Upon researching arts-based teaching and curriculum, I came across a rather interesting academic reading called Arts-Based Learning In Medical Education: The Students’ Perspective, written by authors Anne de la Croix, Catharine Rose, Emma Wildig, and Suzy Willson. This reading introduces a program called Performing Medicine, in which medical students attend arts-based teaching workshops, where they hone skills such as, “physical awareness, stamina, calmness, balance, concentration, voice skills, interpretation of a story, readiness for action, listening, observation, timing, confidence and flexibility.” (de la Croix, Rose, Wildig, and Willson, 2011). Performing Medicine was created by the Clod Ensemble theatre, Barts, The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, and the Department of Drama at Queen Mary University, London. The programme institutes five main themes, theme one: acting like a doctor, theme two: developing broader awareness of others, theme three: the self in focus, theme four: the art of communication, and theme five: a place for arts-based teaching within the medical curriculum.
The authors state that, “The project is based on the idea that we are all ‘performing’ our lives to a greater or lesser degree. By recognising professional behaviour as performance, we can develop self-awareness, thereby creating a space for the reflection needed to enable transformation and improvement. The project does not attempt to teach students how to ‘act’, to copy a role model, or to represent an idea of what it is to be a good doctor.” (de la Croix, Rose, Wildig, and Willson, 2011). This idea that these arts-based techniques help to create new perspectives and insights to the medical students is fantastic to hear.
As an arts education student myself, the majority of my classes revolve around how we can implement the arts and arts-based teaching across school curriculums. While most schools still focus on the Tyler Rationale based curriculum, Performing Medicine offers an alternative approach in reaching students. Going forward with this assignment and my research, I would like to dive deeper into the five main themes discussed earlier, and how the students may have benefited/or not from this art-based teaching performance style.
de la Croix, A., Rose, C., Wildig, E., & Willson, S. (2011, October 12). Arts-Based Learning In Medical Education: The Students’ Perspective. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2011.04060.x.