Sunday, January 31, 2010

Is Feminism still alive?

February starts tomorrow. Happy Super Bowl Sunday and Happy Valentine's. On Feb. 14th , 4-6 pm, we're celebrating Leap Year and Valentine's Day at Opera Piccola by asking the question, is feminism alive-- or dead? Leap Year comes in years that are divisible by 4, so we aren't there yet. The myth says that women may ask men to marry them on Feb. 29th. Is this unusual because women weren't permitted be the ones asking? Is marriage an anti-feminist institution?

It's great that artists have an excuse to think about big and little questions like these. Of course there are a million other subjects it might be better to think about in February. But our Second Sundays event happens to fall on Valentine's. It's a chance to stop and think about women's rights and our role(s) as lovers, mothers, daughters, workers, etc etc. Gives me a chance to ask my female students what they think. After all, the high school skirt lengths are way above the knees, some shirts are transparent and as the weather warms up, short short short shorts seem to suggest .. Liberated or sex objects? Pehaps there is no need for feminism in the U.S. because we've achieved our goals. We've certainly come very far since the era in which the TV drama, Mad Men, takes place. I was surprised at the bit of history in that show, in which it was assumed that secretaries were supposed to have sex with their bosses and other men on the job. We are protected now by sexual harrassment laws, right?

We're starting off the discussion on the 14th by reading excerpts from Shahrnush Parsipur's play, set in Iran in the 1950's, "Women without Men." There are still places where beating wives is thought to be normal and necessary, and worse. We're also reading some of a feminist play by Lydia Sargent: "I dreamed I saw My Death in Vogue Magazine."

The current lawsuit on Prop 8 raises other issues around gender, marriage, rights, love, parenting. February 14th, before you go out with your sweetheart, let's talk. Bring a poem, or a song. Is there still room for people to meet and talk, live?
Find out more at www.opera-piccola.org

Sunday, January 24, 2010

January

Small balls of ice are falling from the sky. They cover the high school football field in a white layer. I sit in the car in the school parking lot, huddled against the cold, unable to see through the windows more than a few yards. Suddenly young men and women run yelling, calling, past me. No jackets, racing through the sleet. They scream joyfully, slipping and sliding across the field on the ice. Throwing ice balls. The heavy wetness pours on them. Escaped from the warm class rooms into the frigid wetness. What happiness. If only first semester final exams and SAT exams didn't interrupt January pleasure.

Government grant proposals. 8 copies of each page on hole punched paper, thank you, trees and forests. Double spaced. 3,498 characters, no more! Incomplete proposals will not be considered. Proposals submitted after 3, 4, 5 will not be considered. Provide SASE if you want your work samples returned. Online submissions only. Drop off submissions only. Postmark deadline only. No coffee stains, please.

Why isn't this student attending school? Oh, didn't you know? He transferred out to a program in cosmetology. She transferred out for emotional reasons; her brother was shot and killed. Oh, his father wants him to attend a continuation school so that he can graduate faster. Oh, she moved away from home and we don't know where she is. Oh. Oh. Oh. "But it's only a few weeks just to finish the semester. Can't she / he just finish up the semester and get it completed?" "I guess not...i couldn't reach him/her to get all the facts...."

Ms. Susannah, remember me from last year? When are you coming to our class? umm.. not sure (the funding?).... Ms Susannah, can you come and help me with my day care job at.. Ms Susannah, we need a youth development program here, but our funding is almost non existent... Susannah, let me know how much that performance pays. I have to figure out if I can take off my job that day to perform... . Susannah, I hear you know this student really well, she's failing Spanish and not showing up, can you talk to her? Grades are due, please read the following information guide on how to add up students' points. Susannah, can you do another free performance for us in February? March? April? May? June? Susannah, can you have coffee next week to talk about providing a workshop for us-- sorry our funding got cut. Susannah, can you produce my play, it's great!? Susannah, sorry I can't work with Opera Piccola, I have to take a full time job..

January. Non profit arts.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Equity

Thinking today of Martin Luther King Jr’s Dream of justice, non violence, equity. Where are we, in the light of the Haiti disaster, the state of education in the U.S., global poverty, ongoing wars? I firmly subscribe to his statement, "let us not wallow in the valley of despair." I too, dream and have seen dreams come true. But the reality is that equity is not apparent to even the casual observer in the Oakland public schools. I teach in both Berkeley and Oakland, and the difference can be painful.

It's no secret that many, or perhaps most, Oakland schools in low income neighborhoods do not have the resources of those in wealthier areas. The reasons for this are very complex, including parents who are active versus parents who are too exhausted to help out or to insist that the school function well. I'm concerned about the growing trend to "reward success" with more money while penalizing students, teachers and schools with poorer scores. It's the opposite of what is needed. Way more attention needs to be paid to each individual student who is dealing with death of a close family member, overwhelmed parent, lack of nutrition, lack of money etc. This kind of intervention takes time, staff and money.

Of course there are resilient students who rise way above impossible circumstances, and many students do well. But it takes time (and money) to sit down with students who appear to not care a fig about school.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

from sex education to beauty & truth

I asked my high school students to write, "If I ran a school.." Many wrote that sex education should be offered every year, that students should be able to take the classes they want to take, and that the school should be stricter, yet allow students to smoke weed and stand in hallways during class. I next asked why sex education seemed so important to most in the group. Students wrote that it was vital in helping to prevent STD's, to inform about an important subject, and to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Students in this admittedly very small sampling of high school students wrote as if it was a given that everyone is sexually active. And yes, over the years I've had 8th grade girls who are pregnant in my classes in middle school. Yes, every year at least one of my high school students has been pregnant. But, how true is it that students are all having sex? It's not only about sex, in spite of raging hormones. Everyone wants love.

At our Second Sundays play reading and open mic event this evening, I was reminded of this. A young man dropped in to the open mic portion of the evening, pulled out his guitar and harmonica and stunned us with the sweetest love song imaginable, written by himself. There was nothing in the song resembling the 'between the sheets" attitude of current pop songs, just a longing for a girl "who would stay," and stay until "old and gray." A woman stood up and sang about how life goes on, every muscle expressing the pain of conflict between those who take and those who give. Another woman shared the beginning of a poem about how we treat the Earth: 43,000 tons of non-recyclable trash per day in the U.S. She told us how the facts listed on the web "are a poem," devastating, condemning.

Our Second Sundays experimental event-- a free evening in which any and all arrivals of all ages explore different plays and share poems or songs-- surprises me every month. It's so different from work-a-day ways we communicate, like "hello how are you" and task-oriented email messages. Each person who attends becomes part of a larger play-surrounding-a-play. In this intimate gathering, we each reveal ourselves, become vulnerable. Our poems or songs or our comments in the group's conversation, become beautiful because they ring true. A person may sing who does not have a beautiful, trained voice, but the beauty is this: they sing because they need to sing-- they need to express something in this way, not just to show off a pretty voice. Tonight, each of us in that small circle became breathless and silent in witness to moments of truth. It's timeless-- truth and beauty, beauty and truth.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

happy new decade

Remember the typewriter, the cassette tape (reel to reel, aghh!), the ditto sheet, the dial phone, the newspaper? We now take for granted competing with students need to text or listen to ipods. Is it better or worse now? Does our ability to remember anything decrease geometrically with the amount of information confronting us? What is really important to teach and what is really important to learn? Why should we continue to support the arts and why is there such huge need to advocate for the arts in the first place? Shouldn't the arts automatically be required in an excellent education?

On January 1oth our Second Sundays play reading and open mic theme will be "Art for the Next Decade." All are invited to contribute.. I face the new decade with more questions than answers. Perhaps I will find companions in asking, and perhaps better questions will emerge.

Archimedes of Syracuse discovered his Buoyancy Principle while stepping into the bath tub, not while drudging away at school or at his papyrus. Is this a clue for all of us about creativity for the new decade?