Emma’s Dilemma

Abstract

This month, I am supervising a student, ‘Emma’, now in her fourth year of a preservice Early Childhood degree, who is very keen on drama. I work in a faculty with a considerable reputation for drama education (from long before I arrived), where the first specialist drama teachers in Australia were trained forty years ago, even before there was a formal curriculum for them to teach! Drama is core curriculum from early childhood to tertiary entrance, part of the key learning area of The Arts in schools in all States, and in our forthcoming National Curriculum. Most States have established specialist drama teacher training courses, at least for secondary education. The Australian Curriculum Authority senior project officer for arts can state confidently, that “many of us stand strong and successfully in schools... because... we have had quality specialist teachers to teach us [and we] enjoy the status that comes with good curriculum and being valued” (Wise, 2008). Like our colleagues worldwide, we draw from the mature and still-growing bank of both scholarship and practical textbooks, journals and internet resources available to everybody, both from overseas, and from our considerable pool of home-grown expertise. There’s no shortage of top-level resources now available to drama teachers via the touch of a button or the Amazons shopping basket.