Imagine being able to freeze the action in a dispute, step out of the “scene,” and get feedback on your next move. Applied improvisation lets students do that and helps them see the non-violent approaches to resolving conflict.
These days, it’s hard for young people to always know how to respond to the conflicts in their world. That’s where applied improvisation activities come in — they give students a chance to try out solutions to real-life problems in a safe setting.
They portray a situation, and then allow students to participate in or comment on stages of the conflict and the resolution, so they learn different and less-aggressive ways of solving problems.
These methodologies are disseminated through highly interactive workshops for: students; educators; administrators; mental health professionals; law enforcement professionals; community and neighborhood leaders; neighborhood and social service organizations and care givers on topics such as dealing with bullying, peer pressure, and prejudice in students of all ages and grade levels.
Applied Improvisation can have goals about empowering students on: creativity; imagination and/or about empowering them on real life skill building. It is a proven violence prevention program that uses structured the skills theater improvisation to address issues close to the everyday lives of young people.
It is disseminated through interactive workshops that challenge students to deal creatively with major issues in their lives. Using the talents, opinions points of view of the students themselves and being facilitated by trained Applied Improvisation professionals the work teaches violence prevention, decision-making, and impulse control. Through the applied improvisational processes, skills of problem-solving, conflict resolution, cooperation, and leadership are developed.
The trained Applied Improvisation facilitators actors open with discussions of the realities that the students are facing on a regular basis and then move into a staged real-life scene. The scenes are frozen at various points and the students are encouraged to express how they think characters might be feeling in the situation. At the height of the conflict, students are invited in to take the place of an actor and to make the pivotal decisions that affect the outcome of the scene. In this way, students can play out the consequences of their actions in a safe, nurturing space, to discuss the decisions made by their peers, and to learn how to positively deal with these situations.
There are a range of activities and assignments that have been specifically developed for the students’ curriculum that include games and read-aloud activities on issues such as fairness, friendship, imagination, family, conflict resolution, peer pressure, and fear. Other potential topics covered are: prejudice; racism and stereotyping; violence; conflict resolution; bystander issues; bullying; teen pregnancy; sexual harassment and homophobia.
Material from the scenes comes from personal experiences, ideas that teachers and principals have given, and suggestions from the students. A lot of time making sure that there is an adequate understanding of the topic and then through improvisation, scenes are organically created. The facilitators discover what works and what doesn’t work very quickly, since the students coming into the scenes will always let the facilitators know if the scene is unrealistic.
The most popularly requested topics range from: bullying and peer pressure to issues around violence. Often entire schools are presented with assembly programs and the most common request is around bullying and scapegoating. Other requests have been scenes around sexual harassment, substance abuse, depression, anorexia, homophobia and racism, topics that impact a majority of students on a daily basis.
The hope is that the participants gain a better understanding of who they are and what alternative choices are available to them in specific situations. Applied Improvisational activities and workshops can be a rehearsal for life so that students can see first-hand the consequences of their actions and explore a variety of other ways to handle a situation. By developing these life skills, the students are able to gain confidence in problem- solving, decision-making, cooperation, and leadership.
The feedback on the use of Applied Improvisational workshops has been overwhelmingly positive.
Results of an objective multi-year evaluation with the Trauma Center at the Justice Resource Institute showed that students participating in Applied Improvisational activities have dramatic differences in behavior as compared to peers who did not participate. Teachers report an increase in pro-social skills — such as self-control, cooperation, and positive self-assertion — that are essential for children to resolve conflicts without violence. The physical experience for students of walking in another’s shoes, making decisions, and deconstructing why we hurt others, builds social and emotional skills that allows them to be more respectful, empathetic, and to face high-pressure situations in life with greater confidence.
| Student Feedback Applied Improvisation in the Classroom
“Plenty of people have told us, ‘Don’t do drugs, and don’t do alcohol.’ They tell us to walk away from these situations, but everyone knows that walking away from peer pressure isn’t as easy as saying it” |
“Improv actually allows you to live in the moment. You made decisions like you were the characters and whether you made the right ones or didn’t get to go up on stage at all, you could always reflect on what you had said or what other people had said during the skit.”
“We didn’t hear, but saw, and instead of being told what to do, we chose”
“These issues were easier for me to understand, because I was actually experiencing them, rather than just learning about them.”
“I got to see a new view of life. I got to see the real things in life that we haven’t experienced yet I sure do feel more comfortable knowing that I have some experience.”