My career in Drama Education began with my first taste of "Drama", when, as an adolescent, I met regularly on Saturday afternoons at the Public Library in Hamilton, Ontario with Bob Barton, David Booth, and Sharon Enkin. Barton and Booth are recognized as pioneers in the field of Educational Child Drama. Barton, as a free-lance consultant and author, continues to tour the province, specializing in storytelling modes of Drama. Booth, who was a member of the Faculty of Education at the University of Toronto, and instructor at OISE/UT, moved on to his appointment as Professor Emeritus at OISE/UT. He has authored numerous books, and journal articles on topics, not only for the Arts, but also for the art of Teaching. Ms. Enkin has administered the Golden Horseshoe Players, a Professional Drama in Education company that has toured the province with collectively created shows based on contemporary social/moral issues confronting youth.

During these sessions at the library, the above instructors led me through a series of spontaneous Drama exercises. I froze to the sound of a drumbeat, imagined myself in a variety of Dramatic roles and contexts and moved freely to rhythmic stimuli exploring my voice and body rhythms. I was hooked!

Then, in high school, I joined the extra-curricular Drama club: a few dedicated ‘artsies’ putting on a school show, or play. And, on a few memorable occasions, I was called to the stage to receive acting awards. That was all there was in the 1960's. However, I could not forget my special experiences from adolescence, those Barton/Booth/Enkin days, while I was developing as a stage actor focusing on stage performances for audiences at school and summer camp. My personal dichotomy of Drama versus Theatre was deeply rooted even in my teenage experience.

For those who walk with their eyes open it can be found in any place on earth where there are Children, parched and battered though it may be. It is a creation, a skill. It blossoms where there are patience, understanding, happiness, freedom, observation and humility. It is born of Play and is nurtured, guided, and provided for by the wise parent and the able teacher.

Child Drama is an Art in itself…(it) tells the teacher who and what the Child is and where it has got to in life. It helps the teacher to become a friendly and sensitive person, enriching both the mind and personality enormously. It provides within it the two forms of Play. Personal Play is obvious Drama; the whole Person or Self is used. It is typified by movement and characterization…From projected Play the Child gains, to an extent, emotional and physical control, confidence, ability to observe, tolerate and consider others. There is also a process of blowing off steam, and a great realm of adventure and discovery is encountered. (Slade, 1954, pp.19,106,29)

In 1972, I received a flyer from the University of Calgary advertising a course being taught on Child/Developmental Drama at Goldsmith's College in the southwest of London, England. It was coordinated by Richard Courtney with his wife, Rosemary, and Victor E. Mitchell from the University of Calgary. I didn’t know at the time that this would be a critical turning point of my career path.

I had just completed my undergraduate degree that year so I decided to register for that summer course which eventually determined my "fate". I scrounged together enough pounds and began the quest. It was a result of that summer experience with experts like: E.J. Burton, Dorothy Heathcote, Peter Slade, Brian Way, the actors from his Child Drama Centre, and fellow students: Fabian Lemieux, Ellen Messing, Brenda Parres et al, that I felt compelled to apply for teacher-training at the University of Toronto. It was a decision that I have never regretted.

In 1975, I was hired by the Hamilton Board of Education to teach English and used a minimal amount of Dramatic activity in the classroom (I'm ashamed to say). I was a new teacher grasping for survival techniques. Little did I realize that Dramatic activity would have been a most comfortable and exciting method for me to use in my teaching. Drama in the classroom was not trusted as a method for teaching the core academic subjects so I merely followed the curriculum guidelines and advice of my Department Heads. It was, however, acceptable to use some role playing exercises, in the study of plays and other Dramatic literature; it was not acceptable, however to use these forms of activity all the time. Educators were hailing group or cooperative learning as the new truth to learning; but timidly, l did not call it by its other name: the Dramatic approach. I completed my Drama Specialist’s qualifications at the Faculty of Education (University of Toronto) and received my Master of Education degree in Arts and Education, Curriculum in 1978 (OISE/UT).

After that, I returned to the Secondary School panel in Hamilton in 1978/79. There, I taught Drama for thirteen years, dabbling in amateur community theatre after hours, while maintaining a commitment to my growing philosophy of Drama-in-Education.

In 1989, I moved to Toronto, to pursue Doctoral studies at OISE/UT. After that year in residence, I was fortunate to find a position with a School of the Arts in the Peel Board of Education. I taught there for two years until I applied for a position of responsibility at my current secondary school. I became the Head of the Dramatic Arts Department there until 1999, when the conservative School Reform movement caused the Provincial reorganization of the structure of schools. This political dynamic, in its effort to standardize all curricula in the province, would again emphasize a dichotomy in Drama-in-Education.

Developmental Drama involves the personal growth of the student. It uses dramatic forms and strategies in a dynamic, sequential manner, based on the physical and psychological stages of human development. Stressing personal physical and intellectual growth, Developmental Drama places greater emphasis on affective learning than on cognitive learning and on the learning process than on the product or presentation. (Katz, S. & Manson, B., 1986)

When I arrived on the teaching scene in 1975, I was well aware that Drama was only beginning to achieve official approval in educational systems. It progressed from being called Theatre Arts to "Dramatic Arts" in Ontario. Ten years later, tens of thousands of Grade 8 -12 students were taking courses; and teachers took Drama pre-service in a Bachelor of Education degree, and three summer in-service courses to become Drama "specialists", proceeding to graduate degrees. My personal history applies here.

It was called "Drama" elsewhere in English Canada but it was "L’expression Dramatique at the University of Montreal where Gisele Barret developed a strong graduate program. Simultaneously she began to influence work in Western Europe. Also, in Quebec, Helene Beauchamp developed the relation of "jeu" to theatre.

About this time a number of other British teachers (Heathcote, Bolton, O'Neill etc.) and Americans (Haaga, McCaslin, etc.) visited. This aided the impetus for Drama to be included in official programs and curricula. At the same time, Canada produced its own homegrown leaders such as Bob Barton, David Booth, Sue Martin, Dennis Mulcahy, Joyce Wilkinson and others supported by Canadian scholars like Otto Weininger and Peter McLaren. Canadians no longer had to travel overseas to obtain high calibre qualifications. What Canada is noted for is its assimilatory quality - it incorporates British, American and French influences. It melds together notions from education, therapy, social work, and theatre. The bi-lingual and multicultural reality, together with the provincial independence of a federated state, means that even while there is a common curricular core in Drama curriculum, there are wide differences between localities across the country. This diversity means that Canada has developed a plurality in Educational Drama. (Courtney, 1987).

I agree with Courtney's words, written in 1987, "Canada's influence on the field has been assimilatory." In 1993, teachers were travelling to England (Newcastle, and London) to take summer courses with Heathcote, Warwick Dobson, Jonathan Neelands, Tony Goode, Cecily O'Neill etc. organized by Larry Swartz (OISE/UT) or Larry O’Farrell (Queen’s). Through these Additional Qualifications programs for Dramatic Arts, teachers could receive upgrading certification even beyond their specialist’s level.

Experts in the field from Australia, England and the United States, were being invited to lead workshops and teach short courses at conferences, and continuing education University courses. Canada's own leaders from the 1970's e.g. Booth, Lundy, Johnstone, Kemp, Morgan, Saxton, Wilkinson etc.) made way for new leadership.

And Canada has slowly developed its own literature in the field. Initially readers had to rely on foreign works. Apart from a selection of plays, the first major books did not appear until the 1970's. That was fifty years after the initial works from Britain and the United States. The 1970's and 80's saw an increasing number of books. These were bewilderingly diverse, ranging from "how-to" texts to learned publications; there were totally different strategies, techniques, and philosophies (separating Drama education and Theatre education). Although the book market in Canada is small compared with Britain and the US, some publishers have even issued books with a predominantly local appeal; e.g., Layman in Newfoundland (1976) and Keller in B.C. (1975). In contrast, other books by Canadians have had world-wide sales (*internationally: Courtney/Campbell’s history of educational Drama, Booth/Lundy’s texts (1985, 86), and Warren's, A Theatre in your Classroom (l991). (Courtney, 1987)

Courtney had discovered through his collecting of data for his book of bibliographic information that there is no Canadian learned journal in the field existing. The void remains still.

What has happened since the 1970’s to the "image" and "acceptance" of Drama education? Skepticism reigned in the early years and built a strong anti-academic following. It was a time when those purists at the extreme end of the pendulum axis, devotees of the British leaders in the field, opposed theorists and "academics" who wrote analyses, models for Dramatic action, and referred to theatrical theorists (Brecht, Stanislavski), developmental psychologists (Erikson, Piaget, Kohlberg), sociologists (Goffman), philosophers (Aristotle, Plato, Locke), anthropologists (Mead) and others of such kind. I listened to criticisms about those academics who didn't "teach" Drama in the classroom. The critics argued that Drama is about "doing" and those who talked about or wrote about "doing" were hypocrites who used only recollections of teaching experiences.

This opposition to theorists, the likes of Courtney, were vaguely understandable then. Drama-in-Education had not been included as a specific subject or discipline in University graduate degree programs because it was considered to belong to either The Fine Arts or the study of Dramatic Literature.

When I first began my M.Ed. program at OISE/UT, there was no such Arts and Education specialization within the Department of Curriculum. Therefore, I had to acquire special permission to connect all my research in the category of Drama education. And it was those perceptions, which kept many Drama educators away from graduate studies. Since the 1980's, however, there has been a considerable growth in the number of applicants to graduate programs.

Drama Education has become a subject in its own right at the high school level, and an assessment category on the report cards of the middle and elementary schools across Canada. Boards of Education in their hiring practices have sought out qualified individuals to assume positions of responsibility and leadership in the Arts. The 1990's have been a time of accountability for Drama educators - it has not been merely good enough to be an "experienced" practitioner in such a competitive and dynamic field. In the new millennium, there will be an even greater demand for the "degreed" practitioner to keep the pace of the competition.

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How is Drama a helping or therapeutic medium? This question was the basis for my investigation of the inter-relationship between Drama and Therapy in an educational context. Since the topic of inquiry is a considerably extensive one, I have defined the terms of the relationship while focussing on the narratives of a selected number of Dramatic arts educators/artists/specialists.

The title of the study connects "Drama and Therapy" and does not imply "Drama in Therapy". This difference has been clarified in the research process. Similarly, it has been important to compare educational goals and those of therapy in the objectives of the study. The Dramatic medium in an educational context is holistic, offering multi- applications and uses. However, Koltai's firm belief is that a good educator needs to possess some therapeutic skills just as the effective therapist has to be able to teach when necessary. This philosophy expresses an ever-present duality in the nature of the Dramatic medium and suggests the mutual benefits of the educator and the therapist accepting each other's input (Koltai in Schattner, G., Courtney, R., 1981, p.200).

In the Dictionary of Developmental Drama, Courtney (1987, p.30) defines Dramatherapy as "physical, psychological health in educational settings." This definition is limited and asks for clarification of what exactly the expression "educational settings" means. Dramatherapist, David Read Johnson (Schattner G., Courtney, R. 1981, p.13), provides a more detailed definition which emphasizes therapeutic goals being primary and not incidental to the on-going activity:

Dramatherapy is the name for the group of therapeutic approaches which utilizes in a significant way the nonverbal and symbolic media of creative Drama and Dramatic role-playing...

(Dramatherapy) expands the range of therapeutic possibilities...

Furthermore, the definition by the British Association of Dramatherapists (Schattner, G., Courtney, R., 1981) supplements those previously mentioned:

Dramatherapy is a means of helping to understand and alleviate social and psychological problems, mental illness and handicaps; and of facilitating symbolic expression through which man may get In touch with himself both as individual and group through creativity structures involving vocal and physical communication.

Much earlier, Peter Slade, (1954), came to use the term "Dramatherapy" to describe Dramatic activity in education that leads to "confidence, hope, feeling of security, discovery of sympathy and concentration". This definition will be the most useful for this study.

Landy (1986) portrays Drama as a subset of the larger field of educational Drama and theatre. He aligns with both Heathcote's and Bolton's positions that Dramatherapy is a subject or discipline in its own right and that educational Drama and theatre becomes one source for the related but separate field of Dramatherapy. Courtney's (1982) research supports this view: "Drama is a central process in human existence, extending not only to learning but also to playing, working, thinking, and to healing."

Landy (1986) includes the definition from the National Association for Dramatherapy (1979): "Dramatherapy can be defined as the intentional use of Drama/theatre processes to achieve the therapeutic goal of symptom relief, emotional and physical integration and personal growth."

The most significant part of what Landy says, is that the goals of Dramatherapy bear resemblance to educational and recreational goals and relate in some ways to many major psychotherapeutic theories viewing the client as embodying a confluence for conscious and unconscious processes of mind, body, feeling and intuition.

Thus, the use of such a clinical term as therapy may ignite a variety of negative connotations. I agree with Warren (1990) who includes Drama with all the Arts and does not isolate it as a superior medium in his assertion that "all the Arts can claim legitimately that they serve some positive function in an individual's development or well-being, but they also can be described as a treatment method. The Arts contribute to the same general aims as other aspects of education, rehabilitation and health care." Warren (1990) refers to Moss (1987) who differentiates the gap between Arts Therapy and Arts for Health. She suggests that Therapy focuses on the "cure of a specific diagnosed condition" while Arts for Health works towards mental and spiritual wholeness, without reference to this specific condition. The quest for "healthy-mindedness" should, in fact, close the gap between therapists and educators as practitioners whose goals are congruent.

A dilemma becomes evident by the negative attitudes expressed regarding the use of Therapy in educational settings. There has been traditionally a skeptical view held by Drama teachers concerning the place of therapy in the (Drama) classroom; conversely a similar avoidance by therapists to use Drama in Therapy. In a sense, we have two instances of Dramatherapy Phobia. Society is now cut up into experts and non- experts: the notion of doing Drama is compared with the professional theatre and, thus, a response from a Drama class will often be "I can't act. As a result, ordinary non-experts do not "do" Drama. (Jennings in Schattner, G., Courtney, R., 1981, p.61)

Warren (1990) describes the "battle lines" which exist between artists, art educators and arts therapists and acknowledges the different skills required to accomplish their specific aims. He warns that the "stitching of the banner of clinical therapy onto that of artistic endeavors allows the battle lines to be more clearly defined. I support both Koltai and Warren in the belief that unless the suspicions, insecurities and fears associated with territorial encroachment disappear, progress in all fields will be limited.

Consequently, it must be established that the use of Developmental Drama as a therapeutic medium exists separately from the medical/ psychotherapeutic domains, which use Drama strategies as intervention techniques with individuals and groups. In addition, the research must show that the goals of Developmental Drama described by Slade (1954), Heathcote (1971) and Courtney (1977) parallel the objectives of therapy.

With respect to 'techniques used by unskilled leaders, Jennings (in Schattner, G., Courtney, R., 1981) added a warning that "Dramatherapy can be destructive if not used with responsibility and it is easy to fob this off on people with ritual and pageantry, appealing to gross sentiment and self-indulgence."

Other complications in the planning of the research arose when one considers that in past research methodologies of arts therapy, inquiries have been "concentrated within quantitative psychological/psychotherapeutic/medical research...have attempted to achieve a result that the research tool was not capable of achieving..." (Courtney, 1987, p.109).

Courtney (1987) suggested that research methodologies for the Arts therapies have been limited for two main reasons: (1) methods have been primarily quantitative and address a question from outside the field and (2) the field is new...tending to piggyback upon other disciplines. In his summary of research in the creative arts therapies, Courtney recommends that research should:

1. Distinguish between assessment and evaluation
2. Primarily address a problem from the viewpoint of the discipline of the creative arts as therapy
3. Develop methodologies where the focus of the research is the creative arts activity used in therapeutic contexts and not in the service of another discipline.

In concurrence with Courtney's recommendations, the inquiry has attempted to develop an appropriate method, qualitative in style and structure, within the Dramatic Arts field while satisfying the following specific objectives:

1. To show how Drama is perceived as a helping tool by practitioners in the educational field.
2. To show how Dramatherapy techniques are available and adaptable to specific teaching/learning settings
3. To determine the perceptions held by teachers and students about the practical applications of Dramatherapy
4. To help teachers recognize the value of their role as helpers in a therapeutic sense
5. To support the definitions of Dramatherapy by direct application and demonstration.

The research acknowledges those external disciplines in the medical field while working within the parameters of Developmental Drama in the educational field. The hypothesis was that Drama-in-Education provides a medium for therapy. My task as the researcher was, therefore, to analyze the extent to which Drama is perceived by students, teachers and experts in the field as a therapeutic tool in their domain.

And, there has been a lack of qualitative research done on this topic. Although there has been some theoretical/philosophical research exploring the social and emotional benefits of using Drama in the classroom, there has been an apparent lack of practical, experiential inquiries done from a similar point of view. Most educational research explores a problem, which serves a field outside the domain of Developmental Drama giving emphasis to the role of the (expressive) Arts in therapy. (Duplessis, J. & Lochner, O., 1981, & Creadick, T. 1985). Other research shows how Creative Drama has potential as a therapeutic tool with special populations (Rainwater, A., 1982). However, the implications of this research topic for non-special or general populations seem to have been avoided.

Since the research of this particular study has focused on Drama as a therapeutic medium but in the generally unexplored context of educational settings, the results were unpredictable. I held certain expectations but these were based on outcomes of other qualitative research (informal, personal). The questions that arose at the onset of the study included:

1. Would there be questions about the reliability of findings based on the narrative style of research? This problem may be due to the duration of the study as well as personal bias(es) of the subjects and the perspective of the investigation.
2. How would these relate to the teacher’s personal backgrounds?
3. How would teachers' different interpretations of developmental Drama affect their teaching practice of therapeutic strategies in the Drama classroom?

My overall prediction is that Developmental Drama as a creative art will be valued as a helping/therapeutic medium in the classroom affecting individuals and groups.

Eisner (in Connelly, M., Clandenin, D., 1988) makes an important point when he comments about the lack of acceptance of interpretive analysis. I expect to justify my use of qualitative methods. "Conceptions of "best method" are supported by conceptions of measured outcomes. Both require standardization; both focus on what people do, and both neglect what people experience...it is possible to develop observation schedules for rating teacher and pupil behavior with perfect reliability and yet miss most of what counts in their lives - what they make of what they are doing."