#4 Role-playing in learning

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. William Shakespeare

 

Try to recall the last time you prepared to voice prospects for improvements and changes only to be told: „We do it this way because this is how it should be. Period“.

 

Could you remember what your reaction was? How long did it take you to give up the idea to make some changes? How did you feel when you made a decision to fit in despite a strong urge to leave everything and go away?

Whatever your first reaction was, chances are that you were nervous, angry, maybe even dejected, but still willing to fight against yourself in order to fit in and please others. If this rings a bell to you, I must tell you something: I am afraid, but you are FRAMED.

 

Do not worry, you are not a single case, most people are framed in this way. It seems that we were free and could have used our full, intrinsic, potential only in our childhood.

Throughout our upbringing and schooling stages we started to lose our spontaneity and creativity steadily, our true self, which has resulted in a restrained view of possibilities and choices nowadays.

Within the perception of restricted choices and options we function in a robotic fashion with our creativity lying dormant.

If you turn around yourself, you will notice that people have started looking like each other. Lifeless eyes, no smile, no emotions, no creative energy, no stamina.

A new generation of robots made of flesh and blood is ready to abide by. What a production line!

 

Like actors and actresses we continue to play the same assigned ROLES in different situations in the same way.

The majority of those roles were determined and influenced by our families, teachers, our environment as we were growing up. 

The assumption of the roles happens in various ways. We could have been assigned a role by others or have taken on a role because that is what we perceived as available and beneficial.

As we continue through life in those roles, we become really good at them, and people in our lives relate to us according to those roles expecting us to perform accordingly.

We could move away from our families, or get divorced, or change countries, or change a job, but if we carry the same roles, we will find ourselves caught in the same ways of role-playing, relating and expectations. Some examples of those roles are: “a loser”, “a winner”, “a hard worker”, “a rebel”, “a rescuer”, “a victim” etc.

 

Why CREATIVE TEACHING now and here?

 

Because we have only a one-way ticket for a life journey. The missed opportunities cannot be seized again. If something has been framed in a wrong way, then we should find the way to reframe it and adopt something else that suits our personality better.

One of the goals of creative teaching via REFRAMING and ENACTMENT is to expand a person’s ROLE RANGE and to assist people to create new roles that are more effective for personal growth and freedom.

 

Role-playing is enormously powerful tool which will allow YOU to experience some new challenges, to go beyond your limits, to change your focus and consequently to regain your spontaneity and creativity, to be yourself again.

Along with awaken spontaneity and creativity, by acting different roles out you can explore how other people are likely to respond to different approaches, and you can get a feeling for telling which approaches are likely to be effective from those which might be totally counter-productive.

 

Thus, you can solve a lot of delicate issues which require communication with diverse human profiles. Moreover, you can get a sense what people might be thinking or feeling in the situations acted out.

Furthermore, by preparing for a situation using a role-play tool, you build up experience and self-confidence with handling real life situations and you can develop a quick and instictive response to such situations as well.

 

A good preparation is a half battle fought!

 

When you get ready for writing a new chapter in your life book, you can contact me via whatsbusinessenglish.wix.com/skills and a journey can start.