Professor John O’Toole, National Curriculum Arts

They wanted a writer. They got a writer. Lead writer for the National Curriculum for the Arts John O’Toole is Australia’s very first professor or chair of Arts Education. Underneath that pinnacle of achievement is a deep foundation of arts practice, pedagogy and advocacy. And writing. According to his profile at Griffith University in Queensland, John O’Toole has written 15 books, 14 book chapters, 20 commissioned plays, two published plays, 14 refereed journal articles, four consultancy reports and two videos. One of those plays, Be Aware, with Jacqueline Hamilton, won the Australian Society for Education and the Arts Innovation Award in 1985.

His first textbook, Dramawise, written with Brad Haseman, was published in1988 and was translated into Danish, Italian and Chinese. Their next collaboration was Communicate Live! in 1990. The two that followed won awards. Pretending to Learn with Julie Dunn won Drama Victoria’s Textbook of the Year Award in 2002 and the Australian Publishers Association Primary Textbook of the Year in 2003. Education in the Arts with Chris Sinclair and Neryl Jeanneret won Drama Victoria’s Best Resource for Drama/Theatre Award in 2009.

Among his scholarly texts are the first book on Theatre in Education, way back in 1977, the same year he wrote his Masters of Education thesis. Others are The Process of Drama in 1992, Cooling Conflict in 2004 with Bruce Burton, using drama and peer teaching to give students the capacity to counter bullying and manage conflict in schools, and the recently published Drama and Curriculum with Madonna Stinson.

These achievements are only a fraction of the work John O’Toole has done and completely ignores his many accomplishments in teaching, at all levels and in many countries. Again, the short summary of his writings also ignores his leadership as a professional. John O’Toole was a founder member of the drama teachers’ associations of Queensland (QADIE, now Drama Queensland), nationally (NADIE, now Drama Australia) and internationally (IDEA).

He has written curriculum before as well. In 1991 John O’Toole was the co-author of the first syllabus for senior drama in Queensland. After his schooling and early career in the UK, John O’Toole has spent most of his academic life in Queensland. In fact, he will close Connect 2012, the Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) Queensland state conference on Saturday May 26. John O’Toole has made himself widely available to speak on the progress of the curriculum writing.

As the final form of the national arts curriculum draws near, as shown by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority’s timetable, the man who has made a distinguished career in drama might need the deft skills of a playwright to find a happy ending for all the passionate stakeholders who have invested so much of themselves into this once-in-a-generation enterprise.