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CHAPTER SIX: CONTEXT AND FURTHER USE OF THE FINDINGS OF MY ACTION RESEARCH the opposite of what the lessons in my research aimed to achieve. Ihough the NGO staff in the Wild Child drama can be considered as experts in some sense, the problem posed by the feral child they undertook to educate became a crisis they had to deal with as part of the unfolding narrative. Ihe frame I offered to participants, a theatre exploration to create DEs, put the focus on engaging with the problem within the situation and exploring what possible questions can be brought out of it, rather than finding the solutions. These two aspects of relating to the problem in the fiction are important factors of difference between my research lessons and a MoE drama lesson. The other reinterpretation of LTD is the Conventions approach that is based on dramatic forms compiled by Neelands and Goode in Structuring Drama Work aiming to “democratise drama teaching by identifying and describing the common techniques and conventions used by great but often mysterious drama educators”.”’ Neelands defines this mode of drama as “a ‘laboratory theatre’ approach in which some aspect of human behaviour or experience is isolated and selected for close exploration”.’”°® He also states that they aimed to take “a more Brechtian or epic realist approach to drama””* in offering these forms to drama teachers. While I used some of the forms that are described in Structuring Drama Work in my research lessons, there were two fundamental differences with Neelands between the underlying attitude to drama. One of these was that while the Conventions approach aims to create some degree of distancing by relying on Brechtian reflection, I aimed to create the experience of ‘being’ in the drama and exploring the situation from within. The other difference is that while the conventions described by Neelands rely on the forms used by “post-naturalist theatres”’® I built the connection between theatre and classroom drama by incorporating underlying concepts, theory and dramaturgical structures. While I aimed to keep the complexity of the theatre approach by relying on three different elements of its artistry, the convention approach relies mostly on the form of the theatre it connects with. As can be seen the approach I used shares elements with contemporary forms of drama, but can be clearly differentiated as well from them. It is part of a large body of work, a new one among the many re-interpretations of LTD, which has an exciting history and also a significant present. My work can be defined as a reinterpretation of Living Through Drama that visibly rekindles the connection with theatre form and theory and aims to make participants able to use theatre to explore how socio-political narratives impact on individuals. The thesis provides a significant new model of including differing a 57 Neelands: Prologue, xvii. Neelands: Beginning Drama, 64. Neelands: Prologue, xviii. Neelands: Beginning Drama, 64. a 58 759 760 + 242 +
