Concert time is a period of high-stress for teachers and children alike. While annual school concert is suppose to be a showcase of childrens talents that is enjoyable to all, it usually ends-up being a very formal, put-up show-off of moral hectoring. One week before the concert, all activities are suspended and children are driven to meet rapidly changing external demands on the performance. I have seen this happening at a range of schools. The play is taken out of drama.
Children are natural actors and can readily provide expression for the sentiments of a story. Empathy with the characters in drama comes naturally to them. However, we don't let drama grow on them, instead we make them rote-learn the lines, saddle them with unmanageable costumes and props. Endless rehearsals only wear the children out. In the end, children just become puppets to the scripts we wrote, the dances we set and the props we designed. Then we encourage parents to clap for them. The common sentiment at the end of the concert is - Thank god, its over.
We are wasting this great yearly opportunity to bring out the best from our children spontaneously. It need not be this way. Let us remember what is important in a concert - the creative presentation of children through, songs, dances and plays. Then let us remove the props and dresses, the rote-learning and dictated dance moves and poor mimicry of public songs. Often times, this actually kills creativity of children. Let the performances be as bare-bone as possible. This makes for a great concert which is original, creative and done by the children themselves. Let us put the play back in the drama.
Children are natural actors and can readily provide expression for the sentiments of a story. Empathy with the characters in drama comes naturally to them. However, we don't let drama grow on them, instead we make them rote-learn the lines, saddle them with unmanageable costumes and props. Endless rehearsals only wear the children out. In the end, children just become puppets to the scripts we wrote, the dances we set and the props we designed. Then we encourage parents to clap for them. The common sentiment at the end of the concert is - Thank god, its over.
We are wasting this great yearly opportunity to bring out the best from our children spontaneously. It need not be this way. Let us remember what is important in a concert - the creative presentation of children through, songs, dances and plays. Then let us remove the props and dresses, the rote-learning and dictated dance moves and poor mimicry of public songs. Often times, this actually kills creativity of children. Let the performances be as bare-bone as possible. This makes for a great concert which is original, creative and done by the children themselves. Let us put the play back in the drama.
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