{"id":24506,"date":"2024-03-26T16:03:38","date_gmt":"2024-03-26T16:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=24506"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:00","slug":"at-rada-we-want-teachers-to-follow-the-students-as-well-as-guide-them","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/at-rada-we-want-teachers-to-follow-the-students-as-well-as-guide-them\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018At RADA we Want Teachers to Follow the Students as Well as Guide them\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 26 Mar 2024 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

\u2018At RADA we Want Teachers to Follow the Students as Well as Guide them\u2019<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the first of a two-part interview, Lucy Skilbeck, the school\u2019s Director of Actor Training, discusses their evolving approach to teaching and building a curriculum.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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By John Portch<\/h6>\n
When the pandemic spread in 2020, it brought challenges for all. In the case of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art [RADA] a number of those challenges endure.<\/h6>\n

RADA no longer relies upon online classes as it did in 2020 and 2021, but, as Lucy Skilbeck, their Director of Actor Training, explained in a recent interview, \u201cwe have made changes not only to the curriculum but how we consider the curriculum and some of our approaches to teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

One such change was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, which grew in prominence during that first year of the pandemic as systemic inequalities became evident in the higher infection and mortality rates in globe majority communities in the US, UK and beyond. Compounding matters was the succession of highly publicised, racially-motivated, tragic incidents involving Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd.<\/p>\n

The student body at RADA felt moved to speak up. \u201cThe students began to question our processes, some of our approaches, and some of our choices of material,\u201d Skilbeck told the Leaders Performance Institute.<\/p>\n

As the pandemic pushed everything online, Skilbeck\u2019s students were working on three Restoration-era texts (plays written in England, Scotland and Ireland between 1660 and 1710). While this era was a time of revival in the dramatic arts \u2013 theatres had been closed for 18 years under Puritan rule prior to the restoration of the Stuart monarchy \u2013 there is a problematic link between Restoration drama and the Atlantic slave trade. RADA students raised the probability that some patrons of the Restoration-era arts benefited directly from the sale of enslaved African people for labour.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne group chose to continue doing the Restoration project,\u201d Skilbeck continued. \u201cTwo groups said they didn\u2019t want to continue working with that material, so we made adaptations on the spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four years later, RADA continues to teach Restoration material (\u201cthat\u2019s one of the reasons students come to RADA\u201d) but has added a contextual evaluation of all texts \u2013 not just the Restoration era \u2013 for students and RADA project leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the big changes is how we contextualise how we discuss, how we critically examine and reflect on what the challenges are with any of the material we\u2019re using.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got more work to do, no question, but students are now saying they feel confident doing the work because the conversations can happen, are happening, are considered. That was the really big piece we weren\u2019t doing before. We weren\u2019t considering the impact of that work on globe majority students separately to the impact on white students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were informally trying to make sure that was a consideration. Now we\u2019ve made that a formal commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Skilbeck once said during a Leaders webinar<\/a> in 2021: \u201cAt RADA, we want teachers to follow the students as well as guide them\u201d.<\/p>\n

Contextual evaluation in the wake of Black Lives Matter is but one example of how this plays out at RADA. We discuss the others in the first of a two-part interview with Skilbeck. In the second, we focus on student development<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Listen to learners \u2013 they\u2019ll tell you what they need<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Leaders Performance Institute asked Skilbeck to explain the dynamic of RADA tutors both following and guiding their students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rationale is that the best teachers are the ones who are continually learning and who can be in a learner\u2019s or a beginner\u2019s mind,\u201d she said. \u201cIn order to do that, one has to be willing to learn from the people we are teaching; and we will continually learn from the students because they are bringing the world now as it is for young people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat comes with them distinctly each year \u2013 and it changes year on year, as the world does \u2013 and so there\u2019s a lot of learning to be done by listening to the students, by engaging with the students, by allowing students to educate us on what the world is for them and what they need in a learning environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

It does not mean Skilbeck and her colleagues always get it right. \u201cLike all human activity, it is imperfect,\u201d she said. \u201cSometimes it feels like things really develop and grow and, as a result, we move towards something more progressive; and sometimes it feels like they don\u2019t. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any way around that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allow for meaningful engagement and contributions<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is tempting to view a dramatic production as akin to a team strategy or gameplan. There are parallels and both are ensemble activities. At RADA, it is another area where project leaders \u2013 managers of educational programmes, theatrical productions, or development initiatives \u2013 bring people together.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeaking as a director, which is my professional background, one of the roles of the director and the rehearsal process is to bring everybody into the same world so that everybody is in the play at the same time. That can sometimes be a struggle because there might be people with very strong ideas in one direction and others having strong ideas in another.\u201d<\/p>\n

The key is allowing cast members to contribute meaningfully. \u201cA way we would begin to do that is close, detailed work on the story we want to tell collectively, because any play has an infinite number of possible interpretations, stories or emphases contained within it; and any production has to make a choice that it\u2019s going to tell a particular part of that story.\u201d<\/p>\n

RADA uses \u2018yes and\u2019 work as it \u201cdevelops the capacity to be \u2018in response to\u2019; so one is being reactive rather than generating one\u2019s own action. A lot of that is built through gradually training people\u2019s capacity to be working within an ensemble rather than standing to the side of an ensemble.<\/p>\n

\u201cA big part of what we do is trying to bring people to that place where they go \u2018I can be here in a way that serves you\u2019 and we talk about that quite explicitly.\u201d<\/p>\n

No right answer<\/strong><\/p>\n

At RADA, first and second-year acting students are no longer marked. \u201cOne of the big things we have to do early and throughout the training is really try and undo \u2013 it\u2019s a really harsh way of putting it \u2013 some of the damage that the traditional school system does,\u201d said Skilbeck, who was quick to explain that she is supportive of numerous elements of the scholastic system.<\/p>\n

It is, however, a challenge for students. \u201cWe\u2019re saying there isn\u2019t a right answer \u2013 we\u2019re not asking for the right answer,\u201d she continued. Instead, \u201cwhat we\u2019re looking for is a much more holistic development of the whole person because that\u2019s what an actor needs. Not \u2018yes, I can\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want them to have the capacity to interpret material but it doesn’t have to be the way that I would do it. What we want to do is develop their capacity to learn and to grow themselves and, therefore, be able to recognise and experience their own growth and development.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Five Ways RADA Is Raising the Performance Ceiling of its Acting Students<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n

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