~Boys will be Boys~

Middle school boys present one of the most challenging tasks to teachers nationwide: make me interested in school. This attitude engenders both positive and negative reactions from educationalists, but we rarely hear about the former. In, Tackling Male Underachievement: Enhancing a Strengths-Based Learning Environment for Middle School Boys, Mary Ann Clark, Kelly Flower, Jonathan Walton, and Erin Oakley write about a noble research study that intended to reconcile boys at this difficult age to come to terms with their educational environment. The base of this project developed from a recent theory, Possible Selves Theory (Markus and Nurius, 1986), which emphasizes student self-definition as being linked to school behavior. Though the principle behind Possible Selves is an understandable framework, I vehemently contest the cause of the results reported in the middle school boys project.

Possible Selves relies on the premise of self-motivation for students, which is certainly spot-on accurate in the current education paradigm. Clark mentions that middle school is the educational stage when the gender gap widens - boys are academically less successful than girls – but fails to connect the major shift on the national paradigm. Naptime, recess, and consistent teachers for more than 45 minutes end in middle school. Thus, the topic should shift from where the gap widens to why it widens. The answer is simple: there is an inherent systemic bias in education against middle school boys. Joscha Legewie and Thomas A. DiPrete (Columbia University) argue “School environment channels conceptions of masculinity in peer culture, fostering or inhibiting boys’ development of anti-school attitudes and behavior” (Legewie and DiPrete, 2012). Clark’s article admits, “Males may benefit from movement and hands-on instruction” (Clark, et. al, 2008). The needed objective for these male students is not being fulfilled by our school system. The counselor project that this study provides may have resulted in a more motivated middle school boy population, but it has little to do with their curriculum and methods structure. Rather, they implement their “sessions” after eliminating some of the most prevalent school climate problems that these boys face. The study should be praised for isolating these factors (interactive learning, collaboration of teaching specialties, literacy, one-on-one attention), but it should be criticized for not attributing its results to these factors.

Instead, this counseling project claims to have helped the boys “develop positive images of their future selves.” In other words, the project spurred intrinsic motivation within the student population. However, in revealing the success of the project, the study explains, “The most frequently mentioned goals were making good grades, graduating from high school, joining activities, and playing sports.” That may sound like intrinsic motivation to Clark, but those goals are rooted in extrinsic motivators facilitated by a flawed education system. In fact, the educationalists omit any mention of emotions or past experiences, two significant topics that Possible Selves theory hinges itself upon. Thus, one is left to reason that the study did not fully test intrinsic motivation as being a factor of academic achievement.

 Kids Are Dramatic is an organization that embraces the successful part of this project, strongly believing that hands-on learning is a powerful force that is underutilized in the classroom. It also believes that intrinsic motivation is key to success within and without the US education system, and Possible Selves Theory bridges the gender gap. What are the Implications of Possible Selves Research for School Counseling Practice?, an academic article cited by Clark, narrows the motivation of students in school to “how vividly they can picture different possible selves, the nature of their possible selves, and the connections students perceive between school behavior and either achieving a positive self or avoiding a negative self” (Casey and Martin, 2007). These pictures are the result of a well-crafted, tactful theatre arts curriculum. Once students are able to form and regulate pictures from the past and the present, those future goals naturally derive from their emotional cognition. Clark never addresses past experience, which is a prerequisite to flourishing future objectives. Through the use of scaffolding, students who participate in the Kids Are Dramatic curriculum draw upon past experience, develop an emotional connection to these experiences, and then utilize the scenarios to create beautiful scenes. In the US education system, theatre is given the label of “a fantasy world,” but playing pretend could be a tool for rebuilding the bridge to these middle school boys’ academic worlds.

 As argued by Clark, school must be put into context for these boys. This study was an attempt to resolve the gender gap from the lens of a school counselor, but the school climate consists of more than just school counselors. Education, from an interventionist perspective, begins with instruction. More research is needed on Possible Selves Theory in relation to emotional cognition and development amongst middle school boys.

Our Foundation: Emotion Matters

Kids Are Dramatic is an individual, grassroots project which developed its foundations in a Living and Learning Community at Colorado College in 2011. As emotional cognition was identified as an area in need of fine-tuning in community schools in Colorado Springs, Jacob Kirksey took advantage of this opportunity to write an eight-week curriculum addressing the issues of emotional cognition using theatre arts. The object and hopes of this curriculum were to allow children to flourish academically, socially, and emotionally. By using theatre as a medium, students are able to improve their social skills, their confidence levels, and begin to understand their roles as citizens, making their voices heard.

The Kids Are Dramatic program consolidated as an after-school program at Horace Mann Middle School in March of 2012, meeting weekly with about 10 consistently attending children. This year, months later, the after-school program meets biweekly with 25 students attending consistently, and a total of 45 students enrolled in the program. Additionally, the staff of Kids Are Dramatic grew from being run as a one-man show to employing a total of three members.

In order to correctly assess the change that students have made and have seen in themselves, pre and post surveys were given out during the pilot program. This survey tracked any changes in their perception of their emotional climate, as well as their home and school climate. Research was collected, though the survey will be redistributed again at the end of this year in order to provide a more accurate and more longitudinal study with a greater number of children.

However, other professional research projects have been conducted regarding emotional cognition and the use of drama and/or theater in the classroom. A study at Wiley InterScience, at the “New Directions for Youth Development” center examined the connection between Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed and its effects on the lives of students. An article titled “Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed and How to Derail Real-Life Tragedies with Imagination,” published in Wiley Periodicals and written by Maria Tereza Schaedler, propagates that “theater stimulates dialogue and creates critical consciousness. It is a nonviolent approach to problem solving…[challenging] traditional power roles in the classroom, [stimulating] imagination and creativity, and [striking] people in a unique way that a lecture will likely not” (Schaedler 149). Theatre can provide a podium for the unheard to be heard, and for those who were taught to be silenced to, instead, develop a true and genuine voice. Not only does this improve their confidence and inter-student relations but also allows children to be comfortable enough to modify their academic environment into an atmosphere where they feel safe, making way for learning to occur in an optimum ambiance. Additionally, students are taught how to give and receive constructive criticism, making them better peers to one another.

Another article titled “Activist Awareness in the Theatre of the Oppressed Classroom” written by Susanne Shawyer, Assistant Professor at the Department of Theatre at Dalhousie University, investigated the effects of applied theatre in the classroom. A survey collected data claiming that “in subsequent self-reflections, several students commented on how easily traditional playground games and theatre warm-ups can be adapted to curtail competition and instead encourage teamwork” (Shawyer 14).

As the staff of Kids Are Dramatic, we hope to achieve similar or even more significant results with our middle school students. In the long run, we hope to make Kids Are Dramatic a community-wide program which will benefit children from various schools across the Colorado Springs area.