Wittgenstein and the Teaching of Drama

This article introduces the concept of an ‘integrated’ approach to the teaching of drama as a means of identifying the valuable legacy of Drama in Education. The current emphasis on an ‘inclusive’ approach to drama teaching (which accepts the value of different methods of working such as improvisation, performance, use of text) is not in itself an adequate formulation because it obscures important differences in approach. The writing of Wittgenstein is used to elucidate the concept of ‘integration’. His work demonstrates how easily we can be forced into making false choices because of mistaken views of the way language has meaning. This insight has relevance to drama teaching because it often appears that choices have to made between contrasting concepts, for example, between drama as a form of learning/drama as play, personal/cultural justifications, and especially internal/external dimensions of experience. Arguments against dualism which writers have advanced run the risk of moving drama towards an arid form of behaviourism. An appropriate approach to teaching drama will seek to integrate content and form, means and ends, and ‘internal’ and ‘external’ dimensions of experience.