An educator from La Xixa Teatre (Spain) shares her experience with the DREAMS piloting:
"The best part about the Dreams pilot: I really enjoyed hearing the students express themselves. Being able to go beyond what they normally think they can and can't do. Use the body, the voice… to make your own voice heard. And in that sense, I really liked that. Also, this experience helps them to live the institute in a different way. See it as a space where it is possible to do different things. The hardest part of the pilot is the other side of the coin. Do different things, to which they are not accustomed. In high school, more than in elementary school, they think they should stop being kids. Then they have the idea, "I can't play anymore, I can't move anymore, I have to sit in a chair, talking, because that's what adults do and I'm growing up, I'm old." In this sense, proposing an activity that involved expressing oneself, using body and voice is a great challenge for them. The topic of "this makes me ashamed, because I don't see any sense in it" comes up a lot. Still, it’s not so much that they don’t see the point, but that they’re building great reviews, which després is super-important that they’re not there for the rest of their lives as adults. Otherwise, they are already growing up with very important limitations, thinking that people can only express themselves in a certain way. In that sense, even though it was the good part of the pilot, it also has that hard part, because you have to be constantly making an effort to work on something that isn’t so majority in school. This happens in both elementary and high school, but even more so in high school.
In the Dreams pilot, what I’ve learned is how to generate lace. How to make what we are proposing innovative enough to question what always happens, but at the same time not be so so so different that it does not fit in any way; and that the transition is not possible. It has been interesting for me how to introduce these methodologies that are not so common in the education system.
If I had to make a recommendation to the teachers to go to the workshop, it would be to connect with their own creativity, to connect… That if there are things that make them ashamed to do, for example, they should find ways to take a step going forward with that. Because if this person, who is the reference in the classroom, does it, the students will follow him. It is very important that we be the example, or be able to preach what we say. Be an example when we say that they are brave, that they express themselves, that they are not ashamed… How can we be the first to take this step."
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