Using Dramatic Monologue for Teaching Social Sciences

Abstract

During the welcoming session at the start of every academic year, teachers in Vanier College’s Psychology Department put on a skit to introduce incoming “psychology major” students, in a concise and entertaining manner, to the three different theoretical approaches currently prevailing in the discipline. In the skit, a teacher plays the role of a client who consults a psychotherapist (played by another teacher) for help with a marital problem. Seeking a solution to his problem, the “client” appears on stage three different times and receives treatment from three psychotherapists (played by another teacher) of different theoretical orientations: B.F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, and “Dr. Phil”, the famous American talk-show host (who respectively represent behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and cognitive psychology). Generally speaking, this skit is the first real exposure to psychological theories for the new cohort of students. Based on the feedback received afterwards, it seems to have made a powerful impression on them. Which explains why we keep putting on the same skit year after year! One reason for the impressive success of this simple skit is quite clear: complex ideas can be effectively conveyed to even the most uninitiated in a concise and easily understood manner through dramatic techniques, because drama is engaging, entertaining, and thought-provoking.