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.

Endangered Species

Oakland Youth Chorus used to sing a piece entitled, "The Artist is an Endangered Species." How apt.

Yesterday, Opera Piccola's 15 amazing teaching artists gathered for our last staff meeting of the school year. Over and over, the stories they told inspired us with the way their teaching helps children and youth grow and learn. Dance, drama, music, poetry, visual art; story upon story. Kids who couldn't sit still and listen to each other play the drums now can listen and appreciate. Youth who were too shy to read out loud in front of anyone are now up on stage in a play. Small children who barely have any science in their curriculum are presenting a "launch" of the rockets they made themselves with our artist. And so on.

We ended the meeting with a creative eight-word "Life Story of An Artist." Lofty words encapsulated lives: commit, inhale, fly, discover, fail, bounce back. But the final word was "broke." Our society has made progress on appreciating the arts (as opposed to entertainment), but the money is not where the mouth is. So many artists I know do not have health insurance, do not have vehicles, lack printers for their computers, struggle to make expenses every single week.

Yet we have kept on. Will only the independently wealthy be able to afford the luxury of being an artist in the future?

Positive Negative

Drama has been removed from education for a while now. But it always surprises me when people say that if you show a negative subject in a play, you are "glorifying" it. No matter that we have much worse "negative" topics and images in movies, tv and video games. Painful parts of the human experience come across so much more powerfully in theater, or so it would seem based on the reactions people have.

For example, a high school play has a shooting in it, audience members sometimes conclude that the presenters approve of shootings and/or violence. Hmm... On the contrary, in a school setting students and teacher work hard to make sure that their play demonstrates the consequences of said shooting, so that the audience can see for themselves the agonizing effects of violence on individual and community and.. make better choices! Likewise, does showing the effects of drug addiction in a play mean that the actors approve of drug addiction? No! From ancient cultures on, tragic drama's role was to purge painful feelings of loss and grief as the audience witnesses powerful stories of the human condition. Quite the opposite of approving the negative side of life.

I am interested to see the reaction to our Oakland Tech High School students' May 25 presentation of their original play, "Bad Habits; Addiction & Hopes for a Better World." It gives a peek into the drug culture of the pop music world and the effects of one young man's addiction, ending in his realization that he needs to get help. Does this story approve addictive drugs and gangs simply by showing the negative effects of the character's choices?

Perhaps if drama returns to the curriculum people will understand its powerful, transforming role in society.

Spring Sprint

The mad dash to the end of school. The mad dash to the end of the fiscal year. The mad dash to close the books, plan next year, complete projects in the schools, celebrate, cajole, perform, write, submit grades, attend meetings, make props, send fliers, add, subtract, phone, fax, copy, staple, email, tweet, drive, load in/out, shop, respond to family complaints about why you're so busy; it's Non Profit Arts and Education!

Of course in the back of my mind is the global context, which could be named Bleak House. School principals are cutting their budgets. Grant makers' funds have shrunk. Costs go up, income goes down. Lay offs. Global warming and war exhaust the news.

But it's spring and the flowers are out. Last week the sun started to turn up the Bleak House lights, just a little. Metaphors turned over, and suddenly we saw the words of our students filling the proverbial glass to more than half full.

"Little did I know that although it was extremely short, (your summer program) would be a life changing moment for me – someone who lacked inspiration and passion in life other than indulging myself into eating, watching television and imagining myself living in different time periods. Opera Piccola made me see the world and people through a new perspective. Many thanks to the Opera Piccola program for giving me this opportunity to explore dance and trigger my passion and meaning for life!" ~Meisze Phung

"Opera Piccola saved my life. I was almost kicked out of school and really troubled You really believed in me ... you let me know that I made a huge difference to the company with the work I was doing." ~Graduate of our high school and intern program

"I'm still doing what got me started with you when i was just a little kid who wanted to be in the little play at middle school." ~Kenneth Foreman

Open Minded or Safe?

Familiarity breeds contempt. Variety is the spice of life. Reach for the stars. Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.

High school students cite boredom and pressure as two major factors in drop out rates or failing grades. The slogans above certainly point to the importance of variety, newness, and creativity in human experience. Yet why does my group of Juniors and Seniors react so adversely to the unfamiliar? Unfamiliar class activities, unusual scripts, costumes from previous centuries, all bring choruses of protest. And speaking of chorus, the music issue. Yells of protest from every corner greet recordings or sheet music that are from the distant past or in a style completely unknown, as "not cool," or "not good music." Excited conversations grow from comparing notes on hits that "everyone" has heard. But shouldn't logic suggest the attractiveness of newness, of difference, to relieve the boredom that students detest. Why the love of the familiar, the already experienced, and where is the desire for risk and adventure in learning?

This trend is not just a high school phenomenon. I'm informed by market researchers that current audiences go online to see a show on YouTube or hear an artist's album before buying. They want something they already know they'll like.

Oakland school district administrators point to recent successes from adjusting curriculum to be more relevant to students' lives; connecting the material to familiar experiences. This is a technique we've used in Opera Piccola since our beginnings: "start where they are." And yet it's puzzling that we teachers have such difficulty in helping our students move beyond the familiar to the huge, unknown, fascinating world beyond. Perhaps the uncertainty of our world is just too much to take, and we long to stick to the safety of what we already know.
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