On the day of the show, my colleagues and I would set up a big stage outside the wooden hut. This stage was made out of big wooden planks, which we placed on top of and then attached to old sawed off tree trunks. This stage was always built under the porch of the hut, so if it by any chance would rain on that day, the show would still go on and would not be ruined by the unfortunate weather. We would also put up makeshift stage curtains formed from old sheets or blankets and decorate the stage with big cut out of paper music notes, which we stuck on the wall behind the stage.
On the day of the ‘Playback Show’ the children would gather in the scouts hut at 14:00 and hand in their tapes or cd’s with the music artist on it, which they would be mimicking during the ‘Playback Show’. The show could now finally begin.
The talk between the presenter and the child who was next to mimic their favourite music artist was usually about two minutes long and this talk was about the name of the child, who he or she was mimicking on the show and why he or she was mimicking this music artist. Each song would last between 2 to 6 minutes and the atmosphere was always fantastic. The other kids, the parents or carers of the children, the other family members, their friends and of course my colleagues and I would be cheering the performers on during the show. After their performance they would get comments from the presenter, which would usually take a minute or two and then we would move on to the next performer. After having seen 5 performers on the ‘Playback Show’, we would have a break, where we would usually have either a cup of tea or a nice cold drink and some biscuits. This break would be 15 minutes long. After the break we would watch and listen to the other performers and when they had all had their turn, it was time to choose a winner. We would judge the performers by the reaction of the spectator’s yelling when calling out the performer’s name. When choosing a winner, we would hand out the prize and start tidying up the place. The scouts would always help with tidying up the hut and also the area around the hut. This would usually be the last 10 to 15 minutes of the 3 hour session we spent together.
To plan this activity we had to split everything up into time sections, so that everyone would get the same amount of time to do their performance. The talking of the presenter was a total of 40 minutes, as he spoke for two minutes before and two minutes after the performance of ten children. The actual performances were between 2 and 6 minutes long, so take we took an average of 4 minutes per performance. There were 10 performances, so again 40 minutes was taken into consideration for that. We had a 15 minute break, which brings us to 95 minutes that were taken up of our 3 hour session. We always had to have some spare minutes of course to start up the whole session, as no one ever made it on time for 14:00, and there is always the time we spend tidying up afterwards. Adding everything together, we have 10 minutes before everyone arrives and we are ready to begin the ‘Playback Show’, we have 95 minutes for the show, including the break, and then we have the 15 minutes to tidy up, before the session is over and the kids are ready to go home again.
Art Activity
For the art activity I have chosen to let the children make a lantern. The materials used to make these lanterns would be wooden sticks, a ball of hemp string, empty glass wine bottles, and a box of dinner candles and play dough. We would also need a bucket of cold water, scissors and a box of matches or a lighter. I would have prepared a lantern myself before the sessions, so I could show them every step to take to get to the end result.
To start this activity, you would take an empty wine bottle and cut off a piece of hemp string. Tie this piece of string round the glass bottle about 4 inches from the bottom of the bottle. Then you take your matches or lighter to the string and light the string till the string is on fire. When the entire string is lit, place the bottom of the glass bottle including the string in to the bucket of cold water. The difference in heat will break the bottom of the bottle, where you had tied the string round it. It is possible that the edges of the bottle, where it was broken, are sharp, so this is where the play dough comes in handy. Place a piece of play dough on the edges, so there is no possible way anyone could get hurt on the sharp edges of the bottle.
When this is done you are ready to make the stand for the lantern. To do this, you take a couple of wooden sticks and make a stand out of them, by placing them together with the help of hemp string. As the client group are scouts, they do have a knowledge of which knots are the best to use for this activity. They can choose for themselves how they put the stand together, but of course they can choose to follow the steps I used to make my stand. The stand needs to be able to carry the glass bottle up side down in the frame, so the children have to keep this in mind.
After having put a stand together, the scouts will place the glass bottle upside down in this framework. Make sure the bottle is secure in the stand. If this is not the case, they can use more hemp string or use play dough to put the bottle into place. When the stand is finished with the bottle inside it and safely secured, place a dinner candle on the inside of the bottle, all the way into the neck of the bottle. Now light the candle and switch of all the lights in the room you have been working in.
You will now be able to see the end result work perfectly and functioning as a lantern.
The time that we would take for this activity is two hours. We would take a break in the middle of the activity to have a drink or something to eat as a small snack, which was always 15 minutes long. Before we started the activity, we would get the scouts to play a running game, like tag, to tire them out a bit, before having to sit in the scout hut for so long. This would get them to concentrate more and put more effort into the activity. At the end of the activity, we would take our time to tidy up after ourselves and if there was any time left of the three hours we had together, we would play another game, which would be chosen by the scouts themselves.
Activity Relevance
The reason why we do the ‘Stars in their Eyes’ activity is to let the children show other people which music artist they like, but also to give the children more confidence in appearance, even if it is just for those few minutes during their performance. During this activity the children would communicate with each other through singing and dancing. The shyness of a child would completely fall away for just that moment.
Once a year we would take the scouts camping for four nights and five days. During these days we would use the handmade lanterns as our light source, as we would camp in a woodlands area, where no electricity was available, so that’s what the relevance is for this Art activity.
Relation between client group and activities
Within the scouts there are children from different backgrounds, but when they come together on a Saturday afternoon between 14:00 and 17:00, they were all treated the same by my colleagues and I, and also by their peers.
The drama activity as being ‘Stars in their Eyes’ is an important activity for the scouts as they can communicate with each other through other means than words. Some of the scouts would be shy during other activities, but during the ‘Stars in their Eyes’ show, every child was extrovert. These children came across as very confident, as they had had 4 weeks to rehearse and practice for this activity. They would become very proud of their performance.
The art activity was relevant to the scouts as they could then practice their knowledge of their knot tying abilities, by using the knots to tie the sticks together to make a frame for the lantern.
Drama and Art as a method for working with young people
Before I started the Creative Arts & Young People module, I did not think of the activities I used to do with the scouts as Drama and Art activities. During the module I learned a lot about Drama and Art and how to use these as methods for working with young people.
“The word ‘drama’ comes from the Greek word ‘Drao’, meaning ‘I do’, or ‘I struggle’. It also means ‘action’. When people talk about drama they often confuse it with theatre; although some of the elements of theatre are present in that it portrays, through vocal and physical enactments, the predicament of life, drama in the educational or therapeutic setting has its roots in playing rather than the play.
There are a number of theories on playing or child play and several of these suggest that it is a crucial aspect of childhood which enables the individual to cope with the present and prepare for adulthood. Peter Slade (1963) wrote that play is an essential aspect of young life through which the child thinks, relates, works, remembers, tests, creates and develops concentration. Ian Petrie (1974) endorsed this view when he concluded that play is ‘a medium through which children may internalise experiences and come to terms with their world; and through play children may practise skills.”
Dwivedi, K.N. (1993), page 170
“Art therapy is now an established profession and is gaining recognition of its importance in working with children. A lot of children have difficulty in articulating their feelings verbally, thoughts and concerns, as their command of language might not be as sophisticated as that of an adult. Using images in Art offers a non-verbal ‘language’ for those children whose difficult behaviour might be an indication of some distress or unhappiness.”
Dvivedi, K.N. (1993) page 136,
It seems to me that working in this field with young people is challenging, occasionally terrifying and very rewarding. In setting up a creative climate which encourages young people to gain insights and begin to come to terms with the frustrations and pain of living, there is a built-in bonus that the leader also is exposed to those same opportunities for developing self-awareness. Art and Drama is not something that the leader gives the group; it is the shared outcome of people working seriously and playfully together.
Dwivedi, K.N. (1993), page 181
I definitely see Art in the future as being used more and more to help young people develop, but also using Art as a method of helping them get through what they are going through at that moment and what they will have to deal with in the future.
When having read more about what others feel about Drama and Art as methods for working with young people, I feel that there are only positive things that come from it. I hope I will be able to use Drama and Art in my future profession as a Social Worker in Residential Child Care.
Bibliography
Benson, J.F. (2001), Working more creatively with groups. London: Rutledge
Dwivedi, K.N. (1993), Group Work with Children and Adolescents. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd
Strathclyde University 200205536
