Outline of project
Breaking Through (BT) involves the whole school community in working towards greater acceptance of diversity in all aspects of community life, incorporating drama to explore issues of victimisation, discrimination and bullying. It aims to empower students who have had these experiences and to contribute to a safer community culture. Breaking Through encourages greater self-awareness and sensitivity towards others in young people and builds resilience among those at risk.
This program targets issues such as:
• parenting issues;
• peer group pressures;
• school refusal;
• cultural and religious intolerance;
• silence, loneliness, suicide;
• sexual identity confusion;
• family violence;
• drug and alcohol use;
• eating disorders;
• body image;
• teen relationships; and
• pregnancy.
In Breaking Through, the school community’s awareness is raised about issues that are important for their students, and curriculum strategies are developed. Staff are offered professional development and trained to facilitate drama performances and incorporate related strategies into their teaching.
The centre-piece events of Breaking Through are student drama performances using techniques adapted from the Theatre of the Oppressed (TOTO). These performance-based strategies and workshops explore the hurt and damage experienced through discrimination and victimisation. TOTO is an example of Forum Theatre, developed by the South American theatre director Augusto Boal in the 1970’s.
It is a theatrical game in which a problem is shown in an unsolved form, to which the audience is invited to suggest and enact solutions… Its aim is always to stimulate debate (in the form of action, not just words), to show alternatives, to enable people to become the protagonists of their own lives. (Boal, 1975)
In Breaking Through, a group of students develop, rehearse and present several dramatic performances, focusing on difficult issues experienced in their school community. Students who participate as audience members are prepared for the performances with curriculum related activities. Performances include members of the audience as ‘spect-actors’ in various scenes. Audience members are dealing with difficult issues raised rather than sitting back as passive spectators. After performances have concluded, structured discussions continue within the school around issues raised in performances. Teachers utilise a variety of materials, including those they develop themselves, in an integrated curriculum. Breaking Through initially had a focus on young people who may be targeted because of their presumed homosexuality or for being same-sex attracted, because these youth are much more likely to attempt suicide (See ‘STOP PRESS’, p. 26). However, the program elicits discussion about many other issues - eating disorders, family violence, teenage pregnancy, etc. - and stimulates general discussion about building a safer school community for all students. Breaking Through is suitable for students from upper primary through all secondary ages.
