Can a Circle of Oppression Be Broken? An Experiment of an Educator with Theatre of the Oppressed

Abstract

As a teacher educator, I often use experiential pedagogies that I believe enhance student teachers’ reflective “muscle,” creativity, social responsibility, and overall pedagogical understanding, as I believe these assets advance their agentic professional identity, which in turn affects their teaching quality. While studying students’ reactions to Augusto Boal’s technique of Invisible Theater, I found myself engaged in a self-study concerned with my role and disposition as a teacher educator in terms of preparations for class discussions, questioning of dispositions, and experiences of oppression. After introducing the key concept and setting of this study, I discuss my experience and role with two groups of Israeli student teachers and the lessons I learned about my practice and professional identity in the process. I conclude this paper by suggesting conditions to be taken into consideration for Invisible Theater to be an effective pedagogical tool for social awareness and responsibility.

Keywords:

• Student-teachers
• teacher education
• social awareness
• oppression
• dialogical pedagogy
• theater of the oppressed
• invisible theater
• self-study
• agentic teacher