Fiction in Drama Education Offers Learning Opportunities for All - Philosophical Perspectives in Drama Education

Abstract

1. Understanding fictionThe purpose of this research is twofold. Firstly I aim to show that my philosophical theory on understanding fiction (Nyberg 2015) has practical implications. Secondly I am searching a method for educational purposes that takes into account all learners. My personal experiences on special education and the theory on fiction I develop have produced an idea that drama educational practices have the right elements for being such a method. By the aid of philosophical analysis and empirical research on Autism Spectrum Disored (ASD) I argue that this is the case. Thus in short, my goal is to show that using fiction in drama education is a method which helps in developing metacognitive skills in a way that takes into account all learners.Fictional discourse raises philosophical problems because of names like 'Sherlock Holmes' which have no real life referent. Some of the names like 'London' in Sherlock Holmes stories have real life referents and thus the text consists in constant interplay with fiction and reality. In reading fiction it is thus useful to distinguish between different contexts. For example some of the things said in a science fiction are scientifically accurate. This means the need of metarepresentation and metacognitive skills. By metarepresentation I mean second-order presentation of first order cognitive contents (Proust 2007). Using fiction, truth and drama education, offer large scale of simultaneous tasks with multiple degrees of difficulty. This practice helps in promoting inclusive values in social contexts like classrooms. In social contexts the challenge is to create such a learning environment that helps all the students feel more included while the individual learning processes are still at focus. From the point of view of special education this means taking into account individual differences and possible disabilities in learning. Inclusive practices give better learning possibilities for all students no matter what the level of their performance is. It is worth noting that the central ideas presented in this paper are applicable despite the controversiality of the philosophical ideas of my theory. As an example of different abilities in learning I use studies on autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Although some of the results of those studies support my theory I want to emphasize that the point is in different cognitive starting points of learners not in deficits. The goal is in developing such pedagogical practices that gives good learning possibilities for all.1.1. InclusionMy experiences on special education and teaching pupils with special needs support the idea that educational practices should be inclusive. However the notion of inclusion is problematic since it seems to be impossible to give its universal definition. There is no mutual understanding of the use and meaning of the word inclusion. For the present purposes it is illuminating to refer Ainscow's (2010) view that inclusion is about organizing the school to be responsive to the needs of all its pupils. These characterizations come close to the idea of accessibility and especially universal design for learning (UDL). Rose (2001, 66) describes UDL as injecting flexibility into the materials and methods used in the classroom. This means maximizing the learning opportunities for all the students. Rose acknowledges that there is great challenge for a teacher in choosing suitable materials and methods since flexibility can be obtained in numerous ways. My task is to show that drama education together with my theory on the function of the concept of truth in fiction offers tools for inclusive pedagogical practices. Drama education is exceptional practice for learning interdisciplinary topics. When we are dealing with interdisciplinary topic it is a matter of a degree how variously we grasp its multiple dimensions. Developing our ability to recognize these dimensions is crucial for better learning and understanding for all, special needs or not. …