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Art and Education: A Human Right not a Commodity

The Unity of Engagement in The Union of Creative Thinking (UCT)

 

Originally a Submission to Journal of Arts and Communities

Special Edition: A Critical Examination of Arts and Human Rights

By Ian Yeoman, Artistic Director of Theatr Powys

 

"I see veins. Like the blood is pumping through Robbie. I see telephone lines carrying messages. I see mountains and towns in the dips and stars joined up to make patterns. Our families are connected to each other, and countries. We are all family. All over the world. That web, all over the world, would be so strong; you couldn't cut it with a chain saw."

Year 4 student at Whitton Primary School, Powys.

 

"This has made me think about how we look after our children. We tend to wrap them in cotton wool - you went with them into deep places. You're asking them to tackle really hard issues, but you give them a safe place to do it in."

Teacher

 

 

Introduction

 

This article is I hope, not only a description of a particular programme of work - but more; an attempt to pose some essential theoretical and methodological questions and concerns that might cast light on the participants' experience of the work.

 

The work was undertaken in the rural heart of mid Wales; in schools where young people exist in relatively scattered populations and where direct experience of other communities, other cultures, other human experience can be rare, confusing, even fearful. Arguably these somewhat isolated children, whilst not immune to the often harsh reality of their own lives, are vulnerable to received values and ideologically interpreted assessments of the reality of other lives. They live where individual, familial and societal experience can easily become fragmented and where the discourse of 'human being' and 'human rights' is seldom experienced, negotiated or (even) fought out, in the streets or in the classroom. Given this demography, unity and difference is not so day to day tested as in more urban areas and the child's innate instinct to empathise, understand and demand justice for all, can be less called upon.

 

Theatr Powys is a Theatre in Education (TIE) and community touring theatre company based in Llandrindod Wells. Developed over many years, the defining quality of the work of Theatr Powys, in all community contexts, has been: An insistence that those in the community who engage with the work are co- creators and co-signers in the moment (shared practice) of meaning making; and further, a deeply felt and theoretical insistence that in entering any particular fictive context, engineered through theatre and drama, the capacities of young people to engage intellectually, emotionally and actively can be united in a way rarely achieved in the course of their mainstream educational experience. An understanding that this unity of engagement; their feeling, thinking and doing simultaneously, can produce the most authentic, committed and social struggle to image and action our social, material, human relationship to the real world; a struggle through the art form, mediated openly and honestly by the actors/arts practitioners.

 

This article is an attempt to describe a recent programme of theatre and drama work. The drama unfolded over a full day in school and was undertaken by three actors and one class of children (or a maximum of thirty students) on each day.

 

 The article attempts to open up the process whereby young people were furnished with imaginative tools that enabled them to concretise in a most profound way, the complexity of relationships they experience within the self, between themselves, and within their communities and the wider world. This work recognised education as a process of becoming and children as active seekers after truth and justice.

 

 

The Inner and the Outer Fiction of 'The Union of Creative Thinking'

 

Inner Fiction:  What is the story Event?

 

The event we were asking young people to enter; the matter that would come to matter; the story we wished them to immerse themselves in, to own and come to collectively understand, concerned a child called Robbie. Robbie, his predicament and the predicament of those he loved was our Inner Fiction:

 

When Robbie was born, John was nearly nine years old. He held his arms straight out in front as Mum passed him the tiny, newborn. A boy, she said. Your little brother. John gently drew the baby close. Slow and careful, so scared he might squash him or squeeze him or crush him or somehow just…" I don't want to hurt him", he whispered to his Mum. Then he said it again, just to himself. "Don't ever want to hurt him". He touched the tiny palm of the baby's hand with his pinkie finger. It made him feel grown up and strong and when he looked up, Mum was smiling at him. Meet your new best friend, she said.

 

...On Robbie's first day at school Mum was working early shift at the factory so John took Robbie in before going on to the high school. As they walked over the crossing, and past the hospital, Robbie high on John's shoulders, Robbie held tight to the collar of The Jacket - but not because he was scared. He had promised John he'd be fine. When it came time to go over to the teacher some children started to cry. John crouched down beside him. "Looking good?" he asked.

 

This excerpt, one of a pre determined (given), but brief series of narrative excerpts devised by the company, was introduced to the participants whilst they studied a still picture (actor as effigy) of eight year old Robbie sat, catatonic - and grasping closely the leather jacket that had been his older brother John's treasured possession. The children were informed that young Robbie was in a closed ward, under the care of:

 

"Doctors...but not like, sore stomach doctors...they're like...

(Geste)

Pause

Child: Mind doctors!

 

Robbie and John had indeed become best friends. John was the coolest in the neighbourhood. The leather jacket his first 'uniform' and never off his back. The leather jacket always coveted by Robbie. Popular and always caring of his 'kid brother', early in Robbie's eighth year, John went away on his first tour of duty to the war.

(NB: The Company was clear that John was in Afghanistan, though the location of the war was never introduced by us).

 

 The children learn in further excerpts; snippets and fragments, throughout the day that:

• John has returned on his first break from duty, transformed. Dead to the world around him, negligent of himself and incapable of meeting Robbie or their mum.  He sits in his bedroom... hellish music plugged into his ears on the Ipod.
• John is eventually taken to the rural, local, cottage hospital, prior to transference to a psychiatric military facility.
• Robbie and his 'nutter mate McAuley' attempt to spring him from the local hospital.
• The plan goes all wrong. McAuley arrested and Robbie, detained by doctors.

 

The problem for the participants throughout the day was how to arm the 'Mind Doctors' with all the understanding they could accrue and all the understanding the doctors required to deal with Robbie (and John) in a human and healing way.

 

The thing is Robbie has been like this for…[child: A WEEK... LONGER}.  There are some doctors…[MIND DOCTORS}…who are trying to help Robbie.  They are trying to make him feel better.  [THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE HIM FEEL HIMSELF AGAIN]

 

Yes. That's a good way of putting it.

 

They are trying to make him "feel himself" - again.

 

But the doctors are stuck. [THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO…HOW TO…]  They are finding it hard to look deeper. This is where you come in. This is why we have come to you. We want you to help us help Robbie. [HELP THE DOCTORS HELP ROBBIE].

 

Excerpts from the company's given narrative took a number of varied forms.  Some performance based; some emerging through their interrogation of involved characters... McCauley for example. Always however, the company's given narrative spoke to what had occurred, never why it had occurred or what the future implications of such an occurrence might be.  This was the job of the UCT: To explode, explore, and explain a more developed narrative.  They were to examine cause and effect, tying together their felt sense of past, the present moment and future potential.

 

The Outer Fiction:

Interrogation, Reflection, and the Social Embodiment of Understanding

 

What then was the Outer Fiction?  What was The Union of Creative Thinking?

 

Theatr Powys undertook this work with Key Stage 2 students in Powys schools.  As stated above, we did not wish to 'perform' the story, a holistic narrative, placing and resolving problems in pre-determined ways. We wished them (as co-creators and co-signers in the moment) to truly interrogate the event, reflect together, have discourse and feel responsible for outcomes.

 

We invited them through drama to become members of an extraordinary organisation and initiative, The Union of Creative Thinking.  Entering the drama as members of the UCT It was our collective task to use our knowledge and expertise in three essential (metaphorical) disciplines offered by the actors.

 

Applied Human Animology

Applied Human Physiology

Applied Seismology

 

These disciplines and the drama's insistence that the participants were already imbued, as young people, with innate expertise, were offered to them with huge enthusiasm by three somewhat peculiarly dressed, eccentric and hugely enthusiastic research scientists - the Actors in Role. The fictional but metaphorically resonant Disciplines and the 'tools of the trade available' (ie The Props or Teaching Aids - see photos), were offered as enormously creative ways of thinking about human beings and the human condition. They stood to offer all engaged in the drama, a creative language in which we could assimilate and discuss our deeply felt relationship to the particular child, Robbie - and in doing so, be drawing upon and extending our general understandings of how all people live and the problems that we all necessarily confront.  This way of thinking; of exploring and explaining to ourselves, was designed to promote a richness and complexity of interrogation, reflection and shared understanding.

 

Essentially, the child's/children's acceptance and embracing of membership of this unique and radical organisation, provided us all with the Frame to enter Robbie's drama, John's Drama - and hence, the drama of all young people growing in a world at war.

 

 

The Union of Creative Thinking

 

Applied Human Animology

Animology - what is it? It's brilliant, that's what it is. And it can really help us to understand Robbie. It is a way of studying the human by looking at the animal characteristics that we all hold inside ourselves at any given time. Confused yet?

Let me explain.

 

Imagine, each and every one of you, imagine your body full to the brim of sleeping animals, animals that can move. But all sleeping. When something happens, one or more of them may wake up. Maybe in your stomach, in your the skin on your scalp...in your...

 

I'm talking about the bear in

I'm talking about the

I'm talking about the….

 

Of course, there aren't little mini bears or rabbits or butterflies inside us, but we can use this creative thinking, to explain what's happening inside and how it can come out. We can use this to understand Robbie.

 

Brilliant isn't it?

 

 

Applied Human Physiology

 

Robbie, like us, is a human being. Human - that's the key to what I do.

 

I look deep inside this human organism, this thing that is us, that is Robbie.

The human organism, a system that never stops moving - never stops doing!

Because anything and everything affects it; the food that we eat, the air that we breathe, what we see and hear and feel, everything in the environment - we absorb it all, and everything that we absorb affects the system.

 

Sometimes we don't even know it's happening. D'you see? With your help we can get right in there and find out what's been affecting his system, what's really going on. The how and why of Robbie. 

 

Child: Cool!

 

Applied Seismology

 

Seismology. What a word! The study of earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal waves, shocks, explosions, eruptions, friction, clashes, and all the things that happen on and in this planet we stand upon.

 

Have you ever blown your top? When was the last time you felt like bursting, but kept it all inside? Have you ever felt torn between one thing or another?

 

You see? All the things we talk about happening to the planet we can apply to what happens in us. And it gives us a great way of looking at what is happening in Robbie.

 

By thinking creatively like this, maybe just maybe we stand a much better chance of getting to the heart of the matter - understanding what we can see, by understanding what is happening right down below. God knows he needs help.

 

Child:  I blow my top like this... (Geste of extreme frustration and rage).

 

Clearly these 'Scientific Disciplines' for the encouragement of creative thinking were drawing on much actual science.  They drew on a great deal of knowledge already in the possession and grasp of young people.  The attempt here was to apply 'What we already think we know about the world' to a series of problems only just emerging; not yet fully formed and - in their emerging, revealing themselves to be more complex as new aspects were located and more relationships became apparent.

 

In the practice of the work, the children were assigned (and often chose) their disciplines and met together in 'pods', designated areas which contained, three dimensional colourful and concrete teaching aids or artefacts that could be manipulated in myriad ways that would allow them to express their understanding of Robbie's social and psychic being at each unfolding stage of events. We strove to offer materials that were malleable, and transformable in the moment

 

This enabled the dominant mode of expression to be graphic, active, hands on, and importantly - intuitive.  As the teaching aid structures, (almost sculptures) grew and developed, layer by layer, they became in fact, artistic expressions; holding meanings in whole group reflection that perhaps had not been conscious at all for the individuals initially involved in their design and construction. Little or no emphasis was being placed on facility in verbal or written modes of expression and no emphasis at all on correct or incorrect, right or wrong. However, as feeling grew and involvement deepened, empathy demanded greater and greater clarity. Felt responsibility demanded persuasive articulation and profound expressions of insight emerged.  

 

 

The Internationalist Aspect in an Otherwise Domestic Drama

 

Robbie sees the telly every day; every day the number gets bigger and bigger. Robbie see it getting closer to John - John has a number. Robbie knows something will happen"

Year 5 student at Ysgol Bro Cynllaith, Llansilin

 

As stated above, the participants' first glimpse of the child Robbie saw him (as photo), clutching, his brother's leather jacket. In this sense, they saw Robbie and the jacket prior to any narrative understanding of Robbie's predicament.

 

Child: It's like someone's died and he can't let go... if he lets go he'll die.

 

The jacket was a thing of beauty: The kind of retro leather jacket that many young boys might like to wear in front of a mirror.  The very first task the children undertook was a simple one. The jacket was very gently taken from Robbie; the children gathered round and had a closer look. (At this stage we only know John has gone away... not even that he has gone to war).

 

The jacket had a red silk lining.  When opened out and placed on the floor for all to see there was generally some intake of breath.  The jacket lining was awash with images.  A mind in graffiti form.  Abstract but rich. Sections of weeping spinal column. Wings. A warren of what appeared like streets and a railway line. Some hills... [Child: maybe where they live? To remind him where he lives?].

 

Up the edge of the jacket marks like we find on kitchen doorframes where children's height has been measured, with some dates.

 

In other sections of the lining, only the eyes of staring children. Questioning? Elsewhere, children squatting, bound and hooded in dusty streets or squares. Young boys and girls with guns in their hands.  Broken buildings.

 

The imagery was rich.  Almost nightmarish.  The only questions asked:

 

What do you see?  What is the jacket telling us?

 

Does it tell us anything about Robbie?

 

The participants interpreting of this object, early in the experience of the whole day story/drama, was hugely enlightening and enabling of everything to follow.  The jacket became a living thing. A map almost.  It took on a poetic reality, never ceasing to be the simple leather jacket beloved of the brothers, but becoming also:

 

Johns mind has turned inside out...

He is at war. He said he never wanted to hurt Robbie...he thinks he has...

That's where he has gone. In the army...

Every time he looks at the children in the war he sees Robbie...

When Robbie holds the jacket he sees all the things John has seen...

 

In the pocket of the jacket was a small, obviously loved and much used pocket knife.

 

He shouldn't be allowed to hold the jacket if it has the knife…?

But we can't take it off him!

It's like he is holding his brother now...but his brother's dangerous...

Maybe he hurt some children with it...

 

From this initial exploration, the jacket remained central to the discourse of the programme.  It elevated the story of the brothers into a global context, where the lives of children born and grown in the small communities of mid Wales, (like Robbie  and the participants) became intrinsically linked to the experience of children in other corners of the world. The meanings grappled with in the lining of the jacket, allowed the tangible day-to-day reality of our own lives and our collective exploration of Robbie's story, to exist (and be felt to exist) in a new dimension. Robbie's (human) being was intrinsically becoming a question of all (other) human being.

 

Late in the day the children witnessed a brief piece of theatre narrative. The 'nutter McAuley'and Robbie attempt a rescue of John from the local hospital where he awaits transporting.

 

McAuley                   It's not right, you know. What's happened to John? I mean he's your brother and everything, but...  My Dad says the boys that go over there and fight for us should… We should call them bloody heroes. It's not right. Gets him angry. We should build houses for them when they come home, not just… It's not right. But, anyway…

                                    (Pause)

MCAULEY                I'll help you get him out if you like.

ROBBIE                      …?

McCauley                Go in. Get him out. Bring him home. Have to do it tonight but before you know... I mean, you don't know what they're going to do to him. If we wait 'till it gets dark, then… Bring him home. Sort of like a mission? What d'you think? It's not right.

Robbie                      You're crazy McAuley.

McAuley                   Yeah?  

                                    (Pause.)

                                    What, you scared?

 

And later, having broken into the hospital, Robbie finds a still deeply traumatised John lying in bed, eyes open, but insensate to his kid brother.  

 

Robbie leans over John and whispers

 

Robbie                      "John, John, can you hear me? It's me Robbie your little brother, and McAuley. We've come to get you out.

 

Pause

 

 John look I've got your jacket"

 

He holds it up and shakes it in front of John. Robbie talks to John about the jacket, history and contents, remember this etc.

 

McAuley joins Robbie.

 

McAuley                   Come on Robbie let's get him up. Forget the bloody jacket, let's get him up, help me!

 

Robbie                      Come on John, you have to try, you have to help, we can't do it on our own. I'm not leaving you!

 

They struggle. McAuley steps away from the bed looking at Robbie.

 

McAuley                   We have to go, we'll get caught, we'll try again another time.

 

 Robbie is still struggling.

 

Robbie                      You left me…you said you would look out for me…where are you? I need you. Why don't you say anything? Just lying there… Are you awake or what? You're driving me crazy. Sit up. I'll help you with your jacket… Are you listening? John!

You know, it's not my fault if they come for you now. It's not my fault! 'Cause you have to tell them you're ok. Have to tell them it's really you.

 

Robbie throws the jacket over John's head.  The lining exposed.

 

If they ask me I won't know what to say. So, you tell them. Then they'll know. John? John? JO-O-O-O-O-O-O-H-N! Say something. Answer me you stupid big bloody idiot! You're not looking good, John. No. Not looking good at all.

 

Fact, you look sick and stupid and hopeless and not cool. And you are not being brave. You are not being brave at all. Come on, you're supposed to be a soldier! Be brave! Be brave! John!

 

Robbie stops…silence

 

Robbie goes to the floor with the jacket spread in front of him; he has the knife, and is cutting the jacket…very calm and deliberate.

 

This was the final image on offer from the Company. The children were, invariably, driven to speculate on the implications of Robbie cutting the jacket. Robbie's cutting of the jacket was very often felt not simply to be self destructive, but to be a severing of his relationship with his brother and a rejection and forgetting of what his brother has experienced. The young people knew in a very powerful way that in severing the history, the present would become all the more difficult to understand and that the future for them (and the children of the jacket) would become even more precarious. 

 

The final task offered the UCT participants was to draw together all three disciplines of creative thinking around this final image. Robbie and the jacket remained central   on the floor of the hospital (moments before the arrival of the police). From this moment was it possible to create a web of interconnection? To relate this 'now moment' to each and between each of the three dimensional constructs through which the children have charted the development of the whole event. Might we then invite the 'Mind Doctors' to assimilate the complexity of Robbie's relationship to his world and if we can, then we may have armed them to respond to Robbie with truth and understanding.

 

 

Again, the creation of the web would become artistic in itself… each individual connection consciously placed, but when looked at as a whole and reflected on socially it could reveal truths about Robbie and his world that had not yet entered our heads.

 

 

The Collective Imagination

 

"Seeing today has changed the way I will make stories with the children this year."

Teacher in Llanfaes Primary School, Powys

 

The defining feature of this Theatre in Education programme was its insistence on a real unity of engagement.  As young people, the children displayed enormous empathy and intuitive understanding, the felt very deeply.  As members of the UCT and in struggling to express Robbie's condition, they thought very deeply.  They were impelled to take action from both stances. The TIE programme required that they take action. In requiring the active intervention of the participants, the programme demands that new knowledge; ideas and intuitions are tested in practice. The Actors in Role as conduits for Robbie's story and mediators of the exploration/explanation are not at all concerned that the experience teaches the children 'what to think'; rather they are attempting to encourage the richest possible exploration of 'How we need to think'.

 

The action required in TIE is social action; the children work together. They work collectively and are aware that their actions have implications attached to them. They take action consciously and transform the fictional world they are exploring. They are free to exercise power, and this exercising of power demands listening, communicating, negotiating, challenging and supporting one another.

 

In life we know that each action we take leads to a developed situation, further questions and the requirement for further action. The same is true in the experience of the TIE programme. Children know that the fictional problems and concerns they have encountered are not resolved in completeness. But they also feel that they have achieved some development. . . some expression of what they have come to know. .. a resolution for this moment in time.

 

The Union of Creative Thinking was developed in the context of the war and allowed the participating children to trace and to feel the impacts of that seemingly far distant event.  The 'Mind Doctors' in many senses stood for all adults.  They were the authority.  Furnished with the tools to do so, these young people exercised their right to challenge that authority's interpretation of events and the values that are placed upon them. Working in support of Robbie, they were creating and re-creating themselves and each other.