Special Education Dance Workshop @ Epic Arts - Observation

This week I started my observations at Epic Arts which I was very excited about, after all the time working on preparing and researching for how I would collect data, I was finally able to get out there and do it. Armed with a clipboard and an iPad, I joined the Special Education Project for the afternoon and observed the Peace Class students doing a dance workshop with Epic Encounters leading the session. As a brief reminder (as it was a while since my post explaining who's who at Epic Arts) here is a little information about the groups

Special Education Project (SEP)

The Special Education Project offers creative and educational programs to children and young people with learning disabilities in Kampot. The daily classes help students develop life skills, participate in creative arts, learn literacy and numeracy, and develop friendships. There are two groups – Peace Class (younger students) and Independence Class (older students)

Epic Encounters 

Epic Encounters are a group of talented dance and theatre performers from Epic Arts in Cambodia. Consisting of hearing impaired, physically disabled and non-disabled performers, they are the first and only fully inclusive dance company in South East Asia. The Epic Encounters team tour nationally and internationally creating and performing educational theatre and dance performances. The performers are employed as full-time staff at Epic Arts and deliver a number of arts-based programmes for the Inclusive Education programmes at Epic Arts.

The artists from the Epic Encounters team work with the Special Education Project (SEP) each week to deliver dance workshops. They work with a dance leader to create the workshops based on the termly theme for the project. This term the theme for the SEP students is 'Water', so the activities in the dance workshop have been based around water.

Special Education Dance Workshop @ Epic Arts 

Observation Thoughts and Comments

The activities for the session I was observing involved each workshop leader working with a student to create a sequence of four movements related to actions made in the water such as swimming, diving, spinning, floating. In the room were a number of young students with special educational needs, teaching assistants from SEP, Epic Encounters artists (this week it was only the artists with hearing impairments leading the class), a sign translator and an English/Khmer translator. 

Special Education Dance Workshop @ Epic Arts  - June 2014

The artists worked as workshop leaders along with the SEP teaching assistants. Each student worked with a leader in a space in the room and began to work to create a sequence based on water related movements. I sat back and observed asking the following questions:

• What am I witnessing that shows successful inclusive arts practice?
• What activities are taking place?
• What interactions am I seeing between people?
• What reactions am I seeing?
• What makes me think the practice is successful?

Special Education Dance Workshop @ Epic Arts  - June 2014

So what did I see that showed inclusive arts practise at work in this workshop….well the answer is lots of things! I felt privileged to be watching the work taking place in front of me and saw a number of 'moments' of inclusion and acceptance that happened naturally.

What activities took place?

The Epic Encounters workshop leaders used sign language and worked with a sign translator to communicate the task to the students.The workshop leaders  were deaf and they worked one-to-one with the students using sign or gestures to communicate with them.

The workshop leaders worked closely with each student, gently encouraging them and praising them. They genuinely cared for the students and respected them, I saw one workshop leader working with a student with a severe physically disability, the student sneezed and was unable to clean herself. The workshop leader helped her without drawing attention, showing genuine care, respect and an understanding of the importance of retaining dignity….he saw her very much as a partner and a person he was working with and responded to her needs.

Special Education Dance Workshop @ Epic Arts  - June 2014

The workshop leaders had a very clear focus that this lesson was about the students experience, not about the students doing something right or wrong, or completing the task, but about the experience the students had. This was seen across the room, with the leaders engaging with the students and asking them to make the decisions about the task. Regardless of the students ability, the activity was very much about how they responded and expressed their personal creativity. Even with students with severe disabilities, the focus was still on their experience and them being part of the creative process. 

This video shows this in action, one workshop leader works with a student focusing on the idea of the flow of water. He does not move her himself or make her body do the movements required of the task, but creates a creative experience for her. She engages in the activity by reacting though smiles and sounds to the movement she is involved in, the music she hears and the eye contact from the workshop leader:

What interactions and reactions did I see between people?

I saw lots of eye contact and active engagement with students from the workshop leaders. Even though the teachers where deaf and the students could not understand sign, there was very clear communication though body language, gestures and facial expressions that encouraged the students throughout the session.

There were a number of interactions between the leaders and the students where the leaders where teaching by showing examples and guiding the students without doing the activity for them. There was a clear understanding that the student needed to do what they could themselves and not have it done for them. 

Most of the students in the class had learning difficulties and the workshop leaders adapted to this with patience, allowing the students time and space to respond to a task. The students were able to take their time to process the instructions before acting and the leaders gave them the space to do that.They did not rush them, or make a decisions for them, but allowed them time to do it themselves.

Special Education Dance Workshop @ Epic Arts  - June 2014

There was a lot of positive encouragement of the students through facial expression and gestures such as 'thumbs up'. Even though there was no verbal communication from the deaf teachers, the interaction and positive encouragement was clear and the students reacted excitedly to the activities because of it.

The lesson was very much led by the workshop leaders. Even though there were hearing and non-disabled people assisting with the workshop, the leaders were clearly in the 'teacher' role and the students understood that. The leaders did not need 'help' from the non-disabled people in the room, but were supported with translation when required.

There were many excellent examples of the students being the creators in the task. The workshop leaders allowed the students to be the creative leaders and express their own ideas and respond to the task in their own way. This video shows this is in action. The student is the creative leader in the partnership, he decides what movements he want to put in to his sequence, not his partner/teacher:

One thing that I enjoyed most about this class was the sense of fun and the humour involved in the activities. I saw one SEP teaching assistant working with a student to create their sequence and they were clearly having a lot of fun together coming up with ideas to swim, do washing actions and dive in to the water. The ideas were the students, and the teaching assistant was more than happy to let the student take charge and direct what the responses would be to the creative task. As they worked together, they laughed, they joked and they were very much 'partners in crime'. It was so clear in this moment that this student was not 'sick' or in need of 'help', he was a person with funny creative ideas and he wanted to share them with others. 

Special Education Dance Workshop @ Epic Arts  - June 2014

What makes me think the practice is successful?

The activities and tasks were explained and then the workshop leaders adapted the activity depending on who they were working with. All students could be involved, could respond in some way to the task and could be creative leaders, creative thinkers and engage in the creative process.

The workshop leaders understood the students they were working with as a whole and individually. When instructions for the task were given, the workshop leaders allowed space and time for the students with learning difficulties to digest the information and then react to it. The workshop leaders supported this process by reminding the students of the task. This meant that the students could engage in the creative process as the activities were presented in a way they could access them. There was an understanding of 'need' in the room - What each student needed in order to interact and create and what they could do independently. 

There was a clear sense of mutual enjoyment from both the students and the workshop leaders and there was interaction between partners that enabled them to become a creative team and not 'teacher and student'. The people in the first video example above, continued to develop the movement piece, each reacting to each to each other. The student reacted to the movements being made by the workshop leader and then the workshop leader reacted to these responses and it became a 'cycle of creative interactions' as they created the sequence together. It was clear to see that they were each learning from each other, each informing the others creative response in order to create a unique piece of movement.

Special Education Dance Workshop @ Epic Arts  - June 2014

What have I learnt about inclusive arts practice at Epic Arts through this observation?

After this first observation I was able to identify some key themes in the work that was happening; important elements that I felt were promoting successful inclusive arts practice. I think these may also begin to appear in further observations and interviews:

Adaptability
There needs to be a sense of adaptability and understanding of how to adapt an activity to enable someone to join in. Making any activity accessible for those involved means everyone is included in the activity, they can participate, create and benefit from the arts practice. Adapting can be in relation to the activity itself or the way in which the activity is delivered.

Care
Genuine and honest care for each other, not in a 'patronising' way, not in a 'special treatment' way, but in a human way. In order for people to successfully deliver inclusive arts practise, they must care about other people. Caring means that other peoples creativity matters, other peoples expression matters and other people thoughts, feelings and experience matters.

Inclusive Communication
Communication is a key issue at Epic Arts, with Khmer, English and Sign speakers all employed and/or studying at Epic Arts. Ensuring communication is inclusive to all is a time consuming activity that requires a number of people with different skills. By having clear, inclusive communication it means everyone can access inclusive arts practices.

Creative Interaction Cycle 
This is the idea that the facilitator and student merge roles and create a cycle of interactions that produce a creative outcome. The students creative ideas and input are equal to those of the the facilitator and can inspire and move forward the ideas of the facilitator and this then goes back to the student and so on. Rather than being stuck in a 'backwards and forwards' teacher/student role, each persons creative idea or response works in relation to that of the other to create something unique that each person learns and develops from.

Leaders with Disabilities
This is something that is important in moving towards a more inclusive society particularly here in Cambodia. People with disabilities are seen as the lowest of citizens here which is a lot to do with the religious perception that disabled people are bad luck or bad karma. Often people with disabilities are seen as unemployable; placing people with disabilities in the very respected role of a 'teacher' challenges the idea that people with disabilities can not do anything. It provides positive role models for those people with disabilities in Cambodia and changes perceptions which can lead to people being accepting and then more inclusive of those with disabilities.

Equality
In the observation it was easy to see a sense and understanding of equality. Each person had a part play in the workshop and even though each persons input was different, it was as equally important as the other persons,regardless of ability or status.

Knowledge
The workshop leaders showed a great deal of knowledge about the students, they were aware of the students learning difficulties as a group and also the needs of the individual students. They knew how to engage with each student and how to give them the time they needed to respond creatively. They also knew what each persons limitations were and whilst challenging the students to explore new physical movements, they did not push them, but at the same time, did not let anyone be 'lazy' either.

Respect
The Cambodian Sign Language sign for 'respect' is used most days at Epic Arts and I think that without it the organisation would not work. There is respect of peoples culture, beliefs, abilities, ideas, dreams, ambitions and language. Without the respect of each person as an individual we can not be inclusive.

Space
Everyone needs their space; some room to be themselves and to explore. This is true in what I observed in this session. Particularly for those students with severe physical disabilities, they were given physical space to try ideas such as lifting a leg or arm, without the assistance of someone. This enabled them to make a creative choice in what they did in response to the task. Without this space, decisions may be made for the student or they may not feel in control. Physical, emotional and creative space to allow for understanding and then response, was key to aiding the inclusive practice in this observation.

Individual Creativity
This can be seen in the second video in this blog post and was evident throughout the workshop. Each person in the room was individually creative and their creative expression was valued whether they were a student or a facilitator. 

Time
Particularly working in this group with students with learning difficulties this idea of having time to process an instruction and then time to respond were crucial in the creative process to ensure each person was included in the arts practise. There is also the time involved in the preparation of the workshop and delivery of the activities to ensure they were accessible to all and activities were not rushed through; there was time to explore and understand.

In addition to the questions about successful inclusive arts practise that I was seeing, I also had this question in mind:

• Am I witnessing anything that may be hindering successful inclusive arts practice?

One thing I became aware of very quickly was that I did not want to sit in judgement of 'good' or 'bad' practice, I did not want this project to have a negative impact on the teachers or students at Epic Arts, but for it to confirm, inform and help. I did observe things that I saw as hindering inclusive practice, but I wanted these elements to not be seen as 'wrong', but rather areas that can be highlighted for improvement at Epic Arts. The beauty of being a manager at the organisation means I can notice areas for improvement and implement change and development the very next day. This I see as a very positive aspect and I think Epic will benefit from this project in a number of ways, one of which will be to identify areas we can improve….we are always learning!

Special Education Dance Workshop @ Epic Arts  - June 2014

I became aware through this observation and my thoughts on what I was seeing, that I did not want to develop a culture of 'right' and 'wrong' in terms of inclusive working at Epic Arts, I do not want to create an atmosphere where people fear doing something wrong when working with people with disabilities, that doesn't exist at Epic, so I don't want to create it. I think this 'fear' has developed in the West and it can cause problems when working with people with disabilities. 

Often people in the West feel scared of saying or doing the wrong things when it comes to interacting with people with disabilities. I know I did when I first came here! But the beauty of the work in Cambodia is that political correctness doesn't exist in the same way and people say things as they are without fear or worry of offending. Obviously if things are done or said that are deliberately discriminatory we deal with this, but I am not here to impress Western values on the the Cambodian culture and create a situation of political correctness or fear of judgement when working with people with disabilities, but I want to aid in understanding on all sides, so we can move towards a more inclusive and accepting culture for those with disabilities in Cambodia.

After this observation I decided that if I noticed things that were hindering inclusive practise during the observations, I would look for a solution and deal with the issue positively. The things that could been seen to hinder, will inform what is needed to aid successful practice. During the observation I noticed that some of the SEP teaching assistants were doing a lot of the movements for the students when the students were capable of doing them themselves, even if it was slower than others. At the end of the observation I was able to share this with the management team and dance leader at Epic and soon a training session for the teaching assistants in how to support the students in the most effective, creative way was in the diary. 

Special Education Dance Workshop @ Epic Arts  - June 2014

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, please feel free to add comments or to email me at laura@epicarts.org.uk