How performing arts sparked creativity and imagination
The AEL summer school 2024 had no bell, no curriculum, no targets… I daresay, it even had no teachers or students in the traditional meaning and roles, where teachers are giving ‘instructions and notions to their pupils’ and students are doing what they are told…
We had instead “a community of learners” who worked together on a creative process of doing and learning by doing!
Can we still call it “a school”?
If a school is a place where bells ring at the start and the end of every lesson, where teachers step into a classroom with a pre-formatted teaching unit and must follow a fixed curriculum, where students have to be tested to check if they have achieved a target, then AEL are not a school.
But, if a school is a place where children and teachers create their learning, feed their talents, take care of one another, then yes, AEL are proudly a school!
We are proud to be a school where the human element is the compass leading our choices and decisions that we believe are helpful to everyone involved.
In this challenging time, we try our best to provide a honest, good contribution to the relief of the educational issues in children, teenagers and young people, exploring every year and for every group solutions that are helpful to our learners.
Last summer we were able to build a new team of people willing to merge their skills, ideas and enthusiasm for working together and create a significant educational experience, that we wanted to be active. creative, enjoyable. And I honestly think we were very closed to our purposes.
What happened in Summer 2024
In summer 2024 the core of the summer school was “Performing Arts”. There was a session every morning from 9:30 am until 1 pm with a break at some point.
In the afternoon there were creative and artistic workshops (drama, fine arts, taiko, water-sports) and also outings to explore special places in the city and around: Clip & Climb indoor centre, Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM), the Quay, the craft festival in Exeter, the Eden Project in Cornwall.
The morning sessions aimed to deliver “performing arts” (acting, dancing, music) with integrated English tuition in a smooth flow that was intended to facilitate the focus on an engaging activity and avoid the drawbacks of a fixed schedule.
A structure based on an organic timer
In fact, when we have a fixed schedule, a lesson might be already exhausted after half an hour but students still need to wait for the bell… On the opposite case, if they are pretty much involved in an activity -which could academic or creative- they have to stop when the bell rings… Why should we do it? We are in a lucky situation and can be free to design the day as it suits our students, isn’t it.
So, we introduce some simple changes: no bells ringing to indicate a change of subject; no fixed curriculum to be completed; no tests either at the start or at the end of the summer school, but one guideline: enjoy what you are doing and do it as long as you enjoy it.
We wanted our students to jump straightforward into action and let them be creative from day one until the final day.
We didn’t figure out in advance any specific format for the final presentation but open-minded to support the inclination of the participants: be an academic presentation of chosen topics, a display of dances or songs, or -perhaps, we hoped- a performance of a short play.
So, we had contents in mind, we had a structure in mind, but we also walked into the classroom ready to shape our ideas according to the actual human beings who were taking part to this event with their own expectations, talents and various abilities.
Usually the “structure of the day” is marked by a bell ringing. This is a traditional set up, established at the beginning of the 20th century. Without a bell, how do you know when it is time to end something and start a new lesson or activity?
It ended up that Helena was the bell… or, better, she became the ‘organic, biological timer’ for the whole group. When students showed tiredness during an activity or working on a topic, she was ready to give a short break or move on to the next stage or a new activity…
The leading teacher was therefore free to decide what, when and how to deliver her contents with only one condition:
only do what makes you and your class enjoy!
That’s it.
An impressive display of imagination and creativity
The outcome was brilliant! There was never a moment when anyone needed to be called for disrupting behaviours… It was a sample of active participation, of synergic cooperation: they set up a plot for a play, described characters in lively conversations, prepared scenes and costumes in a joyful time together.
It was a massive display of imagination and creativity that was not restrained by the stress of reaching any final target, but only powered by the joy of working, living and experiencing together. And learning together without even being fully aware of it!
Their focus was on the work they were creating, how to get it done, what possible problems needed to be solved. The “discipline” of the activity was keeping them busy and feed their sense of togetherness.
Together we can
In fact we need nowadays to prioritise some meaningful elements in education rather than being obsessed with cognitive goals. And those elements are essentially to focus on nourishing personal development and feeding social awareness, which is the art of taking care of one another, the tool leading to the foundation of a healthy community.
Feeding creative and imaginative thinking
Next summer 2025 we want to improve such a framework by giving the participants the clear goal of a performance at the end of the three-week course. For those staying two weeks we will offer some other options, be it a sketch to perform or a topic to investigate or a newspaper…
Furthermore, we will try to introduce one more area, deeply connected with both language and individual development.
It is the area of phonics, of verbal communications and interactions as a further boost to our students’ language and communication skills through an artistic approach that will further nurture their creative and imaginative thinking …
May I leave the rest to be discovered!
What it is sure is that a new summer will deliver new surprises!
What is also sure is that we want to continue to offer our students professional (though ‘simple’) creative opportunities and let them be active to create their personal and communal learning outcomes.
To achieve that condition, we need active, creative teachers as creativity calls creativity, I daresay.
Let them create the world they want (not ours)
Our summer school has the quality of a live event where learners -students and teachers- are the actors, they are the creators.
We, adults, are not there to “instruct” them to shape their mindset at image of ours.
We are their educational “midwives” nourishing and helping them discover and grow their talents, so they can walk into their future, equipped with self-confidence, skills and own ideas about the world they want to create.
vr
