Ray of Hope for School Theatre as Kasigwa is appointed principal
By Otieno Amisi
Rural teachers and their humble schools rarely get a mention in the mass media. Unless exam results are startling, or some unfortunate head teacher is being hounded out of school by irate parents for ‘failing’ those clever pupils.
But when playwright Oliver Minishi was elevated to principal of Kakamega High school recently, there was a party in town. Over at the National Theatre, Nairobi we had a quiet toast for Minishi, who has excelled severally in East Africa’s biggest theatre event with his captivating school plays and dances.
Minishi is not a playwright in the mould of Francis Imbuga, David Mulwa or Ngugi wa Thiongo — that first generation of writers who went into creative menopause some years ago.
He is perhaps the most famous in a new generation of script writers who have taken the annual schools drama movement by the horns and thrown it into the middle of next week. This cast includes Joseph Murungu, Bernard Kasigwa, Mwinyihija Yusuf, Maua Dambala, LP Barasa, Peter Akhanyalabandu, who, thanks to their ingenuity, have turned the festival into a furious competition for trophies, bewildering their pupils with their their stunts and enterprise.
But that is a story for another day. Minishi is a physics teacher and theatre artist of indisputable ability. He has provided practical help and real expressive power to so many fine actors who stride our screens today. He is a warm, gentle, compassionate facilitator at workshops, with a sense of humour and devotion to his calling. Though, theatre goers feel Minishi’s recent promotion is some sort of official recognition of the place of theatre in schools, his employer, the Teachers’ Service Commission, may not have been overtly rewarding the thespian for his stage exploits. And this is exactly where the problem begins.
All over the world, theatre practitioners and teachers believe that drama is central to children’s emotional development and is the key to the development of their confidence. But while many head teachers appreciate the role performing arts play in the life of every pupil, there is little support for the genre.
Stories abound of schools that were unable to participate at several competitions due to this bad attitude towards drama, or of students spending cold nights when funds run out during festivities. There are even more stories of bad blood between drama teachers and school heads. Back home, there are also many parents and teachers who feel that drama takes an “unnecessary” toll on pupil’s performance, that ‘bright’ students can do better if they left drama alone.
Though, most inter-school events attract considerable enthusiasm from parents and teachers alike, drama attracts mountains of negative attention, criticism and ridicule even from education officials. On their part, many teachers are often hostile towards students who excel in drama, believing they can exert undue influence on impressionable fellow students. Could this be the reason behind the huge waste of talent after school? Could this official disregard for theatre be the reason for the falling standards of theatre? Could this explain the slow acceptance of class drama as a teaching tool?
Why is there so little effort to popularise this noble genre, which is not only a multi million dollar industry but also a tool in education. Class drama is today recognised worldwide as a vital tool for democratizing learning, making it more participatory, and more enjoyable. For the 21st century language teacher, no methodology better captures the spirit of democracy and participation than class drama.
Students can dramatise comprehension passages, poetry, compositions and grammar, besides the set play itself. Classroom theatre is not limited to language teaching alone. A creative teacher of geography can take an orange to class and peel it piece by piece to illustrate the various layers under the surface of the earth. The current arrangement which delineated drama from the classroom is our undoing.
Drama should not be confined to festivals alone. Educationists already agree that many schools with a fine reputation in drama tend to do better in examinations as opposed to schools where extra curricula activities are curtailed or underdeveloped.
otienoamisi@yahoo.com
