Throughout my life, nearly all of my most impactful educational experiences (as a student and as a teacher) have been through theater. The thing that separates theater from other art forms is the live, interpersonal connection – the main difference between a movie and a play is that when you watch a play you are breathing the same air as the actors. Theater is born out of, and still steeped in, the cultural experience of being together at the same time. For many around the world, it is still synonymous with a religious experience.
That all went away during the Covid shutdown.
I tried to move my educational programming online and I created entertaining videos, but it did not feel like “teaching” because there was no discussion, or interruption, or experimentation. It felt instead like “creating content,” which is its own job these days. (My students have begged me to make a tiktok. No thank you.) I ended my videos with an activity idea, but there was no follow-up, therefore no accountability to do it. It occurred to me that I don’t know what my students need if they’re not telling me in real time. (I will say I had a FANTASTIC experience with the College of Marin in California – a theater teacher there found my videos and had me virtually discuss them with her class of about 6 nontraditional learners.)
As far as Mimi’s analogy to “the aquarium shop guy”, I am that guy but for theater. Kids meet me and they meet an actor/director/theater professional. I had the privilege of meeting and learning from plenty at a young age, so I often forget that this is a novel thing. My approach to the classroom is what I’ve jokingly referred to as “sticks and rocks”, the technology I’ve employed as never gone much farther beyond a dry-erase board and paper and pencils, because a) I don’t need anything else for the social-emotional play, and b) technology always fails me. For my “enrichment activities”, my students bring themselves to class, which is all they need.
This is great, because it’s a huge equalizer – I get hired to teach in a diversity of areas with or without budgets, resources, and capabilities of the space. With the increasing gap between schools that can afford extra curriculars and schools that cannot, I can work in any/all. It’s only a hinderance when I “need to spend the grant money” (feed the students!) or if I “need to incorporate STEM.” (… paper airplanes?) I am actually very bad at figuring out what to do with money/resources; past experiences have taught me not to trust that they will be there on time, that they will work the way that they’re expected to, that there will be enough for everyone, or that the students will already know how to use them well enough to keep the lesson moving. I also don't want to use class time for setup or cleanup or troubleshooting. I want my educational experiences to be more about eye contact than “What button do I click now?”
The best thing I’ve done with this superpower is create a space where students can connect to a community of others that are “like them.” My favorite tiny community is a summer program I took over, where kids who can get themselves to a local theater meet other kids who have also maybe never done theater before. Reasons to join include “I want to do theater but I never get cast at school,” “I want to be a part of a cool program but my school is way too anti-LGBTQ so I don’t feel safe there,” “I want to learn theater but everywhere else is too expensive”, or even “I don’t know why I’m here, I just thought theater would be fun.” I’ve had a robotics engineer create a character with selective mutism so she can see the representation in a story she's always wanted. I’ve had a future marine corps member stand on a platform and sing a rock ballad (which is apparently “scarier than pushups in the rain".) I’ve had a future social worker play a mom who can’t seem to connect with her teenaged son. I love what an empty room and combined imaginations can do for a collective of teens.
Funding that program is an entirely different matter. To connect these teens to professional adults, you need to pay those professionals. To put those kids on a professional stage, you need the overhead for the space and the building staff. To give them the opportunities that they deserve, it takes grant writing and individual donors to make that happen. It takes a marketing team to get your program recognized, by parents, teachers, and other professional arts communities. “The last piece,” says Mimi Ito, “is to connect it to actual opportunities, for academic achievement, civic engagement, or career advancement.” THAT part takes a village, and that village has to invest in young people and believe (not just with their hearts, but with their support, their time investment, sometimes their wallets) that arts education has value. And not just in a “learn your instrument at school and then put that silliness down so you can get your degree in Business” sort of way, but in the “artist is a viable career choice” sort of way – which, firstly, has to be true in your community before we pass that on to our young people, especially those in poverty.
That all went away during the Covid shutdown.
I tried to move my educational programming online and I created entertaining videos, but it did not feel like “teaching” because there was no discussion, or interruption, or experimentation. It felt instead like “creating content,” which is its own job these days. (My students have begged me to make a tiktok. No thank you.) I ended my videos with an activity idea, but there was no follow-up, therefore no accountability to do it. It occurred to me that I don’t know what my students need if they’re not telling me in real time. (I will say I had a FANTASTIC experience with the College of Marin in California – a theater teacher there found my videos and had me virtually discuss them with her class of about 6 nontraditional learners.)
As far as Mimi’s analogy to “the aquarium shop guy”, I am that guy but for theater. Kids meet me and they meet an actor/director/theater professional. I had the privilege of meeting and learning from plenty at a young age, so I often forget that this is a novel thing. My approach to the classroom is what I’ve jokingly referred to as “sticks and rocks”, the technology I’ve employed as never gone much farther beyond a dry-erase board and paper and pencils, because a) I don’t need anything else for the social-emotional play, and b) technology always fails me. For my “enrichment activities”, my students bring themselves to class, which is all they need.
This is great, because it’s a huge equalizer – I get hired to teach in a diversity of areas with or without budgets, resources, and capabilities of the space. With the increasing gap between schools that can afford extra curriculars and schools that cannot, I can work in any/all. It’s only a hinderance when I “need to spend the grant money” (feed the students!) or if I “need to incorporate STEM.” (… paper airplanes?) I am actually very bad at figuring out what to do with money/resources; past experiences have taught me not to trust that they will be there on time, that they will work the way that they’re expected to, that there will be enough for everyone, or that the students will already know how to use them well enough to keep the lesson moving. I also don't want to use class time for setup or cleanup or troubleshooting. I want my educational experiences to be more about eye contact than “What button do I click now?”
The best thing I’ve done with this superpower is create a space where students can connect to a community of others that are “like them.” My favorite tiny community is a summer program I took over, where kids who can get themselves to a local theater meet other kids who have also maybe never done theater before. Reasons to join include “I want to do theater but I never get cast at school,” “I want to be a part of a cool program but my school is way too anti-LGBTQ so I don’t feel safe there,” “I want to learn theater but everywhere else is too expensive”, or even “I don’t know why I’m here, I just thought theater would be fun.” I’ve had a robotics engineer create a character with selective mutism so she can see the representation in a story she's always wanted. I’ve had a future marine corps member stand on a platform and sing a rock ballad (which is apparently “scarier than pushups in the rain".) I’ve had a future social worker play a mom who can’t seem to connect with her teenaged son. I love what an empty room and combined imaginations can do for a collective of teens.
Funding that program is an entirely different matter. To connect these teens to professional adults, you need to pay those professionals. To put those kids on a professional stage, you need the overhead for the space and the building staff. To give them the opportunities that they deserve, it takes grant writing and individual donors to make that happen. It takes a marketing team to get your program recognized, by parents, teachers, and other professional arts communities. “The last piece,” says Mimi Ito, “is to connect it to actual opportunities, for academic achievement, civic engagement, or career advancement.” THAT part takes a village, and that village has to invest in young people and believe (not just with their hearts, but with their support, their time investment, sometimes their wallets) that arts education has value. And not just in a “learn your instrument at school and then put that silliness down so you can get your degree in Business” sort of way, but in the “artist is a viable career choice” sort of way – which, firstly, has to be true in your community before we pass that on to our young people, especially those in poverty.