Curiosity

Persistence and curiosity may be the most important qualities we possess, yet I'm not sure they are the easiest to access. We are curious about everything as a baby, but seem to bury that away as we get older. What happens? How do we rekindle that curiosity? I try to spark it in my theatre classroom, especially at the middle school. A few students have told me that they would like to try working backstage, or performing, as a result of the class. They would never have wanted to do so before. I wonder: what specifically sparked that curiosity? What keeps us interested enough to feed that curiosity and to continue exploring?
How can that be applied elsewhere?

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Smile!

Look, I know it sounds cheesy, but the more we smile, say "hello", hold the door open for someone, or offer to help, the better off things are going to be. I try to do these things when I can and find that it often makes a difference. Just seeing another person smile can make the day that much better. This is particularly true with students and perhaps especially so in middle school. Give it a try sometime.

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Audience Engagement & Education

This is my third consecutive year teaching in the classroom (not counting the one year immediately after grad school). My journey to this work has been anything but traditional, which I think is one of the biggest benefits that I bring to the position I am in today. And not just content-wise as a theater teacher, but because of what I learned about audience engagement. My daily audience is my students; however, they're not the audience to whom I'm referring. Student engagement is important, of course, but so is engagement with the families and community outside of the school.

Audience engagement is important inside and outside the classroom

Dr. Joe Sanfelippo is the superintendent of Fall Creek School District in Wisconsin. His One Minute Walk to Work videos are a great resource for educators, but also a master class in leadership. In a recent Tweet, Dr. Sanfelippo talked about regularly connecting with parents, not just in the moments where we need them, or need to inform them. I've recently found how important that part of the job is. In the short time I have been in my current job, a number of parents have told me how much they appreciated hearing from me. Building those relationships is important for a child's education. I've taken steps this 3rd quarter to reach out to parents more often, but also emphasized the idea that Theatre is a communication between actors and audience. That skill is at the heart of my curriculum and surprisingly something in need of development in our society of advanced technology meant to bring us closer together. Just two weeks in now and already it seems as if students are creating with each other quicker and with less hesitation than in previous quarters. I hope this will lead to deeper collaboration by the end of our 10-week session.

At the high school, I hope to achieve my goal of expanding the student theatre program's social media presence will have long-term benefits. Our first gauge will be how well increased communication and engagement works with regard to ticket sales for the upcoming musical (Into the Woods - March 12, 13, 14). Perhaps from there, a link can be made to the transferable marketing skills developed in the theatre classroom.

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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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Curbside Prophet

There are a number of roadside signs near where I live and work that frequently post maxims, sayings, and other quick philosophical sayings. The family-owned auto repair shop is one of my favorites; I also enjoy the fun marketing of a local ice cream parlor. However, today it was a church that had a great, quick saying:

Today hasn't happened before.

Simple and elevating in just four words. It resonated with me personally, but also felt true for the students I teach who are anxious and uncertain about speaking in front of peers in a theatre class. What has happened before is past and we don't know what tomorrow will be. But today is here in front of us and can be whatever we want. Why assume it is the same? Why not make it different? Or at least take a step in the direction you want to go?

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Engaging Live Lecture

This weekend, Seth Godin posted an interesting idea on his blog called "Break the Lecture". In short, Godin is suggesting that we live in a digital age where interactive technology is nearly ubiquitous and people experience things less in person than they did years ago. One area he suggests hasn't changed is the classroom lecture, which has remained one-sided whether in person or online. He offers the idea of a "back channel" app that asks students questions throughout the lecture. This provides a means for engagement while offering a speaker feedback in real time. I like the concept and agree that lectures need to be rethought in order to engage with the audience. However, I don't know if using our digital technology is the best way.

PeopleImages/Getty
(Is that the lecturer from HigherEdJobs.com?)

Immediately, I think of my middle school and high school classrooms where technology is a constant distraction. This is particularly true in middle school. While Godin's theoretical app would block all other apps and programs, I wonder if it only exacerbates the distance that device use has created. Listening and discussing during a lecture is an important skill that will be of benefit to students in the future. Interacting with a live person - while becoming an incredibly less prevalent experience in our society - is a skill that needs nurturing; one might argue it to be one of the most important for children in the middle school years.

So instead of an engagement app, I propose making those lectures more engaging. A good first step would be getting some of that text off the screen (or at the very least, please stop reading what text is up there). Using tech to elevate engagement in the lecture will go a long way. In the end, it always comes down to the age-old "know your audience" and gear the presentation toward their needs and interests. Admittedly, with students, they also need to be willing to take that journey, but as a teacher it is my job - our job - to meet them at that point and provide an interesting path forward. Jordan Tannahill explores this idea within the context of creating theatre in his book Theatre of the Unimpressed. Plenty of strong ideas in there that can be applied to the classroom. I am trying to do this myself, but the jury is still out on it... but so far, so good.

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Silly and Subversive

"You can entertain younger audiences while still playing to adult viewers [...] you can get away with being a little dangerous, provocative, or just plain deep if you did it with a smile on your face and remembered that entertainment always came first. When done right, it's possible to be silly and subversive at the same time."

From Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones (Amazon / Barnes and Noble / Your Local Library).

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The Defense That Almost Wasn't - Two Years Later

Two years ago today, I passed the oral defense of my doctoral dissertation with minor revisions needed. It was the end of one of the biggest accomplishments of my life to date and the start of a new chapter for me professionally. However, I almost didn't make it there that day.

After a 45 minute drive, I found a packed parking garage at the train station and a very long line waiting for spots to open in the overflow lot. They were also understaffed. I watched from the line of cars as my scheduled train came and went and then another. There was another train coming in just a few minutes - the last one I could catch and still possibly make it to the city on time. When I finally got the chance to park, I grabbed my bags, and ran to the closest stairway up to the elevated platform. It is the equivalent of three stories. And I tripped on the way, lodging a rock into my thumb that stayed in place for the following six months. The train conductor saw I was completely winded and gave me a few stops before checking my ticket.

The rest, I guess, is history.

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History & Theatre at 3rd & Chestnut

Had a great time Wednesday accompanying the 7th grade class on their field trip to the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia today. I am a big history nerd, especially when it comes to the American Revolution. That period has been an interest of mine ever since I learned as a kid that I shared a birthday with George Washington. I am also fascinated by museums and libraries - I could spend all day getting lost in them reading, learning, dreaming... of course that wouldn't do on this trip. It was my job as chaperone to keep an eye on a group of 17 students as they were led around the museum by one of the education tour guides. It was the perfect opportunity to do what I ask my students in the TYA class at NYU to do: watch how the youth in the audience react to what is being presented and the students did not disappoint.

The museum uses a few techniques to gauge audience interest. The layout meanders through the second story of the building much like the snake depicted in the "Join or Die" drawing featured prominently on the wall in one of the first rooms on the tour. Each of the rooms is dimly lit - no doubt this is to protect the artifacts within, but it also serves to help illuminate the items, statues, and stories most important to the narrative of the museum. The students and I also received character cards that included the name and some basic background information about a real person who lived at the time of the Revolution. We were told by the guide that at the end it would be revealed whether or not the person on our card survived the war. It was a technique reminiscent of the passport given to visitors at the United States Holocaust Museum when I went many years ago.

There was at least one statue, or tableaux, present in the museum rooms depicting important steps on the road from Stamp Act to the Treaty of Paris. These seemed to capture the students' attention most, as did the various interactive touch screens in other locations. The figures were so close and so lifelike that I found that if I imagined enough, it almost seemed as if I was there in the moment. The most engaging part of the trip for the students seemed to come at two separate moments. First, we boarded a replica of the bow of a privateer's sloop where seven students were pressed into service to load and fire a cannon. They took the work seriously and were deeply engaged in the moment. It was unfortunate, however, that the rest of the tour group was disengaged. With four cannons on the ship, I wonder what it might take to get everyone involved in that activity. The second most engaging moment came at the end of the tour when students came face to face with photographs of the people listed on our cards (everybody's character survived). It was fascinating to watch as they eagerly sought out the picture with a name plate that matched the name on their card. Many were surprised by how the person looked in the portrait; the photographs were of the people in old age. The students also touched the photos as if to have a more personal connection through touch.

The final message from the tour guide was that the spirit of the Revolution continues on in America today as we constantly strive for a better life and society. It was a great message that was alluded to at least once or twice along the way. I find it empowering to leave an audience with a big question to think about after an experience like this; that is one of the great powers of theatre. Did it work in the museum setting? It did for me. How well it resonated with the students is something I would need to follow up on with them. We quickly left the gallery for lunch (an hour later than we typically eat at school), so thoughts quickly shifted from the revolution to our stomachs, I'm sure. That only emphasized the importance of a follow up event like a post-show discussion, or something else along those lines. My TYA class at NYU often advocates for these although I am often skeptical of how well they work.

Elizabeth "Mum Bett" Freeman

One other thing I enjoyed was that our tour guide took a moment to tell one of her favorite stories from the museum: that of Mum Bett, an enslaved woman from Massachusetts who successfully sued for her freedom under the Massachusetts Constitution in 1781. It set a prescident that allowed for other slaves to sue for their freedom and eventually led Massachusetts to become the first state to abolish slavery. Mum Bett, or Elizabeth Freeman as she was later known, was a topic of discussion during the TYA class at NYU yesterday as we discuss the play, The Judgement of Bett by R.N. Sandberg along with Harriet Jacobs a dramatization of Harriet Jacob's slave narrative adapted by Lydia R. Diamond. I love tying together theatre and history and was happy to have this connection on the tour. Looking forward to considering it again in class tomorrow; perhaps it is something that I can bring - at least in part - to the 7th graders, as well.

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Holding out for a hero!

This summer has been a complicated one (with stories for future posts), but one positive side is it has given me time to work on a number of projects I've had in mind for some time. Can't share details yet, but stay tuned...

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Yard Work, Take 2

Garden ready!

The plan this summer is to attend to the multitude of projects around the house that I haven't been able to get to in the past two years. As luck would have it, my first weekend of yard work ended with a second degree sprain in my right ankle. This was the consequence for NOT getting to one of the items on my list: filling the "pond" that the kids dug last summer. Today was the first day my ankle was feeling well enough to be out of the walking boot for a significant period of time, so I went right to work on the list of chores immediately after mowing the lawn.
Completed today were the following:

• weeding the garden box
• planting vegetables and flowers purchased during last week's sale
• weed whacking the yard
• filling the hole (!)
• adding dirt and mulch to the front flower bed
• trimming the hedges

Two or three eggs in the hedge

Got it all done with some help from two of three children. We saw plenty of wildlife in the yard today. Chipmunks, a groundhog (under the deck, which I hope was a hiding place and not a home), cardinals, blue jays, mourning doves, sparrows, and a couple of nests complete with eggs (sparrows, perhaps?). It also seems a hawk has been feasting around our house. I cleaned that up, too.

Productive day, but my ankle is in need of some ice and rest. Happy to have gotten that work done; still much more to do. For now, I'm off to grade papers and get ready for the last full week of school.

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