Lesson 1, Part One: "What's in Your Medicine Cabinet?"
Exercise: For homework, students will inventory their medicine cabinets at home, grouping a dozen medicines or remedies into four categories: emergency, preventative, chronic/maintenance, and cosmetic (aesthetic.) Students will also attempt to identify the remedy's cultural heritage, both in terms of its suspected introduction into civilization, and into their own life. Who, or what, can they remember as being the first to show them that remedy? A sample inventory may look like the following.
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Medicine Cabinet Inventory
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Medicine
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Emergency
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Preventative
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Chronic Cosmetic Heritage
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Mom
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Sun-block
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X
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Allopathy/
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Grandma
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Lipstick
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X
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Tribal
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Literature
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Prescription
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X
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X
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Allopathy/
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Dad
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Scissors
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X
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X
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X
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Industry/
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Teacher
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Tea Leaves
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X
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X
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Tribal
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Game
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Note that tealeaves are listed as a remedy. Students will be encouraged to select the least common items in their medicine cabinets, as their cultural heritage will most likely bring more diversity to the discussions and exercises, which are next. Students also will be encouraged to think of what other places they may find medicinal remedies. For example, I learned from a hairdresser that slices of cucumbers are often used to help moisturize and reduce swollen eyelids.
Discussion: The class will discuss their medicine cabinet inventories. Key points will include consideration of what causes need for a remedy. The class will consider how an injury to one area of the body affects other parts of our body and how we carry ourselves, our state of mind, and our attitudes toward other people.
Lesson 1, Part Two: "That's the Wrong Remedy!"
Exercise: The Instructor will divide the class into groups of three, and assign one of the following improvisational scenarios to each group. Each group will devise and briefly rehearse two different renditions of the improvisation. One ending should feature the use of an appropriate medicine or remedy, and the other rendition should feature the use of an inappropriate medicine or remedy. Students will perform their scenes for the class.
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Improvisation One:
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An elderly pheasant hunter is walking through dense woods and is bitten by a poisonous snake. The hunter screams for help. Hours pass before a bird watcher comes along and trips on him.
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Improvisation Two:
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A ten-year-old is playing hopscotch alone on the sidewalk outside the store where her mother is busy working the cash register. A large dog runs toward the child, scaring her. She falls and breaks her wrist.
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Improvisation Three:
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Two teenagers are crossing an old wooden footbridge, high over a ravine. A bird thinks they are endangering her nearby nest, and so darts at them. One teen gets their foot caught between the bridge's slats and sprains his ankle.
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Improvisation Four:
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A dentist accidentally eats a muffin with raisins in it. The dentist is very allergic to raisins. The dentist's patient offers advice.
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Improvisation Five:
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Two teenagers are cooking Chinese shrimp-chips, or French-fries, and one accidentally pushes the other's hand into the oil.
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Lesson 1, Part Three: "Persecutor, Rescuer, Victim"
Discussion: The class will be introduced to Dr. Karpman's theory of the Drama Triangle, which purports that all struggles in life are struggles which involve a person's movement through each of three main roles: persecutor, rescuer, and victim.4 Students must expand the role of "persecutor" to include accidental, unintentional injury or insult.
Exercise: Working in the same groups as Lesson 1, Part Two, students should identify each of their improvisations' characters main influence on the scene by using the descriptions persecutor, rescuer, and victim. The whole class should discuss each group's results.
