vacation

Apologies, am taking a short holiday this week. A reminder: teachers don't really get what may seem like two months off in the summer. They are life long learners who attend professional development in the summer or teach summer school or summer camp. I am enjoying the World Cup and the weather; more blogging next week.

Turnover

June. A time for endings and new beginnings. Summer solstice turns spring into summer. Graduations and weddings. School year ends, non profit fiscal year ends. Boxes and suitcases are packed to leave one place and move to another. Many teachers are laid off, many leave the profession for other fields. Hopeful new teachers start credentialing programs.

This month, I packed up my students' folders, my teaching materials, my keyboard, snack supplies, pens, containers. I cleaned out my tiny cubicle “office” at Oakland Tech High School. I went back and forth in the heat, past forgotten text books and pencils on the floor, and loaded everything into my stuffed car. I said goodbye to my favorite colleagues and to my students, and drove through the gate with mixed sadness and relief. At home, I went through my folders for Elmhurst Community Prep, for Berkeley Arts Magnet, for San Leandro High, my chorus music, my poetry samples. I recycled old papers, filed copies for next year, wrote final reports.

So many times in life we do this. Pack up, finish up, shut the door, say goodbye. I remember at the age of 21 loading my used old Turtle-back Volvo, as I said good- bye to my parents and the East Coast and moved to my new job as a news reporter in Chicago. Not for the first time or the last, I felt the sadness of ending a chapter of my life and the excitement of a new beginning.

On June 30 I will finish a 21-year chapter as founding Artistic Director of Opera Piccola. I will work for Opera Piccola as consultant and teaching artist, but no longer as Artistic Director. Founders usually let go leadership at some point so that their organizations can move into a new future. The challenges of a changed global economy make this an excellent time for me to exit Opera Piccola's stage so that new leadership can bring on exciting new directions.

Opera Piccola will continue to provide ArtGate, the award winning arts education program in the public schools, directed by Corrina Marshall and Candace Workman. I will be presenting Opera Piccola's multicultural Community Performance shows separately, under a new name: SWEET Theater; Susannah Wood Education Express Theater.

Endings and beginnings. The seasons turn.

Change

Just watched "The Cove," and it got me thinking about change. So much is needed: global warming, turf wars, education policy, poverty, hunger, human rights. This documentary did bring about some change in Taiji, Japan. But slaughter of thousands of dolphins will continue there in that tiny killing cove six months out of every year, unless -- what? More children die of mercury poisoning from eating dolphin meat? Murky,underwater images stick in my mind of swimmers in wet suits with wire cutters opening fences that imprisoned the amazing animals.

What changes are needed in public education? How might we free more children to enjoy learning, to love discovering new things? Is it possible without massive socio-economic change? We hail the few schools where students are ready for the Ivy League "even though" in low income neighborhoods. But why do third grade children from wealthier areas where parents have college degrees write at the same level or better than some high school juniors from low income areas where families did not attend college? We like to find out whose fault this is: the teachers, the lack of resources, the parents, TV, the students themselves? How did those few schools and students succeed? And how do we define success in public education anyway? Most long time teachers will tell you that success should not be about test scores.

In the movie, change was driven by a few passionate, determined, persistent people who had emotional and statistical reasons for pursuit of their goals. Their actions demonstrated a commitment to whatever it took: heroism. It started with one man, the former trainer of Flipper, who had an 360 degree about face when Flipper became depressed and "committed suicide" in his arms. Very slowly he gathered collaborators around the world, getting arrested many times in the process. It takes Heroes to change Systems.

Before and After

Are you going to teach this class next year?

June 7th, 6:30 PM. The cafeteria was warm, with lemony sunlight through floor to ceiling windows. The expected rust and white square tile flooring. Tables, old wooden chairs, wheeled carts with ketchup and mustard. Parents, brothers and sisters, and a few visitors gathered near the stainless steel kitchen to see and hear a small group of student poets and dancers. These San Leandro High School freshmen and seniors were beginners who said there wasn't much to do after school except to go to tutoring. They told the group that our program gave them a chance to make friends, have fun, be creative, and learn something new. They looked back and were proud of what they'd done by the end of this short six week program, meeting only once or twice a week. It wasn't slick, it wasn't professional, but they had persisted and it was good.

May, 2007. An old fashioned auditorium at Sankofa Elementary, Oakland. Kindergarteners and first graders burst through the door behind us and came marching down the aisle. "I AM SOMEBODY, I AM SOMEBODY," they chanted in rhythm with the drummer. They wore their African fabric waist bands proudly. The audience cheered as the children showed us their dances.

But before, when they started? They thought it might be boring or take up too much time from other things.Certain other students "got on their nerves." They felt shy reading their poems or dancing in front of the others.

Before and after. An experience of some kind of transformation. We look back and realize we created something, became something, persisted through difficulty and came out the other side. As the school year winds down, we artists who teach in after school programs once again experience our reward. Through the challenges -- absences, sudden room changes, crowding, noise, fights, freezing rain, broken heaters, illness -- when we share what we've done with an audience and look back, it becomes clear. And we want to do it all again next year.

Writing it down

I'm late.. the inevitable dash to the end of school. But I need a moment to honor the essence of some poems written by my middle school students at Elmhurst Community Prep. This was a short project Opera Piccola provided at the last possible moment before summer break.

When invited to express "emotion recollected in tranquility," Wordsworth's definition of poetry, almost 100% of the sixth grade participants expressed passionate grief at death 'for no reason.' They were also asked to quote lines that were meaningful to them, from a book or newspaper, as part of the poem. If I hadn't known what country the piece below came from, I might think it was written by a child living in Iraq or Afghanistan. But then the quote from Martin Luther King Jr reminded me that wars have happened here too. In Eva's words:

"My heart cries when a family member is killed,when
I see bullet shots flying around
I have a dream; I have a dream that there’ll soon be peace

I have a dream; I have a dream there will not be a funeral close by
I have a dream; I have a dream that nightmare will be over!
I can’t forget those bullet shot sounds Boom Boom"

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?