“It was Eye-Opening”: CompuPower Students Examine Power, Identity, and Community at ASU
For 80+ Arizona high school students, Wednesday, November 13 did not begin with their familiar school routines (tardy bell, class schedules, announcements). An early morning commute prepped the students attending rural and urban area schools to engage in place-based learning on the ASU, Tempe Campus. For the five visiting high schools, ASU became a learning playground to observe and deconstruct themes of power, community, and identity. Dressed in bold colored shirts with the CompuPower logo, students collected data and bonded with other CompuPower students from different schools as they traversed the neatly landscaped campus. This field trip modeled the transferability of content knowledge to spaces beyond the school building or single classroom. The quarters one and two CompuPower lessons students learned on topics of power, community, and identity centered the campus field trip activities. Separated by shirt colors into four main groups, students engaged in place-based learning lessons on power, community, and identity while surveying the ASU campus.
Segueing from the 1.5-hour campus tour to the ASU Pima Auditorium, shifted student excitement from the hyper-stimulating ASU paraphernalia to a series of workshops utilizing arts-based methods (theatre, sculpture). “Today you will take part in Theatre of the Oppressed,” Dr. Nkrumah announced half expecting to hear sighs of resistance at the suggestion of an impromptu performance. Facing the audience of students and teachers, Dr. Nkrumah used the PowerPoint image of three people under the title Theatre of the Oppressed to describe the concept. Moving to the edge of the stage where she stood as if to tell them a story, Dr. Nkrumah relaxed her formal demeanor attempting to capture the young student’s attention. “Well, …she began…Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theatre visionary uniquely known for his creation of a popular community-based education that uses theatre as a tool to enact social change.” Pausing a moment before continuing to describe Boal, she added…Blending theatre techniques and games, Boal’s reliance on mind and body to motivate dialogue became globally recognized for creating spaces to rehearse taking action against inequity. Sensing that everyone had a general understanding of the concept shared, Dr. Nkrumah began the experiential process of recognizing power, community, and identity through Theatre of the Oppressed.
The first activity exposed students to power. Moving out of the fixed chairs that moments ago held them they erupted into randomly dispersed bodies following commands to form a large circle around the peripheral of the room. Instructed to hold their left palm facing up and the right thumb in the open palm of the person beside them, Dr. Nkrumah warned that at the sound of the word “go” individuals should try to catch the thumb of the person beside them and to avoid having their thumb caught. Immediately after the activity, students were given prompts to discuss the experience like, “Do you always have power?” and “What influences the power a person has?” By positioning the student to re-enact examples of power using Boal gaming activities, they conveyed understandings of power from experiences in real-time. Additionally, the exploration of power in an activity using theatre techniques deepened student conversation and thought on the daily expressions of power enacted by the oppressor and the oppressed.
Taking a short break to switch rooms, students relocated down the hall to the ASU Ventana Auditorium. Yet to discuss community and identity introduced new rules for student engagement. From the doorway, students eyed the round tables decorated with small containers of Play-Doh. Simultaneously, students wondered out loud while making claims about which seat belonged to them. What was next? Using only the single containers of Play-Doh left on the table, students made visible their perspectives of community and identity. This makeshift art class connected the mind and body. Bringing into existence ideas of community and identity, starting with the instruction to construct an object that represents your ideas about that subject. Once the activity ended, designs ranging from a dragon to a laptop showed how art expanded the way students shared impressions of community and identity.
At the close of the trip, students freely mixed and mingled amongst each other. Collectively reflecting on the examples of power and constructing personal images of community and identity, impressed upon them new ways of being. And the eye-opening experience showed students that content knowledge (power, community, identity) could be applied to lived experiences on a field trip to ASU.
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Comments