“naturally,” “to read as they talk.” But when a child has no motive for communication of what he sees in the text, knowing as he does that the teacher has the book and can tell it better than he can, even the naturalness tends to be forced and artificial. Every observer knows how often children who depart from humdrum droning, learn to exhibit only a superficial breathless sort of liveliness and a make-believe animation. Dramatization secures both attention to the thought of the text and a spontaneous endeavor, free from pretense and self-consciousness, to speak loudly enough to be heard and to enunciate distinctly. In the same way, children tell stories much more effectively when they are led to visualize for themselves the actions going on, than when they are simply repeating something as a part of the school routine. When children are drawing scenes involving action and posture, it is found that prior action is a great assistance. In the case of a pose of the body, the child who has done the posing is often found to draw better than those who have merely looked on. He has got the “feel” of the situation, which readily influences his hand and eye in the subsequent reproduction. In the early grades when pupils fail in a concrete problem in arithmetic, it is frequently found that resort to “acting out” the situation supplies all the assistance needed. The real difficulty was not with the numbers but in failure to grasp the meaning of the situation in which the numbers were to be used.
In the upper grades, literature and history, as already indicated, are often reënforced by dramatic activities. A sixth grade in Indianapolis engaged in dramatizing “Sleeping Beauty,” not merely composed the words and the stage directions, but also wrote songs and the music for them. Such concentration on a single purpose of studies usually pursued independently stimulates work in each. Literary expression is less monotonous, the phrasing of an idea more delicate and flexible, than when composition is an end in itself; and while of course the music is not likely to be remarkable, it almost always has a freshness and charm exceeding that which could be attained from the same pupils if they were merely writing music.
A shoe store in the second grade furnished the basis of the work for several days. The children set up a shop and chose pupils to take the part of the shoe clerk, the shoemaker, and the family going to buy shoes. Then they acted out the story of a mother and children going to the store for shoes. Arithmetic and English lessons were based on the store, and the class wrote stories about it. This same class sang and acted out to a simple tune a little verse about the combinations that make ten. The same pupils were doing problems in mental arithmetic that were much beyond the work usually found in a second grade, adding almost instantly numbers like 74 and 57. They probably could not have gone so rapidly if they had not had so much of the dramatization work. It served to make their abstract problems seem real. In doing problems about Mrs. Baldwin’s shoes they had come to think of numbers as having some meaning and purpose, so that when a problem in pure numbers was given they did not approach it with misgivings and uncertainty. One of the fifth grades had installed a parcel post office; they made money and stamps and brought bundles to school, then they played post office; two boys took the part of postmen, weighed the packages, looked up the rate of postage, and gave change for the customers. Tables of weights ceased to be verbal forms to be memorized; consultation of the map was a necessity; the multiplication table was a necessity; the system and order required in successful activity were impressed.
The Francis Parker School is one of many using the dramatic interest of the pupils as an aid in teaching history. The fourth grade studies Greek history, and the work includes the making of a Greek house, and writing poems about some Greek myth. The children make Greek costumes and wear them every day in the classroom. To quote Miss Hall, who teaches this grade: “They play sculptor and make clay statuettes of their favorite gods and mould figures to illustrate a story. They model Mycenæ in sand-pans, ruin it, cover it, and become the excavators who bring its treasures to light again. They write prayers to Dionysius and stories such as they think Orpheus might have sung. They play Greek games and wear Greek costumes, and are continually acting out stories or incidents which please them. To-day as heroes of Troy, they have a battle at recess time with wooden swords and barrel covers. In class time, with prayers and dances and extempore song, they hold a Dionysiac festival. Again, half of them are Athenians and half of them Spartans in a war of words as to which city is more to be desired. Or they are freemen of Athens, replying spiritedly to the haughty Persian message.” Besides these daily dramatizations, they write and act for the whole school a little play which illustrates some incident of history that has particularly appealed to them. History taught in this way to little children acquires meaning and an emotional content; they appreciate the Greek spirit and the things which made a great people. The work so becomes a part of their lives that it is remembered as any personal experience is retained, not as texts are committed to memory to be recited upon.
The Francis Parker School takes advantage of the social value of dramatizations in its morning exercises. Studying alone out of a book is an isolated and unsocial performance; the pupil may be learning the words before him, but he is not learning to act with other people, to control and arrange his actions and thought so that other persons have an equal opportunity to express themselves in a shared experience. When the classes represent by action what they have learned from books, all the members have a part, so that they learn to cherish socially, as well as to develop, powers of expression and of dramatic and emotional imagery. When they act in front of the whole school they get the value of the work for themselves individually and help the growth of a spirit of unity and coöperation in the entire school. All the children, big and little, become interested in the sort of thing that is going on in the other grades, and learn to appreciate effort that is simple and sincere, whether it comes from the first grade or the seniors in high school. In their efforts to interest the whole school the actors learn to be simple and direct, and acquire a new respect for their work by seeing its value for others. Summaries of the work in different subjects are given in the morning exercises by any grade which thinks it has something to say that would interest the other children. The dramatic element is sometimes small, as in the descriptions of excursions, of curious processes in arithmetic or of some topic in geography; but the children always have to think clearly and speak well, or their audience will not understand them, and maps or diagrams and all sorts of illustrative material are introduced as much as possible. Other exercises, such as the Greek play written by the fourth grade, or a dramatization of one of Cicero’s orations against Cataline, are purely dramatic in their interest.
The production of plays by graduating classes or for some specific purpose is of course a well-known method of interesting pupils or advertising a school. But recently schools have been giving plays and festivals for their educational value as well as for their interest to children and the public. The valuable training which comes from speaking to an audience, using the body effectively and working with other pupils for a common end, is present, whatever the nature of the play; and schools usually try to have their productions of some literary value. But until recently the resources of the daily work of the pupils for dramatic purposes have been overlooked. Being for purposes of public entertainment, plays were added on after school hours. But schools are beginning to utilize this natural desire of young people to “act something” for amplifying the curriculum. In many schools where dramatization of a rather elaborate character is employed for public performances, the subject-matter is now taken from English and history, while writing the play supplies another English lesson. The rehearsals take the place of lessons in expression and elocution, and involve self-control. The stage settings and costumes are made in the shop and art periods, the planning and management being done by the pupils, the teacher helping enough to prevent blunders and discouragement. At Riverside one of the classes had been reading Tolstoi’s “Where Love Is There Is God” for their work in literature. They rewrote the story as a play and rehearsed it in their English lessons, the whole class acting as coach and critic. As their interest grew they made costumes and arranged a stage setting and finally gave the play to an audience of the school and its friends. At another time the English class gave an outdoor performance of a sketch which they had written, based on the Odyssey. The American history class at the Speyer School give a play which they write about some incident in pioneer history. During the rehearsal nearly all the children try the parts, quite regardless of sex or other qualifications, and the whole class chooses the final cast. The fifth grade was studying Irving’s “Sketch Book”
