Ilmaisuleikit tarinan talossa. Analyysi ja tulkinta lastentarhanopettajan pedagogisesta toiminnasta varhaiskasvatuksen draaman opetuksessa

Abstract

Tutkimus käsittelee draamaleikkiä varhaiskasvatuksen pedagogisena prosessina. Se on etnografisella otteella päiväkodissa tehty lukuvuoden pituinen tapaustutkimus, jonka aineisto muodostuu lastentarhanopettajan päiväkirjasta, opetustuokioiden videotallenteista ja tutkijan äänestä tapahtumien kuvaajana ja tulkitsijana.

Pedagoginen draama on ilmaisun kielten ja keinojen tutkimista, taideaine. Mutta se on enemmän. Kehittyvien teemojen draamaleikeistä syntyy lapsen salainen paikka, fyysinen ja mentaalinen tila, jossa voi harjoitella kuvittelemista, suunnitella ja luoda, ylittää havaintomaailman rajoja, testata ennen kokematonta. Lasten toiminnassa pitkäjänteisyys ja ilo kasvavat tarinan rakenteen oppimisessa. Se antaa lapsille välineitä uusien draamojen tuottamiseen. Jatkuvuus syntyy draamaleikeissä, joissa edellisen toiminnan uudistava vaikutus luo pohjan seuraavalle. Yhteisöllisesti ryhmä vahvistuu vuoden aikana. Se näkyy rohkeutena oman tilan ottamisessa ja tilan antamisessa muille, vastavuoroisuutena.

Lastentarhanopettajan pedagoginen toiminta perustuu yhteissuunnitteluun ja neuvotteluun lasten kanssa. Lastentarhanopettajan ominaisuuksia on monien diskurssien samanaikainen hallinta. Hän on tulkki lasten uusien kokemusten keskellä. Hänen taitojaan on kyky sanoa toisin, verrata, elollistaa, kulkea lähellä lapsen kielen maailmaa. Hänen hiljaista tietoaan on kyky löytää tilanteeseen sopiva ilmaisun kanava. Puheen rinnalla näistä tärkeimpiä ovat katse, hyväksyvä tai rauhoittava kosketus sekä etäisyyden vaihtelu.

Tutkimuksen pedagoginen merkitys ei rajoitu draaman opetukseen. Samat kysymykset tulevat vastaan kaikessa varhaiskasvatuksen opetustoiminnassa. Tutkimusta voi lukea päivähoidossa tapahtuvan opetuksen realististen mahdollisuuksien kuvauksena. Lastentarhanopettajan korkea pedagoginen taito yhdistettynä yhtä korkeaan sisältöalueen osaamiseen voi olla luomassa hyvinkin erilaisille lapsille innostavaa ja kehittävää oppimisympäristöä.

Drama Games in the Narrative Frame - An analysis and interpretation of a kindergarten teacher s pedagogical activity in early age drama teaching

The objective of the present study was to describe how the drama of preschool education comes into being as a pedagogical process. I observe drama lessons in a day care centre group of children aged 3 to 6 years, in which I scrutinise the pedagogical activity of the kindergarten teacher. I examine the formation of the drama game, the interaction of the children and the teacher and the guidance given by the teacher. This is a case study using the ethnographical approach. I endeavour to describe the teaching process as precisely and illustratively as possible. The research data consists of the diary from the period 1995 1996 in which a kindergarten teacher experienced as a drama teacher records the drama lessons. In addition to this I have a considerable part of the teaching recorded on videotapes. In the analysis of the tapes and in the interpretation the objective is a conceptual theoretical analysis of the pedagogical work of the kindergarten teacher as a teacher of drama.

The diary contains the authentic voice of the kindergarten teacher, her description of events, her analysis and evaluation, which I duly interpret from the perspective of my own goals as a researcher. Parallel with this runs a second, comparative method: for the interpretation of the video material I have made use of thick description from among the ethnographical methods. As a researcher I am a narrator. I hold a dialogue with both the videotapes to capture reality and with the reality described by the kindergarten teacher. My study thus comprises three interrelated sources: the diary, the videotapes and the voice of the researcher as the party describing and commenting events.

The types of drama lesson in my data can be roughly divided into three groups: 1. Warm-up exercises to commence activities, 2. Exercises to reconnoitre the means of expression (contact, sense, voice exercises), 3. Dramas of developing themes, i.e. the actual drama games, which constitute the main part of my research. In the drama games of developing themes the children study the narrative tradition of the story, testing its forms and possibilities. This is done by creating new figures in the same structure, by working out several variations of turning points, by changing the order of events, by examining the motives of the characters and by changing them, by examining the nature or background, the relation between the language of the body and natural language. The story becomes drama through simulation. It begins to live in the children s physical expression, their lines contacts, contact figures, in the spontaneous ways in which they create the fictive here-and-now of the story. Simultaneity entails openness, the element of surprise, incompleteness, doing again, change.

The simulation frame of the drama is the learning environment in which the child practises imagining. S/he investigates the possibilities within the limits of his/her imagination. Developing the imagination depends on experiences and the cultural environment. Lev Vygotsky refers to the social milieu and its significance in the development of creativity. Drama as the child s environment may be the seat of imagination, a mental and concrete creative space in which the child feels s/he is just the right size. Just as a wall limits the secret garden in Frances H. Burnett s children s novel, so the structure limits the drama. But just as there may be openings and doors in the wall, so the structure of the drama is no bind, but can be removed and rearranged. This is the circle of thought, the backbone, which prevents the drama from losing its shape.

As my research progresses the significance of the aesthetic aspect grows. I contemplate aesthetic experience following the aesthetic tradition of Aristoteles. This can be characterised by three special features. These are unity (which subsumes coherence and completeness), intensity and complexity. In my interpretation the intensity in drama games is the concentration of energy and its application to action. The action of drama games is to a large extent coherent. One act leads to another and so on, until the energy reaches a state of climax, a turning point and a resolution. Completeness is experiencing the entity, a kind of agreeable state of equilibrium, which is perhaps best understood through its opposite, confusion and fragmentariness. On the other hand, art is characterised by a certain incompleteness, a plethora of unrealised opportunities: in aesthetic experiences, too, there is always something which remains incomplete, unfinished, open, to be asked again. Complexity! may be the amount of subfactors of the action and their many facets, but also the rhythm of action and various affective and cognitive elements.

To put it briefly, the working strategy which the kindergarten teacher frequently chooses includes the following: the preferred method is negotiating together, reaching agreement so that there is room for the plans and implementations of each child. This is followed by activity, experimentation, exploration. The teacher helps and encourages, analyses the activities together with the children and gives a new instruction, which is followed by further experimentation and exploration on the part of the children, to be once again evaluated and developed together. The developing may continue for a longer time utilising the same model. This strategy is implemented well in many of the lessons I describe, but in a story which is pared down illustratively in the manner of a textbook. I call this The Stalking Game. The drama lessons are accommodated to the children s developmental process and they have space to continue with the theme autonomously as an unstructured game. Not only does t! he drama lesson ascertain the substance of the drama, it also constructs the individual growth history of each individual child.

The kindergarten teacher s way of working comes close to the socio-constructivist conception of learning. However, I believe that the teacher s many voices elude classification and give her other dimensions. She is the coach at the side of the field giving instructions, she is the theatrical director refining her actors expression and evincing her own clear thoughts on how to do things. She is the actor in the opposite role and producer of stage effects, she is the hand of Fate capable of stopping the drama, but also an equal speaking her piece unafraid to evince her own opinions. However, she does not assume the mantle of the leader of opinion; she is prepared to negotiate. It is interesting to observe her willingness to change her task, reacting sensitively to the children s initiatives. Her authority as a teacher lies in her concentrated presence and inner self-confidence. The children trust her and she trusts the children.

As a teacher of small children the kindergarten teacher is a poet. She has the gift of making sense of the chain of events, understanding the elements of a story, perceiving the possibility of a latent conflict, questioning what is taken for granted. Using metaphors, analogies and personifications she creates images and linguistic bridges to get to know the unknown. Thus a strange field of experience becomes understood through the concepts of the familiar. This is possible if the object of the metaphor in the schema has sufficient analogous features with the metaphor itself. To the children the language is modified but not simplified. It is the language of observational experiences, the quest for parallel expressions, saying things in other words, repetition, pauses for thought. Being animist and the magic quality of the mundane are the keys to understanding the drama and more extensively the world of the small child. In the work I observe there is a meeting of high pedagogica! l knowledge and content knowledge.

Towards the end of my study I consider the condition of being a teacher. The teacher does not only teach things, but also gives what she herself is. As the child is only acquiring his/her mother tongue, an essential tool for his/her subsequent learning, the significance of the holistic expression of the teacher is crucial, and this is inextricably linked with her person. For the relationship between the kindergarten teacher and the child to develop there must be time and space, the opportunity of becoming familiar, of learning to trust one another. I consider the significance of continuity and those problems which ensue from the lack of it.

My view of the social significance of preschool education has only been strengthened in the course of my research. With drama games as my perspective on preschool education, I demonstrate how much sensitive, valuable, budding contemplation of self and the world there is in all the children in the study. However, I also demonstrate in illustrative detail what a high level of professional skill is needed for the recognition of the foregoing and how may skills a kindergarten teacher must have in order that what she has captured may be used for growth and development.