Addressing Bullying in Schools Through Drama Therapy

Introduction

Bullying is an age-old and international problem. Surveys have identified bullying in schools across the globe. Dan Olewus first systematically researched bullying in Sweden in the 1970’s and created the first official definition and the first major intervention program (Olewus, 1993). UNESCO’s definition of bullying in schools is based on Olewus’s:

A learner is bullied when s/he is exposed repeatedly over time to aggressive behaviour that intentionally inflicts injury or discomfort through physical contact, verbal attacks, fighting or psychological manipulation. Bullying involves an imbalance of power and can include teasing, taunting, use of hurtful nicknames, physical violence or social exclusion. A bully can operate alone or within a group of peers. Bullying may be direct, such as one child demanding money or possessions from another, or indirect, such as a group of students spreading rumours about another. Cyber bullying is harassment through e-mail, cell phones, text messages and defamatory websites.  (UNESCO)

The key component in bullying is imbalance of power, which can be addressed best through education and action interventions using drama therapy.

Negotiation author and expert William Ury, in his book Getting to Peace (retitled The Third Side in a revised edition) explains that there are three sides to any conflict, not two sides. In the case of bullying the three sides are the bully, the victim, and the community. The community has a vested interest resolving the conflict, because it disrupts cooperation and peace. In recent books on bullying, such as Barbara Coloroso’s 2003 book The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander, those three sides are reiterated. Most bystanders function as passive community witnesses to the bullying, because they do not know positive action steps to take to stop it. Without appropriate intervention skills they fear they will be pulled into the conflict and possibly become victims, too.

In case you believe that bullying is a normal rite of passage that children and teens need to experience as part of growing up, think again. Research reveals that children who have been bullied have more symptoms of depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric disorders than children who have not. These disorders continue into adulthood. Victims of bullies are 4.3 times more likely to have an anxiety disorder as an adult, and bullies who were also victims are 14.5 times more likely to develop panic disorder, 4.8 times more likely to be diagnosed with depression, and 18.5 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts as adults (Saint Louis, 2013).

Different parts of the brain have sensitive growth periods; exposure to trauma in those periods can interfere with brain development. Martin Teicher and his associates scanned the brains of young adults who had been bullied as children and had no history of other traumatic abuse. Scans showed abnormalities in the corpus callosum that links the left brain with the right resembling abnormalities found in children who had experienced multiple forms of childhood trauma. His model of how peer verbal abuse psychologically effects children at different ages indicates peer verbal abuse in elementary school can lead to somatization (psychosomatic symptoms), in middle school to anxiety, drug use, depression, and dissociation, and in high school to anger and hostility (Anthes, 2010; Teicher et al, 2010).

In a study conducted by psychologist Tracy Vaillancourt, boys who were bullied showed higher levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, than boys who were not. These higher levels weaken the immune system and can damage the hippocampus, the part of the brain involved in creating memories. Vaillancourt speculates that that this may be one reason why bullied students have more difficulty learning and earn lower grades once bullying starts (Anthes, 2010). Neuroscientist Daniel A. Peterson found that in rats who were victims of bullying by other rats, after just one bullying experience, neuron cells in a bullied rat’s hippocampus (the memory making area) started to die (Anthes, 2010).

Bullies are affected as much as their victims. As adults they are 4.1 times more likely to develop anti-social personality disorder, which often leads them into a life of crime (Saint Louis, 2013). These scientific studies explain why dealing with bullying behavior effectively is important to the health, wellbeing, and education of all students.

Unfortunately, most bullying curricula, including the one developed by Olewus, which is considered to be the “gold standard,” provide education about bullying and guidelines for student behavior, but after implementation in schools, the bullying remains. The problem is these programs are lecture-based and follow a standardized, one-size-fits-all protocol with fixed objectives that do not take the ambiguous nature of the world into consideration (Boggs, et al., 2007). Bullying is a complex problem and cannot be solved without a flexible, context specific approach. Solutions work best when they come from the students; then students feel empowered to take action (McGrath, 2013).

Drama Therapy Interventions

Enter drama therapy! Drama therapy matches active interventions to specific behaviors and situational problems. Participants are engaged mentally, physically, and emotionally in the learning, whether they are acting or watching. Because it is embodied and action-oriented, drama therapy offers a powerful and safe experiential alternative to passive education. By its very nature drama therapy develops students’ perspective taking and empathy, self-expression, flexible problem-solving, internal locus of control, and abilities to share and collaborate with others. Students’ participation is valued and needed in drama therapy, and the opportunity to practice newly learned knowledge and skills in fictional situations that function realistically help students integrate and remember how to respond appropriately.

In addition to educational pluses, research indicates that artistic activities enhance moods, emotions, and psychological states, contribute toward the reduction of stress and depression, and alleviate physiological states associated with stress (Nobel & Stuckey, 2010). Through drama therapy students can deal with the intense emotional issues of bullying without feeling the need to tune out or risk becoming re-traumatized. Finally, when an activity is viewed as more personally meaningful, students become motivated participants who are more apt to apply the information they have learned to real-life situations (Dawes & Larson, 2010).

A variety of action methods used by drama therapists can prevent and end bullying in a non-violent, effective manner. Exactly which interventions will work best depends on the age of the students and the specifics of the problem, as well as the schedule, timeframe, and resources available in the school.

Forum Theatre

Forum Theatre, created in the 60’s by Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal, is an interactive theatre form that allows participants to explore an imbalance of power through the lens of social justice (Gourd & Gourd, 2011; Sajnani, 2009). Since imbalance of power is the key element in bullying, Forum Theatre addresses the root problem. In a Forum Theatre performance actors improvise a previously created scenario that depicts a situation of oppression. Then the scene is replayed, and the Joker, or emcee, asks the audience to stop the action at a pivotal moment and suggest changes an actor could take to improve the situation. The scene is replayed to see if the suggestion works. Audience members (called spect-actors, because they are actively participating as well as watching) are also encouraged to enter the scene and show the actors their idea. As the scene is re-worked, many suggestions can be tried out for the same moment to see which work and which do not. The Joker facilitates dialogue about ways to equalize the relationships among the characters (Boggs et al., 2007; Gourd & Gourd, 2011; Sajnani, 2009). A key to creating deep and pertinent educational discussions is to embed learning objectives into the scenario and to have the Joker provide background knowledge, frame thought provoking questions, and instill the spec-actors with the confidence to challenge the status quo and dig deeper (Boggs et al., 2007; Gourd & Gourd, 2011). This engages students in ethical discussions and decision making, allowing them to improve not only their moral and ethical reasoning, but also their perspective taking and empathy skills.

A professional Forum Theatre company could be brought into a school to perform, but an even more effective use of Forum Theatre is to have a drama therapist work with small groups of students to create fictional scenarios based on current school issues. These students would present the scenes to small classes with the drama therapist as Joker, optimizing chances to involve as many students in the exploration as possible.

 Middle school (ages 10 to 14) is not too early to engage students in Forum Theatre. Young adolescents can be self-centered and rebellious, because they are testing boundaries and experimenting with their identity as they move from childhood to adulthood, but they also need structure and yearn for mentorship from the trusted adults in their lives (Reagan, 2015). Early adolescents are usually in Stage Three (the Morality of Interpersonal Cooperation) of Kohlberg’s moral development continuum where the focus on peer relationships. However, they can also relate strongly to issues of social justice and bringing these concerns into education at this time increases their moral maturity and sense of responsibility.

James DeBastiani, a Registered Drama Therapist and drama teacher in Delaware, USA, turned detention at his middle school into a laboratory for exploring new ways to solve conflict through Forum Theatre and other Theatre of the Oppressed techniques. Detention is a form of punishment for students who get into trouble that requires the offenders to stay after school. Jim turned detention from a time of punishment into an opportunity for learning. Students were able to express themselves and investigate new ways to solve problems through drama. Some began thinking about the points of view of the other students and teachers for the first time. Jim served as the Joker who pushed them to take emotional risks that helped them understand themselves and others better (personal communication, 2004).

Playback Theater

Another theatre form used by drama therapists that can transform bullying behavior is Playback Theatre. Created in the 1970’s by Jonathan Fox and his wife Jo Salas, Playback Theatre elicits personal feelings and stories from audience members who watch them acted out (played back) by a trained team of improvisational actors. A Playback Theatre performance is facilitated by an emcee called the Conductor, who welcomes the audience and elicits stories (Salas, 2005, 2011). While the Conductor in Playback is analogous to the Joker in Forum Theatre, his/her function is a little different; the Conductor is less provocateur, more supportive dramaturg, helping the Teller to articulate his/her story.

Jo Salas, a Registered Music Therapist, has been involved for over a decade in using Playback Theatre to address bullying in schools from elementary through high school through a program she calls “No More Bullying!” (NMB) Playback. A NMB Playback performance starts with the professional actors briefly sharing their bullying experiences, followed by involving the audience in creating a group definition of bullying. Then students are invited to invent a fictional scenario in which an imaginary character, played by a troupe member, is bullied. They are asked for suggestions about how the witnesses in the scene could help. This fictional scene is a technique borrowed from Theatre Forum for the purposes of modeling constructive bullying solutions. (Scenes of retribution are not acted out.) Finally, students are invited to tell about an experience as a victim, witness, or bully and watch it come to life. Because the adults are modeling respect and because the ritual form of Playback creates an environment of acceptance and safety, students are able to sit in the spotlight, speak up and shift the power. If disrespect rears its ugly head during a performance, Jo intervenes immediately to stop it (Salas, 2011).

Jo says when the audience sees a scene enacted: They understand it viscerally – it’s not just about the words, it’s about the physical expression. When you see a feeling embodied by an actor, you have a kinesthetic response: you feel it in your own body. You understand it in a non-cognitive way…if you are the “teller,” seeing your feeling expressed in the bodies, faces, and voices of the actors allows you to know beyond doubt that you’ve been heard and understood (Salas, 2011, 107).

When possible, six weeks previous to a school performance, Jo trains a group of diverse students weekly in Playback techniques and teaches them about bullying. As they practice Playback, telling their stories of bullying experiences to each other during the training, their skills at empathy grow just as their acting skills do. Then during the performances teams of four students and three adult actors work together to play back bullying stories to audiences of 25 to 50 (Salas, 2011). When their peers are onstage, students sit up and take notice, or as one student actor told Jo, “If a child hears it from a child, they listen.” (Salas, 2011, 107).  These children then become anti-bullying leaders in their schools (Salas, 2011).

Playback Theatre has also been used as a tool for conflict resolution with middle and high school students by Timothy Reagan, Registered Drama Therapist and drama teacher, at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC. He is a graduate of the Playback Theatre School in New York and an accredited Playback trainer. Tim began integrating Playback Theatre into the Sidwell curriculum as a way for students to reflect on their individual stories in a class taken by all 7th grade students. He leads an 8th grade Playback troupe called Vertical Voices and a high school troupe called Friendly Rewinders (Reagan, 2015). While Forum Theatre helps students connect outward to the world and social justice principles through their life experiences, Tim feels that Playback Theatre helps adolescents “learn to turn inward; to access, share, and listen to personal stories. Playback provides a significant experience for adolescents to make personal connections between creative expression and the healing power of the arts” (Reagan, 2015, 26). Empathic listening skills are developed through storytelling and story listening (Reagan, 2015). Students begin to treat each other with more respect and consideration.

Eclectic Mixes of Drama Therapy Interventions

Other drama therapists, like Becca Greene van Horne, incorporate many drama therapy techniques, including Playback, to inoculate students against bullying and teach empathy and constructive behavior. Her adolescent ActSmart Improv Theatre in Amherst, Massachusetts, USA, was created in response to the suicide of Phoebe Prince, a bullied girl from a neighboring town. They rehearse weekly and then perform at local schools to pass along their message through improv, rehearsed skits, and Playback (Diehl, 2012). Becca says, “I’m committed to teaching everyone emotional and social intelligence through play and drama” (Diehl, 2012, 2). She feels that drama therapy is how to implement bullying education “in a constructive and appropriate way [because] we can act out what we wished would have happened, and we can act out different alternatives for choices that were made” (Diehl, 2012, 2-3). Becca also offers anti-bullying workshops, social/emotional intelligence training, and conflict resolution training with student, parent, and teacher/administrator groups to get participants dramatically involved in learning pro-social behavior.

In Kansas City, Missouri, USA, Registered Drama Therapy Monica Phinney directs a troupe of teen actors in The Outrage, an ever-evolving script (to keep it up to date) about dating violence and sexual assault, another form of bullying that adolescents face. The show tours to middle and high schools. After performances the drama therapist and the actors hold a question and answer session with the students, and follow-up drama therapy workshops are held at the schools in the following weeks. In addition, Monica runs an 8-10 week Healthy Relationships curriculum in schools, delivering information through role play, theatre games, and other drama therapy methods.

Excellent plays for young audiences have been written on bullying. These can be can be performed to explore the subject in a safe public forum. During rehearsals, student actors should be educated about bullying facts and myths, and time should be set aside for discussion and sharing among cast members, so they can process not just the material in the play, but also the experiences they have had in their own lives. Actors need to be de-roled[i] after each rehearsal and performance, so that they do not take the roles of bully, victim, or bystander home with them. Talkbacks on the subject should be held after every performance so audience members can ask questions, get information, and de-role themselves. Talkbacks can include a panel of experts to speak to the issue, including educators, therapists, and witnesses or victims who feel strong enough to share their stories. If there are printed bullying resources in the school or community, those should be included in the program or available to be picked up in the lobby.

Cyber-bullying

In the age of Facebook and social media, bullying has moved from the classroom, the playground, and school hallways, to cyberspace where some of the cruelest bullying happens. Some cyber-bullying happens anonymously, but even when posts publically identify bullies, they often acts as if they is anonymous and all-powerful. Once something is up on the internet, it can be taken down from public view, but before that happens it could be copied, pasted, forwarded, uploaded, and downloaded by unknown amount of known and unknown others. Even if a post is “deleted,” it still remains forever somewhere on a server in cyberspace. The act of posting a bullying message or insult is a faceless, non-embodied way to strike out at and humiliate someone without fear of physical, embodied reprisal in the moment (James, 2014; Wong-Lo et al, 2012.)

In her book Disconnected: Youth, New Media, and the Ethics Gap, Carrie James introduces the concept of conscientious connectivity. It is not enough to think about your perspective (self-focused thinking) and your family and friends’ perspectives (moral thinking). To use the internet ethically one must be able to engage in complex perspective taking: becoming aware of everyone who could be affected by an online action – self, known others, and unknown others – committing to care about the consequences of your online actions and developing the motivation to deeply explore the ethical blind spots and disconnects that are hidden from our view by technology and the newness of the media. Finally, one must be willing to take action beyond that of not being an online bully by appropriately confronting cyber-bullies and engaging in thoughtful online conversations about issues instead of thoughtless rants. In short, ethical online thinking is community thinking, representing the Third Side.

Any of the drama therapy methods shared previously would work to help educate students of the consequences of cyber-bullying. One important suggestion, however, is to have an adult actor (not the drama therapist who must facilitate the session) enrolled as the recipient of cyber-bully in scenes, as these taunts can be so hurtful and outrageous that having a student on the receiving end could be traumatizing or re-traumatizing whether they have been cyber-bullied in the past or not.

One drama therapist in Lawrence, Kansas, USA, who is also a filmmaker, was able to offer her community a very creative twist on bully and cyber-bully education. As the Outreach Coordinator for the GaDuGi SafeCenter (now the Sexual Trauma and Abuse Center), she focused on violence prevention and sexual assault awareness in local elementary, middle and high schools, as well as two universities, University of Kansas and Haskell Indian Nations University. In partnership with the Lawrence Arts Center she developed theatre and film-based programs to explore social issues and produce projects by, for and about youth and the issues important to them.

She worked closely with local law enforcement and the District Attorney’s office on The InSight Project for youth on pre-file diversion for sex crimes. Juvenile attorneys referred adolescents in danger of receiving felony charges for sexting[ii] or harassment to her for drama therapy sessions to educate, enlighten and empower them to fully understand the impact of their actions. Then they created a Public Service Announcement (PSA) that expressed what they had learned. One of the PSAs they created on sexting can be accessed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFxd2I9LPR4

She also worked with middle school students in tandem with the national tour of It Gets Better, a suicide prevention movement. After conducting 8 weekly sessions of drama activities, including role play, scenes, personal monologues, introspective writing, team building, and messaging, the students wrote, composed, and directed a PSA on rejecting bullying labels, which can be seen at: https://vimeo.com/60225788

Why a Drama Therapist and not a Drama Teacher?

If drama therapy works so well to educate students and change behavior, why not hire a drama teacher or an applied theatre professional experienced in improvisation, Playback Theatre, or Theatre of the Oppressed to implement an anti-bullying program? Because drama therapists are specifically trained to do this kind of self-exploration and socio-emotional training safely.

Holmwood and Stavrou (2012) wisely point out that

…teacher training and dramatherapy training are different in approach and

intention. Dramatherapy students are expected to develop an understanding of the self through personal therapy….Drama teachers are not. Drama therapists are equipped to allow the client to work with their internal emotional and psychological world. [Note from author: very pertinent when working on an issue like bullying] The teacher will use a curriculum to teach students to teach students to develop personal, social, and most importantly educational skills (35).

Educated in drama therapy techniques, psychology, and ethics, drama therapists understand how to keep dramatic explorations honest and effective on one hand and emotionally safe for the participants on the other. Holmwood and Stavrou (2012) add, “a good teacher will possess some therapeutic skills just as a good therapist has to be able to teach. However…being therapeutic does not make you a therapist” (34-35).

One of the big ways drama therapists create safety is through the use of emotional distance in dramatizations. For instance, to protect a student’s personal problems from becoming the subject of a scene, a bullying situation would be fictionalized, and the drama therapist would make sure that a real bully and victim were never cast against each other to work out their differences in real life in front of an audience. A scene that was too close to a real bullying incident could end up re-traumatizing the victim and reinforcing the power imbalance. The distance that fiction provides to a dramatic exploration allows students to open their minds to different solutions and even engage in meta-cognition, analysis, and ethical decision-making skills that can transfer to real-life dilemmas (Boggs, et al, 2007).

Distance can also be created through the use of a distancing technique within a method.  For instance, while a student might volunteer to tell her story in Playback Theatre, others act out the story, and many aspects of it are replayed through metaphor, so that it reflects her reality, but does not reproduce it. The teller safely watches her story from a distance and when those others show they understand her story and her feelings, the teller feels heard and validated.

As mentioned earlier, drama therapists are trained to de-role clients after a dramatic enactment and have a variety of methods that accomplish this. When intense emotions are evoked – even if they are from fictional situations – actors need to return to a neutral emotional state and re-connect with themselves. Not doing so could leave them in an emotional state that would preclude discussing the scene and learning from it. In addition, leaving a session still emotionally in the role of a fictional character could create confusion, acting out, and what might be called an “emotional hangover” in a later situation (Bailey & Dickinson, 2016).

Conclusion

Bullying can only be stopped if community witnesses stop being passive and begin to actively intervene. This might be done through a verbal recognition of the bullying act: I see what you are doing! It might be through reporting the bully to a person in authority who will step in and stop it. It might be through distracting the bully, supporting the victim, or through directly intervening in the situation. All of these choices and more can be learned and practiced through drama therapy, turning students into dynamic citizens who speak up for themselves and others.

Bibliography

Anthes, E. (2010, November 28). Inside the bullied brain: The alarming neuroscience of taunting. The Boston Globe.

Bailey, S., & Dickinson, P. (2016). The Importance of Safely De-Roling. Methods: A Journal of Acting Pedagogy.

Boggs, J.G., Mickel, A.E., & Holtom, B.C. (2007). Experiential learning through interactive drama: An alternative to student role plays. Journal of Management Education 31(6), 832-858. DOI: 10.1177/1052562906294952.

Catterall, J.S. (2007). Enhancing peer conflict resolution skills through drama: An experimental study. Research in Drama Education, 12(2), 163-178.

Coloroso, B. (2003). The bully, the bullied, and the bystander: From preschool to high school – How parents and teachers can help break the cycle of violence. New York: Harper Collins.

Crain, W.C. (1985). Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. Theories of Development:

Concepts and Applications, 2nd Ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 118-136.

Dawes, N.P. & Larson, R. (2010). How youth get engaged: Grounded-theory research on motivational development in youth programs. Developmental Psychology 47(1), 259-269.

Deihl, E.M. (2012, September 26). ACTSMART IMPROV: Theatre in Amherst teaches young actors how to tackle bullying. Daily Hampshire Gazette. Downloaded from www.gazettenet.com/home/2027434-95/amherst-actsmart-members-bullying.

Gourd, K.S., & Gourd, T.Y. (2011). Enacting democracy: Using Forum Theatre to confront bullying. Equity & Excellent in Education, 44(3) 403-419. DOI: 10.1080/10665684.2011.589275.

Holmwood, C. & Stavrou, C. (2012). Dramatherapy and drama teaching in school – A new perspective: Towards a working relationship. In L. Leigh, I. Gersh, A. Dix, & Haythorne (Eds.). Dramatherapy with Children, Young People and Schools: Enabling Creativity, Sociability, Communication and Learning. New York: Routledge.

James, C. (2014). Disconnected: Youth, New Media, and the Ethics Gap. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

McGrath, D. (2013, March). Bullying stops when solutions come from students. NYSUT United, 20-21. Retrieved from nysut.org/news/nysut-united/issues/2013/March-2013/bullying-stops-when-solutions-come-from-students.

Nobel, J. & Stuckey, H.L. (2010). The connection between art, healing, and public health: A review of current literature. American Journal of Public Health 100(2), 254-263.

Olweus, D. (1993). Bullying at school. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Pomeroy, E., Parrish, D.E., Bost, J., Cowiagi G., Cook, P., & Stepura, K. (2011). Education students about interpersonal violence: Comparing two methods. Journal of Social Work Education, 47(3), 525-544. DOI: 10.5175/JSWE.2011.200900077.

Reagan, T. (2015). Keeping the peace: Playback theatre with adolescents. (Doctoral Dissertation). Lesley University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2015. 3702084.

Saint Louis, C. (2013, February 20). Effects of bullying last into adulthood, study finds. NY Times.com. Retrieved from http://well.blog.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/effects- of-bullying-last-into-adulthood.

Sajnani, N. (2009). Theatre of the Oppressed: Drama therapy as cultural dialogue. In R. Emunah & D.R. Johnson (Eds.). Current Approaches in Drama Therapy, 2nd Ed., Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher, 461-482.

Salas, Jo. (2005, September). Using theatre to address bullying. Educational Leadership 63(1), 78-82.

Salas, Jo. (2011). Stories in the Moment: Playback Theatre for building community and justice. In R.G. Varea, C.E. Cohen, & P.O. Walker (Eds.). Acting Together: Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict, Vol. 2. Oakland: New Village Press, 93-124.

Teicher, M.H., Samson, J.A., Sheu, Y., Polcari, A., & McGreenery, C.E. (2010). Hurtful words: Association of exposure to peer verbal abuse with elevated psychiatric symptom scores and corpus callosum abnormalities. American Journal of Psychiatry 167(12), 1464-1471.

Ury, W. (1999). Getting to peace: Transforming conflict at home, at work, and in the world. New York: Penguin/Viking.

Ury, W. (2000). The third side: Why we fight and how we can stop it, Rvd, exp. Ed. NewYork: Penguin Books.

UNESCO: Education: Health Education: Homophobic Bullying. Retrieved from  http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/health-education/homophobic-bullying/bullying/

Wong-Lo, M., Bullock, L.M., & Gable, R.A. (2012). Cyber bullying: Practices to face digital aggression. Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties, 16(3) 317-325. DOI: 10.1080/13632752.2011.595098.

[i] De-roling is the process of taking off a role that an actor has been enrolled in. Actors and drama therapy participants should de-role after each role-play or scene, as well as at the end of a rehearsal so that they can leave the character they embodied behind and return to their own persona and mind-set. De-roling is one of the ethical techniques that drama therapists incorporate into their work that make it different from the work of other theatre educators (although drama therapists would love if all theatre educators and professionals began de-roling as a regular practice themselves!)

[ii] Sexting is when a person takes a nude photo of him or herself and sends it to another via the internet. It is illegal in Kansas for nude or pornographic photos of young people under 18 to be sent or received.

Drama: A Powerful Tool for Social Skill Development

Disability Solutions Vol. 2 (1), May/June 1997, pp 1, 3-5.

available online at www.disabilitysolutions.org/pdf/2.1.pdf

Cindy, an attractive young woman with developmental disabilities, is gardening in her front yard, enjoying the afternoon sun, when a dashing young man in a black leather jacket drives up on a motorcycle and stops beside her.  He gives her the once-over and says, “Hey, I’m a biker dude!  I just came to town about an hour or two ago, and I’m looking for a cute girl!”

“Really?” she says, “Do you want to go to the mall?

“Yes!  Do you?”

Without thinking twice, Cindy starts to climb onto his bike.  “Sure!”

“OK, I’m going to freeze the action in this scene, just for a second,” I say, and turn to the group of drama students with disabilities.  “I want to ask the class a question about this situation.  This ‘Biker Dude’ guy has just driven into town.  He’s a complete stranger.  Cindy’s never set eyes on him before and she just said she would go to the mall with him.  Is that safe?”

“NO!!!” shout the students watching.

“Why is that not a safe choice?”

“Because she doesn’t know him that well yet.”

“She doesn’t know him at all!”

“She doesn’t even know his name!”

“It’s not safe to go somewhere with a total stranger,” I agree.  “So maybe we should start this scene again and let Cindy talk to this guy and find out something about him.”

This time Cindy asks the “Biker Dude” lots of questions and discovers that he’s come to town to look for a job as a mechanic.  She doesn’t know of any job openings, but wishes him luck, says goodbye, and goes inside.

That, of course, is not the only way this situation could safely unfold.  In subsequent role-plays, the students try out possible situations involving this dangerous, but definitely fascinating stranger.  For the duration of the class, students are involved, paying attention, and having a wonderful time learning about how to handle a situation which is every parent’s worst nightmare.

Understanding social situations and how to safely and appropriately interact with other people is important for everyone, but young people who have disabilities often have a more difficult time learning safe and appropriate behaviors.  Safety in the community is only one issue.  Job transition literature emphasizes that more jobs are lost through inappropriate social behavior than from lack of job skills.  Individuals who don’t know how to develop friendships and reach out to others become isolated, depressed, passive, or angry.  Successful inclusion in the community is difficult if social skills are lacking; non-disabled community members aren’t welcoming or understanding to an individual who is withdrawn, rude, provocative, or hostile.

The quandary lies not in knowing what skills young people need, but in how best to teach them.  I believe drama is the best vehicle for social skills development because drama involves students in concrete, hands-on practice of behavior.  Skills are physically and verbally acted out instead of just being talked about, so appropriate behavior becomes very real to the participants.  The abstract becomes bodily concrete.

In drama, as in real life, consequences result from actions taken and can’t be ignored.  They must, in turn, be dealt with through more action.  The reasons for this connection between action and consequence can be discussed, re-played, and, finally, understood by participants and observers alike.

If scenes are re-played with students making different choices and experiencing different consequences, flexibility develops as well as an understanding of cause and effect.  Add discussion of scenes to dramatic role-playing sessions and students begin to develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.

As a drama therapist, I use drama to teach social skills to children, adolescents, and adults who have disabilities.  I know from personal experience that dramatic role-playing generates energy, involvement, laughter, connection, excitement, and understanding.  Role playing real-life situations and watching others do so allows students to rehearse a skill until it becomes part of their skill repertory.

Can anyone learn through drama?  I believe so.  Can anyone use drama as a teaching tool?  I believe so, too.  Developmental psychologists say that all children learn about the world and how to behave in it through deferred imitation, symbolic play, and dramatic play.  These informal methods of learning usually begin to develop when children are as young as three and continue into the early elementary school years.  In a sense, we are all natural-born actors!

Unfortunately, our educational system has yet to harness this powerful, innate method.  The majority of teachers, in both regular and special education, rely on lecture, workbooks, and rote learning.  Abstract learning is valued over concrete learning.  Eventually, children discontinue their use of drama as an informal learning tool because it is labeled by the adults in their lives as “play” or “make-believe,” grown-up codes words for “unimportant,” “childish,” and “useless.”

Many teachers shy away from using drama as a teaching tool because it seems as if it will take too much energy or effort.  Or they think it is a method they couldn’t begin to master without lengthy training.  While training in drama does enhance one’s skills as a group leader, using drama is similar to riding a bike: once you’ve learned how to do it, you never forget – and you’ve known how to do it since you were three!

Drama is not only a useful tool for teachers, it’s useful for parents as well.  Skill rehearsal can become an enjoyable family game instead of a chore.  Rather than lecturing your child about a skill you want her to perform around the house, act it out together.  For example, if you want to teach your child appropriate phone manners, bring two phones into the room and pretend to call her from one of them.  Let her answer the other and engage her in conversation.  Then let her pretend to call you.  With practice, she will learn correct phone etiquette.

The most successful approach to dramatic role-playing is one which is open, playful, and non-judgmental.  This creates an atmosphere where actors can take chances and try out different behaviors.  It can be OK to make a mistake because you can replay the situation and find a way to make it better.

In life, there are many different choices you might make in a given situation.  Some choices are better than others.  Some choices are safer than others.  Some choices are more effective than others.  Through drama many choices, both positive and negative, can be explored – without real-life consequences harming the participants.

The decision-making process can be explored step by step during the role play by freezing the action and questioning the actors or having them share what “thoughts are going on in your head right now.”  Or the process can be explored afterwards through group discussion.

The other advantage of dramatic role-play is that through role reversal, a child can take on the role of a parent, a student can take on the role of teacher, or a client can take on the role of therapist and see the situation from a different perspective.  Dramatically wearing the shoes of the “responsible adults” in their lives helps students begin to understand the need for rules.  Role reversal can provide the group leader with a way to evaluate if the message of the lesson has gotten through.  An actor, taking on the role of authority, will often wax eloquent as he explains to the actor playing the role of the student the reasons why things are done in a certain way – even though he may never have followed those rules or demonstrated an understanding of them in real life.

Actual authority figures (parents, teachers, job coaches, etc.) can learn a lot about being a child, student, or client from role reversals, too.  You might just re-evaluate some of your communication methods after being on the receiving end of a lecture and seeing how you are perceived.

“But,” you ask, “is my child really capable of coming up with sound behavior choices to use in role playing?  Will this method really work with him or her?”  For the answer to than, let’s look at the choices students made for relating to the “Biker Dude.”  On their own, without any prompting from me, the students in my drama class created the following four additional scenarios:

– One girl refused to talk to the “Biker Dude” and went inside her house to get her father to make him go away.

– Another traded phone numbers with him so she could talk with him further before deciding if she wanted to go out with him.

– Another made him give her his phone number, but wouldn’t give our any personal information herself.  Then she told him it was time for him to leave; she wasn’t ready to make a decision about whether or not to call him.

– Yet another invited him to come to her house for dinner so he could meet her family and get to know her in a safe environment.

All were viable choices and all were choices that fell into the range of safe and appropriate ways to handle the situation.

Theater Workshop Gives Children of Military a Voice

College of Human Ecology Press Release

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

A dozen middle-school students take the stage this month, performing a play they created on a topic they know well: children of military families.

“Serving at Home” centers on Chloe, a teenage girl whose mother gets deployed. It also features Chloe’s younger sister and grandfather, creating a multi-generational focus. The play builds on the problems the family faces and the eventual breaking point.

The interactive theater workshop is the work of the School of Family Studies and Human Services, the Department of Speech Communication, Theater and Dance and members of the Manhattan community.

Giving youth a voice

dogtagsomk.gif“This project was done with great care,” said Sally Bailey, associate professor of speech communication, theater and dance.

“It has a strong but authentic message,” added Elaine Johannes, assistant professor of family studies and human services and Extension specialist in youth development.

Johannes and Bailey worked with Alissa Duncan, Registered Drama Therapist, to build the workshop.

Duncan, who has a master’s degree from K-State in drama therapy, said she wanted to create a script that got the thoughts of the kids across without sounding artificial.

The adolescents who volunteered for the workshop discussed the cycle of deployment — pre-deployment, deployment and post-deployment. “They talked about the feelings they had and the issues they faced during these times. We brainstormed and improvised different scenes and eventually put those into a kind of order. This ended up becoming the basis for the play,” Duncan said.

Telling the truth

The resulting script is beautiful and the relationships are very real, Bailey said.

“The play shows adolescent anger, typical adolescent immaturity and much family love,” she added. “It’s not often that people who are going through an experience are asked to reflect on it, especially in an artistic medium.”

Johannes said she has been stunned by the way the interactive theater project has allowed the students to open up and have a voice. “It allows the children to express their emotions in a safe and creative way,” she said.

Topic seldom explored through art

“Through this process, I’ve learned that the family side of war isn’t something that’s really been explored in literature,” Bailey said. “For thousands of years, only the glory part of a soldier’s experience was explored and only recently has the traumatic side of that experience been explored. But, the family has usually been left out.”

After seeing the play and receiving feedback through the discussion, military, family development and community-action experts will brainstorm about what the community can do to aid the families, Johannes said.

Eventually, the project members will create a guide to serve as a resource that other communities could use when creating an interactive
theater group.

“I see this as a springboard for doing this work nationally. It is unique that we are tackling this difficult issue,” she said.

May stagings and sponsors

Performances are at 7:30 p.m. May 16 and 17 at the Manhattan Arts Center, 1520 Poyntz Ave. Bailey will lead discussion after the performances.

The play is free, but seating is limited and some content may not be appropriate for young children. More information is available by calling 785-532-1905 or 785-532-7720.

A National 4-H Headquarters/USDA and Army Child and Youth Services grant funded the Speak Out for Military Kids Interactive Theater project, part of K-State’s Operation Military Kids program that helps military-connected youth cope with the stress that often comes with dealing with a military relative who is deployed. Bronwyn Fees, associate professor, and Deb Sellers, assistant professor, also are members of the state project team.

Drama therapy program benefits Manhattan community,  K-State students

Center for Engagement and Community Development

Engagement E-News October 2007

by Kendall Lange

Theatrical arts and drama are often closely linked with the Big Apple, but K-State Professor Sally Bailey has brought the benefits of drama to the Little Apple. Bailey’s strong theatrical background made her the perfect pick to carry on the drama therapy program started at K-State by Dr. Norman Fedder in the 1980s.

Drama therapy engages K-State students and includes an outreach program to Manhattan area residents. “The best way to learn how to be a drama therapist is through hands-on experience,” Bailey said. “It doesn’t work just to read about it because it involves people skills within an embodied experience.”

The drama therapy program and K-State drama therapy students are working on several ongoing projects. Barrier-Free Theatre, done in partnership with the City of Manhattan Parks and Recreation and the Manhattan Arts Center, offers adolescents and adults with disabilities the chance to create an original play and perform it each April at the Manhattan Arts Center.

In June, Bailey began a drama group at Meadowlark Hills Retirement Community. A group of 12 adults between the ages of 75-95 meet each week to improvise and work on different projects. During the summer, the group hosted an original improvisational mystery dinner theatre play. “This fall, a number of drama therapy students have joined us at Meadowlark Hills,” said Bailey. “There’s a wonderful give and take as K-State students teach them about drama and the residents teach the students about life and growing older.”

Other projects include drama camp for adolescents with special needs during the summer and various after-school projects with children at risk. Bailey believes that drama therapy has many positive effects on participants including increased self-awareness, communication skills, self-confidence, discipline and understanding of oneself and others. These benefits are part of Bailey’s vision for the drama therapy program at K-State. “When students see how powerful drama therapy is and how much it positively affects peoples’ lives, they develop the drive and the vision to take drama therapy other places,” Bailey said.

K-State 2025 Spotlights The Purple Masque Theatre

by Savannah Sherwood and Theo Stavropoulos

11016

Taking a stroll through K-State’s campus in the year 2016 would be hard to do without passing by at least one “work in progress.” Through campus master planning, space migration, and infrastructure upgrades, new and repurposed spaces all across campus have provided needed facilities improvements and expanded learning environments for K-State students. Though the physical space on campus has been transformed through K-State 2025’s visionary goals, the true story of transformation is written every day by the students, faculty, and staff who utilize these spaces to elevate their impact on the communities they serve.

Purple Masque Theatre

The new Purple Masque Theatre opened in 2015 below the West stands of Memorial Stadium. For more images and information, including “before and after” pictures, view the Renovation Gallery.

Nestled within the iconic limestone exterior of Memorial Stadium is the new home of the Purple Masque Theatre. After making a move from the east side of the stadium, which currently houses the recently-opened Berney Family Welcome Center, to the west side, the Purple Masque brings its historic purpose dating back to 1974 into a state of the art new facility. In addition to providing an expanded space for experimental theatre and student learning (through showcases, workshops, stage readings, Ebony Theatre productions, and more), the Purple Masque and its new studio and rehearsal space is utilized by K-State’s Drama Therapy graduate program.

As the only program of its kind in the Midwest, Drama Therapy now has a space that is as unique and transformational as the work taking place within this emerging field of study. “I want to use theatre to make a change in the world, and drama therapy is the perfect way for me to do so,” said Sally Bailey, Director of Graduate Studies in Theatre and Director of the Drama Therapy Program. K-State-trained Drama Therapists have engaged a number of different populations within the Manhattan community and across the state through the power of self-expression and play. “The level of trust and communication that you use in theatre, that feeling of belonging, is very useful,” Bailey said, especially to those who may feel left out or excluded by society. Barrier-Free Theatre is one example of this engagement that has become a fixture of the K-State and Manhattan communities.

Sue Bailey facilitates students in Drama Therapy

Sally Bailey, Director of Graduate Programs in Theatre in the K-State School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, facilitates a group of students in her Drama Therapy course that took place in the old Purple Masque Theatre in East Stadium. For more on how the department is utilizing the new home of the Purple Masque, check out this Feature on the renovations from the College of Arts and Sciences.

Every year, K-State undergraduate and graduate students help to facilitate Barrier-Free Theatre, a program that brings together adults with or without disabilities to collaboratively create and perform an original, one-of-a-kind production. The program provides participants with the opportunity to channel their thoughts and emotions through different expressive forms. It helps instill self-awareness and social skills that can last long after the curtain drops on the annual performance. “Barrier Free Theatre gives the participants an opportunity to set goals and accomplish them, and this in turn gives them a sense of fulfillment,” said Fumni Cole, a graduate student in Theatre.

The new space within the Purple Masque has elevated the Barrier-Free Theatre experience for students, participants, and community members alike. “The opportunity to use the Purple Masque Theatre for rehearsals contributed to the success of the performance,” Cole said, “the actors were able to get well acquainted to a standard theatre space with all the technical equipment in place.” People travel from far and wide to attend Barrier-Free Theatre performances, so having a space like the Purple Masque to welcome audience members and community partners has been a great asset to the program. From the new lobby area to the increased space available backstage, “it’s really opened things up,” said Bailey, “it’s been wonderful to be in the new theatre.”

Barrier-free theatre group

Manhattan’s Barrier-Free Theatre group rehearsing in advance of their performance in 2014. Prior to the Purple Masque renovations, Barrier-Free Theatre took place at the Manhattan Arts Center. The new space has provided opportunities to more fully engage community members with campus and host guests of the university in a state of the art facility.

The actors rehearse weekly throughout the fall and spring semesters, all leading up to the premiere of their show each April. This year’s original play will be performed on April 21, 22, and 23 in the Purple Masque Theatre. “We have performed plays on space adventures, zombie apocalypses, and even Robin Hood,” Bailey said, “And this year will be something completely different.”

Kansas State University’s achievements around facilities and infrastructure help meet its evolving needs and recruit and retain quality students, faculty, researchers, and staff to carry out its important mission. And, similar to this year’s Barrier-Free Theatre production, K-State 2025 is a work in progress that represents an ongoing engagement which will transform a university, and the many lives it touches, for the better.

Kansas State University graduate receives Rotary scholarship to research drama therapy for women with post-traumatic stress disorder

Friday, Oct. 30, 2015

Jessica D Muñoz

Jessica D. Muñoz, August 2015 master’s degree graduate in theatre. | Download this photo.

 

38912

MANHATTAN — A Kansas State University graduate will use drama therapy to help internally displaced women in Colombia with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Jessica D. Muñoz, August 2015 master’s degree graduate in theatre with an emphasis in drama therapy, Albuquerque, New Mexico, received a $30,000 Rotary International Global Grant Scholarship to evaluate the effectiveness of trauma-centered group drama therapy with displaced women in Colombia.

Internally displaced people are similar to refugees in that they are forced to flee their home but they remain in the same country. According Muñoz, Colombia has the second largest population of internally displaced people in the world and about 60 percent are women and children.

“The emotional impact of displacement creates many challenges, such as the paralyzing effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, preventing people from rebuilding their lives,” Muñoz said. “While few studies have measured the rates of PTSD in internally displaced people, recent clinical studies demonstrate that rates of PTSD among refugees range from 39-100 percent — compared to 1 percent in the general population.”

Muñoz will work with Sally Bailey, professor and director of Kansas State University’s drama therapy program, and Jorge Palacio Sañudo at the La Universidad del Norte in Colombia. The goal of the project is to help participants build a community of trust and empathy in a safe environment so they can share stories and heal. As the project progresses, researchers will measure the overall improvement in mental health, including the severity and frequency of PTSD symptoms.

“There is not enough research published yet on the effectiveness of drama therapy,” Bailey said. “Yet, we know from our experiences — anecdotal though they may be — that drama therapy works extremely well for clients who have experienced trauma. I am so excited that Jessica will have the opportunity to research the efficacy of drama therapy with displaced women in Columbia.”

The Global Grant Scholarship is awarded for graduate level academic studies and/or research, which must occur in a foreign country. The scholar completes classes, conducts research or a substantial project that aligns with one of Rotary’s areas of focus.

“The interview and selection process for the scholarship is rigorous,” said Rebecca Gould, co-chair of the scholarship committee for the Konza and Manhattan Rotary clubs and director of the university’s Information Technology Assistance Center. “Jessica’s research is unique and includes four of Rotary’s six areas of focus — peace and conflict prevention/resolution, maternal and child health, basic education and literacy, and economic and community development — by providing training to professionals using her skills as a drama therapist.”

Muñoz is a member of the North American Association of Drama Therapy. She worked as a refugee advocate for the Refugee Well-being Project at the University of New Mexico and was a student delegate for the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York. She completed a residency at the Post Traumatic Stress Center in New Haven, Connecticut, was a site leader for the Manhattan chapter of Hollaback! and a facilitator for Kansas State University’s Center for Advocacy Response and Education. She will start the research in February 2016 in Barranquilla, Colombia.

“It is critical that innovative ways to address the trauma of displacement are developed and integrated into systems of crisis intervention,” Muñoz said. “The development of trauma-centered group drama therapy holds the potential to improve the collective and personal psyches of female internally displaced people in Colombia and across the globe.”

Muñoz is the daughter of Edward and Kellie Northam, Omaha, Nebraska.

Barrier-Free Theater book published

Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2010

DRAMA THERAPIST’S NEW BOOK PROMOTES BARRIER-FREE THEATER

MANHATTAN — Sally Bailey, associate professor and director of the drama therapy program at Kansas State University, recently had her third book, “Barrier-Free Theatre,” published by Idyll Arbor. In the book Bailey shares her ideas, tips and anecdotes about making theater accessible to children and adults with disabilities. “If you do theater, but know nothing about disabilities, you’ll learn about them,” Bailey said. “If you know about disabilities, but not about how to facilitate drama, you’ll learn about that. I wanted to give all the building blocks so that people can take what they need. If you have no building blocks, with this book you have a whole kit.”

Bailey was first exposed to drama therapy and learned about accommodating people with disabilities when she worked for various arts programs in Washington, D.C. After becoming a registered drama therapist, she used her skills while working with recovering drug addicts at the rehabilitation facility Second Genesis, and with people with disabilities at Imagination Stage, a nonprofit arts center. She moved to Manhattan to head up K-State’s drama therapy master’s program in 1999. She also is the director of the Manhattan Parks and Recreation’s barrier-free theater. “By chance, one of the families whose children I had worked with in the D.C. area had moved to Manhattan and had talked the parks and rec department into creating a barrier-free program,” Bailey said. “They believed it was so important that every town should have one.”

Bailey’s new book is nearly a decade in the making. She said publishers could not understand who the audience was, but she knows that since 20 percent of people have some kind of disability, the audience is definitely there. “Drama can really level the playing field and allow many different people to work together,” Bailey said. “In the theater all people can express themselves and be creative as equals. Drama can be a part of more people’s lives if directors and teachers know how to include everyone.”