When thinking about a central "narrative" to discuss, I came across a book I read as an undergraduate theatre student called The Work of Living Art by theatre artist and author Adolphe Appia. An incredible philosopher and creative genius, Appia died in 1928, and since then his work in theatre and through education has made him one of the sole gods of modern theatre practice in schools today. Appia challenges his readers and those he worked with to look at teaching in a "metaphysical" way, as Postman speaks about in his book. This book has truly been received as a narrative that reminds teachers and artists that the theatre and it's place in everyday education has a reason to live on. It gives purpose to the medium. It helps remind people that the theatre is more than just stagnant storytelling, and that teaching is more than telling someone how to think or design. But, that it ignites morals, emotions and passions that need to be inspired and experienced rather than memorized or lectured.
             The Work of Living Art is a text that truly helped build meaning and purpose to the birth of modern education as well as the practice of theatre art. Appia gives us artistic purpose and a reason to inspire. This narrative affects how we look at each other as people, how we look at God, and discovers how we can create ultimate connections to each other through theatre. As narrative is defined in Postman's book, I believe this text has been noted as having sufficient credibility, complexity and symbolic power to enable theatre education to organize around it's central themes. Adolphe Appia is quoted in the text as saying:
             The fundamental principle of modern education is not to inculcate alleged knowledge arbitrary and by force but on the contrary to light in man the fire of understanding so that it may shine forth and permit him to receive in exchange the light from the fires of others. All education and the...