Thursday, November 27, 2014
Devising The Environment: Mixing Science and Theater In The Classroom
HowlRound: The first day of class, I have no idea what to expect. Though the college is a small one—only about 1,500 students—some of these fourteen undergrads have never met. That’s because the class is split almost right down the middle between theater majors and environmental studies students, with a few crossovers.
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8 comments:
Having a class like this is a cool concept. I don't know if CMU has a class like this, but I feel like they should with such a science-heavy school.
The one issue I saw with this class was not that the different students from different majors would not get along; it was the difference in learning curves between science students and drama students. When the author discussed the science related activities they were doing, it felt like this would be "old news" to the environmental students, and I bet the drama students were bored with all the acting exercises. If the curriculum could be adapted to his, the class would be very effective, especially in a place like CMU.
What a great concept for a class! We make theater within the confines of our own building and bubble, and I think it would be very interesting for any of us to be involved in a devising process with students from different majors, who have a very different set of skills and knowledge. I can imagine this was difficult for all involved, both students and teachers, as they had to adapt to a new way of doing things, a new rhythm of work and set of problems. I wish the article included more details about the way the two different groups of students worked together and blended their different skill sets to discuss and devise theater together. Combining theater with environmental science is a good idea because the latter is a discipline that does not rely as heavily as others on extensive knowledge of scientific processes and actually involves the study of human systems and history, which makes it easier for theater students to understand and build upon.
This is a really cool idea, but I do wonder what the outcome will be. It seems like it would be very easy for the resulting performance to appear very forced, since to some degree they are trying to push together two areas that don't necessarily mesh perfectly. A lot of theater, if not most theater, has some kind of message or theme embedded into it, but I would expect those to come about more naturally, maybe as an result of the original text or story. Here, they have to create a story first, but from the start they are limited because there is a requirement to include environmental issues. There is definitely a lot of potential, but I don't think it will be easy to create something that really works well.
I really love the idea of a class that combines two very separate disciplines and attempts to create a product that is the result of this interdisciplinary collaboration. The article addresses some of the potential challenges of this class, a large one being whether or not it is possible to to "create something that would both scientifically interesting and artistically complex in such a short amount of time". While the end product of this class is obviously a significant aspect, it is certainly not the most important piece. The fact that students from the arts and sciences are coming together is (hopefully) going to create a unique learning opportunity in which the process of working together is more important than the final product anyway. This sounds like the kind of class that will need to be re-worked each semester before a more consistent curriculum can be settled on, but I think it is a truly great idea.
While the whole premise of the class feels like someone playground-ed the curriculum, it is a cool idea, if maybe not very productive. The thing that theater might be best at is communication and persuasion, but not necessarily having real power over events. If there is one thing that environmental reform doesn’t need, it is people who already exist in the liberal arts world being communicated to about how bad it is. I wholeheartedly support the mixture of art and science, as they are both engrossing pursuits that contribute to the progress of humanity, but in a situation like this it seems to me like what is conveyed to the audience is neither good art nor good science.
It seems like students would have a lot to learn from one another and it is exciting to hear that Stephen Spotswood's is overall successful. However, I would like to hear the science student's point of view. Performing is a vulnerable thing for many people and I wonder how their comfort level has changed since being in the class if at all. Also, I would be more interested in learning how much the students are engaged in the class since it seems like half the students are learning lots at one particular time. There is always debate at how teachers should teach to the average student so that they aren't moving through the curriculum to quickly nor too slowly. Since there isn't really an "average" student in Spotswood's class, how do they account for that variability?
I love this idea, it kind of reminds me of IDEATE, but in a more scientifically driven way. Interdisciplinary work is so valuable because it allows different types of students to gain exposure to fields that are very different than their own, but can also be studied together to create something interesting and multifaceted. One of the things that IDEATE stresses is that the program is not trying to turn art students into CS students or vice versa, but that it is rather aiming to heighten the skills students already have by showing them how multiple fields can work together to create something exciting.
I am perpetually confused by people who are confused or amazed by things like this that attempt to combine science and theatre, or any sort of hard science and art. The two are not polar opposites, and there can be as much beauty in Fibonacci's numbers or in the close up look at the brain, just as there is science and math in the scenery we construct or the perfection of the golden spiral.
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