around the room fulfils the role of a brainstorm. A listing and echoing of complaints
is heard. The scene is then inverted, with players asked to repeat the exercise but
this time taking the roles of two Year 10 students. Another channel surfing shows
the student side of the complaints‘story’.
The parody invited via‘The Complaints Game’invites exaggeration and dis-
tortion. Though the performances are a distortion, they reveal a pattern that operates
beyond the personal. What is exaggerated here is the opposition between students
and teacher. Made to loom large the scenarios seem to be both true (teachers and
students do feel aggrieved) and not true (but not to this heightened extent).
The next task invites participants to deconstruct the patterns that they heightened
in the parody. They gather in groups of four to‘reality-test’the scenarios and they
talk together about what they actually think teachers and studentsfind hard. They
are called on to reality test what has been seen in the complaints game by com-
paring it to what they believe to be real-life concerns. There is a serious quality to
this enquiry that sits upon the previous playfulness of‘The Complaints Game’.
After talking in their buzz groups, students and teachers engage in dialogue about
what studentsfind stressful or challenging about school life, and about what they
believe their teachers can do to help. The students are positioned as key informants,
reporting on their world. The teachers work as investigators, seeking the students’
views and advice.
Later in the workshop the players work in small groups to create a scene in
which something is happening at school which negatively affects the student. They
show their selected scene as a freeze frame, and the group reads its message. The
students then speak to the message of the scene, using it to help them articulate the
effect on their learning, engagement or well-being. They use thefiction to help them
describe the reality.
Studentis to approach theTeacherto seek help in relation to the bullying that he
or she has been subjected to. After a few minutes to improvise their scene one pair
volunteers to show their work. The scene is replayed. The performance shows the
hesitancy in the Student and the tension in the Teacher. Neither wants this moment
in their life. They are pinned into a story they do not want. The teacher is abrupt.
The student assumes that the teacher does not care.
Volunteers are asked to add to this scenario by stepping into the role of the
‘Hidden Thoughts’of the characters. They are askedWhat might this person be
thinking or feeling but not saying out aloud? What is s/he hoping for? What is s/he
afraid of?the following response is created as the student’s hidden thoughts
He is thinking that he should be able to handle this by himself
he is weak if he can’t
He is feeling ashamed
like it is all his fault.
He is hoping the teacher will understand,14 Repositioning, Embodiment and the Experimental Space... 215