Kidstock! Drama Club will not only playfully engage students in positive creative expression but also provide meaningful socio-emotional development. Theater experiences, such as a weekly drama club, can help young people develop a strong sense of self and identity, build empathy and learning among peers and broaden the ways they make meaning of the world around them.
Each session will have a unique focus and seasonally will explore new concepts. Episodic experiences will be balanced with cumulative skill building. Fall will explore character based theater games that build basic acting skills and intentional self expression. Winter will explore story dramatization with imaginative plot structures and positive conflict resolution. Spring will build on the previous two seasons and explore structured scenes and the elements of traditional performance. Each of these unique sessions allows participants to continue without repeating experiences as well as newcomers to join without concern over having missed out! The Kidstock! Drama Club, in addition to being active fun for participants, will succeed in impacting them throughout the year in the following ways:
Improve Peer Relations and Empathy for Others
Creative theater can empower everyone’s imagination equally while still challenging them at their own individual level. The opportunity for personal choices within these dramatic frameworks allow each student the opportunity to connect with the experience in their own manner.
Class curriculum will balance instructor led activities intended to educate and inform alongside supervised small group work with short term goals that maximize everyone’s participation.
Each session will have a unique focus and seasonally will explore new concepts. Episodic experiences will be balanced with cumulative skill building. Fall will explore character based theater games that build basic acting skills and intentional self expression. Winter will explore story dramatization with imaginative plot structures and positive conflict resolution. Spring will build on the previous two seasons and explore structured scenes and the elements of traditional performance. Each of these unique sessions allows participants to continue without repeating experiences as well as newcomers to join without concern over having missed out! The Kidstock! Drama Club, in addition to being active fun for participants, will succeed in impacting them throughout the year in the following ways:
Improve Peer Relations and Empathy for Others
- Theater’s inherent processes of artistic expression can promote a deeper understanding of others’ points of view by creating opportunities for students to collaborate in play building and to “walk in someone else’s shoes” in play performance.
- A 2019 experiential design study investigating the effect of improvisational theater classes on elementary children found a positive effect on self-concept, particularly with students who began the classes with a lower self-concept.
- When students find their personal identity in conflict with others, inclusive theater education programs can provide safe spaces for young people to explore who they are.
- Theater education programming helps students develop pro social behaviors, as well as problem-solving and creative thinking skills. These competencies are key to developing both strong peer relationships and sensitivity and empathy to and for others.
- Students who participate in theater education programs have the unique experience of learning how to authentically embody people and ideas different from their own, improving their understanding of differences and fostering empathy for others.
- Theater education’s focus on creative thinking fosters awareness of the world beyond self. Similarly, when theater becomes a safe space for students to express vulnerability and authenticity, young people can be empowered to value vulnerability as an asset and more actively engage with the community beyond the theater classroom.
Creative theater can empower everyone’s imagination equally while still challenging them at their own individual level. The opportunity for personal choices within these dramatic frameworks allow each student the opportunity to connect with the experience in their own manner.
Class curriculum will balance instructor led activities intended to educate and inform alongside supervised small group work with short term goals that maximize everyone’s participation.