Recently, the official website of the Ministry of Education announced the list of national competition activities for primary and secondary school students for the 2025-2028 academic year, including the "Drama China" National Youth Drama Culture and Art Competition and the "Ivy League" National Youth Campus Drama Creativity Competition. This measure is not accidental, but a positive response and direction guidance to the current situation of drama education in primary and secondary schools. In recent years, many schools have opened school-based drama courses, established drama clubs, frequently held textbook drama performances, and the popularity of extracurricular drama literacy classes and parent-child drama camps has increased. Professional theater groups and educational institutions have organized intensive training for drama teachers, and national educational drama seminars have been held in rotation. The popularity of drama education in primary and secondary schools continues to soar. The popularity of drama education in primary and secondary schools first stems from its attribute of integrating aesthetic education with life education. While stimulating the aesthetic perception and creative potential of young people and improving their comprehensive artistic literacy, drama education also helps to enhance their communication and connection with the surrounding world, and cultivate a sound personality of independence, confidence, self-esteem, and self-improvement. Facing issues such as parent-child conflicts, emotional anxiety, and confusion, drama education guides young people to cultivate empathy through situational experiences and role-playing, learn communication through collaborative creation, and rediscover themselves and the world through situational transfer. For example, in an educational drama course with the theme of "I Love My Family", students witnessed the selfless dedication of their elders after imitating the activities of family members for 24 hours. In the forum theater with the theme of "standard answers", students face the distress caused by falling behind in grades, physical disabilities, personalized behavior patterns, etc., and transform into saviors of others' difficulties, directly participating in the plot and making the event develop in the direction they hope for. This kind of theatrical activity can strengthen students' awareness of "using actions to trigger change" and learn to accept oneself and tolerate others in diverse evaluations. The popularity of drama education also stems from its vivid and entertaining form, which can effectively empower subject teaching. In current basic education, the teaching mode of teachers speaking on stage and students listening off stage is still quite common, and students lack opportunities and space for active participation and deep thinking. Drama education, through the establishment of immersive teaching scenarios and the construction of a teaching model that emphasizes genuine feelings, deep communication, and strong interaction, not only enlivens the classroom atmosphere and stimulates learning enthusiasm, but also helps to exercise students' comprehensive abilities to actively discover problems, think independently, and collaborate to solve problems. For example, in Chinese class, students write biographies of characters for Kong Yiji and perform their prequel stories, exploring the social, cultural, and personality roots of Kong Yiji's tragic characters. This not only improves their ability to read texts carefully and write creatively, but also deepens their understanding of the feudal imperial examination system, cultivates compassion and critical thinking. In short, drama education provides a new path for implementing students' subjectivity in teaching and achieving holistic education. However, it should also be noted that the current development of drama education in Chinese schools still faces many bottlenecks. Some schools equate drama education with drama performances, excessively pursuing display effects and competition results, which deviates from the original intention of promoting aesthetic education for all students; Some schools consider drama as a "minor" and "extracurricular activity", with low participation enthusiasm and limited actual investment; The integration of drama and subject teaching remains at the surface level, and even becomes a formality; In some remote areas, there is a shortage of teaching staff, inadequate hardware facilities, and a lack of basic conditions for conducting drama education. To improve drama education in primary and secondary schools, multiple departments should collaborate and work hand in hand. At the decision-making level, it is necessary to establish a scientific curriculum system through systematic planning, give moderate recognition to relevant competitions, and guide the whole society to recognize the special nature and significance of drama education. At the practical level, gradually refine policies, improve systems, invest funds, optimize the construction of drama education courses, provide good training for drama teachers, establish a shared resource library, and effectively ensure the smooth implementation of drama education and teaching. Through a multi-faceted approach and continuous efforts, we aim to transform the popularity of drama education into intensity and sustainability, helping young people grow up healthily and better achieve the educational goals of using art to cultivate their souls and enlighten their minds. (New Society)