Role-Play : Indian Mythology

Problem

The mythological texts are one of the most authentic ways of teaching children about virtues and positive values right from childhood. The main theme and learning from this scripture (‘Ramayana’) is ‘victory of good over evil’. With these stories, children understand the difference between righteous and immoral behavior. The elements of negativity conveyed through a story are easier for children to understand than simply being given instructions. Through enactment and role-playing, they are able to visualize the outcomes associated with negativity and how they should consciously take actions to practice moral behavior in their everyday lives.

Schools generally focus on Mathematical and Literacy Skills which are definitely needed to be a successful teacher, entrepreneur, doctor, engineer, lawyer, etc. But what about becoming a successful human being? In these dire times with the rise in hatred, crimes and social oppression issues, falling back to these moral values and imbibing them in our daily lives becomes pivotal for everybody. Childhood is the right time to inculcate these values because that will be the blueprint of moral character for people.

Target Audience

Children in the age range of 3 to 12 years will be a good fit for this lesson plan. However, there isn’t any upper limit of the age range to read, understand and implement the rich teachings conveyed through the mythological scriptures. Although the original text of Ramayana has been written in Sanskrit by Maharishi Valmiki, the translated versions are now available in Hindi and English which made it very accessible for children in India. Moreover, the English version can be used to teach these sages to children from different countries.

Primary Learning Goals

• Familiarize with the main principles and teachings of the mythological scriptures
• Recognize the relevance of these teachings in day-to-day lives
• Use narrative stories to understand the cultural and historical roots of the society

Secondary Learning Goals

• Develop role-playing skills
• Inculcate team-building and group-communication skills
• Encourage a learning environment which gives importance not just to the school-based skills but also human-based skills

Concept Description

Design for the current project focuses on using stories, role-playing and music to understand the mythological scriptures. Through this immersive narrative experience, children will be able to use different modalities such as audio (music) and role-playing to learn the important values conveyed through these texts. The students can use the video resources (movie and role-play demonstration) to understand the story and the way they have to play their character. The audio file can be used to assist them to rehearse their dialogues and remember them during the role-play. The following images are for demonstration purposes to show how the lesson plan can be implemented in a class by students:

Lesson Design using Bloom’s Taxonomy

• Introduction: Children will be given a brief introduction about the themes and main characters of Ramayana.
• The teacher will play the audio versions of these sages (translated in Hindi or English depending on the demographics of the students in class).
• Alongside this, the roles of every character will be played by the children. The dialogues for every character will be rehearsed by the children. [REMEMBER]
• Once the students are well-versed with the dialogues and the audio version, the play will be enacted in front of the entire class/school. [UNDERSTAND]
• To ensure that children have actually got the concepts, the teacher will ask questions based on dilemma situations that you can encounter in everyday life. The responses by the children in accordance with the virtues and values will be highly encouraged. [APPLY; ANALYZE; EVALUATE]

Theoretical Framework

• Universal Design for Learning
• Howard Gardener’s Multiple Intelligence Theory
• Social Constructivism
• Inquiry Teaching

For a detailed description of the project & references, please access the design document here.

Supervised by: Emily Reardon