Early in my teaching career, back when Ronald Regan was president, I was very happy with my theatre program and its content. My students were happy and thriving, my administration was supportive of what I was doing, and parents were proud of what their children were doing. So, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!”, right.
But there was something wrong, I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t challenged in my practice. What I was doing was becoming stale. I knew I needed to change or I would soon be going through the motions and cheating my students.
I needed to challenge myself which would also challenge my students. I chose to do something that I had never done before. I decided to dive off the high dive and plunge into the world of “Commedia Dell’arte”, an art form I had always admired but frankly was intimidated by. It was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my teaching career.
It became a very exciting exploration for everyone, especially me. Discovering the richness of the characters, why each one was important to the art form. Creating our own masks and costumes, finding the stylized movements for each character, researching the history of the form and period it came from. It was a wonderful creative experience for all of us.
After that I made it a goal to introduce three or four new ideas each semester to my curriculum. Sometimes it was a new twist to something old, often times something I picked up from a professional development experience, sometimes a new genre I wanted to dive into. In no time at all I had an overflowing treasure chest of lesson plans, ideas, over a broad range of topics. That also allowed me to dust off something valid from years past and put a current spin to it.
Sure my program wasn’t broke, but I fixed it anyway.
In ‘your’ practice, don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. So what if something falls flat, you still learn from it and the next project will be even better. If I had given up every time something didn’t go exactly as I planned with new material, I would have ended up a lackluster teacher with a program that wasn’t broken, but I would have been.
Take a big breath and step off the high dive, you’ll be amazed by what you discover and experience.
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Stewart Hawk
Washington State Thespian Co-Chapter Director
206-465-4568
stewart.hawk@gmail.comhttp://wathespians.org------------------------------