‘To See The World As If It Were Otherwise’: Brain Research Challenges the Curriculum of ‘Organized Chunks’

Abstract

In this paper we look at current brain research in an attempt to bring about a rebalancing of the traditional, or measured, curriculum to include the arts as imperative pedagogy. As drama teachers, the art of teaching (and our pedagogy) is allied to Anderson, Ewing and Gibson's (2007) discussion which draws attention to the components that quality teaching embraces. Teaching is more than the delivery of content and must be responsive to the social and cultural contexts of the classroom. Pedagogy attends to the emotional and intellectual needs of each student and involves a partnership between learners and teachers, of skills, knowledges and understandings. Brain research enables us to understand the significance of such things as: variety; movement social relationships context low-risk environments; pleasure and how these are most effectively embedded in the arts (e.g., Damasio, 1999, 2010; Goleman, 2006; Jensen, 2008 Iacoboni, 2008 Ratey, 2008 Willis, 2007). While any of the arts (music, dance, literature, visual arts) would be appropriate sites for this exploration, we focus on the role of drama as an exemplary curriculum discipline that is discrete, cross- disciplinary and ‘brain-compatible’ (Norman, 1999).