In approaching drama with a multi-class group the teacher has to overcome circumstances and obstacles that are not experienced by his/her colleague who teaches a single-class group. The most obvious of these are: the wider differences in the ages and maturity of the children, the different curricula that the children are dealing with, the greater complication in integrating drama with other curriculum areas, and the accommodation of all of these in effective drama activity.
While this can create difficulties for the multi-class teacher, such groups provide opportunities of their own for learning experiences. Chief among these are the following:
- The different ages and levels of maturity can provide a rich experience in communicating and co-operating through the drama.
- Younger children can be exposed, through drama, to a range of experience beyond the curriculum limits of their class group.
- Older children get the opportunity to encourage and support the younger children.
- Older children can learn to be more flexible and open in their approach to co-operation through working with younger children.
To exploit these advantages and to obviate the difficulties, the teacher can employ a number of strategies. Structured play may be arranged for the smaller children while the older ones are doing drama. Alternatively, it is easy, if first and second classes are doing a piece of drama, to find roles in it for the younger children and to give them tasks within the drama that they are capable of doing. This model of working can be extended, with careful planning, to involve the use of drama as a central activity through which children can learn according to their competence and abilities. The same approach can be used in multi-class teaching in the middle and senior classes.
Such a system of work will depend on the teacher structuring his/her day differently from the single-class teacher. This will involve selecting drama projects through which specific content, that is both suitable and challenging to all the ages involved, can be explored and in which suitable tasks can be set for each age group. In Drama activity 3, for example (p. 74), it can be seen that some of the mathematical problems to be solved are suitable for older children, while others are appropriate to a younger age group. Similarly, in the drama activity about fishing up the moon (p. 80), children could, at their own level, draw pictures of the wonderful things in the new world or write letters home to tell their people they have finally caught the moon and to expect them to come home in triumph.
Following the same approach, quick lessons on appropriate grammatical structures or on how to use line and colour could be incorporated at different levels during this activity. It entails, while learning through drama, working outwards to encompass the different developmental activities that flow from the drama.
The success of this exciting mode of working will depend on very thorough planning, both for the long and the short term. The teacher's long-term planning should incorporate such considerations as
- the drama skills and concepts that have to be taught
- the topics to be dealt with
- how and to what extent drama is to be integrated with other curriculum areas.
Short-term planning will enable him/her to integrate drama into all these areas at levels appropriate to the various individuals in the class group. The teacher's planning, however, should always be flexible enough to take account of the spontaneous learning opportunities that present themselves in drama activity.
In this situation, 'mantle of the expert' techniques can be readily used. An example of this might begin with the teacher saying, 'Does anyone know anything about NASA? I have a letter from them -- oh, yes, it says it here: National Aeronautics and Space Administration. They want to know if we could advise them on the feasibility of building a landing-site on our bog. I'll read it to you.' This would initiate an integrated project in which all can participate.
In all this work the teacher will, while mixing and changing the groups frequently, assign activities to them in a way that will cater for the varying abilities of the pupils. For some activities he/she will group children of similar abilities together, while for others mixed-ability groups will be chosen. The deliberate mixing of children of different ages and abilities can benefit children's learning and development in a number of ways. It can
- help older children to take responsibility for and assist in younger children's learning
- give older children the opportunity to experience the kind of caring that can form the basis of good parenting in the future
- give older and younger children a perspective on the concerns and preoccupations of another age group.
The imaginative teacher will see many more opportunities for stimulating and exciting learning resulting from the inclusion of drama in the curriculum.