Drama & Education

“Tell me, and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I’ll understand” . I remember reading this quote at some point during my college education and thinking that there was much truth to it. Too often I sat through lecture after lecture wondering how I was going to remember all this new information. That was until I took my chemistry honours course in Habra college.One professor (whether he knew it or not) taught us using drama. The entire class was involved . In school, Chemistry was never my favourite subject.  For the first time, I was involved in learning chemistry. From this point on, I decided that when I teach my elementary students, I would involve them. I learned how I would involve my students after taking several communication and theatre arts courses. 
My passion for children and teaching inspired me to do further research into this method. I wanted to reach the students as my professor did for me and bring them to a higher level of understanding of the topics I teach. My belief is that knowledge is power and students should love to learn. While I feel that all of the arts can be influential learning tools, drama is especially powerful. 
Drama is powerful because its unique balance of thought and feeling makes learning exciting, challenging relevant to real-life concerns, and enjoyable . As educators, if we are not providing a fun and meaningful learning environment for our children to learn, then we are not doing our jobs. Research indicates that using drama in the classroom as a means of teaching helps students learn academically, socially, and developmentally. “The use of drama as a tool for teaching is not new. Historically, both drama and theatre have long been recognized as potent means of education and indoctrination. The ways they are used today, however, are new, and they differ in a number of respects from the ways they have been used in the past” (McCaslin). Arts advocates and educators have recently started to explore the use of drama as an integrated way of learning the curriculum. I strongly believe that the arts should be employed in every classroom. It can reach students who otherwise couldn’t be reached, and challenge students who have already grasped the concepts. Drama provides a fun means of learning. It brings the affective back into the classroom, an institute where emotions and learning are categorically divided. 
Recent brain research proves that emotions are linked with learning. When we connect to the concept emotionally, we will have a better understanding of it. When we teach using the arts we are linking prior experiences with new stimuli. Teaching using drama brings emotion and learning together.
Most importantly of all, using drama to teach in the elementary classroom gets students involved and gives them the power to have a key role in their education. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, who wrote the article, “Drama is Imagining to Learn: Inquiry, Ethics, and Integration through Drama,” writes, “Through drama, students became a part of the learning process rather than mere observers or inactive receptacles of the rich experience of learning; in this way, their learning was deeper, more sustained, and infinitely more complex” .