Literature Review: Dorothy Heathcote Obituary, The
Guardian – Sandra Hesten.
My final review isn’t so much focussed on what is already known
about my area of inquiry. Rather I wanted to use it as a vehicle to get to know
a key practitioner within my practice area better. As I look at the bibliographies
of my last three literature reviews (Review 1, Review 2, Review 3), I notice
Dorothy Heathcote makes an appearance and creates a kind of cross over in the
under-pinning of the ideas within the three sources. This review is more of a
way to find out who Heathcote was, so as to inform my future practice and my
work in training to get there. Having established a hole of knowledge in my
practice, I turn to a short digital article, in a bid fill any gaps. Hesten’s ‘Dorothy
Heathcote Obituary’ provides a condensed informative explanation of who this
‘Guru of Drama in Education’ was.
Using, “drama as a tool to promote
holistic learning in schools, problem-solving lay at the heart of her
methodology”, she encouraged teachers to put themselves in the shoes of
the students. Famous for the concept of
‘Mantle of the Expert’, Heathcote would create an issue that the drama must
deal with and then gave the students the expertise to solve the issue. Her methodogy is infused with responsibly,
commitment and ownership.
Interestingly, despite her method of creating real dramatic
issues and disposing of an audience, she trained as an actor at the Northern Theatre
School in Bradford. It was from here that her art became about exploring life
skills students take from the creativity of the process within drama. This was
a potent finding for me. The very person behind the crafting of the idea of
‘process drama’ actually came from a background of ‘product drama’. This may
suggest a link between the two ideas and the unification I have been looking
for.
Dorothy Hetahcote’s methodology lives on in the work of many
practitioners of drama education and undeniably has an ever-standing presence
in the drama classroom of today.
Hesten, S. 2011. Dorothy
Heathcote Obituary: The Guardian. Available from: [online] http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/nov/17/dorothy-heathcote
[Accessed 13/11/2012].
Hi Ahmet,
ReplyDeleteThis is great! I am so glad someone else is looking at Dorothy Heathcote too! I put some relevant statements to my inquiry into google scholar and found out about her! I have now ordered one of her books from amazon.. 'Drama as a learning medium'. I will do one of my literature reviews on this so hopefully this will give us something to discuss together.
You have given me a great introduction to her with this post. How interesting, that her method is using drama to solve a problem that she had created and giving the students the tools and advice to solve it! I suppose that is really what dramatic production is really about. The characters are always solving some sort of problem (hence happy endings) and the actor is always trying to solve the problem via the character. This is such a useful concept and I am going to try and apply it to my classes. Trial and error but hopefully without the error part!
How is your inquiry plan getting on? I barely get a chance to comment on all of your excellent posts when you post so many!! It's great though looks like everything is going really well.
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteshe is such an important practitioner for us. She comes up in my 1 review too and I've tagged her website on my delicious link. On her website you can watch videos. When I saw her work I was stunned and couldn't wait to try it. Link: http://www.dorothyheathcote.org/
I know, I did think that with all the reviews coming out as a bulk, I may miss out on comments, but was on a roll... I'm just in the middle of wrapping up the development of my tools and then I hope to summarise what I've got. Then I'm hoping a plan will unfold, ready for that deadline. Thank you for telling me about that.
Where are you at?
Ahmet
No problem. I have ordered some books and I have also done a draft of the 3000 word plan, however the appendix and all the other forms are proving really complicated to understand. I also only have 2500 words in my draft.
ReplyDeleteLots to do! How are you getting on?
Rebecca
Wow you are coming along just nicely. It's interesting that you've done your plan, so then it's from there you can find literature to support it. Thinking about it that's a great way to do it. Well done!
ReplyDeleteJust getting down on it all now. In my mind, it would be nice to have it all done by christmas. Likelihood of that - doubt it!
Ahmet