Exploring C-12: An Imagined Place with a History, a Future and Contemporary Challenges

Abstract

The article reflects on a process drama workshop from the Dorothy Heathcote Now International Conference in Manchester, UK, 2025. The workshop was designed and devised to address the conference themes: “What sort of schools do we want? What sort of society do we want?” The article considers both the planning process—the conceptional design of the workshop – and how it was devised in practice to generate discovery and reflection on materials or scenes created during the work. It draws on strategies inspired by Heathcote’s legacy, extended into a critical pedagogy framework, including teacher-in-role, text work, documents and drama conventions with an intention to question, analyze, and create ideas for exploring subject matter related to the conference themes. The story developed in the workshop explores an imagined ideal society and its collapse. Framed as an investigation, it lets participants deduce what may have happened and possibly apply insights to their own lives, contexts, or concerns that resonate with them.