Wonderful news to announce.
Naomi Tessler, my friend and fellow educational theatre colleague, and I are collaborating. We created a professional development workshop format for teachers and teacher candidates called Beyond the Apple: Acting for Equitable and Inclusive Teaching Practice, an experiential professional development workshop for teachers. Naomi and I co-facilitate this workshop and we use the techniques from the Theatre of the Oppressed, such as Forum Theatre and Image Theatre as well as elements of Playback Theatre. These techniques help teachers to heighten their critical awareness of personal biases and inequities as well as discriminatory situations that are taking place in their workplace, in their classrooms and among their students. We currently offering the workshop to Ontario school boards and school principals to suit their staff professional development needs.
We believe that for teachers to be able to promote social change and work towards inclusive and equitable classrooms and school environment, they first need to see themselves as agents of change.
Beyond the Apple offers strategies to directly assist teachers’ immediate experiences in their day-to-day school life. In addition to critically reflecting on their teaching practice, teachers will be encouraged to contemplate how to improve communication with students, colleagues, and other constituents, and ameliorate their conflict resolution skills/approaches.
Our workshop merges the practices and theories of critical pedagogy, Theatre of the Oppressed, and performance. We believe that our workshop will greatly contribute to the quality of teachers’ professional development as it addresses the realistic challenges and relationships in multicultural classrooms and schools and aims to equip teachers with the tools to actively create positive change.
Beyond the Apple offers strategies to directly assist teachers’ immediate experiences in their day-to-day school life. In addition to critically reflecting on their teaching practice, teachers will be encouraged to contemplate how to improve communication with students, colleagues, and other constituents, and ameliorate their conflict resolution skills/approaches.
Our workshop merges the practices and theories of critical pedagogy, Theatre of the Oppressed, and performance. We believe that our workshop will greatly contribute to the quality of teachers’ professional development as it addresses the realistic challenges and relationships in multicultural classrooms and schools and aims to equip teachers with the tools to actively create positive change.
This is us, facilitators:
Pavla Uppal, M.A.
Pavla Uppal, M.A.
is a theatre artist and educator specializing in experiential learning. Through the work with diverse populations in the Czech Republic, Canada, and the USA, she has been expanding the use of theatre arts as a tool for exploration, learning, and social change. Her practice is based in participant-centered philosophy and she uses the principles of critical pedagogy in her work. She is a Bachelor of Education program at OISE/University of Toronto graduate and has been a member of Ontario College of Teachers since 2003. Recently, she graduated from the Master of Arts in Applied Theatre, City University of New York, a discipline that promotes the use of theatre strategies and techniques in education, community development, and social justice. Since then, she has facilitated educational theatre and community-based theatre projects with diverse communities in the USA and Canada and is thrilled to be part of Toronto community-based theatre arts network.
To find out more about her professional projects, please visit: http://pavlauppal.blogspot.com/
Naomi Tessler, M.A.
is a theatre artist and educator and a graduate of the Masters of Arts program in Edu
cational Theatre for Colleges and Communities from New York University. Naomi has been working with communities globally for 7 years, using theatre-based workshops to inspire positive change. She currently works in Toronto, facilitating Branch Out Theatre Workshops with organizations and groups across the GTA. She is passionate about using theatre as a tool for encouraging self expression, self-confidence, community building environmental awareness, literacy, leadership, social justice and healing. She believes in uniting communities through theatre to build bridges towards personal and collective creative transformation.
To learn more about her professional practice and workshops, please visit: www.branchouttheatre.com
To find out more about her professional projects, please visit: http://pavlauppal.blogspot.com/
Naomi Tessler, M.A.
is a theatre artist and educator and a graduate of the Masters of Arts program in Edu
cational Theatre for Colleges and Communities from New York University. Naomi has been working with communities globally for 7 years, using theatre-based workshops to inspire positive change. She currently works in Toronto, facilitating Branch Out Theatre Workshops with organizations and groups across the GTA. She is passionate about using theatre as a tool for encouraging self expression, self-confidence, community building environmental awareness, literacy, leadership, social justice and healing. She believes in uniting communities through theatre to build bridges towards personal and collective creative transformation.
To learn more about her professional practice and workshops, please visit: www.branchouttheatre.com
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