At our school, we were tickled to see an article published in the local paper about our recent production of 'West Side Story.' Tickled, because being at the edge of a very large district in the middle of former tomato fields and a huge transitory migrant population, no one really pays attention to us. Which is fine, we're good with that. We are a fledgling theatre program in a high poverty, rural area. My students often have no experience of theatre before they come to me, so we're a little disadvantaged when we go to competitions against student populations who've been doing it since they could crawl, but they have heart. It also isn't the end of the world when they don't get a 'Superior' or even an 'Excellent' - my goodness, my students feel privileged to even be at a competition in the first place!
It boggled my mind at Florida's state competition; there was a participant who had just received her scores, and was yelling, crying and screaming down the phone, because she had only gotten an 'Excellent'. I felt sorry for the poor chap on the other end of the phone - the girl was yelling that it was all his fault that she hadn't gotten a 'Superior'. I felt pretty perplexed at the logic of her response, and just shrugged it off. Just quietly prayed that she might learn to better deal with disappointment.
Which led me to thinking about what do I really want my students to get out of their time in my theatre program?
There is no more compartmentalized a job than that of the theatre teacher. We are teachers first, troupe directors second (at least, that's what my paycheck tells me), if we're paid at all for the role of drama sponsor. I know in my mind I often have that flipped, and that my after school productions and the competitions feel to be of more consequence. Which is why I make sure we do class productions to be presented in the evening, so that my students (the ones I'm paid to teach) get something of the same experience as my after school program. It has been a tough year; I'm fighting the assumption (by students and sad to say, sometimes my guidance department) that Drama is an easy A. I think that's nonsense, as I'm sure most of you do too: we ask our students to perform in front of their peers, to critically assess a script for theme, characterization, mood, and the like; we ask them to create worlds from words on a page; we ask them to incorporate principals of psychology, math, science and literary thought and synthesize it into a product that often has an audience far bigger than what their math homework will have. So, no, it's not an easy A.
As you think and reflect on your practice this last year, it might be good to circle around that question multiple times. I have colleagues who speak of the many students that have gone on to theatre school, for technical and for performance degrees. Is that all that matters? I have one student who's interviewing today for a technical position at a theme park; I really hope he gets it. Is that all that matters? There's a really talented student from our district who just sang the National Anthem at a Major League Baseball game. That's awesome. But is that all that matters?
Hurdling toward the end of the year gives me time to reflect on the growth of my students and of myself. And yes, I mean hurdling. Not hurtling.We're hurdling because there's a bunch of little obstacles to leap over yet before the year is done. Can I say that I have moved students from point A to point B, helped them grow as performers or technicians? Yes, for the most part, I can claim that. But have I moved them past just that, and helped them be more empathetic, more well-rounded, more reflective, more able to deal with disappointment? Again, I think, for the most part, I have. The ones I haven't, I need to work on myself in several places, for sure, but I also know I'm not Pokémon, and I might not catch them all. I aim to. In the process I hope to help my students look past the performance, look past themselves, and appreciate the broader picture of what I seek to teach.
At States, I had a student score a 'Good'. She smiled, and said, "Happy to have competed."
I was so proud!