a peek inside the fishbowl

CAUTION: This post may prompt you to do something for you or your kids that will increase creativity, develop lateral thinking, improve social skills, increase confidence and help you learn how to work as a team.

Mark and I were chatting with the girls recently about schoolyard bullying and teasing, about what they should do if someone aimed a barbed remark in their direction. Our advice was this: Be tough, and act like you don’t care even if you’re cringing on the inside. If you show bullies that their teasing has an effect they’ve never leave you alone.

One of the mottos I live by is this: act brave, because no one can tell if you’re not.

See? Drama.

The Ottawa School of Speech and Drama (OSSD) is an established not-for-profit charitable organization located in Westboro, and I’m very pleased to report that they’re coming on board as a patron. The OSSD offers many different classes for children, youth, adults and professionals as well as drama classes for individuals on the autism spectrum.

Drama is an excellent way to develop literacy, speech, movement, self-confidence, and sense of community. With knowledge of drama and theatre arts come all kinds of skills, lifelong skills that can be applied across the board.

OSSD is the kind of place where kids and adults who love the dramatic arts in all of its forms can find their home away from home. Here’s a little known fact (I had no idea!); the OSSD has scholarships and bursaries, and their outreach programs bring a series of drama workshops throughout the city for children of need, youth at risk, and seniors.

The dramatic arts are serious business here. The Ottawa Theatre School (OTS), a division of OSSD, is an accredited private career college offering a three-year diploma program. You see, this place means business, yet at the same time the OSSD is also very much about learning through play.

I was perusing their programs and I was really surprised by the wide variety of course offerings. There are 29 different classes, and there is truly something for every age:

• An introduction to dramatic play for pre-schoolers
• Music, musical theatre and drama for school age kids. (This class sounds amazing: OSSD’s Introductory Musical Theatre class “lets young students learn how to tell a story through words, movement and song. Students get a chance to act, sing, dance and work chorally as a group. Musical theatre themes and songs are selected based on the needs of the students.”)
• Show Choir for teenage Gleeks (!)
• … and many many interesting adult classes. There are too many to list but you can see them all here. (Use the links on the left-hand side of the page.) I love the sound of this intro to acting class: “The ability to improvise is a life skill — reacting spontaneously to external stimuli can help you entertain a crowd, get a date and get you through a job interview. It’s a very important part of teamwork, creativity, writing, listening, public speaking, corporate presentation skills, and acting. This course gets to the heart of improvisation by tapping into the secret powers that everyone possesses but few utilize. No experience necessary. Be ready to play.” Doesn’t that sound awesome?

And OSSD program are now eligible for the Federal Child Arts Credit. Yay!

Interested? There’s an open house coming up on Saturday September 10, 2011. Go! It’s a great opportunity to meet the instructors and get a glimpse at some of the different programs available.

Thank you OSSD for your patronage!

ALSO: we have a really awesome giveaway coming up next week that you won’t want to miss. Stay tuned for more information!