In a celebrated TED talk, Sir Ken Robinson urged us to view teaching as an art, emphasizing the role of teachers in facilitating learning rather than mere knowledge transmission. This perspective raises a crucial question: What makes a great teacher? As a teacher trainer, I’ve noticed that effective lessons often lack a certain ‘spark.’ This elusive element appears to reside in the embodied behaviors and interactions between teachers and learners.

Teacher identity has evolved beyond technical competence to encompass social personae, reflecting roles, relationships, and community affiliations. Identity is a dynamic interplay between personal agency and external influences. To truly enhance teaching practice, we must incorporate identity reflection into teacher development.

Applied Theatre, notably Augusto Boal’s work, offers valuable insights into teaching as a performative art. Teaching is heuristic, improvised, embodied, and emergent, making it akin to a performance. Wahl’s observation that teachers should engage students emotionally highlights the importance of this aspect.

The idea that learning is rooted in action, as advocated by Rousseau and Locke, echoes in Progressive Education champions like John Dewey and Vygotsky, who emphasized embodied social interaction and play in learning.

While drama in education has a rich history, contemporary research on performative approaches in Teacher Education is limited. Even’s teacher training program, for instance, emphasizes dynamic, co-constructed learning over static knowledge delivery. Smith’s research on teaching English to migrants underscores the teacher’s role in creating a meaningful learning environment. Lutzker highlights the importance of a teacher’s physical attitude in holistic development.

Applied Theatre, specifically ‘Process Drama,’ immerses participants in fictionalized, participant-led experiences for educational purposes. This approach creates a ‘no penalty’ zone, where learners can explore solutions in a dramatized setting. Vygotsky’s theories on learning through experience and emotion are pertinent here.

In educational contexts, there’s immense potential to explore how human experiences and emotions intersect with Teacher Education. Applied Theatre encourages participants to ‘feel’ and express emotions, fostering reflection and awareness. To explore this further, I conducted diagnostic workshops with teachers, using Applied Theatre to stimulate self-reflection on teacher identity and increase awareness of self and others while promoting transformative learning. What happened? I will tell you next week.