Goodbye, 2021

New Year's Eve is one of reflection and resolutions. This year, I'm not spending much time on either. Just pushing on and not looking back on this one. My goal for tonight is to enter the new year writing. I've been posting as much as possible on the Young Playwrights Guide this week and have the draft of an essay about the importance of youth writing and digital theatre in my Drive. I look forward to doing more of that in the days ahead.

I'm also gearing up for the return to school on Monday, but not exactly sure what that day will bring. As my wife and I began our prep this evening, the biggest unknown is exactly who will be in the room. Her school has decided to go virtual for at least a week; mine has not made that call. I imagine we will be in-person, but I also expect that the room won't be full. Maybe we begin the week with a one-off SEL activity to ease us back into the groove and to assess who is there and how that week will go. Remote teaching is different from in-person teaching; a hybrid of both is yet another thing. Using the day to gauge will be of help.

Otherwise, the plan is to keep the students in mind and to continue "taking them seriously". Encourage their work, their ideas, and their voices and keep putting it into action. It has been a good adjustment bringing that idea to the fore. Doing it more should get them even more engaged than they already are.

Happy New Year, everyone! Make it a good one.

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End of Summer (or Expecting Another Shoe)

My summer ended this past Wednesday when I reported to school for the first of two professional development days. It was good to be back and I am excited by the prospects of another year with my students. However, there is a lingering, nagging sense that feels out of place for me - one that I can't quite put a name to. It isn't positive, but it also isn't completely negative. Maybe it is an internal warning not to get too excited.

Obviously, the last two years brought challenges that completely changed what I do, but we've also moved forward. I was thrilled to learn that my course load at the high school has increased to five Theatre classes (with 50 combined students). That's almost a 500% increase in students from the one class with 11 students in my first semester just two years ago. How we've been able to build a program through a pandemic is beyond me. Perhaps its just that we kept going?

Yet with that excitement there's also a dread that something else will pop up. It's like I'm looking over my shoulder expecting the next big disruption. Perhaps it is best to say I'm entering the year excited as always, but much less energized,... not a great feeling, but one that can bring growth. I know I'm not alone in these feelings and so I wish all the best for my fellow teachers this year. Hang in there!

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Simplifying for the New Year 2021

Welcoming the new year with this Emerson quote on my mind. All things considered, 2020 brought opportunity and improvement for me and my family largely because we continued to refine and follow through on the principles that we hold important. Insights from gurus like Dr. Brene Brown, Jay Shetty, Chase Jarvis, and Mel Robbins have helped me in this pursuit.

I'm beginning 2021 with an audit of my activities and commitments. How well have they, and will they, address my principles, visions, and mission? To quote another favorite author: "Simplify, simplify, simplify!" (Here's a great article from Psychology Today that simplifies Thoreau's philosophy further). Taking the time now to decide where to spend my time in the future should free up even more time to use toward those things that matter most. 

When the school year is over, I plan to do the same audit on my curriculum and after-school programming to get at the heart of the my purpose in those endeavors, as well. The hybrid learning model in which I have been working has made it necessary to streamline so much already. It will be interesting to look back and see what worked and what did not and how I can potentially bring the same simplification process to a more "normal" school year in the fall (assuming we are finally free of our social distancing measures by that time!).

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Hurry Up and Wait

After a great, yet unconventional school year, I am eager to get back. This is the first summer where I know my course load and the first time that I can go into September with plans in place. Previously, I've either been hired just before school began - or with the school year already in session, left in the dark about classes until arriving at school for the first professional development day. I'm further ahead in my planning than in those situations, but I'm getting ready with such a large question mark about how exactly our hybrid school model will pan out. That is the case for every teacher in America who hasn't yet begun school - it is frustrating, but necessary.

The biggest question right now is what form the winter musical might take. Choices are limited because of the need to secure streaming rights for the performance. I do have a show in mind and am eager to start planning because it will be a big undertaking if we can perform "normally" - we have no idea if we will be able to bring an audience together in March. I know that March is months away, but I always start planning this far out.

It's the inertia that is so frustrating at this point. Planning and preparation is necessary, but I don't want to waste that precious time doing things that may be unnecessary depending upon the circumstances.

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The Young Playwrights Guide

The past three months have been a whirlwind! I think we all feel that way to some degree. Now that school has closed for summer, I am feeling the slower pace of the mornings, and finding ways to approach many of the projects that had been waiting in the wings.

http://youngplaywrghtsguide.blogspot.com
@TheYPGuide

One of these projects is the newly branded Young Playwrights Guide, a retooled version of the Young Playwrights Map that I developed during my doctoral study. The map was a great tool for documenting the existence and spread of opportunities for youth writers around the world, but I found children and their parents were looking for advice, instruction, and guidance through various videos and conversations that arose at the beginnings of Covid-19 quarantine. I spent some time reflecting on those inquiries as well as my own desire to (re)connect with artists whom I haven't been able to work with, or even see, over the last year or so.

The Conversations Series was born on YouTube at the beginning of May and is now in its 8th iteration. You can check out those videos here. I have two more conversations in the works and am looking to build another program through the Guide by the end of summer.

Additionally, I am spreading out my prep work for the beginning of the 2020-21 school year. We anticipate hearing more in the next few weeks about potential returns to school in the fall. In the meantime, I will continue to take it slow and look to ramp things up again as July rolls around.

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Is it Essential?

Teaching at home (both my students and my children) has been, to put it simply, an adjustment. No major crises to report, however. Perhaps, in some ways, the fact that both my wife and I are teachers has contributed to quicker adaptation to the new normal in the time of social distancing. We are finding it not just a complicated time where common errands are now accompanied with mild anxiety and masks, but also an opportunity to reflect on everything: our well-being and work, but also on what is and isn't important to us as a family. Or, to use a phrase we hear everyone right now, the "essential".

That word "essential" is all over the news (well, last I checked... I've made it a point to stop following the news and found it refreshing). I've noticed the word used as a divisive term, but have also found it to be a lens through which to reflect on all aspects of life from work to family, Boiling down curriculum to the essential was a matter of necessity and my wife and I find our teaching all the better for it. In fact, I am eager to see how these revisions will further adapt my work to once we are able to return! Before everything was shut down in mid-March, we were a family constantly on the move - home to school to activities to extra work to other activities to family events to home, etc. With no where to go but home, there has been time each day to reflect and seek out ways to spend our time once school work is complete. For me, that time has been for reading and writing... which really means time for reflecting. It has meant time to seek out, and finally focus on, what is truly essential.

This all leads me to the work I have been doing over the last three weeks leading up to this post. Since 2015, I have managed an online resource of writing and contest opportunities for young playwrights (ages 8-18) around the world. This was a side project during my doctoral research that compiled basic information about the field of work being done that had ancillary relevancy to what eventually became the dissertation. It has been difficult to gauge who is behind the over 3,500 hits that the Young Playwrights Map has received in that time, but someone is finding their way there and using its information. About two years ago, I considered shutting down the Map, but a news article announcing that a young writer in New Jersey would have readings of her work in young playwrights festivals in Arizona and New York (both of which were listed on the site) prompted me to keep it going. It was not until social distancing that I had the time to do a proper update of the information listed, which I completed in mid-April. A conversation with a graduating senior from Niagara University (my alma mater) sparked my curiosity about the potential for the Map to do more than just be a listing of information. I have since embarked upon a series of changes that will transform the site again.

On May 1, the Young Playwrights Map will officially become the Young Playwrights Guide. I have a schedule of insights, advice, and video-recorded conversations that will soon populate the site with a renewed purpose to provide tools for young creators to embark upon, and eventually share, their works. I am so excited by this shift and it has been difficult to keep things under wraps. However, in order to maintain our new family schedule, I am beginning to roll out these changes with small updates to the existing online platforms. The Map website got a makeover this afternoon; social media platforms will follow. I'm also putting together the first few video conversations on a branded YouTube channel and will delve into the world of Instagram, too.

It is interesting (and perhaps a bit morbid) to think that if it were not for a global pandemic, I may not have the time to do the work that I have done. (And I am certainly empathetic to the opposite reality that others may face right now). Reflection is an important part of my work as an educator, artist, and researcher, but also having the time to read Ryan Holiday's The Obstacle is the Way launched me into the right mindset to re-brand the Map into the Guide. As Holiday notes in the book - and in other articles about the idea - It is a matter of how we use crisis, or failure, to reflect on what is essential to revise and to keep moving on.

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New Year, New Room, New Journey

In September, I began a new adventure when I was hired as the first ever Theatre teacher for a school district in suburban New Jersey. This was a unique opportunity to fulfill a dream of mine to develop a theatre education program and I could not pass it up. I am based in the middle school with an additional high school class. I am also directing the winter musical at the high school (Into the Woods - details to follow in a future post!). Now that the school year has passed the halfway mark (and done so quickly!), I've had two rotations of the quarterly class on which to reflect and make a series of changes to the curriculum. Just eight days in this has already improved the students' experience.

One thing that helped was the opening of the brand new performing arts studio, I share this space with the part-time dance teacher after we both had been bouncing around between traditional classrooms. I took the opportunity to bring the classes to the high school auditorium (the middle and high schools are attached), but that was always dependent upon the availability of the space. The new room keeps me in one place and is arranged the way I need it to be (even though it is primarily arranged for dance, which has more specific needs than a theatre class). The students and I enjoy the wide open space and the freedom that it brings - though I do miss the auditorium some times; we will return there for a future unit and the final performance project.

Panorama of Studio 205 the day before moving in

The dance teacher and I have been slowly making the room a classroom with furniture and decor. I can't wait for my storage cart to arrive this weekend and am searching for some posters and pictures for the walls. I also need to create some signs for the two mirrored walls, which are more of a distraction to self-conscious middle school students than I had imagined!

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Wrapping up 2017

With 2017 winding down, so has my journey to the Ph.D. I realized when logging in that I hadn't followed up the post about heading off to my dissertation defense. I received a unanimous "pass" and have been working for the last few weeks on revisions and reformatting of the thesis for final submission and publication. That process was completed tonight.

So 2018 will begin with all requirements for the doctorate complete and graduation just over the horizon. I can't wait to get started on the next projects and to continue improving myself in the year ahead. To that end, I am sharing a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin, which I read for the first time tonight (hat tip to The Art of Manliness Twitter feed):

"Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man." - B. Franklin

Happy New Year, everyone!