Dichotomy of Co-Intentional Teaching and Our Current Education System

Last week I attended a national conference on theatre education.  It was an illuminating and frustrating experience.  And this fall, I started attending graduate school in applied theatre at CUNY in New York, where I am participating in a wonderfully illuminating course, Group Theatre.  Part of the ongoing dialogue and work in Group Theatre has centered on challenging ourselves as facilitators and educators to push the boundaries, to ask difficult questions, to encourage student-based learning, to promote critical questioning and dialogue.  Sitting in a group of secondary and university theatre educators from across the country, I was struck at how strongly the field was focusing on banking education…still.  Freire identifies banking education as “the scope of action allowed to the students extending only as far as receiving, filing and storing the deposits…it is the people themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system.” (Freire, Paolo.  Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing, 1970). 

The workshops consisted of theatre teachers sitting in small rooms with facilitators in front of them feeding them information to file away and apply later.  Every time ideas were brought up that suggested socially responsible practice or truly comprehensive theatre education, as elucidated by Joan Lazarus in Signs of Change, a full fifty percent of educators shifted physically away from the presenter.  The discomfort in the room grew palpable.  The challenge to use theatre to engage students as members of society and citizens of school and the world seem to puzzle some teachers.  The idea of a holistic educational practice that allows students to learn and practice collaboratively in all roles from actor to researcher to audience frightened some.  It makes me question how we can continue to argue for arts education in our nation when we are so resistant to education and change ourselves.  If we are not willing to be part of a bigger, holistic educational process, which includes shared decision making, dialogue, collaboration, risk-taking and experimentation as part of socially responsible theatre practice than of what use are we?  The national debate of changing educational pedagogy from the industrial age of training workers for an economic factory environment to creating critically thinking creative members of global society centers around a holistic approach to not just theatre but all areas of education.  Why then are people so resistant to Zemelman’s list of principles of best practice outlined in Ms. Lazarus’ article?  The argument seems to center around “character education” versus “cognitive development.”  Zemelman’s list includes such ideas that learning must be expressive, reflective, social, collaborative and democratic.  The current educational system with standardized testing focuses more on math, reading and IQ – measurable skills with empirical data.  So, if future success depends on these cognitive skills, why have the arts at all?  Why have discussions about holistic, reflective, social learning? 

 When I go to these conferences or sit in the professional development offered by my school district, I often am struck by the exact same feelings expressed by Ms. Lazarus in Signs of Change.  “I know that a look at what is brings with it the realization of what isn’t that my vision isn’t yet my reality.  If I try to envision what might be and what ought to be, I get wildly enthusiastic, but then face fears of what may never be.”  (Lazarus, Joan.  Signs of Change: New Directions in Secondary Theatre Education.  Portsmouth, NJ: Heinemann, 2004)   I embrace ideas that lead me into new opportunities within my own classroom to explore more social dialogue and co-intentional teaching.  But I feel isolated when I see the resistance and anger from some of my colleagues.  With that resistance is derision and scorn for the new ideas and applications.  I hear people saying things along the lines of, “That won’t work.  These kids are crazy, they’ll go nuts if I try that.”  “Right, try that with my freshmen!” “I have to get the unit completed otherwise I will hear from my supervisor, I don’t have time for dialogue and debate.”  And I can empathize with some of their concerns.  I currently am struggling with applying the group theatre activities from our class in my Intro to Drama course.  It has offered a much more engaged group than is normal for this early in the year, so I feel excited by that.  I question, is that the new activities?  Is that my awareness of trying to really be co-intentional?  Or are they just a great group of students?  But I also worry that we have a state and district mandated amount of material that I MUST cover.  Will I get through it all in the time allotted, given that I am allowing the students more time to debate, dialogue, really have a collaborative voice in the process of their education?  So, when I hear the concerns of the teachers who are teaching the standardized test material, I empathize.  Theirs’ is a concern not just of meeting their deadlines but also of keeping their jobs. 

There is an interesting study occurring that fascinates me and ties in directly with Ms. Lazarus’ article.  James Heckman, a Nobel Prize winner, started a study to look at the success rates of GED graduates versus high school.  He discovered that by our society’s measure of success – money earned successful jobs, marriage and family life – that high school graduates were consistently more successful.  He questioned why?  The GED tests the same cognitive skills that the high school standardized tests do.  So why the disparity?  He came to the conclusion that the difference came in the reflective, social and democratic educational practice – i.e. character education.  So he has set out on a journey to empirically measure the impact of the United States’ shift of focusing on cognitive education in order to maximize standardize testing scores versus those schools who are still including more holistic collaborative, student-centered and constructivist learning.  He is attempting to find empirical data that there is a link between the holistic education, what Zemelman calls Principles of Best Practice Learning and Lazarus calls Best Practice in Theatre Education, and “success” in post graduate life. 

 

I agree with Lazarus that theatre has an ability to offer students the best of Zemelman’s practices – a holistic, student centered, catalyst for social and civic dialogue that offer students genuine challenges and an opportunity to re-create and reinvent the systems they encounter.  By analyzing existing theatrical forms, reimagining published scripts, devising new scripts, staging and designing technical solutions to theatrical problems; students can apply existing skills to new and creative problems.  They can find analogies between the fictional stories they explore and the very real world in which they struggle.  They can use the safety of creativity and “drama” in the theatre environment to explore and build solutions and dialogue about the challenges they perceive. 

The debate and discussion offered not just by Lazarus but by Heckman and others is relevant and necessary.  The pushback from the current educational community is real and based not just on a resistance to change but on real fear for the repercussions.  We can debate and dialogue and dream of a utopian system but we live in this very flawed one.  I am stuck in the dichotomy of what I am learning from the readings and the class and what I am experiencing in my job.  I am reaching a point of crossroads.  How do I resolve my desire for change and personal evolution within an antiquated and resistant system?  How do I navigate the waters I find myself treading? 

Am I "Living Behind The Mask?"

Applied theatre just finished their new device drama, "Living Behind the Mask," a look at the masks we put on... all day... just to get through the days.  We explored all the different persona's we wear during the course of our lives in order to be accepted, to be liked, to be promoted or appreciated.  And we explored what happens when those masks are ripped away, revealing what we feel is vulnerability.  The six month journey forced me to ponder my own masks.

There are days I ask myself, who am I?  I often look at other teachers and marvel at their ability to seem so calm, so centered, so grounded when often I feel that I am drowning in doubt.  I look at my students and wonder what impact I have on them.  Their ability to bounce back from rejection, to stand up, brush themselves off and keep going... it inspires me.  Their ability to forgive us, their teachers, for our mistakes, our bad days, our missteps, for all the things that haunt me late at night...  Is it youth?  Is it faith that as teachers, we are somehow held higher and therefore given more latitude than other adults?  My students' belief that all their teachers must like them, must have their best interests at heart, must do the right thing for them -- staggers me. 

First of all, I don't know about other teachers, but I often feel I do the wrong thing and then spend time correcting it.  I do my best, but it always needs work.  I can always be better.  I know so many teachers who are truly gifted, truly talented - and I try to emulate and learn from them.  On the flip side, every teacher must like their students?  I know teachers who don't like any students.  And I know some students who are difficult to like (at times.)  How do we live up to that standard? Their faith that we, somehow, will have their backs...  Where does it come from?  And do we justify it?

The mask I wear as a teacher tries to be empathetic, humorous, patient and firm.  And I know that I drop that mask almost every day.  And the human side of tired, impatient, a little "blah" comes roaring through, threatening to expose my vulnerabilities and true face to the teens who stare at me everyday.  And still, there are those days.  Those days that remind me that the mask I wear contains portions of the person I am.  I have days where I have become the mask and the best elements I try to project.  Those days keep me plugging along, trying to improve and somehow meld the mask of who I want to be as a teacher with the reality of who I am.

So, at the end of the six month journey of "Living Behind the Mask," I think I took as much of an emotional journey as my students. 

On a COMPLETELY, separate note, my book Changing The Way We Think, Using Arts to Inspire, Empower and Change Your School Community is now available on Amazon.  Feel free to leave comments if you read it.  I'd love to hear your thoughts!

School Year Resolutions

With the New Year rapidly approaching, I am readying myself to gear up to go back to work and back to the business of preparing our new Self-Esteem piece, teching our Shakespeare show, and continuing our year-long Year of Respect curriculum with the general student population.  I always ask the students in my class at the beginning of the school year to create "School Year Resolutions" - something they can do personally to make our school a better community.  In addition, I ask them to practice random acts of kindness - one per week - an act for someone they don't know in our school community.  Our theory being that if we all practice random acts of kindness, perhaps over time, kindness will spread.  We know negativity spreads - often quickly and virally - kindness just takes longer and grows slower. 

This year, I upped the ante.  I've been working with the 500+ freshmen students since the fall on anti-bullying and empathy curriculum.  I've been doing workshops with these young people, listening to their voices, their opinions and asking them to create scenarios and solutions to bullying they see and hear.  They have been wonderfully creative in this task.  They're starting to figure out that there is strength in numbers - that if more than one person stands up - they have a better chance of creating change.  They've figured out that humor is a wonderful distraction - and can be a safe alternative to confrontation.  They've learned that sometimes reaching out to the victim is an incredibly powerful step that has no risk to themselves - especially when they work in tandem.  One group split their efforts, several worked to distract the bullies while another group led the victim away to safety and support.  They are somewhat astonished with themselves.  They can't believe they came up with these ideas.  And although they are still not one hundred percent sold that this will work in real life, when we wrap up the workshops I often see lightbulbs in many eyes, as they contemplate their own power.  It is wonderful.

As part of the latest workshop, I challenged the freshmen to two resolutions - one to take the anti-bullying pledge with us.  And the other, a School Year Resolution - one act or daily decision they can do to make our high school a better place.  This vision the students could see -- if ALL of them tried one thing (just one) that the school would be better by all of us.

So, I enter 2012 tired but hopeful; pulled in too many directions but ready to go on; still behind on work but willing to continue the fight.  And my students -- well, they didn't even take the winter break off.  They've been emailing me and texting me additional information all week for our new Self-Esteem piece.  Gotta love the students.  They continue to be the reason I get up in the morning, ignore the media blitz telling me what horrible people teachers are, fight stubborn and scared administrators and enter 2012 with a sense of purpose and joy.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

New Jersey Anti-Bullying Law and the Reality of Implementation...i.e. What WERE They Thinking?

This past week I have spoken with the Deputy Speaker from the NJ Assembly, multiple members of NJ School Boards, our own District HIB Specialist and close to five hundred fourteen year olds about bullying and the new New Jersey Law. At the end of it all, I have to wonder...WHAT were they thinking?

Yes, New Jersey has the "toughest" law in the country? Does that make it the best? Although the legislature was in the process prior to Tyler Clemente’s suicide, his death prompted an emotional and hasty reworking of the bill which meant that districts didn’t have time to fully create a comprehensive, educationally sound plan of action, nonetheless to try and implement the same. Districts scrambled to do what so often students are accused of – doing the minimum amount of effort to “get the passing grade.”However, in this case, no district is sure how the grading system will work. Will districts be penalized for reporting incidents by being given a poor grade? In which case, will that not drive the issue further underground?

In addition, the districts had to quickly implement some sort of professional development for their staff, administration and community with no time to properly research and fund such development. The legal community made a financial windfall by offering bullying workshops focusing on the legal ramifications of the law and districts grabbed what they could. In the past few months, everyone has become a bully “expert” resulting in massive amounts of companies selling their “solution” to bullying. Again, the lack of time to do proper due diligence on what is effective is hurting the districts’ ability to make smart decisions.

And let's talk about the language of the bill... again WHAT were they thinking? Let's not get into the freedom of speech aspect... oh wait, let's...As Adam Cohen, from Yale Law mentions,


"The law will also, necessarily, thrust school officials into the tricky area of policing student expression, including statements made off campus. This puts schools in a bit of a bind: in several recent rulings, federal courts have reminded schools that they must respect the free-speech rights of their students, even when that speech is harsh or provocative. New Jersey’s law pushes schools in the opposite direction, requiring them to monitor and police certain kinds of speech.”


So now schools are in the unenviable positions of trying to monitor behavior off campus. Most of us are aware that students don't always "hang" with kids from their own district after hours, which begs the question -- when students interact from multiple districts – who is responsible for what? I was told of one incident involving students from multiple districts, off campus and which was reported to multiple administrations. Following up and documenting the incident, as well as deciding what actions to take, how to best handle the situation and who had the ultimate responsibility is something the law fails to take into account.

And let's take a moment to figure out how New Jersey defines bullying ... or doesn't. Again, what WERE they thinking? The Supreme Court clearly defined harassment and intimidation in two separate cases previously earlier in the decade. 

"In Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education(1999), the Supreme Court defined peer-on-peer harassment in the educational context as conduct that is "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, and that so undermines and detracts from the victims' educational experience, that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution's resources and opportunities. With regard to intimidation, in Virginia v. Black(2003), the Court defined intimidation as a "type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death."

New Jersey Law vaguely states all student speech that "is reasonably perceived as being motivated either by any actual or perceived characteristic" and that "a reasonable person should know" will "have the effect of ... emotionally harming a student" or "placing a student in reasonable fear of ... emotional harm," is bullying. THEREFORE, New Jersey is mandating that students appraise the sensibilities and frailties of their fellow students before speaking.

HOW does this make sense? Why not stick to the preciseness of language previously developed? Please, don't misunderstand me. I am an advocate of the victim. I am a HUGE advocate of culture change and of education for our young people to work on PREVENTING bullying from starting in the first place through empathy and awareness. However, this bill is reactive in nature (punishing the bully after the fact); provides no funding for training or development; and is impossibly vague. The intention is good but the bill is poorly written and developed. It desperately needs a clarification and a proper timeline to encourage districts to implement real educational change by promoting awareness, safety, culture change, attitudinal change and student dialogue. Like the civil rights movement -- real change comes through education not through a penal system.

Just my two cents worth. I'm sure many will disagree. But as one of my students so aptly said... This bill is a house of cards, but with no foundation and no money to pay the mortgage.

Real Education is Human... and Empowering... and Uplifting

So I'm joining in the voice of IDEA this week in celebrating the values of real education.  Those being that Real education is ... Human. ... Powerful.   ... Relevant and ... Transformative.  They are spending the week promoting blogs that help illuminate this message. 

Since I am a huge fan of using theatre to help students empathize and humanize the world around them, I thought I'd lend my voice to the process.  This year is a challenging one for me in many ways.  Our anti-bullying piece is getting more and more requests from other school districts.  The message contained in it resonates with young people and adults.  And yet, my own administration is somehow frightened of the power of the voices of the young people.  We say we want to hear what they have to say, and even when they speak within culturally acceptable standards, we are afraid.  Of what, I wonder...  Meanwhile, I move forward with the anti-bullying year long campaign here at the high school.  And the students' perceptions of what makes a bully, what makes a victim, how do we help (or is there any solution to this issue) continues to perplex me.  Even in my own classroom, where I struggle to keep the young people from treating each other and themselves poorly.  What messages are we as adults teaching them that their immediate response is to denigrate one another?

And then there is our self-esteem piece.  I have close to 500 surveys sitting on my desk these days.  I have to read them in small chunks.

"I feel like after I lose weight I'll be 100% confident all of the time."

"Sometimes when I look in the mirror all I see is disgust.  I see all my flaws immediately."

"How I feel depends on if I have my mask on or not.  (My make-up.)  I mean I love myself but I don't feel pretty.  I would change my body.  My self-esteem really took a hit when I went to a store and no clothes fit...  The perfect person?  Skinny.  A size 0 because that's what size the models are."

We use theatre to remind the young people that we are all human.  Flaws and all, we are all unique and special.  Theatre is especially forgiving to those students who struggle in other classes.  You don't have to be good in math or science or even in reading to do well in theatre.  There are ways to make it work.  If you are willing to try.  If you are willing to work with others and try to find ensemble moments.  If you are willing to take a risk...   Ah, there's the rub, right?  Taking a risk.  I constantly battle to create a safe environment for my students.  A place where they can fail and still get up and try it again.  We talk about my failures (and goodness knows I have had many) and my successes in my career.  But if I hadn't tried, I never would've succeeded or failed.  I just would've "been."  My students (I hope) feel safe to try crazy things onstage, knowing that they might fail ... but they just might be brilliant.  Unless they are willing to try, how can they know?

The fact that they have won theatre competitions empowers them.  They fact they wrote an award-winning, published play... empowers them.  The fact that their voice gets heard through their art - through theatre and music and dance and video... makes them feel like they have something to say.  And when they feel that someone is listening, they become more passionate, more involved, more committed to all aspects of the educational experience.  Too often we plop students down, gravestone style, in perfect little rows and talk at them.  In the dynamic classrooms I work to emulate, the students are moving, they are talking with the teacher and with each other, their ideas are up and presented everywhere for everyone to see.  They use technology to further their education.  Our literary club will soon have its own blog.  Our video students create, write and produce their own television show.  The theatre students write, direct and perform their own one act plays.  Their voices are being heard.  In our year of respect, the social studies students are putting together a plan of action for the school.  Their voices are being heard.

At the end of the day, that is what makes us human.  The need to connect.  The need to have our voices heard.  The need to listen and communicate and share with each other.  Real education MUST be human.