I thank the panel for their insights, which were very interesting. This is one sliver of an approach that, in my experience, works in developing resilience. I introduce it to the members because I believe it is timely in light of junior cycle reforms where drama is introduced into the secondary school curriculum and where it is possible it will be introduced in the future at senior cycle. The approach I refer to involves youth theatre, which is very different from speech and drama, musical theatre or stage school. It is a unique type of work, and we are one of many youth theatres in the country that works in this area. We are all under the umbrella of an organisation called Youth Theatre Ireland, which was formally the National Association of Youth Drama, based here in Dublin. It is an amazing organisation that supports youth teachers with training, provides opportunities for young people to become involved and works with people to become facilitators of drama during their period of training with a programme called ArtsTrain.
To take up on what Dr. Bates said, in the past ten years I have found a change in the people who come to our youth theatre. They have moved from being eccentric and outgoing to people who are shy. We are seeing more shy people. A huge number of young people who have anxiety present to us, perhaps by their parents or on the recommendation of their teacher to come to the youth theatre. That profile of person has greatly increased. It is mostly the case with young males but also with females. That piqued my interest, largely because I wondered why somebody would consider that drama would be a place for somebody with anxiety yet, instinctively, I knew the reason. I began research and I am now researching a PhD in Maynooth on examining why that might be the case and whether this art form develops that particular resilience. I have paid a good deal of attention to my work and to the opinions of the young people and the research spoken about. Much of what I will talk about is based on the findings of that research.
The first point I would make is that we are not like school in that groups come together in ensembles and stay together for a long time. Their decision to be part of the ensemble is their own and the length of time as part of the ensemble is however long it lasts. There is no set time on it. Usually, it is between four and five years so there could be a number of these ensembles in a youth theatre at any one time.
It is not like school in that the learning material as to what will happen, and a lot happens, is not set out in advance in the youth theatre over the course of someone's one or two years in it. They do not know what will be involved but they do know will probably be fun and creative in some way. It is not broken into modules in the way it is done in second level, for example, where there might be a module in the Stanislavski method or in physical acting. It is integrated throughout performance, rehearsal and workshop. Strict attendance is not adhered to. There are no registers other than for child protection reasons and nobody is punished or otherwise about attendance. That kind of environment does not exist, nor is there any benign propaganda. By that I mean that nobody will tell the young person that this will be good for them and that they should take part in it. There are no known conclusions. For example, if we start a project we do not know that it will be about how bad drugs are for them, which is benign propaganda. It is true but it is not a conclusion people know before they start the project. They do not know what they will learn or discover as they undertake the project. Instead, there is a kind of pedagogy of surprise, which is based on what I have been looking at and reading about as part of my research. Most people who come in do not know what will happen next month but they know it will be good and that there is an opportunity for the quality and ambition of the work to be good or at a high level. They do not know how they will learn or what they will learn until they discover it themselves. We are providing a space for them to discover this learning about themselves, the world and social systems through the actual process itself. Nothing is set out or flagged in advance.
The young people discover that being flexible is a huge skill so they can take up invitations such as this one to come before the committee at reasonably short notice. To present here, make presentations or do performances in a matter of weeks at various places and so on, they must be flexible. They know the learning programme may change radically from one year to another depending on who comes into it or whose needs are being met. Overall, we get a sense that it is about creating adventures. Youth theatre is about creating adventures in learning with young people, and they are very much directors and owners of that. They determine the rate, the pace and the nature of the learning that goes on but primarily they learn unexpectedly; it is learning by surprise. They learn by doing something and reflecting back on it. In that way they realise they did not know that about themselves or that they had no idea how something worked in society until they did the show or went through the process. All of that motivates attendance and generates engagements. Those are the two major aspects that are behind the idea of building resilience.
In recent years, we discovered from my research and also from informal interviews that approximately 75% of our young men and 54% of our young women revealed that they have generalised anxiety disorder. A huge number of them attributed that to events in school. That is not to say that they all see school as a negative place because, as was said correctly earlier, most find a level of enjoyment at school but parts of the school programme trigger the anxiety.
One must channel those impulses into something creative, rather than turning them inwards and repressing one's desire to speak. One must also control over-reactions to things or people will say that one is over-acting and that the performance is bad. One learns to manage how one deals with situations of crisis. Finally, managing impulses is not just about calming people down. It is also about encouraging them to speak up. If one has an impulse that something is wrong and one wants to sedate it, one can do that in the drama process. Otherwise, it is very flat and boring.
Love, family and belonging are the traditional values that people associate with a youth theatre which is an intensely creative and collaborative experience. Belonging to a group is very important. One young person spoke about being secretly suicidal and planning his suicide until his first show, when he got a round of applause. He did not think anything of it until he got that round of applause. He felt that if the audience, who did not know him, applauded what he was doing then it was a short enough step for him to appreciate the person doing it, namely, himself. That changed his life.
In terms of recommendations, first we must continue to support youth theatre provision in this country through Youth Theatre Ireland. Ours is one of the few youth theatres that is funded regularly by our local authority, which is marvellous. That shows a huge understanding of and investment in youth theatre. We also need to look at the CAO system rather than schools themselves because a lot of stress on young people comes from the expectations around points. We must examine the requirements for entry to university and consider the inclusion of things like involvement in youth theatre. A controlled, monitored and possibly assessed involvement in a youth theatre programme run by Youth Theatre Ireland for a year, for example, could yield a certain number of points for young people. That could be implemented fairly easily and would encourage participation by young people.
In terms of the provision of drama at second level, there is a notion that drama can be taught by anyone but we would never accept that concept in terms of music or art, for example. We would not accept that a physical education teacher could teach music or that a maths teacher could teach art. Drama is a discipline that requires an enormous amount of practice, skill and training. To do it right, to bring about all of the outcomes about which I spoke, requires trained pedagogues. To do it wrong creates exactly the opposite outcome. It furthers the stress and increases the torture that young people feel, if they are in the wrong environment and made to perform without any preparation. We all have memories, from a very young age, of having to stand up and sing something when we were not ready.