The Uses of Classical Greek Myth and Drama in the Education
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THE USES OF CLASSICAL GREEK MYTH AND DRAMA IN THE EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CHILDREN AGED ELEVEN TO THIRTEEN BY STEPHEN RICHARD WOODWARD vOk-\ Thesis submitted for the Degree of Ph. D. of the University of Sheffield within the Division of Education September 1987 BEST COPY AVAILABLE Variable print quality SUMMARY THE USES OF CLASSICAL GREEK MYTH AND DRAMA IN THE EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENTOF THE CHILD WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CHILDREN AGED ELEVEN TO THIRTEEN BY STEPHEN RICHARD WOODWARD In the Introduction the individual's consciousness is placed at the centre of the educational experience. The child's desire to create meaning is argued to be fundamental to the learning process. In Chapter One types of traditional tale are categorised. The similarities are seen as more important than differences and the storyteller as crucial to transmission. In Chapter Two, starting from the Greek civilisation from which they arose, the potential of Greek myths as structures for the development of ethical considerations is argued. A structuralist method of analysis is proposed. In Chapter Three the development of the structure of storylines through a process of storytelling-to-drama is traced within the development of the city-state. The idea of an aesthetic is introduced. In Chapter Four the art of oral storytelling is defined and its value as an educational medium highlighted. The theory of "junctures" is introduced to supplement the structuralist method of analysis of two examples of storyline that follows. In Chapter Five the value of storytelling as a method in educational drama is justified through its presentation of structure for the individual to manipulate in the construction of meaning. In Chapter Six children's work is analysed to show transmission of storyline and the development of aesthetic and ethical awareness through the manipulation of structure. In the Conclusion the implications for Classics, the curriculum and teaching methods are argued. These lie in the value to the individual child of the experiential approach. There are four appendices. The first is a journal describing the creative output of young children. The second is a journal describing the classroom improvisations of children aged eleven to thirteen. The third consists of transcripts and photocopies of dramatic reenactments by children aged eleven to thirteen. The fourth comprises aims of a Classical Studies department and outlines of Greek Storylines. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION THE EDUCATIONAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL 1 FRAMEWORK CHAPTER ONE THE CATEGORISATION OF MYTH, 10 FOLKTALE (STORY), FAIRYTALE (STORY) AND LEGEND CHAPTER TWO STORYTELLING: A HISTORICAL MODEL: 41 STRUCTURAL AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS CHAPTER THREE STORYTELLING TO DRAMA: A HISTORICAL 54 MODEL: THE PROCESS OF TRANSMISSION CHAPTER FOUR ORAL STORYTELLING: ITS NATURE AND 80 VALUE IN THE PROCESS OF EDUCATION CHAPTER FIVE EDUCATIONAL DRAMA: STORYTELLING AS 148 A STIMULUS AND METHOD OF RESPONSE CHAPTER SIX THE USES OF GREEK MYTH AND DRAMA 171 CONCLUSION 341 REFERENCES AND 347 BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDIX ONE JOURNAL DESCRIBING THE CREATIVE OU T? tT363 OF YOUNG CHILDREN APPENDIX TWO JOURNAL DESCRIBING THE RECREATIVE 390 INTERPRETATIONS BASED UPON GREEK MYTHICAL STORYLINES APPENDIX THREE EXAMPLES OF THE RECREATIVE 414 INTERPRETATIONS OF CHILDREN AGED ELEVEN TO SEVENTEEN APPENDIX FOUR CLASSICAL STUDIES AT DINNINGTON 518 COMPREHENSIVESCHOOL: AIMS AND STORY OUTLINES INTRODUCTION: THE EDUCATIONAL AND DEVELOPMENTALFRAMEWORK This thesis is the outcome of an adult's reflections upon the improvised dramatic activities of children. As such it has two discernible sources. Firstly, there have been the creative storytelling and dramatic improvisations of my own children at home, some of which are described in the journal that constitutes Appendix One. The second source consists of the creative reenactments of children aged eleven to fourteen in the classroom in response to the stimulus of storytelling as part of their Classical Studies course. Appendix Two includes reference to several such reenactments in a journal that traces my first attempts to build up a rationale for the process I was observing. The cassette-tapes that accompany this thesis along with the transcripts and photocopies that comprise Appendix Three provide examples of the children's attempts at creative reenactment in response to the storylines, based on Greek myth, that are included in Appendix Four and analysed in Chapter Six. These two sources at first sight appear to have little in common except that both involve the creative output of children and they share an adult as observer and as facilitator. My two roles in this respect have on the surface been different, as parent on the one hand and as teacher on the other. Yet, as some of the comments in the two journals demonstrate, a creative tension was set up by the interaction of the two through my mediacy of facilitation, participation, observation and reflection. I started as a teacher of Classical Studies in September 1971 and, therefore, my initial attempts at storytelling and at eliciting improvised dramatic responses from children in the classroom -2- predated my observations as a parent. Yet it was these observations of young children that served as the catalyst to the chain of reactions that led to the writing of this thesis. Increasingly the one fed off the other, ideas and reflection from the home flowing to the classroom and a reverse dynamic flowing back. An awareness gradually arose, as the ideas were realised into practice, that an overriding unifying feature exists, which is somehow connected with the propensity of human beings to create imaginative meanings for themselves. As observations were made and analysed it became apparent that this propensity could be described through some of the processes that it stimulates. This study will attempt to make such descriptions. It will concentrate on the processes of dramatic recreative activity emanating from the second of the two sources referred to above, children aged eleven to thirteen within a formal educational situation, although in the case of Gail her output at the ages of fourteen and seventeen will also be examined. It will be centred, therefore, not on the spontaneous storytelling of the young child from any stimulus that presents itself, as recorded in Appendix One, but on the structured presentation of a story in the form of oral storytelling by the teacher in a formal learning situation and on the ensuing recreative dynamic of the children's responses. For, as Rubin has observed, "The child's freedom to follow his own imagination and to play out his own creativity are classroom imperatives, but these can flourish within a flexible structure. Indeed, without reasonable rules and restraints, the exercise of creative imagination is " unreal ..... (L. J. Rubin, 1974, p. 243) -3- Rubin is not referring explicitly to storytelling but he does highlight the need for ways of harnassing children's natural creative propensity within the learning process. As this thesis will attempt to demonstrate, the structure that storytelling provides and the potential for participation in further recreative structuring that is presented by the encouragement of dramatic responses are ideally suited to fulfilling Rubin's requirements. Although the imaginative storytelling ventures of young children will not themselves be analysed, they do constitute a statement about creative thinking by children whose general importance must be considered alonside the work of the older children who are the main subject of this thesis. This Introduction will now set children in general within a philosophical and psychological framework that makes generalised hypotheses about human existence. The most interesting of these for the purposes of this study is the phenomenological position, summarised by Curtis, (B. Curtis and W. Mays, 1978, p. xiii) in which consciousness is seen as "subjective", "meaning-bestowing" and "having certain essential structures". The main implication for education lies, as Curtis states, in the guidance given to the child towards knowing "his own consciousness of the world" and to "make sense of himself" (B. Curtis and W. Mays, 1978, pp. xix-xx). The child is a member of society and must, therefore, operate within society, but contains within himself the propensity towards, for example, building up "ethical knowledge" as Pojman states in his essay on Kirkegaard's theory of subjectivity and (L. education P. Pojman in B. Curtis and W. Mays, 1978, p. 5). The ethical and aesthetic as understood in this thesis and as developed in Chapters Two and Three in particular involve this -4- active subjectivity on the part of the child. On the other hand, Piaget in his concern for what constitutes thought in children comes to the conclusion that there is some similarity between "primitive" thought in a "civilisation prior to mechanisation" and the egocentric thought-processes of children (J. Piaget, 1951, p. 197). This line is followed by Tucker who sees children as responding to the same sort of stimulation as adults (N. Tucker, 1977, p. 79). He also singles out Piaget's recognition of the active participation of children in the learning process (N. Tucker, 1977, p. 56), a feature also stressed by Boden (M. Boden, 1979, p. 55). The child is seen by Piaget as building up empirical experience of the world and assimilating and accommodating what is learned into a framework of living. Imaginative modes of thought, however,