The ERDP began its journey in Drama in Education in 2007 when the Drama in Education Summer School was launched for the first time in the Jordanian city of Jerash. Targeting teachers and early childhood educators, the Summer School features an extensive annual programme, which combines both theory and practice in the field of Drama in a Learning Context.
Over the past years the Drama in Education Summer School has brought together over 500 teachers from Palestine and nine other Arab countries, namely, Jordan, Sudan, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Oman, Lebanon and Mauritania.
The Summer School academic staff includes professional instructors from six countries including Palestine, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Greece, Australia and the USA.
The Drama in Education Summer School is a structural component of a long-term programme. At the conclusion of the annual encounter, participants present a summary of the Summer School courses, supported by readings provided by the ERDP. This is followed by attending intensive courses and workshops on research writing and drama planning. These are tailored to support and help teachers to complete academic requirements. Teachers develop and apply a plan in their own classes. Participants in the Summer School are divided into three levels, where they graduate after they complete their academic requirements.
On the other hand, the ERDP organises workshops on drama all year round and follows up with teachers in their classes. The ERDP researchers also visit schools on an ongoing basis. As it holds workshops in Palestine, the Programme equally attempts to reach out to Arab teachers. To this avail, workshops have already been organised in Jordan and in Egypt.
By the end of 2017, the Drama Programme had taken a new turn in light of the past decade’s experience. The ERDP decided to empower a team of teachers as an advanced and creative group, capable of training new teachers in Palestine and across the Arab region, to engage in an advanced track that enables them to do so. This aims at expanding the influence of the ERDP projects. Most importantly, teacher engagement in these programmes does not only target self-development and provision of personal skills, but also seeks to share the experience with education professionals and transform integrative and critical learning into an influential approach within the Palestinian society as a whole.