Inhabiting Palampur: Teaching Economics and Political Science through Drama during the Pandemic

Abstract

This essay reviews a process drama led integration of Economics and Political Science in a project called ‘The Story of Palampur’ through the lens of Dorothy Heathcote’s 1983 call to re-evaluate both the purpose of our schools and the society we wish to build. Taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic at an elite K-12 school in India, the project utilised the process drama approach to teach the threshold concepts of choice, scarcity, and marginalisation. By stepping into the lives of vulnerable residents in the fictional village of Palampur—such as displaced migrant workers and Dalit farmers—privileged students from an urban Indian school navigated the complex intersections of caste, class, and democratic friction in rural India. This embodied learning approach challenged the traditional, data-driven frameworks of the social sciences, shifting the pedagogical focus from the rote memorisation of civic institutions to a lived experience of political awareness and social justice. While demonstrating how digital drama pedagogy successfully fostered profound empathy and interrogated neoliberal educational paradigms, the essay also candidly reflects on the systemic challenges of sustaining experiential frameworks against standardised assessment pressures. Ultimately, the Story of Palampur case study illustrates that drama can provide a critical lens for humanising the curriculum, developing 21st century skills and cultivating genuinely engaged democratic citizens.