Playacting Is All Very Well, But When Do The Youngsters Learn?

Margarete Meixner

More and more often, young people are the experts in the digital realm. They confidently develop new spaces according to their own rules. How can these competences be individually strengthened and utilised in the field of cultural education and the arts?

How and where can young people learn to deal with the new media responsibly and critically? Where can they learn to deal appropriately with fears and aggressions?

In our Forum Theatre projects for the prevention of addiction and violence and in cultural education with apprentices, we often find ourselves dealing with problems related to the use of cell phones and Internet forums: personal disparagement on Facebook and co., the misappropriation of cell phones and unauthorised reading of text messages, difficulties in tearing oneself away from Internet games.

In the aforementioned projects, children and young people can act out their experiences and try out creative new ideas for solutions. The shy ones can practice saying STOP; the wilder, louder ones can show another side of themselves and at the same time learn how to interact with each other in a socially acceptable manner. The pupils realise that they are not alone with their problems – and they learn this in real life, not in the virtual world.

One thing in particular has not changed: young people’s need for spaces in which to express how they feel about the things that affect them. Together with KKA and the Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture, we implemented a special project with a participative approach at Hauptschule 1 Gratwein general secondary school: “Wie SchülerInnen sich die Schule wünschen” (What Pupils Want School To Be Like), Legislative Theatre based on Augusto Boal’s latest method. Thirteen young people questioned their colleagues, staged their concerns in Forum Theatre scenes and discussed them with decision makers from the school and the municipality.

In conclusion, let me put forward three wishes:

• For teachers and school administrators, there are not enough islands for contemplation, exchange and reflection – and perhaps, also, for presenting to others, with appropriate assistance, the things that concern them. I would like all teachers to have the benefit of counselling supervision in order to bring a more relaxed atmosphere to the school routine.
• “Playacting is all very well, but when do the youngsters learn?” Theatre is the archetypal form of human learning. It takes us beyond the boundaries of intention and programmability to a place where we learn unconsciously, without controls and restraints. It is something (existentially) necessary, something joyful, something strenuous… Theatre should be a central part of both the school curriculum and teacher education. 
• Cultural education and new media: Which formats, concepts and hybrid forms can develop? In my opinion, appropriate forms of further education and training are needed to promote these developments.

Margarete Meixner is the director of SOG. Theater in Wiener Neustadt, a theatre educator, a counselling supervisor, and an expert in education management and social management. Among other things she teaches at the Danube University Krems and at the Universities of Teacher Education in Lower Austria, Tyrol and Vienna.

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