Breaking Down Barriers to Begin a Placement…
It was quite daunting to hear that most of my peers had completed their placement by Christmas when I was yet to start mine. After the Christmas break, I contacted my boss to see when we would begin. I heard nothing back so a week later I contacted them again. I was beginning to get in a panic that they were no longer going to take me on. But they got back to me. My boss had been trying to contact me through I-Message and for some reason they never came through to me. Anyways, the panic was over, and I was ready to start!
“Working environments will provide opportunities for developing your knowledge and skills by working with real people in real working settings.”
Jasper, 2013, p109
Exploring Opportunities in My Facilitation Role…
My placement has two elements to it: facilitation and administration. As I reflect on my first day with Bruiser, which focuses on the facilitating side of it, I will use the Gibbs’ Reflective Learning Style to explore the opportunities that I have embarked upon and knowledge that I have gained from my placement.
Gibbs’ Reflecting Learning Cycle
A Day with Bruiser…
What happened?
My first day on the job, and I was thrown into the deep end – luckily, I am a strong swimmer. I got the opportunity to be a part of A Day with Bruiser (ADWB). ADWB is a full day crash course for secondary drama students. It teaches the unique physical theatre style that is Bruiser. During my time at ADWB I had to deal with the arrival of each school and ensure that the students were split up into the correct colour assigned group (KS3, GCSE, and A-Level). I was then assigned to a group which I would follow throughout the day as they set about the three different workshops. This was very enjoyable. I could not help but think how beneficial it would have been to me if an opportunity like this arose when I was in secondary school. I was a leader during ADWB but I was also a student myself; learning from the work I was assigned and the workshops the facilitators were given.
How was i feeling?
Before my week at ADWB began I was asked if I was available to work at it. I honestly had no idea what ADWB was at this point, but I was excited to finally begin my placement with no questions asked and I did not want to appear as if I did not know something about the company I was working for. I was trying to work out what the acronym could stand for, and after a brief search online I thought it was something to do with Alzheimer’s. You can imagine my surprise when I arrived and discovered it was secondary school drama students that I was working with. Looking back, I realise I should have asked what ADWB was. However, as my time with Bruiser has gone on, I have learnt to just ask because they are quite happy to explain and then I have a much better understanding about the work I am doing. I guess you could say I jumped into the deep end myself by not putting up my hand and asking a simple question.
What was good and what was bad about the experience?
My experience at ADWB was great. I got to sit in on the workshops (and gain some knowledge from them). I got to help with the administration side of things too which is something I really wanted to do because it will be handy skills to have when I start up my own Performance School. A moment that was not so great during ADWB was when a group of girls were afraid of the lift, and I was asked to escort them down the back stairs in the building. This was all fine, until we got to the bottom, and it asked for a code for us to get back in. No one had given us a code! After 10 minutes of trying to contact other staff members we were finally set free. Who knew you could still get stuck by taking the stairs.
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well have not lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”
J.K. Rowling
What sense cAN I MAKE OF THE SITUATION?
From the situation I discovered that these girls I had been stuck with were lovely young girls. My first impression of them during the workshops was that they were quite disruptive with not much interest in drama. This may have still been the case but after we chatted during our 10 minutes of imprisonment, we bonded, and not only did I now see them differently, but they seemed to be more interested and engaged in the final workshop of the day. This may have been down to something I said, or it may have been because they had just had an hour-long lunch break… either way I was pleased with the outcome.
WHAT ELSE COULD I HAVE DONE?
I could have taken the lift! But if I had the girls could have ended up stuck by themselves which would have been a worse situation. During the workshops I should have been less judgemental of the students and taken more time to get to know them all. This may have allowed the girls I was stuck with to have a better experience in the first 2 workshops because they would have felt more comfortable around one of their leaders. They just needed closer guidance to become more engaged with the tasks they were given.
IF IT AROSE AGAIN, WHAT COULD I DO?
My action plan for future workshops, whether I am facilitating it or helping another facilitator is to take time to get to know all students that are participating. I did not realise that I quickly judged people until the moment I realised how wrong I was about these girls. I now know to not be so quick on thinking I know a person and to always read further than the front cover.
Exploring Administration Tasks at Bruiser…
The second element to my placement is the administration, what happens behind the scenes of the educational opportunities that Bruiser has to offer.
I am going to reflect on a long and challenging task in admin that I was assigned to do using the Borton’s Reflective Model to explore my first journey through this type of work and what the outcome of that was.
Borton’s Reflective Writing Model
Hello, my name is Sophie, and I am calling on behalf of Bruiser Theatre Company…
what?
My first staff meeting! Myself, Cheryl O’Dwyer (Education Officer), and Rob Crawford (Facilitator in Residence) had a meeting to discuss further ways to advertise Bruiser and what it had to offer. We came up with several ideas. One of which was to allocate a list of all schools across Northern Ireland and contact them. There was a list of over 200 schools, I was asked to contact 80 of these. After the first few repeating the same opening line of ‘Hello, my name is Sophie…’ I felt like I was saying this line in my sleep.
so what?
This was a simply difficult task. It was simple in that I was repeating myself but difficult to get the results I needed from the calls. Our task was to get the email address of the Heads of Drama Departments (HOD). However, schools were very reluctant to hand this information out and we only got a handful of contacts. The rest of the email addresses we received were for the school itself, who would then pass the information on to the HOD. To complete this task, we had to ensure we were taking note of all schools we had contacted, if they had a drama department, and how to contact them. Once we had the information Cheryl contacted the schools and asked me to go through her emails and colour co-ordinate who had been contacted, and who had said they would or would not like to work with Bruiser. This started out to be quite daunting. I was in my bosses’ emails, should I be here? I was worried at first to search through them and I could only find one. I asked another girl in the office for help, and she guided me to the right email where I realised, they were all in the one place, thankfully! I completed the task and was praised for the clarity of my work.
now what?
I have explained why the task itself was significant, but it is important to explain why it was so significant to me. This task was long and for some it would have been quite tedious. However, I strangely enjoyed it. The planning and organisation that went into the task lit up like fireworks in my mind. I wanted to work with Bruiser for my placement because I knew they could offer me experience in both the facilitation and the administration side of things. I have been very much on the fence when it comes to deciding what I want to do after completing my undergraduate but the more I work with Bruiser the more I realise I do not have to pick between my two options. I can combine them. The knowledge that came from this task, and my placement as an overall, that will inform my future practise is that I am on the right path for me at this time. I have learnt that not everything (or everyone) is how it may appear at first sight. We must take time and get to know a situation and the possibilities that can come from it before we jump to conclusions because when we take time to read the entire book, we can learn so much more. As Stephane Perrier said…
“He has always known that their work was different and that, with their perceptual thirst for learning and finding new ways to do things, [a business’s] success is set to continue.”
Stephane Perrier, (cited by Gem Barton, 2016, p.45)
My future practise will be different to most but every day I get closer to making it a success.
Bibliography
Jasper, M ‘Beginning Reflective Practise’, New Ed. (Cengage Learning, 2013)
Barton, G. (2016) Don’t Get a Job… Make a Job. London: Laurence King.
J.K Rowling, ‘Text of J.K. Rowling’s Speech, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination”’, The Harvard Gazette, 2008 <https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/06/text-of-j-k-rowling-speech/> [accessed 14 March 2024]