Ten Benefits of Learning Drama at Schools
- Updated on 28 Jan 2020
- Creativity
Drama and theatrics are already part of children’s lives even before they start their school in the form of fictional plays at home such as doctors, nurses, pilots, engineers, dentists and more. This allows them to create their own identity by creating situations that have many similarities in the real world.
Globally, schools are recognizing that one of the best ways to encourage and promote soft skills and emotional intelligence in children is through drams. These are the skills that the traditional educational system cannot provide.
Learning drama has many benefits— it improves communication skills and helps to learn teamwork, dialogue, negotiations, and socialization. It also stimulates the imagination and creativity of the students. It also helps them get a better understanding of human behavior and situations. It helps students to develop their critical thinking abilities which allows them to make better decisions. The other benefit of learning theatrics is that it allows children to learn better morals and to speak up for what’s right.
There are several benefits that students can see from drama/theatrics classes in their schools.
- Develops Speech and Communication Skills
The first benefit that students get from drama or theatrics is they learn to speak, communicate, and present better. Look at all the actors around and you’ll find that they are some of the well dressed, well presented, soft-spoken, and well-read people and this is what drama does to your child too. Right from learning new lines for a skit or drama to enacting communication games to writing and presenting a script, theatrics, and drama help children to develop their vocabulary, speech, and communication skills. Dramas also help children to become better communicators in life as it involves using voices and tones, facial expressions, body language, and movements, all of which are crucial in making students better and effective communicators in life.
- Prepares Students for Life’s Problems
Drama and theatrics teach children to deal with life’s problems. These activities give children the chance to rehearse roles and characters and enact many real-life situations. This, in many ways, help them to make a sense of happenings in their real-life at a later stage.
- Builds Confidence
When children play roles in dramas, they are enacting in front of several people, so even the shyest of the student will learn to keep their inhibitions away and face the world and people confidently.
- Builds Creativity
Drama and theatrics are all about creativity and creative people have the knack of viewing problems and opportunities from a different angle. When confronted with a problem, they will always manage to make their way out of it— think of it as a crucial life skill. This is one of the crucial ingredients for innovation and entrepreneurship.
- Helps Improve Concentration
Dramas are all about the right timing and concentration. When children are actively involved in theatrics, they need to focus on several things—timings and concentration included. Children learn to use these important skills in their daily lives, both at home and at school. This will lead them to use these skills even when they grow old and are professionally engaged.
- Develops Critical Thinking and Decision-Making Skills
Dramatic arts are known to support students with problem-solving skills as well as giving them the knowledge on how to react and behave in a certain situation.
- Encourages Team Work
Dramas, like sports and other group activities, are the perfect time to learn teamwork and cooperation. When students take part in dramas, they need to work coherently with other students in order to get everything right and this is where they learn to gel and cooperate with others.
- Supports Development of Empathy
When children enact their roles with diverse emotions, they get the opportunity to clearly understand their own emotions and develop sympathy for others. Through dramas and enactment of plays, children explore all kinds of conflict and challenging characters, and this allows them to understand the reason for the existence of each character and situation. This way they learn empathy for others.
- Helps with Physical Development
Dramas, which sometimes include dancing and lots of movement, help students with physical development. Just like sports, dramas are physically demanding, which in turn help young children to gain body strength and control.
- Help Make Friends for Life
Whether music or business, when people have common interests, they build upon that interest. Similarly, dramas bring people with similar interests together and in all probability, they will form a friendship of a lifetime.
Drama is all about cross-curricular learning. It’s a valuable resource that can be used to learn many subjects, specifically in learning literacy skills— to learn languages as well as to develop reading and speaking skills. It also helps students to understand different points of view and speak up for what is right. Dramatic arts are known to help students to read and write for a range of purposes.
Drama and theatrics give children opportunities to understand and deal with a range of difficult issues. It also encourages them to think, act, and behave creatively in all areas of learning as well as life. With dramas, children take up responsible roles that go a long way in helping them lead better lives.
At Orchids The International School, we have drama as part of our co-scholastic activities, which help them learn with ease and become better at whatever they do- now and at a later stage in life.
