S stands for SOCIAL Development
Drama facilitates social development as it is intrinsic to the discipline. Rather than having the students sitting in rows, looking at each others' backs, we work in a circle, in pairs or in groups. We very rarely work as lone individuals.
Students learn to cooperate, to collaborate, to coordinate and to contribute. They learn to listen, to question, to ask for clarification, to take turns and to accept differences of opinion. They learn to manoeuvre around people in the room, to NOT bump into each other or into items of furniture, to use appropriate body language and control their movements to show meaning which matches perfectly with their words.
Our learners gradually learn to tolerate other people's ways of being even if it irritates them personally, even if it is not in accordance with their own ways and so learn to empathise. They begin to accept differences in thinking, differences in manners, differences in abilities and disabilities, differences in cultures and, in general, they start to realise that life is diverse and our classroom is an example of diversity in real life.
We raise awareness of the fact that "We are all the same....We are all different". We change perceptions and we work on problem solving and social intelligence skills.
No other academic subject works on team building quite like Drama because students don't get to work together to make something together which is emotionally so satisfying. Drama is holistic and it works because it is!