Compromise in the classroom

Every year I find myself struggling with growing numbers in my classroom, growing constraints on my time and growing expectation of our program. It's a multi faceted tug of war that often pits me against myself searching for balance.

That sounded pretty heady. Let me back track. If you don't know me, or my back ground, allow me to give you a little information before I ramp up my thoughts here. I have been in educational theater, at KUSD, at Bradford HS for 16 years now. When I took this job, it was my dream job. I believe in the transformative power of theater, especially for young people. If you've read my previous posts, you know how much I value the community it creates. But I didn't go to school to teach theater and I never had any aspirations greater than designing regionally and maybe touring with a major Broadway production. When I started at Bradford, I had only taught a few classes, but I had worked professionally in four states over the course of six years. I knew my theater, for someone my age, and I was eager and happy to have a theater of my own. Especially since I didn't particularly care about teaching. I learned theater by doing, the classroom stuff came years later, in college, to fine tune and expand what I already knew I loved. And this was a perfect program! I taught three classes a day, hour and a half each, 12 to 16 kids per class. I had the same kids all year. There was no national standards for theater to worry about. No one knew whether I was under VoTech or Fine Art so I was pretty much ignored. I started classes to get my teaching certificate (no biggie). I just got to do theater, all day, with a really cool bunch of kids who could have been my little sister. I had time to design for extra cash around town. It was perfect.

Now my students call me Mom, and that's fine. But as our program grew, my anonymity shrank. My classes got huge and when the state cut the education budget, we lost those luxurious hour and a half classes. Five years ago I went from 3 classes a day that had grown to 25 kids (way too many to be safe in the shop) to 7 classes a day with 30 kids. My teaching load doubled with no extra equipment or time and I still had six shows a year to design, build and manage. Two years ago, we added online teacher evaluation, which we had to learn and report through. My prep time was taken not planning for shows or lining up the next day build schedule, but trying to figure out how to do the paperwork to keep my job. My health suffered. My work suffered. My dream job was killing me. 

During this stressful time, while the teaching end of my job was getting less and less about teaching and more and more about proving I could teach, our theater program was becoming more and more successful. We were being awarded and lauded and though I was, and am, proud of the work we did, I felt as though I did not deserve any of that. I felt that every show came together by the skin of its teeth and I could not get my head around being both a good teacher and a good artist and technician. So I had to find a way to compromise. Or leave the job I love.

The first shows I did at Bradford, even the first shows that went to international festivals, were built by the students. With the exception of the welding, which we are not equipped for, the students built 20' rotating walls and a 10' balcony for the show Noises Off. We built a rain curtain for the storm in Once on This Island. We built a tree that was climbed in Parade, we built a chess board turned castle with a curved staircase and a tower for Taming of the Shrew. We did full show turn arounds in a day. In two different theaters. At once. We built the entire set for Disney's Camp Rock with two moving boat docks (bases welded off site) a 20'x20' lit floor that rolled up and down stage, four rolling LED light towers, and a camp cabin in 18 days start of build to open. Did I mention we also do the light hang and focus? We accomplished amazing things together.

I still accomplish amazing things with my students, but with 30 kids in a class, 150 plus through the shop in a day, everything must slow down to be safe. With 30 students in 55 minutes, we must compromise. Now, we hire our big builds out. Even the simple stuff gets jobbed out for our big shows. This means more management and less teaching. The students put puzzle pieces together, but I don't have the luxury of problem solving with them as we work. We cannot change the design if we discover something better was we build, or if the rehearsal process finds we no longer need that one thing. Or if we discover eight feet is two feet too tall. It takes three class periods to build a flat, not because the kids are lazy or don't know what to do, but by the time I take attendance, give them the drawing and they start, we are 10 minutes into class. They work for 30 minutes, sharing tools with other groups, then they have to clean up. Then the next group comes in and takes over. I can build a flat in 30 minutes, but I have to figure three to four times that for my students who are learning. If I want them to learn the entire process, I have to wait to complete that flat till the next day when they come in. Fine for them, horrible for the show. So I compromise on the design, so my students can still learn.

This is where I feel we become a victim of our success. We are good at what we do, and we're happy to do it. I was warned about this as a young woman. We are good at what we do, so we are expected to do more with the same resources, then with fewer resources. Eventually that equation does not hold up. Ask the math teachers. Then come the questions, often internal, that voice in your head that insists you do it not just right every time, but better every time, "Why can't you do that any more? Why is it taking so long? Why does it cost so much more?". So I compromise, and my students do less actual theatrical building and more project building. But that isn't what I want to teach. So then my question becomes, at what point have I compromised my dream job for a steady job? And can I swing it back?

This post is not going to answer the question. I hope it will encourage some to question what about education we value. Is it the score or the skill? Is it the A or the accomplishment? How do we serve more students in a better way without just filling up the rooms? It is not a question for administrators. It is a question for every adult in our society. How do we value education and how will we, as a society, support education so we grow the culture and the structure and the citizens our democracy needs. I am not the only person in education struggling with these questions. I still go into work every day enjoying the challenge and loving the joy of accomplishment I see on my students' faces when they see the finished product. I will compromise with myself for now, because I know they, we, can accomplish more.  

Building Community

After posting about stress and communication and the value of the arts, I want to talk about community. We had a lovely picnic this past weekend, a return to a tradition we had let go the past few years due to weather and rehearsal schedules, but a really important tradition for our theater family. One that we shouldn't overlook next year. Our art needs its community.

Its easy to look at community building by arts organizations as a way to push member ship, season subscriptions and ticket sales, but community building means so much more that fund sourcing. Without community, you really have no soul to build on. You can have the most amazing, technical, pitch perfect performance that falls on deaf ears in your empty auditorium if you do not nurture the community around you. We've already talked about why they need you, but don't forget, you need them.

The community brings the joy that feeds our souls as artists. It also brings the frustration that fuels our passions, and the indignation that sparks our actions. We do not exist, create or continue without our community.

One example is the Pajama Jamborees, sponsored by the Festival City Orchestra. Free orchestral concerts for families in Milwaukee get kids hooked. It shows young children that artists are their people! All kids create, but not all adults do. Don't we want to keep that spark alive and growing regardless of age? http://festivalcitysymphony.org/concerts/pajama-jamborees/

The International Thespian Festival held in Lincoln, NE every June is also a tremendous example of community. Students from all over the country coming together to share and perform and be amazing for a week on an environment that completely understands, supports and encourages them. https://www.schooltheatre.org/thespianfestival2016/home

But he greatest example of a theater community that I ever witnessed was in the small town of Sharron in the mountains of Vermont, I have family there an when I was home visiting, my cousin asked if I wanted to go to the theater to see the high school show there. It was a show the students had written. I said sure and so we went to a beautiful old play house to watch the show. Sharron has one high school. The population is small. You would not have known that from the packed house at this performance. I was stunned. In addition to the show, there was a fundraising auction and a dinner going on in adjoining event halls. When i talked to my cousin about it, her response was just as remarkable.

The entire school is part of the production. The actors rehearse for months, of course, but the entire school gets involved in the show the week before they open. They all help plan, build sets, make costumes, paint and prop and they cart the whole operation to the theater a few miles away, who gives them the space for the weekend of their run. This is an annual tradition that sells out every year for three nights. The entire community is so committed to the importance of coming together for this event, it is always a smashing success. The script, the show itself, was secondary to the experience of such an overwhelming sense of community commitment to a weekend of art.

So what can you do to build the community? Of course, there is always coming to see the shows. The easiest way to support us, but you can also get involved by joining our parent group. Don't have kids in the program? Get some friends together and come to a fund raiser. Really want to immerse yourself in the culture? Come to Tremper on October 22nd and see high schools from all over South East Wisconsin perform in the first round of State One Act competitions. You can cheer the home team and support theater in the state at the same time! Want more? visit the Rhode Center for a show, or check out events sponsored by Backyard Dream Studios, a new company renovating the Orpheum downtown to bring more theater to Kenosha. Owned and spearheaded by KUSD Theater Arts Alumn, Alex Kudrna. Check out their BLOCK PARTY October 1st! Talk about community!
https://www.facebook.com/backyarddreamstudios

We need our communities. We need to embrace new members and grow the ranks of our support base not for what those members can do for our bottom line, but for what we can all do together to change the world around us for the better. So come to our shows, drop in on the picnics, be a part of our community. Join the family.

We Are All Artists

Now that rehearsals have started and all of the fall shows are in swing (except Equus, which auditions this week at Tremper! See the KUSD Theater Arts Facebook page for details), Lets talk a little bit about why what we do matters. We're more than a nice box you can tick off on your college aps, friends. But you know that. You wouldn't be reading this if you didn't find greater value in the arts.

It is sometimes difficult to explain to others, people who believe they reside outside of the direct influence of the arts, why we do what we do. For young artists it can be the classmates and even friends who think its "gay". For college students its the ever present contingent of "How are you going to make a living doing that?" and for adults, it can be "Yeah, but that's not a real job". It can be hard to answer those critics, or work through the sea of "it doesn't mean anything" or for us worse, "Its just high school theater". But don't be silenced by these voices. Be an advocate for your art. Those voices are loud, how we can start to have those conversations?

We are not subtle storytellers, theater people. We don't sneak our stories under the radar or hide them on your cereal box. We are very bold. We want to tell you this story and we're going to do it in this place at this time. Come see it. We make conflict on purpose, for the sake of telling a good story, because even the simplest stories have conflict. What we learn by doing this is, in the process of creating and solving these conflicts, is that we can, in fact, solve these conflicts. Actors learn to question and choose and create answers to those conflicts. Then, without even realizing it, they leave rehearsal and step out into their life, which is likely not very much like a scripted story, and they start looking at the conflict in their own life differently. Perhaps they start to make different choices because they have practiced, in a very safe place, making different choices. Actors can see that they are in charge of their own story. How empowering, at age 15, 16, 17! To know you have it in you to change your story and to have had the opportunity to practice making the choices.

Art requires interaction. It takes at least two people to create conflict, it takes at least two people to create art. You need an artist and an audience. This goes for any art, of course. Written, spoken, played, seen; there must be an interaction, a conversation. When we go see a play, a movie, a musical, even a dance performance, we open ourselves to the conversation. Often, this means opening ourselves, intentionally, to being uncomfortable with what is happening in the story. It might not seem like this, but I promise you, there were some very unhappy little princesses in the audience when King Triton blew up Ariel's grotto. But we had to have the conflict, to be uncomfortable, for the story to advance. And as simple and silly as it seems, many adults have seen themselves or their own parents in that scene and discussed it with their children. Disney may seem like child's play on the surface, but really, these stories are ages old for a reason. The conflicts and the desire to solve them speak to us, regardless of age. The need is there, only the perspectives change. Artist are prepared for those conversations. We create them, it is our job.

No one lives outside the influence of the arts. The arts, performing arts, visual arts, art period, touches every single aspect of our lives. It is on every television, every screen, in every console or PC game we play. There is intentional art and design in the cars we drive, the food we eat, the ambiance in the restaurant where we eat. Every sales pitch is trying to bring you into its story. Art speaks to us, through music, whether the carefully selected streaming station we curated ourselves or the background music at Target, the magazine you picked up while standing in line to buy the shoes that "just scream you" or even the print on the newly minted twenty dollar bill you just paid for it all with. There are no accidents there. It is all designed to create a story around you, and for you.

We are all the audience in our everyday. But we can all be more. We can all choose to create, to ask questions, to solve the conflicts, to change the story. We can all be the artists who create the world. So don't be afraid. Speak up for yourself and your art. Go ahead. Start the conversation.