An Irish perspective on education for all who value teaching
Episodes
Monday Oct 12, 2020
Monday Oct 12, 2020
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.
On this week's podcast I discuss drama and theatre in education with Madeline Michel, a teacher in Monticello High School in Charlottesville Virginia. Madeline was the 2019 winner of the Tony award for excellence in theatre education. Among the topics we discuss in the course of the podcast are the following:
- How she approaches theatre education
- How a sports –competitive – paradigm is mistakenly applied to the arts
- Theatre in education versus drama in education
- How she tried to make her class more diverse
- Teaching multiple grades in her classes
- Letting students know that their stories and their talents are important
- Her credo: art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable
- How she became interested in theatre in education
- What she reads
- How education is a microcosm of the wider world
- Stimulating teenagers to write plays
- The first day in her drama class and building community
- Collaborating with other teachers
- Staging a school production
- The importance of dance and movement in a production
- The shortcomings of drama on Zoom
- What students learn through drama
- Assessing drama
- Winning the Tony Award for Theatre in Education
- She recommends the Nice White Parents podcast: (about school segregation in New York City)
Thanks to John Heffernan who suggested Madeline as a guest for the podcast.
Wednesday Sep 30, 2020
Wednesday Sep 30, 2020
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.
On this week's podcast my guest is Professor William (Bill) Damon from Stanford University Graduate School of Education where he directs the Stanford Center on Adolescence. He is the author of many books, including The Path to Purpose. We discuss how students can be helped to find purpose in life. Among the topics discussed on this week's programme are:
- Many young people looking for something to believe in - about a quarter of them “drifting”
- Responses to being adrift: hedonism, anxiety.
- Being adrift originates in not finding something that is a positive direction for themselves.
- Profile of young people who are drifting
- How young people have found purpose in previous eras (national, economic…)
- Difference between seeking a purpose and seeking a meaning in life
- How having a sense of purpose can help you have a psychological balance
- Any activity can be purposeful if you believe in it, do it well and give it your all
- How teachers can model a purposeful life for their students
- Profiles in purpose
- A teacher’s role in helping students find their purpose
- When parents dislike the purpose chosen by their daughter or son
- Most of us have multiple purposes in life
- The link between purpose and entrepreneurship
- Atul Gawande’s book Being Mortal
- The relationship between mission, commitment and purpose
- Where people find purpose
- The importance of “why” questions for teachers
- How exams could be purposeful
- Barriers students encounter in trying to find their purpose in life
- How he conducts his research
- Questions to help people find their purpose
- Diane Ravitch