A teacher describes a class activity for teaching and illuminating the allegory of the cave in Plato's Republic, a parable that illustrates Plato's thoughts on enlightenment and the educative process. Students create the cave in the classroom, recreate the experience of its inhabitants, and discuss their own reactions to the experience. (SV)

In the current educational climate prevailing in a number of countries, increased emphasis is being placed on the concept of "the artist in schools." Funding is being channeled to support a range of initiatives and schemes that are designed to bring arts professionals from all the art forms into the classroom where they place their artistic…

This paper can be conceived as one story embedded in a second story, in which the "outer" narrative, involving the theoretical and methodological framework, is that of my search for a means of defining, articulating and implementing an aesthetic epistemology in both academic research and in teacher education/development (a search that is…

Russian theatre for young audiences has had a long tradition of professional, state subsidised theatre, with a strong educational function specifically for young people. The primary task of the "tiuz" ("teatriunogo zritelia," theatre of the young spectator) was to contribute to the ideological and aesthetic education for future Soviet citizens. To…

The paper considers the definition of high quality preschool from a Vygotskian perspective. Similarities and differences in the issues faced in Russia and those in the United States are discussed as background. Three major ideas are considered from the work of Vygotsky and of his students/colleagues, Daniel Elkonin and Alexander Zaporozhets. The…

High school theatre productions can have broad beneficial effects. In addition to helping students, they can bring a sense of unity and focus to a school in ways most often associated with higher-profile athletics. The community in which the school resides often benefits from the entertainment and the visible expression of student achievement.…

The centenary of the first performance of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan was celebrated in December 2004. Taking account of the various events in Britain to mark the occasion--newspaper articles, radio and television programmes, retrospects in the original theatre--this article examines the status and popularity of Peter Pan after a hundred years. The…

The residency about which the author writes was with students at The Roeper School in Birmingham, Michigan. This school is unusual in its support for a liberal arts and process-based education. In this article the author, an accomplished director and Teaching Artist, recounts the many engaging dimensions of a student production of "Henry…

Tag games have been described as "Chasing, fleeing, and dodging" type activities. Most "fleeing" activities involve dramatic play, use of movement concepts (such as quick and light), or movement changes without a partner, while many of the chasing and dodging activities utilize dodging concepts between partners or within small groups and are…

Research Findings: This article is based on the premise that the field of early childhood education needs to begin to study the details of teacher-child interaction if it is to understand fully what aspects of classrooms foster development and to create effective professional development interventions. To this end, we report analyses of four Head…

This systematic review of the literature synthesizes research from a number of disciplines and provides a succinct distillation of the methods and measures used to study the impact of creative drama on the language development of young children. An analysis of the merits and limitations of the reviewed studies reveals a number of methodological…

Intended for use by elementary and secondary school drama teachers, this book stresses students participating in dramatic activities with a sense of purpose and contains practical activities based on student learning objectives. The first half of the book contains a statement of philosophy, a brief discussion of educational accountability and…

Fifteen sixteen-year-old Fenno-Swedish compulsory school pupils' descriptions and evaluations of significant, i.e. more or less "strong", experiences relating to dramatic art (film, theatre) were analysed and compared with reported experiences in other aesthetic areas (music, nature etc.). The drama area was represented in many…

If the disadvantaged student can be encouraged to respond to literature through a variety of student-centered experiences, his cognitive, affective, and creative growth will be greatly stimulated. Teachers can bring into the classroom many titles of contemporary literature which reflect the current concerns of disadvantaged youth. Moreover, an…

This resource presents scripts for 15 classical plays from ancient Greece and Rome. The scripts are adapted for classroom presentation by intermediate level students. Each play includes an introduction, instructions for staging and costumes, a vocabulary list, and a cast of characters. Enough roles are provided for participation by every child in…