TAR (THEATRE AS REPRESENTATION) - AS A PROVOCATIVE TEACHING TOOL IN SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION: A DRAMATIZED INCLUSIVE CLASSROOM SCENARIO

Oct 15, 2026

TAR (Theatre as Representation) is presented as a provocative teaching tool for school administration professional development and graduate educational administration training. The article dramatizes an inclusive classroom scenario to explore instructional leadership, supervision of instruction, and the practical challenges of implementing inclusion. It grounds TAR in artistic drama and theatre traditions, Brechtian ideas, social constructivist learning, emotional intelligence, and cognition research. Teaching notes with discussion questions support guided content analysis and classroom dialogue.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages21

Reading Time53 min

AccessFree to download

TAR (THEATRE AS REPRESENTATION)

AS A PROVOCATIVE TEACHING TOOL IN SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION: A DRAMATIZED INCLUSIVE CLASSROOM SCENARIO

The Theoretical Foundations of TAR

TAR as a Dramatized Case Study Scenario

TAR (THEATRE AS REPRESENTATION) AS A PROVOCATIVE TEACHING TOOL IN SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION: A DRAMATIZED INCLUSIVE CLASSROOM SCENARIO Matthew J. Meyer and David C. Young, St. Francis Xavier University The following dramatized classroom scenario depicts a teacher struggling with the nature of an inclusive learning environment, with instructional leadership and supervision of instruction as the theoretical and practical backdrop. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the use of a TAR (theatre as representation) case study can be used as a provocative teaching tool by those engaged in the professional development of in-service administrators, aspiring administrators, and students enrolled in a graduate level educational administration program. In addition to the secnario’s text, teaching notes in the form of discussion questions, complete with accompanying rationales, are provided. Most if not all Canadian educational systems have inclusive schooling as a priority. Of course, this movement towards inclusive schools, which has largely occurred in the past two to three decades, has resulted in both positives and negatives for all those involved in the field of education. Many teachers continue to struggle with inclusionary practices, and, certainly, the administration of so-called inclusive schools continues to provoke much heated debate in terms of best practices (Ryan, 2006) . Some of the problems associated with inclusion are real, such as lack of resources, both financial and human, as well as inadequate preparation and training, while others are perhaps more about perceptions, such as teachers feeling alone in their struggle to enact inclusion. Although the implementation of inclusion is often left to individual teachers in their own classrooms, it is important to keep in mind that ultimately, the responsibility for inclusion falls under the leadership purview of the school administration (Young, 2010) . Suffice to say, twenty-first century school administrators need to be exposed to both the theory and practice of inclusion if they are to create schools where students and staff alike “belong.” As professors of school administration, the authors have often struggled with developing pedagogical constructs that both stimulate curiosity and at the same time foster comprehension and synthesis. As some have stated, case studies have been used for many years as vehicles to assist in the expedition of learning (Fossey & Crow, 2011; Merriam, 1998) . Whether or not the case is inspired by imagination or real-life incidents, case studies provide a provocation vehicle that assists in classroom discussion and content analysis. In this article, it is believed that by situating student learning within a scripted dramatic case study scenario, both in-service administrators and students of educational administration can affectivity and cognitively engage in the exploration of chosen issues through the use of a script. The vehicle employed in this dramatized case study scenario is Theatre as Representation, or TAR (Meyer, 1998, 2001a, 2001b), which has been used successfully in different learning settings. The TAR concept was originated by Meyer (1998) as a professional development protocol for in-service school administrators to facilitate bridging administrative theory with actual school-based practice. At the time TAR emerged in the field of educational administration, there was no such use of TAR-like drama and theatre application. Since then, a number of drama and theatre adaptations have evolved. TAR has also morphed, so-to-speak, into other iterations by the author (see bibliography) which presently seems more like a crosspollination between process drama and readers’ theatre. The Theoretical Foundations of TAR The TAR application is built on two bodies of knowledge. The first is specific artistic drama, theatre, and production practices as passed down through centuries of performance pract

FAQs

What is the main purpose of using TAR in school administration training?

The article demonstrates how TAR can function as a provocative teaching tool that stimulates curiosity while supporting comprehension and synthesis through a scripted scenario.

What kinds of learning problems does the TAR approach help address?

TAR is used to explore issues connected to inclusive education, including ambiguities between perceived and real problems and solutions administrators may face.

How is TAR theory connected to the dramatized classroom scenario?

TAR is grounded in drama and theatre practice traditions and learning theories, and it structures the scenario so participants can take character roles and engage as actors/readers and audience members.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Alexandar