The Life I Chose

"Yay, Ms. Wood, you're here!"
"Drama Class, yay!"
"Ms. Wood, look, I drew the chocolate factory!"
"I'm the Wall! See, I put my head in here!"

I've been doing a "side by side" professional development drama project with second grade classes in Berkeley. There's no doubt in my mind that I am seven years old at heart. I experience the exact same joy -- no, ecstasy -- when I pretend to be a character in a story. My exhaustion, back aches, and cynicism disappear. I'm jumping up and down, on fire, laughing, excited, full of ideas. Sure enough, when we did our skits for the parents this week the kids were on fire, jumping up and down too. The energy level and ecstatic joy were palpable in those class rooms.

When I asked my second graders the next day what they liked about our project (during an attempt at an evaluation "focus group"),they couldn't stop talking about being this or that character in the story. I felt as if my questions were a waste of their time. Yes, they liked the team work, speaking more loudly, writing scripts, reading scrips, playing theater games, etc. But, duh! It's about acting out the story and especially being the characters we like to pretend to be. As a good educator I'm supposed to guide them in realizing all the different academic and life skills they're gaining from the arts. Yes, we did some of that, but come on! Acting out stories is pure fun! Being a team is pure fun! Performing our stories for friends and parents is pure fun! !!!!

The children wrote me a big bag of thank you letters. One of the notes knocked me to the floor. Kendall (a genius in my opinion) wrote the usual encomiums, then added: "I know teaching is reall hard. But this is the life you chose." Wow, can he be my psychiatrist? That sums it up. The fun and playing with my seven-year-old peers of any age make it worth it.