{"id":1219,"date":"2019-01-04T16:15:38","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T16:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/18\/?p=1219"},"modified":"2022-02-06T20:45:28","modified_gmt":"2022-02-06T20:45:28","slug":"the-confessions-of-a-failed-educator1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/18\/the-confessions-of-a-failed-educator1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Confessions of a Failed Educator"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yun-Cheol Kim<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract: <\/strong>The School of Drama of the Korean National University of the Arts was established in 1994. The apparent success of its educational program is very misleading. Its invisible but major failure does not come from students, but from us teachers, who are so tired that we do not challenge ourselves with creative ideas of new pedagogy; we return to an archaic authoritarianism to enjoy the luxury of unconfessed laziness. If teachers are confined to their own small field, the only solution, for the sake of students, who are\u2014and will be\u2014living under the multi-disciplinary arts that deny borders between genres, is to develop and facilitate team teaching, literal collective teaching. What this paper argues is the need to (re)design our educational programs from the students’ perspectives. To do so, we must first try our best to transcend our own ego. And I confess that I have not done enough to this direction in my long career as theatre teacher. And that is painful.<\/p>

Keywords<\/strong>: Theatre program, motivating students, acting methods, teaching methods, pedagogy<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When I joined the advisory committee to establish the School\nof Drama at the Korean National University of the Arts in 1993, I had a dream:\nI wanted to realize the ideal theatre education. At that time, there were only\nseven schools that had programs for theatre education in the whole country, but\nthose schools were under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. Just as in\nmany other countries, this Ministry was, and still is, the most bureaucratic\nand unimaginative part of the government, and it supervised the education for\nthe theatre only as a liberal art. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Under the premise of “drama as starting point and completion of all kinds of performing arts” beyond the conventional notion, the School aims at nurturing students as “Creators,\u201d future leaders who pioneer Korean and world theatrical art. From the Department\u2019s webpage<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Most of the students wanted to be trained as practitioners.\nThey were would-be professionals in acting, directing, scenic design and\nplaywriting. But they had so many compulsory classes\u2014that had nothing to do\nwith theatre practice\u2014that they had no time for professional training. Many graduates\nof these early theatre schools dominated the Korean theatre scene\u2014and TV dramas\nand film, too\u2014but they learned their skills as actors, directors, scenic designers\nand dramatists through their own practical experience, not through any systematic\neducation or institutional training. In this context, there was a strong call\nfor a conservatory-like School for the dramatic arts. As a result, the then-government\ndecided to create the School of Drama at the Korean National University of the\nArts, and to move it from the Department of Education to the Ministry of Culture.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The advisory committee comprised four professionals from\ndifferent backgrounds: an actress, a scenic designer, a dramatic theorist and\nan academic theatre critic, which was me. We met every week for a year to\ndiscuss and design the basic educational direction of this new School of Drama,\nincluding the structure of the departments, the number of students and\nprofessors, the curriculum and process for selecting the students, the design\nof the teaching spaces, the facilities and equipment, on and on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We reached agreements on the following four guidelines for\ntheatre education:<\/p>\n\n\n\n