Willie Russell the author of the play “Our Day out” had a very similar life to the children in the play. Russell comes from a working class background. Russell left school at the age of fifteen with no formal qualifications. When he left school he became a ladies hairdresser for five years, then a labourer for a further year. After this he enrolled on a one year ‘A’ level course this enabled him to go to ST. Katherine’s college of higher education in order to train as a teacher. Soon after this Russell decided that he would like to become a playwright after he attended a play at the Liverpool’s ‘everyman theatre’. He attended night classes specialising in drama. This is when he began writing plays.
“Our Day Out” is based around a school trip from the inner cities of Liverpool to Conway Castle in Wales. This play focuses on the Progress class and their first outing on a trip with two teachers called Mr. Briggs and Mrs. Kay. They are special needs children with learning difficulties, and are taught by Mrs. Kay who is in charge of the trip. The teachers, Mr. Briggs and Mrs. Kay are best suited for the needs of the children in the Progress class. The main pupil in whom this play focuses on is a girl named Carol. Carol is a poor young girl who is eager to attend the trip, she rushes to school with enthusiasm.
The deeper issues that you draw your attention are different teaching methods, attitudes towards the children, special needs education and the possibility of escaping a poor a background for both the teachers and the children. An example of the different teaching methods is Mrs. Kay is a very calm, kind, soft and gentle character and lets the children ‘get away with murder’ whereas Mr. Briggs is very abrupt, loud and shouts a lo...
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...nk we should be inside, looking after them.” I think Mr. Briggs was right as the children could have been doing anything in the shop. ‘Scene twenty-one’ shows us Mr. Briggs’s views on teaching the children. Mr. Briggs wants the children to have a planned teaching method, he doesn’t like Mrs. Kay’s way of teaching as he thinks it is unorganised. I think this tells us about his character, that he knows that is the children are taught properly they can succeed. On the top of the cliff when Carol says that Briggs is just scared he’ll get into trouble if she jumps, I don’t think this is true as I really think that Mr. Briggs was caring about Carol and didn’t want her to hurt herself. I think Mr. Briggs took the kids to the fair as he was feeling very sorry for them also he had let out some deep feelings throughout the day, it just shows that every one has a nice side.
The first half of the play concerns a celebration - twins Girlie Delaney and Dibs Hamilton are celebrating their 80th birthdays, and with the gathering of their families comes the eruption of simmering resentments and anxieties about the future of Dibs and Farley Hamilton's farm, Allandale. The second half starts with a funeral and portrays the shattering of the tenuous links that held the family together.
How does this relate to how you see yourself as a teacher? I appreciated how the teacher was spontaneous in reading to the children. For example, in the story Otis makes a noise putt puff putted chuff and she asked the students to mimic the noise that Otis made. I think that by being spontaneous and being sensitive to the environment and atmosphere learning will be fun and more memorable for the children.
Two stories are brought together “A&P” and “Gryphon” to represent the struggles that every character faces. Sammy the main character in “A&P”, and Tommy the main character in “Gryphon” face a struggle that will put them to the test. For Sammy the struggle is, should he stand up to his boss and defend the girls or should he let it go. Tommy faces the conflict of, does he believe the substitute teacher and defend her against everyone else or does he follow what everybody else is doing. In their stories, Tommy and Sammy are put up against a conflict that they have never seen before, and their “job” is to decide what they should do and how they should approach the problem.
All of this leads to obsessing over disciplining and having high test scores to compete with other school around the area. In Finland, they have no standardized tests that students need to take. When people are in trouble in Finland, an approach is taken to help them and support them. This is different in America. This supports the example of Harold as none of the teachers at the school took the approach to help Harold or even to support him. Many accusations were said that Harold is the problem and not the teachers. However, as Rose took a stand for Harold and helped him as he started to give up. With the standardized testing, it puts students with similar scores in the same classes. From this, Millie was put in a remedial class which was stated as an average class. As the schools soon start to care about the results of the standardized tests, the school start to focus on math, science,and reading which leads kids to being the same. This makes school not fun and the students end up dreading on going to school. In Finland, not only do the school focus on math, science, and reading they also focus on other important studies such as the arts, humanity, and physical education. Focusing on it all gives the students the ability to become creative and be their own individual person. Ken Robinson also proves that giving students the individual attention that they need helps them thrive to meet the goals that they have in education. Ken Robinson claimed, “Education does not go on in the committee rooms of out Legislative Buildings, it happens in the classrooms and schools. And the people who do it are the teachers and the students. And if you remove that discretion it stops working” (TEDtalks 13:15). When a teacher teaches a student will learn. Taking the actions to actually
Willy Russell has wrote plays based in Liverpool because this is where he was brought up as a kid in a working class family, Blood Brothers relates to this and aspects of class that he would have experienced when he lived there. Willy Russell grew up just outside Liverpool, he left school when he was only 15 to become a hairdresser, it was in his early twenties when he decided to go back to school and take his O levels. His plays were about everyday circumstances and his
middle of paper ... ... Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 25 (1), 45-51. Retrieved from http://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol25/iss1/5. Western Australian Department of Education. a.
Each character, in some capacity, is learning something new about themselves. Whether it be new views, new feelings, newfound confidence, or a new realization of past events, each character involved in the play realizes something view-altering by the end of the play. Bonny is realizing that she is growing up and discovering how to deal with boys, and to lie to her parents; Elsie realizes that she doesn’t need her father for everything, and eventually overcomes her fear of driving on her own; Grace is discovering that she must let her children think for themselves at times, and that she must let Charlie choose what he wants to do; and Charlie, of course, is discovering that there are more ways to think than the status quo that society presents. Each character obviously goes through very different struggles throughout the play, but in the end, they all result in realizing something about themselves they didn’t at the beginning of the
Comedy in Our Day Out by Russell In this assignment I am going to look at the ways in which Willy Russell has created humour within the play 'Our Day Out'. I will pay particular attention to the characters, their dialogue and the events that take place Willy Russell was born in a town near Liverpool, he left school at fifteen with no idea what he wanted to do and nothing but an O'level in English. ' Our Day Out', 'Blood Brothers' and 'Educating Rita' are a reflection of Russell's own experience of education.
The story identifies three characters; Sylvia, Sugar and a black woman Ms. Moore. Initially, Sylvia does not like Miss Moore as she believed she prevented children from having fun but in reality Miss Moore wanted to show them the real side of the life. So she organized a trip to F.A.O Schwartz. As the story develops the reader gets a glimpse of Sylvia “street smarts” and leadership role as they traveled to toy store in a cab. The group horses around the taxi while Sylvia is scheming a way to keep the money for herself. Miss Moore is aware of this when she gives them the money, lending the reader to believe this is all part of the lesson of the day. By doing this she is showing the children the value of money and work. When they arrive at store the lesson continues as they gawk at the toys in the window and find it hard to comprehend what kind of people have this kind of money to throw away on toys. The turning point occurs when Sylvia’s best friend, Sugar, questions Miss Moore about the fairness of people spending the same amount of money on a toy that some families would use for basic survival needs. This leads to climax where Sylvia confesses, “And something weird is goin on, I can feel it in my chest.” (Bambara, 653). this shows Sylvia’s feeling of betrayal by her friend along with the realization that she is right. The denouement is the last line of the story where she states , “but ain’t nobody gonna beat me at
When Stephen tries to recapture Kate, in the scene in the primary school, he too is overwhelmed by childhood. Without thinking he is drawn into a lesson and becomes a stereotyped student until he is able to break out of this strange reality and return to ...
A requirement in being an early childhood teacher, is to fulfill the needs, of the children and families I will work for. In chapter one, you have the Lawrence and Ashley Family. In the Lawrence family, they are a married couple, which means more income for the family. Whereas the Ashley family has one income. In addition, to the Ashley family, having one income and dealing with the state can bring heartache and struggles to buy food, clothes, housing, school supplies and other day to day activities. Therefore, I need to comprehend the lives of the families I work for and to be aware of the circumstances of the individual families. To the same degree. I need to respect the boundaries; of the families I work for. Trust is a must. With no trust, there is no communication and things get can get
There are many elements to a play that can engage the minds of an audience. Paper Wheat uses the history of its audience to keep them captivated. Written around 1977, Paper Wheat focuses on a period in the early part of the 20th century when many migrants and immigrants were moving to Western Canada in search of a prosperous living. They heard that land was cheap, and they wanted to be wheat farmers. PaperWheat’s target audience is the retired farmers and their families who are now looking back on the hardships and struggles they endured. It is an historical reflection of their lives.
“Theatre is like a gym for the empathy. It’s where we can go to build up the muscles of compassion, to practice listening and understanding and engaging with people that are not just like ourselves. We practice sitting down, paying attention and learning from other people’s actions. We practice caring.” (Bill English of the SF Playhouse). This quote accurately summarises the purpose of Children’s Theatre, to help the growth and understanding of children whilst also keeping them entertained through theatrical techniques. The National Theatre’s Cat in the Hat, along with our performance pieces of Cranky Bear and Possum Magic all showcased these techniques in a number of ways, whilst also subconsciously coinciding with the child development theories
In today’s society, schools in wealthy communities are better than those in poor communities, higher income schools are simply better at preparing their students for their future. In the reading “The Banking Concept Of Education As An Instrument Of Oppression” by Paulo Freire, he believes that teachers are depositing information into their students. He states that there are two educational systems, the “banking concept” is when teachers are filling their students up with information but the students aren’t fully understanding the material. On the other hand, the “problem posing concept” is when the teacher lets the students communicate with each other. It opens the classroom to a learning environment. Especially when students are more comfortable enough to ask the teacher a question. Esentionally he prefers the problem posing concept. Futhermore, “Social Class and The Hidden Curriculum Of Work” by Jean Anyon an educator at Rutgers University, Newark. She researches how students of different economic backgrounds are interacting with school work and teacher interaction in their elementary schools. Also, she supports her research by looking at the various ways public schools provide particular types of knowledge and educational experiences of the different social classes.
“Changing Educational Paradigms” is a video where Sir Ken Robinson explains why he believes the current educational system has to change in order to stop the rise of American students being treated for ADHD. Robinson reveals that schools haven’t changed since the 18th century where the enlightenment and the industrial revolution had a lot to do with how American schools were designed to work. American schools are still organized based on the production line mentality, and intelligence was based off deductive reasoning and knowledge of the classics, all of this is deep in the academic gene pool. Robinson states that while they are trying to change the educational system they are doing so by doing what they did in the past. Which is something