Dare to be different - creative drama in education
Dare to be different is an innovative educational initiative implementing which we strove to encourage our student to think out of the box, to step in somebody else's shoes, to feel empathy and be tolerant. It can be a message to all the educators throughout Europe to dare to be different in their teaching but at the same to unite and collaborate in creating a beautiful and sustainable Europe of the future.
Cross-border/international
Serbia
Greece
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Malta
{Empty}
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
Yes
ERASMUS
The initiative was a part of Erasmus+ programme.
No
Yes
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): Olga Milosevic Primary School Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Jasmina Last name of representative: Milicevic Gender: Female Nationality: Serbia Function: Erasmus+ team coordinator, English teacher, Erasmus+ Ambassador, eTwinning Ambassador Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: No. 4, Francuska Street Town: Smederevska Palanka Postal code: 11420 Country: Serbia Direct Tel:+381 64 2847126 E-mail:milicevicjasina81@gmail.com Website:https://osolgamilosevic.wordpress.com/
The National Erasmus + Agency from Serbia, Tempus Foundation has sent me the information about this prize and suggested me to apply with the Erasmus+ project since it received European Language Labe and European Innovative Teaching Award.
Dare to be Different – Creative Drama in Education is a KA2 Erasmus+ project involving five partner organisations from Serbia, Greece, Malta and Turkey.
The educational paradigm in the 21st century necessitates change. As educators, we are challenged to foster and develop our competences and those of the students entrusted in our care. Creative drama supports the development of the seven EU key competences: literacy and languages; personal and social competences; civic competences, cultural awareness and expression, as well as digital competences.
The objectives of our project include the development of creative and critical thinking, to raise the level of motivation and satisfaction of stakeholders engaged in the teaching and learning process, to enable students to tackle different issues in a constructive and creative manner, and to foster respect for diversity, cultural heritage of their own and other foreign countries.
The participants who were directly involved in the project were/are teachers, students and drama experts from the five partner organisations. It is estimated that about 1500 participants have benefited from this project.
Over a 22-month period, teachers were invited to enhance lessons in different subjects by using creative drama processes across the curriculum. Students were also engaged in drama processes to critically and creatively deal with different issues that affect their lives: inter-cultural awareness , environmental awareness, school violence, acceptance of diversity, healthy lifestyles, Internet safety, environmental problems, inclusion, and other topics.
Through the project, two intellectual outputs were produced:
1) A collection of scripts entitled “Dare To Be Different” (at least 8)
2) A collection of lesson plans entitled “A Bunch of Colourful Activities” designed and delivered according to the principles of creative drama process (at least 40 lessons).
intercultural learning
environmental learning
cultural heritage
creative approach to teaching school subject
sustainability
The objectives of our project are to develop students’ creative and critical thinking, to raise their level of motivation and satisfaction with the learning process, to enable students to tackle different issues in a constructive and creative way, and to foster respect for diversity. It must be said that the adults have benefited from the project in quite a similar way.
The second project year had been dedicated to the environmental learning particularly in our school, Olga Milosevic Primary School. We had set the goal in the period of writing the application to work on the creation of drama play on the topic of pollution. The process lasted for at leas six months and it engaged teachers of different subjects (Craft-creation of recycled props, art-decorating props, and creation of costumes out of recycled materials, science- activities on climate changes, English- recycling vocabulary, Serbian - creating a script in the form of a poem.) The play was performed for all the students of the school and for online peers from partner schools. The plan is to perform it in the future on the regional level.
Altogether, approximately 1600 teachers, student and drama pedagogues of five partner organisations were directly involved in different implementation and dissemination project activities. Thus, we hope that the quite a great number of these teachers will implement the skills and knowledge transferred to them on either sporadic or regular basis.
The sustainability was enabled by: sharing the examples of good practice delivering workshops to educators at international conferences of English teachers (Athens, Thessaloniki, Ankara, Belgrade, Slovenia, Bratislava), by creating and posting publicly the results of the project onto the project website, on the Erasmus+ project results platform, on eTwinning platform, on the websites of the partner organisations, and last but not the least by integrating them into the School Development Plan for the period until 2027.
The best description of the key objectives of our initiative can be seen by presenting here the intangible results of the project:
- better results of formative and summative assessment of the students engaged in the creative drama activities,
- higher level of students' satisfaction with learning in the lesson where drama techniques were being implemented, .
- improved cultural awareness at a very high level
- considerably improved English skill of students directly involved in drama process led in English,
- improved digital skill, schools, avatars with audio greetings, an eStory.
- 30 Serbian students and teachers completed A1 course of Turkish language organised by Yunus Emre Institute, oganisation under the auspices of the Government of Turkiye.
The project was awarded by European awards:
- EUROPEAN LANGAGE LABEL (2019) for English language for the drama play THE TOKENS OF FRIENDSHIP,
- EUROPEAN INNOVATIVE TEACHING AWARD (2022),
- two eTwinning quality labels.
The project is a positive example of transmitting emotions of acceptance diversity, particularly the play The tokens of friendship where I with my students integrated the cultural heritage of the four countries so different, their folk dances, their languages and their religious beliefs. The play also deals with racism against refugees from Syria where a girl in her very touching monologue asks herself:
"Why, why are they treating me this way? What did I do wrong? I don’t understand you people. Why? Because my skin is dark? Because I speak a different language? Why. Am I that bad, worse than them… I wished only to find a new home here. Mine does not exist, ruined, destroyed by war. I wished to find new friends; mine are who knows in which part of this world. I only wish the same things like them. to learn, to play, to smile, to grow up – to grow
up here, with them. I lost my country. Why can’t they understand. that I am not different...Why… Why?"
The key objective of the initiative or better to phrase it as the key principal of our initiative is inclusion. This is given as one of the three priorities of the project, which are:
1. New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training
courses ;
2. Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning ;
3. Inclusion - equity.
This main role in the play was played by a Romani girl from very poor social background. She was extremely shy and left out by other students. She never answered in the classes when asked by a teacher. When I announced that we will choose the students for the mobility to Turkey and preparation of the play in English she told to me "Please teacher, can I join even if i don't know English well. I can move the props. I allowed here. In two months work she learned English on her own, practised a lot, began giving suggestions on how to develop the plot of the play. A few weeks before the mobility the main role gave up the mobility. The play was to be cancelled. All of a sudden, the girl M.J. told me, Teacher I know all the play by heart, even Turkish dialogues. I can help. She did it marvelously. Everybody congratulated her. She fought for her dream and the dream became true.
The initiative puts emphasis on integration of all the students in the creative process. We put emphasis on Roma students, refugees and the students with special needs to be given a fair share in the creation and performing the plays created. Thus we additionally raise the level of the value and benefit of the project idea. We hope to have shown to the public that in education everybody is accepted, can/must make progress and is needed.
Moreover, our initiative is a way to integrate equally all the students nevertheless how high are their academic achievements. We want to help them discover, involve and develop their talents, integrate with their peers and realise to the full their right to education.
The project partners were schools from Yalova, Turkey, Patras Greece, Zabbar Valleta, Smederevska Palanka Serbia. The fifth partner was Association of drama pedagogue and artists BAZZART from Belgrade. The dissemination of the project results was led in other local schools, on the local and regional TV JASENICA, on local online portal PALANKA DANAS, on the national official brochure of the Ministry of Education, at the national teacher conferences, national drama pedagogues' conference, and on at least 6 international conferences of the educators dealing with English language teaching.
The local authorities participated in some of the activities, the students' parents took part in the organisation and implementation of the foreign students' mobilities in our town.
The projects was designed in the way that it integrated engagement of the teachers of different subjects. The focus of the implementation of the creative drama were so called "difficult school subjects" such as maths, biology, physics, chemistry, technical education as well as English, history, geography. All of these teachers went through the training on how to implement this method in different disciplines and how to implement an interdisciplinary approach in their teaching. That is how a joint e-book of 40 lesson plans was created as well as 8 original plays on the different topics dealt with in an interdisciplinary way.
The training was delivered by the Association of drama pedagogue and artists from Belgrade.
The dissemination of the project results was performed on local, national and international levels. The gained skills and knowledge about this methodology was disseminated on various international conferences in the form of presentations and workshops.
The innovation of our initiative is that the outcomes achieved are the result of the international cooperation between schools with very different cultural, religious, social and nationality background. This was the added value to the implementation of creative drama methodology particularly in the field of intercultural learning, the esteem for the cultural heritage of one's homeland and other countries, empathy and tolerance to those who are not as fortunate as we are.
But at the same time, the great benefit of the project is that our students understood that as much as we are different we, human beings have a lot of things in common, love for our families, our friends, we need to learn, to be safe and we love our only place in this universe, the planet Earth.
As the project is international in its nature, it can be transferred in other schools Europewide. The partner schools function in different social, religious and cultural mileage. Namely, the school from Turkey is a rural school where all the students are from Muslim families with about 20 percent of students refugees from Syria. The Greek school also comes in a suburban area coming from families with quite poor standard of living. The Maltese school is rural school with students of more than 10 different nationalities, 30 percent of the students are considered and taught according individual education programme having some mild mental or psychological impediments. The Serbian school is located in an urban environment, majority of families are Orthodox and has 17 percent of Romani student some of the pracising Muslim religion.
By giving this detailed description, we want to emphasise that our initiative could be replicated/ transferred to almost all the schools on different education level all over the Europe, even the world and in different context, with different beneficiaries i.e. whoever wants to learn.
Creative drama is a type of theater used for educational purposes that helps children work on social skills and academic subjects using theater games and improvisations while being led by a trained teacher. It provides a safe environment for students to explore behavior, ideas, creativity, and school subjects. Ultimately, creative drama is an out-of-the-box approach to learning that engages imagination, concentration, and sensory awareness in a theater environment. It is a powerful way to engage in social and emotional learning. Through theatre games, movement exercises, vocal activities and improvisation, students are able to learn more about themselves and the world around them.
The teachers used this methodology in regular classes in the subjects which are not usually learnt by using it, such as maths, physics, geography, chemistry, technical education, etc. This approach enabled the teachers to raise the level of students' motivation, to be creative, active, productive, and acquire real-life skills and knowledge to last more.
The creation of original plays dealing in various topic really enabled the students to go out of the box, out of their comfort zone, to identify with some issues to invent the content of the play, to solve the problems and to think creatively and critically.
In formal education, global issues are covered on all education levels across different curricula. However, apart from citizenship education the English language classes and drama classes can offer a great opportunity to educate students on the topic of global challenges.
The very focus of the work in my English drama club is on global problems such as climate changes, extinction of wild life, discrimination of marginalised groups, intercultural connections, empathy, etc. These components are the guidelines of our most representative pieces of drama THE TOKENS OF FRINEDSHIP AND THE NATURE WILL SAY-THANK YOU.
By educating children working with them step-by-step using creative drama process we raise their awareness about a certain issue, we lead them to do research, to analyse the reasons and consequences, we help them step into someone else's shoes, understand the problem, feel empathy, and change their own attitude and their behaviour, the attitude and behavior of their peers and relatives, their community and once they are grown up, they will hopefully have a voice in decision-making about creating a society - more just and more fair; the mankind aware of the fact that we have only one planet to live on.
Our students learn and exercise the motto PROTECTING OUR PLANET STARTS WITH YOU.
The Main Outcomes of the project gained also prove the above mentioned statements.
1. Adopted and applied dramatic expression and improvisation in learning to develop creativity, critical thinking and functional knowledge.
2. Developed intercultural skills,
3. Raised level of knowledge, and usage of English,
4. Developed teamwork and peer education in an international environment.
5. Significantly raised level of students’ motivation to learn,
6. Schools’ recognition on national and international level,
7. … and last but not the least, the friendship with people from other countries to last in the years to come.
The Erasmus+ project DARE TO BE DIFFERENT lasted from September 2018 till October 2020. The project was completed and its main intellectual outputs are: 1. an e-collection of the original drama plays in English and the languages of the the partners, namely Greek, Turkish and Serbian. The topics of the Serbian plays was intercultural learning and with the play THE TOKENS OF FRIENDSHIP the students themselves wrote the script and added their ideas. The play THE NATURE WILL SAY THANK YOU has a goal of raising environmental awareness of people but most importantly of finding the ways of giving our own contribution to solving this issue.
The applied teaching method CREATIVE OR PROCESS DRAMA is the method which became an integral part of the teaching of some teachers in the partner schools. In the school Olga Milosevic, every year one play is crated by taking students through this creative process focusing on different or sometimes same issues with or problems that are relevant to the primary school students.
This initiative bears and will be bear in the future new dramatic intercultural creations in which many students and teachers will be engaged in. They are and will be presented to other schools in the town, posted on YouTube in order to share them with interested educators. The website of the project is still functional and can serve to add new materials created in the continuation of the initiative. The English drama club and eTwinning club which had a role of peer education and as a space to gather ideas and implement them into dramas and eTwinning projects, will function in the future as well.
The annual Congress of primary teachers and ELTA international conferences of English teachers is the space where we can disseminate further achievements of our initiative. We have already presented the creative drama-in-education concept in the international conferences in Ankara, Athens, Thessaloniki, Bratislava, Ljubljana and Belgrade.
- In Recommendation on learning for the green transition and sustainable development it is stated that all learners should be provided with opportunities to learn about the climate crisis and sustainability in formal education and non-formal education. The work on the drama play The nature will say thank-you, we enabled our students and teachers to learn/teach in an interdisciplinary, creative, active, hands-on context, and we believe that we have created supportive learning environment to understand and implement the principals of sustainability.
Apart from the above mentioned play, we have realised other activities not only in the scope of the project Dare to Be Different, such as online event THE EARTH HOUR with our partners from the three countries, but also in the wider initiative of the usage of creative drama in education. Some examples of our focus on sustainable development and setting the goal of educating our students on the topic of sustainable development is eTwinning project with the title YOUNG AGENTS 017 OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, the drama play WHY DON'T THEY CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THE EARTH, projects HONEY STORY, 3Rs, the implementation of the programme of Eco-schools.
