Barbara Goodwillie has been experimenting with creative drama almost exclusively for the last 25 years. Prior to that, she focused on directing plays for children, using adults, and trouping the plays to numerous schools in eastern Connecticut. An invitation to be part of The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's Creative Arts in Education Program led her into fulltime work with teachers and children, demonstrating how creative dramatics can be effective as one teaching tool. This in turn eventually led her to a part-time position at Central Connecticut State University, where she continues to have fun teaching a course offered primarily to elementary education majors, enticing them to use creative drama in their future classrooms. They explore ways to use drama to build a safe learning environment in which their students will learn to work together, use their imaginations, share their own ideas and, as a result, to develop new confidence. At the same time, these drama tools are focused on addressing the school curriculum goals.
