IDENTIFICATION

Surname: O’Toole

Name: John

Prof

Position: Chair of Arts Education

Organisation/Institution/University: University Of Melbourne

Address: Department of Language, Literacy and the Arts

The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia

Telephone (+ international. code)

(until 10.August 05: +61 7 3875 5720)

(after 10 August 05: +61 3  8344 8349)

Fax (+ international. code)

(until 10 August 05: +61 7 3875 6868)

(after 10 August 05: +61 3 8344 8612)

E-mail Address:

(until 10 August 05: j.otoole@griffith.edu.au)

(after 10 August 05: j.otoole@unimelb.edu.au)

Please indicate the theme of your paper including a short abstract:

Paper 1: Theme 4 (also Theme 1)

The Arts as Productive Pedagogy

The arts, as ways of apprehending and comprehending human reality and society, are of course important areas of knowledge in their own right. In spite of their often marginalised position in educational curricula world-wide, the evidence is now overwhelming that they are powerful instruments of pedagogy, that can augment, illuminate and unify the whole curriculum – including literacy, numeracy, natural and social sciences, technology etc – as well as vital co-curricular elements like the ethos and social relationships within schools and other learning contexts. This paper takes the Australian Productive Pedagogies model of effective schooling and analyses it in terms of how arts-based curriculum planning achieves all twenty key factors identified in the model. The principal source of examples will be from drama, which is seen as the integrating art form, and examples will also be drawn from dance, music, visual and media arts.

Paper 2 (with Assoc. Professor Bruce Burton, Griffith University) Theme 2

Acting Against Bullying

For eight years, in association with the International DRACON Project, Griffith University has carried out action research for conflict management in schools using a combination of drama and peer teaching within the school curriculum. Now Bruce and John are redesigning the project to deal specifically with bullying, with the eventual aim of changing the culture of schools. Unlike most anti-bullying programs, Acting against bullying

Ø      puts the responsibility and therefore the empowerment into the hands of the students themselves

Ø      offers cognitive understanding of conflict and bullying – ‘bullying literacy’ - for them to use to de-escalate bullying

Ø      allows students to explore the issues in a value-free way that does not put them on the defensive either as bullies or victims

Ø      sets the agenda right inside the curriculum

Ø      uses extensive peer-teaching (not peer mediation)

Ø      builds in both ongoing action research and in-service drama training.

The program is designed to change the culture of the whole school community from the inside, developing networks of support, with students directly involved as the leaders of change from upper secondary to lower primary school - a coherent system that can be applied not just in the isolated classroom, but within the curriculum, in a whole-school context.

Biography:

Professor John O’Toole is Foundation Chair of Arts Education at the University of Melbourne, and is an internationally known drama educator. He was formerly Director of Publications for IDEA and IDEA Congress Co-Convenor in 1995. His many scholarly books and practical textbooks on drama education are known worldwide and widely translated, including Theatre in Education (1977), The Process of  Drama (1993), Dramawise (1987 with Brad Haseman, also in Chinese, Italian and Danish) and Pretending to Learn (2003 with Julie Dunn, Australian Textbook of the Year, also in Chinese and Danish). In 2001 he was awarded the American Alliance of Theatre and Education research award for lifetime achievement.

Associate Professor Bruce Burton is Director of the Applied Theatre Program at Griffith University, Brisbane. He is also a well-known drama educator nationally and internationally, with many standard Australian textbooks in drama education, including Creating Drama, Living Drama and How to teach primary drama.