Don’t Wanna Be a Playa, but a Spect-Actor: Utilizing Theatre of the Oppressed Within Teacher Education to Create Emancipatory Teachers

• In Event: Preachin’ to the Unconverted: Building Community Between Critical Teacher Educators of Color and Their Predominately White Preservice Candidates

Abstract

Objective
Research consistently demonstrates that the greatest teacher attrition rates occur in schools with high proportions of minority, low-income and low-performing students (Howey et al. 2006; Olsen and Anderson 2007; Smith and Ingersoll, 2004; Guarino et al, 2006). Simultaneously, teacher education programs are constantly blamed for under-preparing preservice teachers to successfully teach in these contexts (Smylie & Kahne, 1997). Overcoming this challenge is even more difficult when a predominately white preservice teaching force tries to address and understand the needs of a predominately minority student population (Sleeter, 2008). The purpose of this paper is to explore how the “Theatre of the Oppressed” (Boal, 1979) can be utilized to help prepare predominately white preservice teachers to become highly effective and socially just educators, especially in an urban context.

Theoretical Framework & Methodology
Building on Freire’s (1993) notion of dialogue and problem-posing to promote liberatory education, Boal (1979) developed TO as a political act to gain critical awareness of our social situations. TO embraces the idea that performance is transformative, promotes self-understanding and provides people an alternative language to discuss, analyze and resolve different forms of oppressions (Boal, 1979; Howard, 2004; Pitcher 2007). Pitcher states, “TO thus involves itself in the struggle to change consciousness; it engages the oppressed in a dialectical process of understanding the ideology of oppression and of creating new ideologies based on their desires” (p. 80). Hence, TO helps participants gain deeper insights of comprehending power relations, root causes of oppression and envisioning alternative realities, through playful expression.

This study is conducted at a small liberal arts college in the South comprised of 25 white undergraduate candidates over two semesters. Candidates were part of a diversity course required by education program. The study incorporates key videotaped sessions, semi-structured interviews, candidate artifacts and reflective journals. All data was transcribed. Employing grounded theory (Creswell, 1998), I utilized the qualitative software NVIVO for open, axial and selective coding.

Results and Significance
Results indicate that the undergraduate candidates gained an alternative teaching identity that embraces social justice and activism, while simultaneously expanding their self-awareness and raising consciousness. One example is found in a class discussion where candidates articulated how they were at first skeptic of the invisible theatre project required, but were pleasantly surprised of audience participation and appreciated the “hours of conducting research” so they could answer the questions (FN 6/02/11). More importantly, candidates stated they gained a more complexed understanding the root causes of poverty and racism, such as systemic inequality.

It is rare for preservice teachers to be exposed to TO in their training (see Rymes et al, 2008). If we desire a teaching force that is more self-reflexive, and we want to create a cadre of socially just educators who are sensitive to the issues of urban schooling, then TO should be utilized to push preservice teachers’ understandings of the complexities of oppression found in the urban context and help raise their critical consciousness to this context.

Author

• Shiv Raj Desai, Thomas More College