Bringing the world to students -- the Myths to Drama program

     Recently I talked with teaching artist Carol Ng-He about the "Myths to Drama" residency she co-taught, with the Silk Road Theatre Project. One aspect of the "Myths to Drama" program focused on Chinese culture, and involved students creating and performing shadow puppets. 

     The "Myths to Drama" program, which happened in Chicago Public Schools including the Ray Elementary School in Hyde Park, involved a collaborative curriculum-building process, several different componts, and art forms such as painting and shadow puppets. As arts educator of "Myths to Drama," Carol's role was to implement the curriculum, which was continually updated with integration of input from herself and three other arts educators -- with weekly reports and a debriefing meeting after each term.

     This program culminated with a performance event which involved her students' shadow puppetry performance. Carol mentioned an exciting and gratifying moment that happened at the end of the "Myths to Drama" program, after based on the Chinese myth "The Journey of Ming" -- “One of my students came to me and gave me a gift she made - a shadow puppet of me drawing on paper with a pencil. She said I could use it, and that would also remind me of her and what I’d taught her. That reminded me that teaching is not only an act of giving, but the greatest reward I have received is that my students remind me about the importance of art in teaching and learning.” 

     The world can come into the classroom; inversely, there exciting potential for what happens in the classroom to go back into the world. "'Myths to Drama' brings the world to the students, unlocks students’ imagination; it also encourages students to be more aware of their surroundings and to discover their own potential and power to contribute back to the world," Carol states, in a feature length article about her involvement with Silk Road Theatre Project. This article was published by Community Arts Network; you can read that article by clicking here.

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