The pattern that connects : drama as a vehicle for ecological understanding

This article offers another perspective upon a term familiar to most drama educators: ‘drama across the curriculum’. It argues that this term, which was once central within advocacy for drama education (Pateman 1991), deserves to be reconsidered. This need for reconsideration is a consequence of a widespread expectation that education systems must actively engage with ecological concerns. This article works with a perspective that conceptualises ecology as underpinning all learning. Through this perspective, it argues that the skills and understanding made accessible through drama processes can be used to facilitate ecological understanding. Assuming that this understanding is central to the education required by students into the future, it argues for the enhanced relevance of drama and hence, reconsiderations of drama across the curriculum.