Rethinking Noise: How Drama Transformed My Classroom
Silence is golden...
For a long time, I believed that the mark of a good teacher was a silent classroom-students sitting quietly at their desks, diligently working. I would spend much of my day urging my students to keep the noise down, feeling a sense of accomplishment when the room was finally quiet. But over time, I began to realize that this silence was unnatural for my learners. My efforts to suppress noise left them anxious and stifled the classroom dynamic.
Reading Sue Cowley’s work (2006) was a turning point. She encourages teachers to establish a teaching style that sends clear, positive signals to learners about how to behave. Inspired by this, I began to explore how drama could help me create a more natural, engaging classroom environment-one where noise was not the enemy, but a tool for learning.
Cultivating noise and silence using drama in the classroom: notes from an action research project in Zimbabwe
Comments