of Junior Drama Club
• attend Leaders Day seminars
• model appropriate standards of uniform and behaviour for the year level

Having a leadership team of Drama Captains can help operations run smoothly, promote the subject and allow students to take responsibility for various activities throughout the year.

My response: create the appropriate culture in the Drama classroom. I firmly believe if, as teacher, you can create the right culture in your teaching and learning environment, then the sky’s the limit in terms of what your students can achieve.

I was reminded by it yesterday in a Year 9 Drama class (14 year-old girls), when in a unit on comedy, the students performed a simple satirical sketch of various workplaces or environments (McDonalds restaurant, a family reunion, a train station, the beach etc) focusing on demonstrating one-dimensional stereotypical characters via the four expressive skills of voice, movement, facial expressions and gesture. It was, in reality, fairly simple stuff. I even told the class in advance that I was super-busy and wasn’t quite ready to move on to the next topic (slapstick and farce) until next week, so there was a big neon sign saying ‘filler material’ hanging from the ceiling of the classroom! I also made it clear we were not assessing these improvised skits and that they were simply extended exercises.

Such is my students’ love for Drama, they arrived to this class yesterday with about half a dozen individuals nervously unsure as to whether the skit was assessable or not (they’d forgotten), not because they weren’t prepared, but rather because they wanted to do well if I were grading the piece.

Then between each group’s performance, we analyzed verbally and critically evaluated the pieces. They were performances way beyond my expectations in terms of quality of thought, structure and acting skills. Definitely not indicative of the 45 minutes over a couple of lessons they’d had to prepare them.

A visiting student teacher in her 2nd year of university studying education and performing arts, asked me afterwards ‘how do you get this sort of standard from a Year 9 class?’. ‘Culture’ was my answer. All you have to do is create the right culture and the students will hit it right back at you with material beyond their ‘perceived ability’.

I always create a positive culture, as we all know negativity should have no place in a Drama classroom. I am inspired by a fellow colleague who is a university lecturer in Drama. I have been a student myself in one of her classes over the years, and even when an essay is weeks overdue or a piece of work I have submitted has completely missed the mark, her positive comments as feedback make me feel worthwhile. She has this knack of creating such a vibe of positivity, no matter what the situation. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a skill.

So, I always try to turn everything into a positive. Recently a few of my Year 11 students got a ‘D’ on their first written assessment. But even a ‘D’ can be turned into a positive at parent teacher night. And so it must be for all those students who fall in the middle range with ‘C”s and ‘C+’s’ in practical work in Drama classes. There has to be a real and achievable goal for them to strive for next time, otherwise why would they ever continue with your subject?

Of course, if you’re a regular reader of The Drama Teacher, you’ll know I’ve blogged before about passion. Our passion as drama educators must be evident and genuine in order for our students to succeed in a positive atmosphere.

It may sound arrogant or egotistical, but where I teach, Drama is no ‘bludge subject’. That’ not a fluke, by the way. That’s a culture that took time to create and nurture. There is no doubt teacher knowledge (and skill) is important in any discipline, but if the culture is right, students are not only inspired by their Drama teacher, but by fellow students as well.

I know there’s thousands of Drama teachers out there who consider some of their groups of students as ‘extended families’ from time to time. Why? Because they have created a culture of caring in their classroom. A culture of respect. A culture of artistic discipline and individual responsibility. A culture that breeds positive energy. And all this adds up to a culture that produces excellence … and accepts nothing less.

…then you may wish to attend one or more of the Australian Copyright Council’s upcoming training sessions.

The Australian Copyright Council is an independent non-profit organisation that provides information, advice and training about copyright in Australia. They are holding training sessions in Melbourne on a range of topics, many relevant to Drama/Theatre teachers, on the following dates (hurry, as Melbourne training dates are coming up very soon):

Ten key areas will be discussed, with 100 people allocated per area. All Australians will be invited to present their opinions via the Internet. The topics stipulated for discussion are:

1. The economy
2. Economic infrastructure
3. Sustainability
4. Rural industry
5. Health
6. Social inclusion
7. Indigenous people and services
8. THE ARTS (someone pick me up off the ground, I just fell off my chair)
9. Governance
10. National security

Perhaps like a few others, I was pleasantly surprised to see the arts on the list. I sort of thought no matter who is in office, no government cares much about the future of the arts in Australia, and certainly not enough to make it part of a political summit.

But then, like many, many others, I was astonished and confused as to why EDUCATION was NOT on the list of topics to be discussed. Hidden amongst the economy was a byline about attracting quality teachers, but surely there’s enough to discuss about our education systems in Australia to warrant it as a topic of its own accord at the upcoming summit? How can you possibly discuss the future of our country without discussing education? Its simply not logical. The education of today’s children in Australia IS our future, period!

Guess we should be grateful the arts got a guernsey, hey? The arts AND education discussed at the same summit??? Now that would be asking too much, wouldn’t it?