Od wychowania teatralnego do pedagogiki teatru (w kontekście teorii wychowania estetycznego Ireny Wojnar)

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to determine and distinguish, in a sparing and, by necessity, brief manner, the ideas and statements of theatre education, and present facts and experiences (conceived as a change) providing grounds for building up the concept of theatre pedagogy. The paper is divided into three parts, presenting the synthetic assumptions of Professor Irena Wojnar’s Theory of Aesthetic Education by its field-determined specification, i.e. the concept of theatre education and proposal of a difficult synthesis of pedagogy and theatre, its sources and foundations, as well as cultural and pedagogical premises for its legitimacy. The issues addressed are grounded in the pedagogy of culture, yet at the same time stem from Professor Irena Wojnar’s Theory of Aesthetic Education, offering a clearly outlined general concept of education that focuses on the problem of value and its connections with human enrichment processes. Theatre education is construed here as the refinement of the imagination with regard to values carried by the art of theatre, through the educational situations it creates, and treating it as a specific form of self-education, self-creation or simply making it real. The analysis of multiple relationships and dependencies between values carried by theatre and human education (considering the context of contemporary culture) identifies the main points of interest for theatre pedagogy, at the same time setting the direction for research work. Although it would be hard to treat it as a separate sub-discipline at this stage of its development (perhaps only as an intellectual short-cut), it may undoubtedly serve as a certain interpretation guideline, an observation point, if not as much as a perspective for discussing theatre-related issues. In any case, while addressing the issue of the human being and theatre, in its educational context, and enhancing one’s personal potential, it covers an area of reflection not covered by other fields of theatre studies and research, as well as phenomena affecting and related to theatre.