Instilling tolerance in teachers

Thirty years ago, Stacey Coates, an educational drama consultant from America, had developed a drama strategy that creates a non-judgmental atmosphere where risks lead to creative problem solving. Sponsored by American Embassy and Sanskriti Foundation, Coates was recently in the Capital to offer her tolerance techniques to school teachers belonging to primary, middle and senior secondary levels.
During her visit, Coates had conducted a four-day workshop titled ‘Teaching tolerance through drama’, which was attended by 35-40 teachers from top 15 Delhi schools, who experienced the effectiveness of drama as a teaching tool.As per Coates, the objective of the workshop is to experience the effect of ‘Pouring Paint’, a metaphor that describes behaviour that is destructive to creativit, drama strategy on the group’s ability to bond as a learning system. ‘‘In the workshop, I explained to teachers the dramatic strategies for managing conflict such as structuring opportunities for students to present their points of view in a tolerant atmosphere’’, said she.
Emphasising that teamwork is a requisite for drama work, Coates said: ‘‘ Team depends upon cooperation and insists on interdependence and equality�.