Sunday, November 29, 2009

Imagination

The word "success" in the education field is generally accepted to mean, good grades and test scores, or rate of graduation, or numbers going on to college. Yet I wonder if the term might be expanded. Most would agree that this kind of success isn't all our children need in order to be ready for adulthood.

On Sundays sometimes I catch a wonderful program on KALW radio, San Francisco, called Philosophy Talk. Today, "Knowing the possible is better than knowing the actual" was the first statement that startled me to attention. The discussion focused on the importance of imagination, citing the philosopher David Hume, who wrote about the thinness of reason and the basic benevolence of the individual. The show's expert noted studies that reveal that babies have the capacity for empathy. As I continued to listen, another statement leaped out of my radio: "Is success measured by happiness or by productivity?" News headlines added to the mix of questions rattling around my brain. Secret prison in Afghanistan, sanctions for Iran, divorce, melting ice cap, unknown millions of children who die of malnutrition in Asia and Africa, and on and on.

What is important for our children to learn in school? What should the role of the arts be in society? Do we need to prepare people to face huge global issues or to be good consumers? To be able to love others as themselves or to have a good job, a house, spouse and children? What is the role of those who don't fit into the American Way, like the mentally ill, people with disabilities, the homeless, the incarcerated, shut-in seniors? What is real success?

Sunday, November 22, 2009

holidays in the schools

Happy holidays? Why is that phrase fraught with mixed blessings in an education setting? Is it just the sugar?

More than 50 percent of my work as Artistic Director right now is teaching; collaborating on drama and /or poetry projects with grades K-12 in public schools. But I also get to see a snapshot of school "culture" when we perform our multicultural folk tales for school assemblies. Something every teacher probably knows: anxiety doubles just before school's out for holidays. When I remember this fact, I am much better able to give thanks for the joy of working with children and young adults, rather than feeling dismay at the challenges.

My first experience of the impact of days off on school culture was at Fremont High in 1993, when I was surprised to learn that students were often absent on Friday because it was the day before a weekend and on Monday because it was the day after the weekend. In this perception of the relativity of Time, Saturdays and Sundays sort of melted over into the days next to them. If you want data, you might look at the weekly list of suspensions. For example, the list for Oakland Tech High at the end of this week was twice as long as the previous week. When I was on campus there Tuesday and Thursday, I noticed students were twice as excitable as on other weeks and teachers twice as exhausted. When the closing bell rang Friday afternoon, heralding an entire week off for Thanksgiving, I felt as if the entire building, football field and portables breathed a huge sigh of relief, as they spit out students like watermelon seeds.

After Halloween, students are eating more candy, true. But in our warm up exercises in the high school class, few of the students were looking forward to the idyllic picture of turkey and happy family 'round the groaning board. Every Thanksgiving I get to review the inequity between the U.S. Consumer picture of Thanksgiving and the global reality of malnutrition and hunger. And I feel guilty about having too much to accomplish in class to make time to discuss the real meaning of the holidays with students. Am I just another person giving thanks that I'm not one of the people I just passed on the street holding a sign, "Hungry. Will work for food, God bless?" Is there something more meaningful I could say to people than "Happy Holidays?'

Monday, November 16, 2009

Loved as a child

How many of us don't have a chance to be children? Many take care of parents, or take care of themselves in the absence of parents, then move on to take care of their children, jobs, spouses, and on. The co dependence theory warns the "caretaker" to take care of him/her self, while religion teaches us to give ourselves away in the service of others. But when my life falls apart, a little voice inside me says, "Mama! I want my Mama."

I saw a movie called "Wit" this week. Screenplay by Emma Thompson and Mike Nichols. I had expected it to be some sort of witty comedy, but instead was thrust into the all too familiar world of death forcing us to face our lives. Ms. Thompson, the main character, slowly dies of cancer throughout the film. I was profoundly affected, permitted to mourn, but inexplicably inspired to be present with my mother, age 94, because her health is declining. But what does this have to do with my Artistic Director work?

This week I wanted to provide my high school drama students with a different experience in the process of creating their original script on their chosen theme of "relationships." I brought in a big bag of stuffed animals, and a few actual puppets, for them to create puppet skits about relationships. When I opened the bag, the energy of the 16 and 17 year olds in the room took a quantum leap. One boy yelled, "a monkey, and it's purple!" He seized the soft brightly colored toy and ran to a chair where he sat cradling it like a baby in his arms-- he was serious, this was his baby. Another boy rushed to hold a plush gray and white dog with longish fur dripping into its eyes. He held it tenderly on his shoulder. "It's mine," he called. (Someone saying "I want the doggie" was trying to take the dog from him.) "I have to have this one," called another boy who has a bright red stripe on his brown hair, as he pulled out a lion puppet with a bright red tufty mane on top of its brown head.

And so it went. A girl who had picked a little white bunny with floppy pink ears held it the entire class time. She couldn't stop making it bop up and down, talking to the other toy animals. Also to my surprise, everyone wanted to be invisible behind the puppets, so they pulled a table on its side and squeezed their grown up bodies behind it, holding the toys over the edge.

The puppet skits were real, authentic, poignant and made us laugh our heads off, in spite of everything. They featured teddy bears that cheated on their girlfriends or boyfriends, bunnies and puppies that tried to peer pressure a kitty into smoking weed-- but the kitty went to college instead-- a little pregnant bear that kept throwing up, and a group of animals that ended a punching fight with excellent conflict resolution techniques.

Back to the movie. At the end of "Wit," as Emma Thompson lay dying in the hospital, in intense pain, her only visitor entered her room-- a former poetry teacher. The teacher took off her shoes, lay down next to Thompson, cradled her head on her chest and read aloud to her the children's book, "The Runaway Bunny." Thompson's character quieted, slept and passed on.

At the end of the puppet class, I asked students what they'd noticed about what we did that day. The boy who had cradled the monkey the whole time said, "I guess we like to laugh." For all of us, it was more than that, just as the teacher's cradling of the dying Ms Thompson was more than that. Something inside of us needs to be held and loved as a little baby, just as the students held and loved the plush toys. Something inside of those students needed to play and be children again. And they had the courage to do just that.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Appreciation

There is something about a voice. Even if a person cannot speak, they have a voice to express something authentic, something that blesses those lucky enough to hear it. I can't get enough of the part of arts education that gives anyone, regardless of "talent" or experience, a chance to take the stage and reveal a deeper self. Second Sundays, Opera Piccola's monthly open mic and play reading event, met yesterday. Small but mighty. In the intimate setting, younger and older people felt empowered to stand up in front of listeners and express something that mattered to them, in words that reach deeper than everyday conversation. The human spirit has a voice brighter and more precious than diamonds or gold. I can't get enough of it. Send me a poem you wrote yourself someone! I'm addicted.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Violence and the Bystander Syndrome

I hadn't intended to post twice today, but the recent gang rape of a 15 year old at a homecoming dance in Richmond brought up for me some thoughts relating to artists in education. My first reaction was horror and a desire to avoid thinking about the incident. Then, listening to my car radio, I heard on NPR an interesting piece about something called the Bystander or Observer Syndrome. This effect was discovered from research after a 1960's murder in New York, when bystanders inexplicably failed to help.

Those of us who teach in middle or high schools are familiar with the taboo against 'snitching" and also with the "instigator" role in egging on antagonists in a fight, so the Richmond incident was especially worrisome. Why would people seeing a brutal beating and rape fail to call 911 -- even when they could do it secretly away from the scene and avoid retaliation as a "snitch?" The psychological research reports that the more bystanders there are in an emergency, the less likely anyone will even notice it's an emergency or take action to help. Sadly, this partly explains how slowly Americans reacted to the emergency of Jim Crow, or to the present emergency of global warming

It seems incumbent on us artists and educators -- let alone the general population-- to make sure that we all are aware of this "syndrome." That we help our students and audiences to realize the need for each individual human being to be a leader, to take personal responsibility to act, no matter how many others may be present as bystanders.

The larger context is frightening. I am eager to get our troops out of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, etc. How responsible are we as a society and as a country to act?

Love and Death

Surveys report that a large number of Americans believe in the existence of ghosts or spirits. And when I was in college directing a children's recreation program on a Menominee reservation I heard frequent everyday stories of warnings, appearances or visits by ghosts. I remained open but skeptical. I mean, thousands of years of philosophic thought and theology seem to suggest that all we can really know is the existence of a mystery, of transcendence.

When my father died many years ago, something happened I'd never experienced before. The night after he died, I was getting ready for bed and suddenly knew there was a presence in the room -- something was definitely taking up space. At the same time, I felt a prickly, almost electric feeling around me and somehow knew my father was in the room. I was weeping on and off during this, but the presence-- whatever it was-- was oddly comforting.

Often the off stage experience of a group of actors mirrors/parallels what is being said on stage in their play. On Friday my high school drama students performed a short poetic piece for El Dia de los Muertos/Ancestor Day. Many of my students, too, had seen ghosts or spirits. All held their loved ones who had passed away close in their hearts. In the middle of the frantic chaos of rehearsal no-shows, mistakes, blaming, thefts, yelling, arguing, I somehow saw something like love start to emerge among the fractious groups of students, as they let go of their resentments in order to perform the piece well. Perhaps the beautiful words they themselves had written, and were learning to present with ritual and music, started to sink in. The seeds of community, which is an expression of love, were born.