Last week, students at the Kigali Institute of Education got on stage to demonstrate the importance of theater in education.

Since 2010, each year in July KIE collaborates with The City University of New York (CUNY) to train students in applied theater skills and methodologies for use in the classroom. CUNY sends masters students in theater to come and work with KIE students to sharpen their skills in creative performance and help them realize the potential benefits that drama can have in education. Twelve individuals from CUNY worked with 65 students from KIE in levels 1 through 5.

The CUNY master's students spent three weeks doing intensive practice and training with KIE students, with a public performance at the end of the visit, as a culmination to all they had learned. During the three-week program, CUNY students demonstrated how drama can be used to educate, reconcile, and resolve conflicts for community and educational development.

"Theater has opened my mind to critical thinking and has developed my way of communicating a message in a clear, interesting, and understandable way to my audience," said Lambert Nshyaka, an actor and level-4 student at KIE. He adds that as future educator, he will use these skills to help his students better understand lessons and think deeper.

Participants agreed that applied theater is improving their way of teaching. With the use of theater, they can make teaching more attractive, interesting, memorable, and thought provoking, leading to more effective lessons.

KIE students shared with CUNY students the key matters that need to be explored in their classrooms and communities, and then the group acted them out in a play. They tackled topics related to youth life, societal unity, disease, drug abuse, health education and many others. Their performances were organized to leave the audience in suspense or with a question in their minds. This approach was used to elicit the audience's participation. After the performance, the audience was asked to share ideas with the actors and come up with solutions.

Chris Vine, master's student in CUNY's School of Professional Studies in Applied Theater and the leader of the CUNY-KIE program, says that theater is a forum for essential discussion, where people can interact over important topics. However, he explained that "our form of theater does not aim to pass a message or give answers. We focus on giving a chance to people to think together and solve problems for themselves."

He explained that they try much as possible to avoid telling people how to behave or how they should live their lives, but instead try to get the audience to think critically about topics themselves.

Using this approach in education, teachers can use drama performances to provoke thought and discussion from their students, and encourage them to examine their concerns and beliefs.

Students in the theater program are encouraged to read a large amount of literature in order to gain inspiration from and knowledge of culture and make their performances more educational and interesting.

Changing the normal routine

A lecturer and coordinator of CUNY-KIE drama and theater in Rwanda, Leon Mugisha, said, "Theater was introduced to KIE students to change the normal routine of the education system. There was courage to develop content and literature for our students to see the different ways of educating their students and the public."

He explained that people used to think theater is only for entertainment, but today it is an effective educational tool for provoking thought in academic and social matters.

Nshyaka agreed, stating, "Our aim is to keep organizing and developing our country through theater and other creative means of education. We find the art of theater an effective method to communicate to youth in particular."

Mugisha believes that, along with using it in education, a strong theater culture can create jobs for Rwandan youth, in line with government policies.

"As our government encourages young entrepreneurs, theater can also be a great opportunity for our students to create jobs of their own as they make use of their talents and skills to develop theater in different communities," Mugisha says.

Relatable

KIE and CUNY students said they benefited a lot from working and acting together. CUNY students say they gained a lot of experience in becoming leaders and learning how to work in different cultures.

Most participants belong to the School of Arts and Languages at KIE. They hope to continue to train different schools and start to earn an income from both educating and acting in various ways.

The audience was intently engaged in the students' performance at KIE. Some of them said it opened their eyes to how much theater can do in their communities if used effectively. Marie Gadine, a participant in the program, said: "There are things that usually happen in our societies that people take for granted, but when you perform it live on stage it is clear how these issues actually impact people's lives. Theater translates the world in a way that is clear, easily understood and relatable to the audience; it can make a change in our communities."