Teaching Indigenous Topics Using Drama and Theater: A Collaboration Between Academia and Teachers in Canada

• In Event: Tending, Teaching, Writing, and Walking: Arts-Based Educational Research Methodological Possibilities and Praxis

Abstract

This research addresses the need as identified by Indigenous scholars for non-Indigenous students and scholars to learn about Indigenous issues and research frameworks. It focuses on mapping drama and theatre education strategies used by drama education professors across Canada to teach Indigenous topics to pre-service teachers, and how these strategies can be applied by in-service teachers. For in- and pre-service teachers to incorporate Indigenous topics across the curriculum and create a space for change in Canadian classrooms and society, we posit that it is essential for them to have a socio-emotional connection to the issues, and experience them through embodied ways of knowing. We argue that this connection can take place through transmediation and the imaginative space of drama/theatre education.

Authors

• Mindy Roberta Carter, McGill University

• Hala Mreiwed, McGill University