my reasons for wanting to teach drama
Hi all,
It appears that how I became to know drama and what motivated me to want to teach drama is similar to other uni drama students. I remember as I very young child dancing around my grandma’s lounge room singing, dancing and swinging on chairs pretending I was ‘Eliza’ from ‘My Fair Lady’. Probably, the reason why that memory is still so strong is because once, when I tried to do a grand leap using the aid of the chair, the chair tipped over so I landed flat on the floor, giving myself quite a shock! That was the last of my chair swinging days. However, I have continued to sing and dance and have discovered over the years that it’s my drama skills that have been a key player in these fields. Like many, I started dance at age 4 and have never stopped, was in Australian Girls Choir for many years, took speech and drama lessons and exams for 9 years, have played a range of musical instruments and have reached a high level in several, participated in school musicals obtaining lead parts and the list of experience goes on. The older I became the more I realised that drama is a crucial part of life. Without the skills of drama I would not have had the confidence to perform and express myself especially in music and dance exams. Even today people say I have good people skills and I look confident even when I feel quite the opposite! These are vital life skills that drama has given me. I took drama as a subject all through school and lobbied hard to get Theatre Studies as a VCE subject; thankfully I succeeded in launching this VCE subject at my school and was in the inaugural Theatre Studies class at PLC. I feel very passionate about pushing drama forward in schools as I know it helps people develop communication skills which are important no matter what field you work in. I also learnt through studying drama that because we are always ‘being other people’ we become more sympathetic towards different types of people. Usually the students who want to be doctors of lawyers overlook the importance of drama as they do not realise all it has to offer them. Therefore I’m driven to teach Drama and or Theatre Studies in secondary schools so I can educate students about the importance of drama and even if their dream isn’t to perform on stage, drama can teach them skills that will make them even better at their profession.Â
Jane 