Opinion: Forget the three Rs, there are other important lessons

All the world's a stage - at least it should be for teenagers at school, says Ilona Hanne. Photo / Unsplash

Opinion:

History, calculus, geography, English, te reo, physics, biology, chemistry, statistics, economics, woodwork, art, metalwork, home economics, information technology, computer science, health sciences, fabric technology ... the list of subjects offered by high schools seems to be ever-increasing.

Which means, when it comes to choosing their options - the subjects they plan to study at exam level - our teenagers are pretty much spoiled for choice. With choices come tough decisions of course and I am sure many a dinner table conversation has been focused on those choices when the options form has come home.

Chances are, those conversations have included sentences along the lines of "you must do a science" or "you can't drop English or math" as well as "a language is always useful", and, in defence of parents everywhere guilty of these sentences, they probably aren't wrong. Sciences are useful, as is the ability to spell, to count and maybe even to order a beer in a foreign land one day.

But if I was education minister for a day, and had the chance to make any changes to our curriculum, it wouldn't be around math or science or even te reo. It would be in the arts department, where I would make drama/theatre studies a compulsory subject for all Year 11s and below.

Not because I think the average teenager needs any help in learning how to be dramatic - most of them seem to have that down to an art form - especially when it comes to eye-rolling, "everyone else's mum lets them" statements or the occasional door slam and silent treatment when a parent dares suggest 23 hours a day is maybe just a little too much time to spend online.

But drama is about a lot more than simply being dramatic. It's about being collaborative, working in a group, empathising with other viewpoints and, quite literally at times, walking in someone else's shoes.

Whether students are learning lines from Shakespeare or Bruce Mason, improvising a comedy or rehearsing a tragedy, they are doing far more than just moving around a stage. They are exploring how different characters might behave in certain situations and gaining an understanding of the motivations behind those choices or actions.

When they leave school and enter the "real world" I am willing to bet they are going to need to empathise with others far more frequently than they are going to need to utilise Pythagoras' theorem.

As an employer, I see huge value in young people learning how to communicate, to collaborate and work alongside others, to listen, to empathise, and to experience other world views as I do in them being able to correctly use the Oxford comma or to balance an equation.

Drama isn't just a subject for those planning a life in the spotlight, just as physical education isn't only for future All Blacks, Silver Ferns and Olympic medallists.

Our curriculum puts physical education on the timetable because the benefits of a healthy, active lifestyle are recognised and valued, but maybe it's time to also recognise and value the benefits drama classes bring to students today, as they prepare for a world of work that requires far more than just the three Rs.