Class #5 - Drama and Mental Health

Week 5         

          This week's class was a difficult one. I entered class with a negative outlook, completely overwhelmed by the multitude of projects, final assignments and upcoming presentations due within the next two weeks. This was a particularly bad day to enter the class with such a negative attitude because my final drama presentation was for this class. On another note, today's class was focused on addressing the integration of drama and physical education, in particular, mental health. I would say that at the beginning of class I felt depressed, isolated and anxious. In that moment I realized that these characteristics are all feelings that people with mental health issues face everyday. Personally, these feelings are not daily happenings for me and I often have the positive reinforcement of family and friends to help me through the difficult, stressful moments in my life. Today was not one of those days.

Postpartum Support International. "You are not alone". [online image] Retrieved from www.postpartum.net. March 27th 2017.

 
          On a more positive note, today's class helped me to see another benefit of a strategy that I discussed in one of my earlier reflections - storytelling. Our instructor was addressing character education principles through storytelling. At the time, the story could have been addressing any form of educational principle or learning theory, however, I wasn't hearing any of it when the story began. My focus was so far gone from the lesson that I felt bad for being so withdrawn. As the story began, our instructor completely became another person. Her presence when storytelling was magnetic and she pulled me into the story's plot line. Slowly, I became more interested in the story. Pausing at specific places in the story, our instructor encouraged us to think about being educators and asked us what we would do with our students at this place in the story. Each time she did this, I noticed that I was more involved and more interested in taking part during the lesson. By the end of the story, I needed to know what happened and was fully invested in the story. At this point I realized that all of my anxiety, feelings of isolation and depression had washed away. The story changed my psyche by taking me away from my present situation.

Miyata, Cathy. "Week 5 PowerPoint notes". [PowerPoint picture] Retrieved from week 5 resources on Sakaii. March 27th 2017.

          After I noticed the change to my psyche, I began to think about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. At the start of class we were given a warm-up activity that encouraged us to form several mini-tableaux that connected to a character's feelings and had us conveying those feelings by using our facial expressions, body and vocal tone. Connecting this activity to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, we were addressing the self-esteem and self-actualization sections of the pyramid. When the lesson began, however, I was not in the right frame of mind to make those connections or to realize the benefits of the warm-up. Later, after the storytelling activity, when my mood and focus had completely changed, I was able to see how the creative process of the warm-up activity and achievement of all involved, connected to these sections of the pyramid. I then began to think about student needs and wondered if maybe Maslow should have included a section called psychological needs. Although self-esteem and self-actualization focus on elements of psychology like confidence and acceptance, it doesn't address mental readiness. Taking part in the storytelling activity helped me to be mentally prepared for the rest of the lesson and my presentation and helped me to see as a future educator how important it is for students to be ready to learn. This will be an idea that I keep in the forefront of my mind when I am teaching in the future.