Upheavals, Transitions, and Arts Education in the Lives of Children

One of the places I work is an elementary school in an inner-city neighborhood. I know some of my readers work with students from families in very challenging circumstances. It is a neighborhood with a high rate of sexual abuse and the sex offender registry adds new convicted sex offenders to the immediate surroundings every week. Living in cheap housing, in a neighborhood with a statistically high rate of crime and a low literacy rate,  are  major “given circumstances” in the lives of the children I see every week.Attendance at parent teacher conferences is low and the incidence of children being raised by a single parent or guardian, often a grandmother, is high. My second grade students giggle hysterically when we practice reading a list of words with 2 e’s because they already know what “weed” is, in this neighborhood. I have been cussed out, more than once, by six and seven year old children. With a 50% transiency rate, I would imagine that the school office has to spend an inordinate amount of time just keeping up with changing addresses and the revolving door of students transferring in and out of the school every month. So it is an understatement to say that many of them lead lives that are, at best, unstable.

At this beautiful school, with its amazing children, we’ve been talking a lot as a staff about a belief system that holds that the adults in the building are responsible for the culture of the school. An educator there, whom I respect very much, once pointed out that we, the adults in that building, have to be more influential than the environment. Ever since he said it, it has stuck with me, because– wow, tall order. Whether or not you work in a school like this one, every school has students with lives that are at least temporarily unstable. Students whose families are going through a divorce. Students who have recently been put into foster care. Students who struggle after a move. For young children especially, small upheavals are still upheavals, and I imagine when you don’t always know if you’re going to sleep in the same bed one night after another, when you don’t know if you’re going to go home to adults fighting, or when you don’t know if you’ll have a meal this Saturday– these things make tolerance for other kinds of changes that much less. Teachers are not social workers, but they know child development and they know something of the challenges the students in front of them face. I think it is an ethical responsibility of teachers and administrators who are aware of significant instability in the lives of the students in their building, to proactively consider every change in routine, every shift of a student into a new classroom, every change that might be very insignificant in the eyes of an emotionally healthy adult but could, somehow, be significant and sometimes re-traumatizing to  a child in crisis. We, as educators, cannot “fix” everything in the lives of our students, but we can be sensitive to their needs and minimize the amount of changes and “surprises” that we throw at them.

I know, first hand, that the arts are an unbelievable tool in mourning, and it occurs to me that the constant unsteadiness in some children’s lives results in a near constant state of mourning for some of them.  I’m wondering how the arts could be better utilized in classrooms with children who face this kind of instability.Given that the arts are notoriously the “first cut” from the curriculum in this age of high-stakes testing, I would guess that many of the schools with children with the most needs are the most arts starved. But arts experiences, too, can be surprising and potentially uncomfortable. Paintings don’t turn out the way you thought, you have to wait your turn while someone else reads their lines, and sometimes music dredges up feelings for which there are no words. So, I think there are landmines in this work too. This is just the beginning of a line of thought– maybe I will think on this more and add another post on the subject later. But I’m interested in hearing what you think.

Question for the World: What have your experiences with children with instable lives been? How can the adults in your building make a better impact on their academic and social-emotional futures? Can, and should, the arts play a role in such endeavors? 

First Days

When I was in high school I was an actor for Looking In, performing scenes about social issues throughout Connecticut. Part of the training process involved listening to a range of speakers discuss the various issues we were creating scenes about. One of the speakers I remember most vividly was a therapist who talked about alcohol abuse in adolescents and mental health issues. He told a story of a professor he had in graduate school, who asked the classroom of psychiatrists-to-be what they thought the goals of a first therapy appointment ought to be. The students discussed a range of agendas a mental health professional might have as they began work with a new client and there was a heavy debate about which priorities were most important. After the class discussion the professor offered this insight: The goal of the first appointment is to get a second one. Period.

That statement has stuck with me for a long time and I’ve applied the notion of getting a second meeting in a lot of the work I do. When I direct a play, I want to get the actors clear on what the schedule is, get a taste of the culture of this process we are embarking on, and get the juices of ensemble flowing. Ultimately all the planning I do for the first rehearsal revolves around the question of how to get these actors ready for the second rehearsal. I don’t really have a set icebreaker I always use or an immovable rule that every rehearsal requires that staging begin or even a read-through necessarily. Each production is different and this makes each first day different– but the plan always revolves around the question of what are my performers and production team going to need immediately next. Does everyone know where the bathrooms are? Is there an activity that will most develop a collegiality among (often) relative strangers who’ve come together for this particular production? Is there an image or idea I can share that will help those in the room see what most touches me about this particular piece, and can I present that in a way that will plant a seed of deepening interest in the project?

I have a similar approach in teaching. With my college students I spend a huge portion of time going over the syllabus on the first day, and in the past I found myself frustrated that that would take away time from activities I had in mind to “get started.” But just as elementary school teachers know that investing extra time on establishing rules and classroom management that first month of school makes all the difference in the students’ behavior the rest of the year, adult students, too, need their hands held a bit before getting their feet wet in a new course. Its an investment in the rest of the course, but particularly for the tone that second class will have.

Question for the World: What do you like to do on “first days” or rehearsal, school, or work? What approaches to the getting-ready-to-go phase of collaborative activity  have you found effective, and what approaches did not?

The Kids I Lose Sleep Over

As some of you know I was the Education Director at Hartford Children’s Theatre for several years. There were a lot of things I loved about that job but my absolute favorite was distributing financial aid for students from low-income families to attend theatre classes and programs. Applying for, processing, and reporting on grant funding sounds kind of dull but I found the entire process of our financial aid program to be the single most gratifying part of the work I did there. A lot of people complain about the paperwork required in grant work for nonprofits, and it can be a hassle, but it was incredibly gratifying to have a graph in my office detailing how many students whose families were on food stamps were getting the opportunity to take a creative drama class or be in a play for the first time. Going to informational meetings at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and other such places was always inspiring because there were people from so many other organizations there. Organizations that provided after school care and tutoring to youth in Hartford, providing meals and housing assistance, and family literacy programming. Sometimes I would find a particular child’s situation disheartening, but those connections with other nonprofits made me think that we were all a part of something larger that would make a difference in the long term. One teenager in a family would be saved by a job skills program, one  child would gain confidence from a performance opportunity, a third would develop leadership skills through extended day care programming, and the whole family would benefit from addiction support services. One of those nonprofits alone would drown in the needs of its community, but together significant change could happen. I may be an idealist but I was honored to be a part of small differences in the lives of some very special kids being made in this way.

I think about that gratifying sensation– I’m a part of something important!– a lot these days. Today I spend my mornings tutoring second graders in reading in the North End of Hartford. “North End” has a special meaning in Hartford–the way “Harlem” means something special in New York. When I tell people I work there, the first question I get is usually how I make sure my car doesn’t get broken into. The school I work in doesn’t bother with special cafeteria tickets for free and reduced price lunches– they ALL qualify for free lunch. When I first met with my students, I asked them to draw pictures of people who were important to them. One boy drew Superman– which was sort of adorable, and sort of sad, because he honestly couldn’t think of anyone else in his life that was important. As they drew, their stories came out– I learned which students have multiple family members in jail, which ones are in foster care, and which ones, at 7 years old, are aunts and uncles to the children of their very young teenage siblings. Words that would make a sailor blush come out of the mouths of more than a few of these little children on a regular basis and the custodial staff is in a seeming unending battle to cover up those words as they are written across the walls of hallways and bathrooms throughout the school. And every half hour I take three or four of these kids and try to help them make sense of the English language. I’m on the front lines of a battle, the only battle that has a CHANCE of saving these kids lives. Sometimes I honestly doubt that my little time with them, struggling through the difference between “these” and “those,” trying to get a kid who reads on a kindergarten level to at least get up to a first grade level, will change the course of their future. But one or two kids’ lives will be a little different, and third grade will be a hair easier for most of them than it would have been without that one-on-one time spent working on reading. The after school program they go to will keep them safe while the single parent in their life is at work, and the soup kitchen at the church down the street will ensure that the free lunches at school aren’t the only meals they get this week. Mentors, athletic coaches, and tutoring programs will see some of them through high school, and the community college I work at will reach out to some of them many years from now, providing stepping stones to 4-year colleges and careers their parents were not able to pursue. How many of them? I don’t know. All I know is that the more time I spend with them the more invested I become in their futures. Too many of them have been dealt a bad hand, and do not even realize it yet. It would be criminal to stand by and do nothing. I can’t do everything, but I’m going to use this little time I have to help them break the code of the letters on paper. The opportunity to be a part of their young lives is nothing short of an honor.

In some ways it’s not as simple to be of service to these kids as it was when I was handing out financial aid like some kind of theatre education Santa Claus. Sometimes change is visible, but often it’s unclear if the work is helping, and even if it is, it’s hard to really categorize a move from “substantially deficient” to “deficient” as a success. So I find it important to remind myself that I’m not the only soldier here. These kids do have some special people in their lives that are rooting for them, every day. Even if Superman is the only one they can think of.

Discovery of the Week

New favorite blog in arts education. Holy awesome the classroom management stuff is fantastic.

More or less back on Eastern Standard Time

Thought I’d debrief on a couple things now that I’ve re-settled myself after the AATE conference.

A Few Aha! Moments and the Beautiful People who Led Me to Them

• On the whole “is-it-okay-to-do-a-Latino (Chicano, West Indian, insert-racial or ethnic identity here) play-when you only have white students” question: Putting aside the obvious opportunities this presents to invite diversity into your school/program/theatre, in the amateur theatre setting children of color are asked to play roles written for white people all the time. Given  the option to bring a play with characters of diverse identities to a greater audience, not having diversity in your ranks is not a valid excuse for depriving such students from the exposure– in fact, it’s more reason it’s needed. (h/t Roxanne Schroeder-Arce)

 

•  There aren’t nearly enough Asian American TYA plays, particularly with female protagonists that are not stereotyped as “model minority,” etc. (h/t YiRen Tsai)

 

• Outstanding assessment question for students attending theatre programming: “Did you see yourself onstage?” May all children and youth have the chance to experience art that makes them explain “I see me!” (h/t AATE’s Multiculturalism and Diversity Committee)

 

• Labeling children with special needs as “high functioning” or “low functioning” is pejorative. (h/t Diane Nutting)

 

• There has been some great reflection in the field about ethical issues in TYA and arts education recently. The impetus for this reflection has not always been wholly altruistic, but the ethical questions of our field are many and demand attention. (h/t Drew Chappell, Matt Omasta, and the Youth and Professional Theatre Networks)

Question for the World: Have you had any Aha! moments about your work or the field recently? Do tell!

Children’s Literature Pt 1

One of the projects I’ve taken on this summer is to finally get a cross-endorsement to teach English grades 7-12, something that I was 2 classes short of for several years. The short version of that story is that I started out thinking I needed English certification to teach theatre in Connecticut, but when Connecticut finally added a “unique special endorsement” in theatre I jumped to add that instead. But I DID spend all that money on Praxis tests in English and a course in the History of the English Language (mind numbingly dull, if you were wondering), so I’ve always wanted to get it done. I took an Advanced Composition class in the spring, which was doubly beneficial because it got me finally getting into a draft phase of TWO articles I think I could eventually develop for publication– hopefully I’ll be posting more on those later on.

So now I’m well into my final course, on a subject I adore, Children’s Literature. I’ve tried to use the course to get acquainted with more books that I could use in my teaching work, and also to get a better sense of what works in children’s books and whether and how that connects to children’s dramatic literature. I’ve been thinking lately about what it is that draws me to theatre for young audiences and I know it’s roots are in my experiences with books as a child. Great children’s literature, whether it’s dramatic, poetic, fiction, or nonfiction, is great literature, first and foremost. Maybe it is the simplicity of the vocabulary or the limited length most picture books work within, but I’m taken lately with the realization that so much good children’s literature is so close to poetry. Story stripped to its most essential parts somehow catches the heart more often.

I’ve read quite a stack of children’s books for this course but one thing that I’ve really enjoyed is being exposed to so many outstanding children’s literature websites. It’s great to see what others recommend, and it occurs to me that there’s room for book recommendations on this blog. So,  for your reading enjoyment, here are a few of the best children’s books I’ve read this month, maybe for a later post I’ll brainstorm some lessons around them:

• Katya Arnold’s Elephants Can Paint Too! 
• Vicki Cobb’s On Stage: Where’s the Science Here?
• Robert Coles’ The Story of Ruby Bridges
• Allen Say’s Stranger in the Mirror

Questions for the World: What great children’s books have you read recently? Or not so recently? What do you think makes for an exceptional story for children?

Conventional Wisdom

I like the question this blog poses. I have had many professional experiences where I felt like I was working against conventional wisdom. Thoughts on some of them:

• One Person Does It All Syndrome. There are cases in the professional world in which a handful of people take on several jobs, as in the touring show where the master electrician is also stage managing or driving the truck to the next stop. Outside of these limited situations, there really is no good reason for one person to be costumer, stage hand, and director all at once. It inevitably brings down the quality of the show, not to mention damages the health and well-being of that One Person. If you have the energy to put on a show, you can find the energy to network your way to getting assistance.

 

• Shakespeare is essential. This one especially will get me in trouble with a vast number of my colleagues, but I feel that Shakespeare is grossly overdone in the high school curriculum while an entire canon of dramatic literature that students might find more accessible is ignored. I have seen amazing high school productions of Shakespearean works, and I have seen terrible ones. When comprehension of increasingly difficult text is already such a problem, I feel that there is a premature rush to build appreciation for Shakespeare before students are developmentally equipped or literate enough to get much out of it. Moreover, there are too many cases where the teacher is not able to teach Shakespeare’s plays in an accessible manner. If you adore Shakespeare and want to bring your passion to your students, do it! But the theatre has other writers, and some of them are even still alive.

 

• That teacher is great– look at what he can do! Most teaching artists I know have an emergency lesson they can teach in their sleep. Most bring years of training and experience to their work. But just like any other profession, there’s a difference between evaluating a teacher based on a single class and evaluating their work over time. We all have good days and bad days, and so do our students.It’s easy to stick with old habits, or stick with theatre games that have worked well in the past. Part of a good teacher is what they do today, but the difference between good and great is measured in what they plan to do tomorrow. Truly outstanding teachers got that way through the sweat and tears of a full commitment to ongoing critical self-evaluation and professional development. I can’t imagine hiring someone for any position in theatre if I wasn’t sure they possessed  such a dedication.

Question for the World: What conventional wisdom do you encounter(and shatter, or live with) in your professional life?

Acting for the Very Inhibited… and Other Challenges

I’ve been teaching regularly with some high school and college aged students who are very new to theatre, some of whom are only in my particular class because someone forced them to take it. This of course presents a special challenge for a teaching artist– it’s always easier to teach people who actually are interested in the content you’re working with. I have students who are so painfully shy that, while willing to be a “good student” enough to try to read a monologue in front of the class, will only manage to speak at a level just slightly above a whisper. I have other students who appear put off by the mere suggestion that they participate in an activity, and will go to great lengths to stall, sometimes to the detriment of the class. I have a student who, when asked to write about what types of activities they think they would enjoy in acting class, wrote that she really wanted to be in another class but it was filled and as far as acting went she didn’t like “silly games” or any level of performance in front of the class or elsewhere. I’ve employed a variety of strategies to enthuse, inspire, and encourage these kinds of non-performers, but I’m interested to know if others have had success with such personalities at the high school and college level.

Question for the World: Have you had students whose inhibitions severely limited their participation in class? Have you had students who simply did not want to be in your class in the first place? What did you do to make it work?

Substitute Teaching 101

Reading this made me realized that this was one aspect of my professional life I hadn’t spent much time on here. Substitute teaching is one of my main in-between-gigs jobs. Freelancing as I have been for over a year now, as well as for several years after college, there are times like this past month (6 Tech Weeks in a Row, with 2 of them happening at virtually the same time!) when I am too busy to take on much else, but there are also times when having an option for steady employment is a must. So I am on a substitute teaching list for grades K-12 in a local school district and for an arts magnet high school.

People always look at me a little oddly when I say this, but I actually really like substitute teaching, and mostly because, as jobs go, I find it pretty easy compared to a lot of other things I do. The pressures of planning are generally out the window, no one faults you if things go awry, there’s no work to bring home, and if you have a really lousy day with a particular school or grade level or group of kids you are under absolutely no obligation to see them ever again. Every subbing experience has it’s surprises, which provides me with just enough challenge to stay interested and improvising, but I find that I don’t get too worked up over a less than perfect day of subbing– it’s easier to let things roll off your back when that personal connection of returning regularly isn’t there. It also allows a great deal of flexibility (in my district at least) because I can sign up to sub as often or as little as I’d like and I never have to go through the hoops of a personal day for a doctor’s appointment.

The link to Betty’s Blog got my attention though because some of the perils she alludes to are definitely true. There are definitely times in the lunch room when I’ve walked in and been treated as invisible, or worse, intruding. There are definitely times when lesson plans left behind are less than helpful, when maps to classrooms are not provided, or students have treated me with something less than respect. There was this past September when I substitute taught at 4 different schools and each one had a fire drill when I was there, leaving me looking to paras and 7th graders to determine the emergency exits and procedures. I think a lot more could be done to support and appreciate substitute teachers. Teaching is isolating enough at times and standing in for a teacher may be just that much moreso. My favorite memories of substitute teaching are when I happened on a magic moment with a child (such as when I accidentally inspired a little boy named to Joey to write the “y” in his name for the first time), when I’ve gotten feedback from students that something I’ve done in class has clarified or extended the work they were already doing, and those times an administrator or other teacher has checked in, completely unsolicited, to see how they could assist or to express their thanks.

So, in a nod to Betty, here are 10 random things I have learned in my own substitute teaching:

1. Teachers can always be clearer in writing lesson plans. Not every substitute has been trained in the latest educational methods, and many times there are activities or procedures that have been built into a school or district’s culture that need further explanation for the uninitiated. This is a bigger issue, I find, with elementary school teachers than with teacher’s of older students. Or maybe jargon– or sometimes just cute names for simple activities– is more prevalent in primary grades?

2. If you bring an iced coffee into a classroom with a desk calendar and lots of papers on it, and set it down while trying to figure out the days plans in the under-10-minutes-till-the-students arrive, you have at least a 50% chance of spilling the coffee all over the teacher’s desk, thereby ruining something of theirs, losing 5 minutes to locating paper towels, and , sometimes most concerning, going without the caffeine you really needed to survive the morning. For this reason, all substitute teachers should invest in well-sealed coffee mugs.

3. Names matter. You will screw names up reading the attendance aloud and it will irritate the kids. Yes, even if they’re in high school– sometimes especially if they’re in high school. Make a point at the beginning of the class that you want to learn to say their names correctly and apologize the minute you mess up. If the name on the list says “Joseph,” ask if they want or don’t want to be called “Joe” or “Joey.” Some kids are like my sister was, going by a middle name and living in horror of the substitute calling them by their first name. It doesn’t matter that you may never see this group of kids again. It’s a small thing that gets noticed.

4. Circulate. This is the single biggest classroom management tool at your disposal. When students are working on something independently, walk around the room. You don’t have to say or do anything. Just show interest.

5. Cry for Help. No one will look down on you. If you have an issue with a students’ behavior or you’re struggling to figure out what time the kids are supposed to go to gym, call the office, the teacher next door, any adult. The silent presence of a random adult they recognize is a powerful force.

6. There are kids who look on having a substitute teacher as an opportunity to goof off, be a smart aleck, get attention, whatever. Don’t take it personally. Ignore what you can but let the students know that a complete report of their behavior is going back to their regular teacher.

7. Empathize. It is especially difficult for young children to deal with change. A substitute teacher comes in and screws up the way Reading Groups are “supposed” to be run, tells them that they have to sit at their desks for snack when their regular teacher says they can eat on the carpet, and can’t even tell that Johnny’s sitting in the wrong seat. This can all be very unnerving to a first grader, leading to a chorus of tattletales and whining. The conversation goes better when you let them know that you understand it can be challenging to have a substitute teacher. You’re still going to do what you’re going to do, but sometimes all a kid needs is acknowledgment that things are not going as they may have expected.

8. In elementary grades the standard test of a sub is “I have to go to the nurse.” In  upper grades it’s either “I have to go to my locker.” or “Can I have a drink of water?” The elementary school issue is the hardest call to make– if you say no and they throw up in class you’ll feel like a jerk, but sometimes you gotta go with your gut that they’re fine.  I’ve had classes where I’ve had 8-10 kids claim to be sick over the course of a day. Usually I tell students to “rest” at their desk for a little while to see if they feel better later. Usually this makes the young child bored really quickly and they magically feel better soon after. With the older kids I generally don’t let them get water until after whatever task we’re doing is over (and sometimes not even then), but if they claim the book they need for the work is in their locker I send them.

9. Take your echinacea, Vitamin C, hand sanitizer, whatever works– with you. Despite the number of perfectly healthy children claiming to need a trip to the nurse, most teachers get sick more their first couple years teaching so arm yourself.

10. Bring a book. Especially if you’re substituting above the third grade level, because more often than not some portion of the lesson plans will be a test, silent reading time, study hall, or worksheets. Sixth grade and above often have more extended “free” time (time the regular teacher fills with meetings and planning) where it is likely you will run out of things to do. You may have this at younger grades too– such as when the class is in Art– but often the younger the class the more you’ll be scrambling to keep ahead of them with the next lesson plan.

Question for the World: Have you had adventures in substitute teaching? Best or worst experiences? What makes for a good substitute teaching experience and how could substitute teaching be made better?

Objectives 101

Some of my better ideas in teaching are ones I’ve come up with spontaneously. Today was a day like that. I was teaching my college level Introduction to Theatre students some basic textual analysis skills– choosing objectives being a major discussion point. I make an effort in all my teaching to mix up groupings of students whenever possible, and today after modeling choosing objectives for one of Beneatha’s monologues from A Raisin in the Sun, I split the group up into the men and the women. The men worked on one of Rafe’s monologues from Windshook and the women worked on one of Lily Dale’s monologues from Lily Dale from The Orphans Home Cycle. They had to collaborate to reach a consensus about where they thought each beat in the text was located and on a strong objective for each one. After they did this, an idea came to me, mainly out of an interest to involve as many students as possible in the performing of the monologues at the end, rather than to just have one group member present to the class. I asked each student to take a different beat and perform their section with that objective in mind. So we had 5 Lily Dale’s in a line, each taking their turn to present the collective work of the group. I found it so effective in that the students weren’t pressured to perform all the hills and valleys of the piece, but just to focus in on the notion of a single objective. It kind of exaggerated the notion that each beat is a unit unto itself. Plus it was super-theatrical having 5 people all performing as the same person (definitely want to explore that for directing possibilities some day)… Most of all the structure of the activity required cooperative work and a sense of “product” beyond the heavy process-feeling of studying textual analysis.

Another activity I did recently was to have students create one or two person tableaux demonstrating character who has a particular objective. I find new actors often take a while getting their minds around what an objective is and is not, and just brainstorming potential objectives that could fit any character– and then exploring it from a nonverbal angle seems to help with that a lot.

Question for the World: Do you teach beats (or units), objectives, and superobjectives? How do you do it? What pitfalls have you run into with teaching this content?