Mission: IDEAS strives to fill the void of direct drama experiences that exist in the educational lives of young people with disabilities and disadvantages. Using drama and theater as a teaching and learning tool and in response the need for all young people to express themselves IDEAS offers a variety of drama-in-education programs for youth ages 7-21 as well as specially designed workshops for parents and staff of disabled/disadvantaged youth.
Geographic areas served: NYC and surrounding areas.
Programs: Creative drama: in creative drama youth enact familiar stories, or base their improvised scenarios on what they see from a photograph or a book title, a simple suggestion or a prop or costume piece. We focus on dramatic structure, learning to answer the questions of who (characters), where (setting), what (action) and why (main idea), increasing their literacy skills with an optional performance component. For disabled and disadvantaged youth. Sociodrama: through improvisation students explore a variety of consequences, positive and negative, that comes with acting or behaving a different way and try out appropriate behavior and outcomes. While they learn about how to create fictitious characters and stories they are also learning about themselves and the world around them. They can do this with the safety net of a character, even referring to themselves by a different name, thus creating a different persona to safely try out unfamiliar actions in familiar or unfamiliar settings and situations. For youth with disabilities and other disadvantages. Professional development: informational and training workshops for professionals who work in the arts with youth with disabilities. Parent workshops: creative workshops that help parents interact with their children.
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IDEAS has been wonderful for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing students at Truman High school in the Bronx. Many of these kids are low functioning in academic areas. IDEAS came every week and helped them act out scenarios of real life situations. This enabled them to understand better how to act and react when they encounter problems in their lives. It also helps them to better understand how to express themselves especially regarding their feelings. This is especially helpful to Deaf and Hard of Hearing students who lack the appropriate language they need to communicate effectively. Please endorse IDEAS who have always been there for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing high schoolers. Thank you for this opportunity.
The Cleary School for the Deaf Secondary Program has had a five year relationship with I.D.E.A.S.. Even with funds being tight, we found I.D.E.A.S. to provide our students with rich socio-dynamic experiences. Sudents could name their own concerns and create plays or scenes to illustrate problems, solutions or waysa of working through the problem. Visiting artists are all well-qualified to draw the best out of students, even including wide ranges of ability within the group.
