Admin are People Too...

I'm having a difficult time with my administration. There are a lot of reasons for that and I've been losing my mind about how to deal with them almost since I got here. I need to figure out a better way to deal with my feelings about and my interactions with them. So here are my ideas.

• I can't control how they behave: I can't control how they choose to run this school. I can't make them do anything. I need to remember that. Getting angry over things that are out of my control doesn't do any good. It just stresses me out. 
• Put myself in their shoes: I'm really bad at this. I'm very sure of my own correctness and get cranky when others don't share my opinion. I'm also protective of my students and program and get angry when I feel they are being ignored or treated unfairly. But running a large high school can't be an easy thing to do. They have a lot of teachers, a lot of students and not a lot of money. I need to remember that. 
• Pick my battles: It is in my nature to want to die on every hill that I come across. I'm right and everyone else needs to admit it. But I can't fight every battle. I just need to let some things go. I am not good at that. 
• Wait: I tend to react very quickly. I send emails or make phone calls when I am still upset or before I have thought the issue through. I have learned to be fairly calm when I do that, but it still causes problems. I need to wait before I react to anything that happens, to really calm down and think through what is happening then decide what to do. 

I'm not looking forward to this. I don't deal well with people who I disagree with. I don't want to get along with them. But I have to. So I'm going to try. 

Teaching Trust and Space

My intermediate is currently working on a children's show that will be performed next semester. As we were doing a fast run-through I noticed that they are not comfortable being in each others' space. They like each other and get along well, but there is a barrier in being able to stand close to each other or touch each other. I want to work on that because there are many close relationships in the play we are working on and I want to express those without it looking awkward. During the run-through, the two students who were supposed to be in love hugged, and it was one of the most awkward things I've ever seen.

I've seen this in the past. Some students have no personal bubble and some have huge ones. I want to help them break those down. Previously I have just forced them together and told them to deal with it. But over the past few years I've had some education on personal space.

I consider myself a feminist. Part of feminism is that people have the right to decide who touches them and who enters their space. Many people have a history that makes being touched frightening to them. There may be histories between students that I don't know about. So while I am trying to get them comfortable with each other and with acting using touch, I want to honor their right to decide what happens to their bodies.

I've tried to do this in a couple of ways. First, I do a lot of volunteers right now as we are starting. I let them decide how comfortable they are with various activities. I also try to keep a lid on students volunteering each other or pushing each other.

Second, I explained to my class that they have final say in who gets to touch them or be in their space. I asked that if there are individuals in the class that they have a history with and are uncomfortable doing close-contact activities with to let me know privately. I had one student ask not to be paired up with another and will be respecting that.

Third, I've tried to add a trust component to what we are doing. It's not just about popping personal bubbles, it is also about learning to trust each other. Today we did a trust circle and trust falls. They came together as a class in these activities. A few kids stepped out of their comfort zones.

This is going to take some work, but I think it will be less scary because we are taking things slow and working towards being comfortable with each other instead of just being thrown together and expected to deal with it.

More Ways to Make Rehearsal Productive

I've been looking for more ways to make rehearsal time more productive and make students more accountable for how they use it. I've tried a couple of different things that have seemed to work.

First, I've told students that at the end of the day they need to turn in something in that describes what they worked on that day. I've done it both as a written assignment and as a verbal assignment. In either case, they have to document what they did during rehearsal: what they worked on, what they accomplished, what they still need to do, etc. Of course they can lie but it places some accountability on them to account for how they use their rehearsal time.

Second, I group them. I got the idea from a thread about monologue rehearsal in the Facebook group Drama Teachers And Those Interested In Drama Education. People were asking for ideas about how to rehearse monologues and one person (I wish I remembered who) made several suggestions about grouping students and having them watch and critique each other.

- For the first couple of days, they work in pairs, practicing and giving each other feedback on each step that I give them (physical, emotions, projection, diction, fluency, etc).
- 2 days of small circles, where each student receives either the "performer" card or a category of the performance rubric; students get a chance to perform and receive specific feedback; then the cards rotate and the group repeats the process.
- 2 days of large circles: I create two concentric circles with chairs facing each other in pairs. Students get to practice performing their monologue to a partner and choose the feedback to give based on the rubric categories.
Throughout all of the activities, I have a list of names per day to listen to and give handwritten feedback.

I love these ideas and I'm using them with my beginning students right now. They start performing duo scenes at the end of this week. We've been working on blocking (specifically using levels and distance to tell stories and show relationships) and objectives and tactics. Today I put them into groups of 3 scenes and had them watch each other. I used my critique tool of "one thing they did well and one thing they could improve on" to get them used to this kind of group work. One scene would perform and everyone else would critique in writing them share their thoughts. They rotated through each scene at least once. Tomorrow they will be in groups again, this time critiquing blocking. On Wednesday they will be critiquing objectives and tactics. On Thursday each group will get to choose what they want their groups to look for. I will alternate having them write and turn in assignments and giving feedback verbally. I will probably pull out a few groups a day and see how they are doing as well. This way, students can get feedback on what to work on so their rehearsal time can be more productive. It also breaks up the process, so they don't get bored running their scenes over and over again.

In my advanced class we are working on a Christmas show that is lots of short scenes that don't really connect to each other. So I run several scenes at once. I take one group and have my student stage manager take another. Then I send other groups off to work on their own. I move between each group keeping them on track and giving feedback. We can't get into the auditorium right now (band and choir concerts in the next few weeks) and I got told off for sending kids into the hallway (even though band and choir does is) so I started taking my kids into the cafeteria. It's bigger than my room so I can keep everyone in the same space and see what they are doing while working with one group. Kids still get off track, but it is less frequent.

Why Was Yesterday a Good Day?

Most of my days teaching range from to "slightly annoying" to "okay." I have some really awful days and some days that are energizing and great. Yesterday was energizing and I really enjoyed it. Whenever I have a day like that, I wonder why that day was good and others are not. What do I do differently on good days? I realize that there are a lot things that are out of my control, but on days where things are running fairly smoothly what do I do differently to make it a good day?

I've been thinking about this for a while, and come up with some conclusions. First, on good days, it is me with my students working to learn together. It is not the "me vs. them" feeling that I get when I am frustrated. I focus on them having fun and on showing what they know instead of me jamming knowledge into their heads. In short, my focus is on my students, not on me. When I get stressed it's hard for me to focus on my students.

Second, in order to focus on my students I need to drop my perfectionism and fast pace. I get upset when I feel they are not learning fast enough or that they are not acting or learning as they should be learning. I've found that the word "should" is dangerous to me. I worry about what "should" be happening instead of what is actually happening. Instead of dealing with my students where they are I get upset that they aren't somewhere else.

Third, good days are days when I connect to my students. I'm continuing to work on acknowledging my students' feelings, but I still find myself dismissing their feelings. But on days when I don't, when i talk to them and connect with them, things are better. This video helped me realize that.

I'm in a position of authority over my students. Often I get caught up in that and forget that my students are people who deserve respect and empathy. So that is my next goal for November. Consistently be student-focused as I teach.   

Some Wins

A couple of wins today that I hope are a result of this project. First, one of my advanced students that I had a rocky relationship with at the beginning of the year went out to the hallway during class. He looked upset. So I went out to see what was going on. He was crying and when I went over to him he just hugged me and cried into my shoulder. He is having some struggles at home after coming out to his family. I was able to tell him I was proud of him for honoring who he is, because I am. Coming out is hard and brave and I told him as much. It seemed to help him to have an adult tell him that it is okay and hat he is okay. A few months ago I don't think he would have confided in me, and I would not have deserved his confidence. But I've been working to be more aware of how I interact with him and I think it is working.

Then in one of my beginning classes, a student called someone else a "f*ggot." I pulled him aside to talk to him about that kind of language. Cussing is what it is, but if someone cusses someone out or uses a insult like that then I try to address it. Making who someone is an insult is unacceptable. Using gay, girl, retarded,etc. as insults suggests that gay people and women are not as good as others. I told that student all of this, that using derogatory terms for a group of people as insults in not okay. He seemed to get it and apologized. When it comes to issues like that I try to change the behavior instead of just punishing it because most of the time they don't understand why the language they use is a problem. Last year I probably would have just punished or yelled at him.

I have a hard time seeing success in this project. But it's days like today that make me feel like I'm actually improving.

Successfully Avoiding Monkeys

Last week was our school's dance show. I was in charge of the technical elements, like I always am. We got lights hung and sound worked out and it ran pretty well. I have a tech crew made up of student workers who work the shows. It is a weird dynamic to be functioning as a sort of stage manager over a show I have zero familiarity with. Often I stress over elements that are not really my responsibility. I did my best not to do that this time.

For example, the dance teacher decided to add fog machines. She didn't get them to school until the last night of rehearsal and didn't really know how to work them. So my kids had to experiment with them. They were talking to me about how the fog looked weird to them and asked what they should do about it. I told them to keep doing what they were told to do. It is not our job to fix a show that doesn't belong to us. We do what the dance teacher tells us to do and don't try to direct it.

The same is true of the lights. She had a strobe light up and ran it with the lights on. I thought it would look better with the lights off, but again, not my show. I asked if she wanted the lights off, she said no, so I kept my mouth shut and quit worrying about it.

It was a fine line to walk between making sure the tech looked good and not directing the show. Basically I waited until I was asked to do something before I did it. If my opinion was asked, I gave it. But I let the show be what it was without taking responsibility for it. I was not the designer or the director and it felt good not to stress about it too much.

Consistency in Different Classes

Trying to be consistent is challenging when you have five different classes with very different personalities. I'm trying to balance what each class needs while maintaining fair treatment across classes. I have to remember that fair does not mean the same treatment (something my mom always said growing up and I never believed.) I still have a sense that being fair means treating everyone the same. But that just doesn't work. So I'm working on seeing the difference between what is fair what needs to happen to help students learn.

I have three different beginning drama classes: one at the beginning of the day, one in the middle and one at the end. They have very different personalities and so in order to get them to be constructive I have to treat them differently.

My beginning period is pretty dead. It is early and they are not very awake. I also get a lot of late students in that class. It takes a lot of energy to wake them up and get them moving. I push them a bit more because they come in with such low energy.

My middle period is pretty reasonable, but has a few very big personalities that need to be kept in check. I need to balance letting them express themselves and not letting the class get out of control.

My last period has a ton of energy, which seems to be the trend for the last period of the day. They are creative and fun to work with. But they can get out of control and distracted very fast. With them it is about focusing the energy they already have.

Because of these differences between classes, each one has different rules. Last period does not get to choose their own groups, ever. I always choose performance groups to get them to know new people, but my beginning and middle periods get to choose their own groups for smaller group assignments. I tried that with last period a few times and it was a mess. They did not focus at all. So now I choose their groups all the time.

I also have to be careful when I take volunteers in my last period. I have several very enthusiastic students who always want to participate. I love it. But I noticed that others starting sitting back and not working because others would always volunteer. So now I make sure I am cold-calling people as well as taking volunteers. I have a similar problem in first period except that no one volunteers. So I have to make sure I am not always calling on the same people.

My intermediate and advanced classes are both performance based. But they have different rules as well. My intermediate class does not have a seating chart. That class gets along well and has formed a really strong sense of community. My advanced class however is cliquish and so I've given them a seating chart to separate the cliques and make them get to know other people. They aren't a fan, but it has helped break things up a bit.

I try to be consistent within classes, making sure consequences and rules stay similar. But trying to do it across classes doesn't really help anyone.

Making Rehearsal Time Useful

I need to give my students rehearsal time in class when they are creating performances. They need a chance to practice skills and apply them to the performances they are doing. I'm used to dedicating full days just to rehearsal. That's what my drama teacher did in high school, what happened in college and what I saw when I was student teaching. I'm not sure how well it worked in those circumstances, but it does not work in my beginning classes. I get maybe fifteen or twenty minutes of rehearsal from them if I push. After that, nothing gets done. So I've rearranged how I run my rehearsal time. Instead of doing full days of teaching and full days of rehearsal, I try to do half and half. We learn about or review a skill then they apply in rehearsal for the last twenty or so minutes of class. For example, we were reviewing  physical character creation yesterday. We did some exercises and reviewed how to create a character physically for the first half of class. Then they rehearsed the duo scenes they are working on for the second half of class, focusing specifically on their physical characters.

I've found this is more helpful because they are focusing on specific skills instead of applying them all at once. Since they are new to acting, I think this is helpful. Breaking up the rehearsal time means they are more likely to use it as it comes in more frequent, smaller spurts.

On days that they do rehearse all day I am trying to do previews. Earlier this week they were rehearsing blocking they had created for their scenes after spending a week learning what blocking is and how to block. I spend the day watching each group perform and giving them feedback on their blocking. This meant that after I watched them they had things to work on. It also meant that they knew they were going to be watched during the class period so they were a bit more on their toes.

A lot of this may seem obvious, and I feel dumb that it took me this long to do this. But I did what I saw other people do my first year. This year I'm trying to figure out what works for me instead of copying other people.

Acting is More Then Saying Lines

I discovered something when I was having my advanced students evaluate their performance in their last show. When I asked them how they thought they did, almost all of them just talked about being memorized. They did not address their acting, their characters, their blocking, just how memorized they were. I found this troubling, as it reflected a trend I noticed in my beginning classes as well. Students seem to think that acting is getting on stage and saying memorized lines. So recently I've been pushing character creation in a couple of ways to help students learn to play someone different from themselves instead of just reciting lines.

In beginning we just finished a unit on physical and vocal characters. They were assigned a random character and spent a few weeks figuring out how that character might sit, stand, walk, move and talk We looked at how age, gender and occupation can change how people move and talk. We did lots of exercises pushing them to be as different from themselves as possible. They finished by performing a very short contentless scene, with the goal being for the class to guess who they were without being told. Now we are doing longer duo scenes. We just finished going over blocking and are now going back to physical character. Before we perform we will be adding objectives and tactics, to help them learn to play a characters feelings as well.

In advanced I've started warming them up by having them sit, stand and move as their characters in the show we are currently working on. As we continue to rehearse my goal is to make sure they aren't losing their physical and vocal characters as the scenes progress. Many of them start strong but drop their characters part way through. I need to start catching that.

Inspired by TheatreFolk

TheatreFolk recently put up a blog post looking at the goals and struggles of drama teachers. It made me realize I'm losing sight of what I want to accomplish and why I want to teach in all of the craziness that has been going on. My classes become about classroom management and not about theatre. So, here is my post inspired by TheatreFolk to remind me of what my goals are.

What are My Goals:

1. To teach my students to play someone different from themselves on stage, not just read lines as themselves.
2. To provide my students with access to different areas of theatre, not just acting.
3. To push my students to do more than they think they can.
4. To improve the reputation of my program in the school and community. 

What are My Struggles:

I've talked a lot about struggles, so I don't think I need to address them too much here. Basically it comes down to lack of follow-through from my students and lack of support from the administration, as well as my own thin skin, quick temper and fear of failure. 

What Does Teaching Drama Mean to Me?

1. It means giving students skills that will benefit them in and outside of the classroom.
2. It means giving students something they can be successful at. 
3. It means challenging myself to improve.
4. It means pushing students to become more than they expect themselves to become. 

I got so wrapped up in minutia that I lose why I'm teaching and what I'm trying to teach. Hopefully this month as I focus on what my priorities are, that will change. 

Picking My Monkeys

There is a Polish saying that translates roughly to "Not my circus, not my monkeys." I think it's going to be my motto for November. The goal this month is consistency. Initially I was thinking about grades and rules, but I think it's going to expand beyond that. I want to be consistent in my priorities and what problems I take on. I take on a lot of problems that I just can't solve and that really aren't my problem. I worry and stress over things I can't do anything about and accept things people hand me that don't really belong to me. Here are some monkeys that aren't mine and that I'm not taking back.

• The auditorium: Our auditorium has issues. Most of our equipment is broken, our fly system is  badly out of weight and has been for years, so it is falling apart. It is a mess. And yet everyone wants fancy technical aspects that I just don't have the equipment to do. I tell them that and then they get upset with me. It makes me upset that I can't do what they want and I feel like a failure. But it is not my fault that none of our equipment works or that it was managed so poorly for so long. There is only so much I can do and I'm tired of killing myself over this. It is what it is and if they don't like it that's their problem. 
• Admin expectations that are unreasonable. I've had several meetings with my administration where they seemed to want to get me in trouble. They raked me over the coals for incredibly minor things, like one sentence on a poster. It felt like a witch hunt. They kept telling me how to run my class in ways that make no sense with teaching drama. They are being unreasonable and I'm tired of dealing with it. I'm tired of trying to make them happy because nothing that I do is good enough. They always have something to complain about and always want me to do more and more. So I'm done with them. If they don't like what I'm doing they can come teach my classes and direct my shows and run the auditorium and facilitate drama club. I'm doing my best and if they aren't happy with that there is nothing I can do. 
• My students unreasonable requests. My students have a lot of ideas. Many are really great ideas. But some are just not feasible. I can't make money or time appear. I can't change copyright laws. Feeling bad that I can't give them everything they want isn't going to halp anything. 

My first goal for November is to stay consistent in what is important to me and what is not. My students learning and performing is important to me. My sanity is important to me. My relationships with my co-workers are important to me. My husband is important to me. Improving my teaching is important to me. If something does not improve my teaching I won't do it, no matter what the admin say. If something gets in the way of my students learning or my sanity, I won't worry about it. I will keep my priorities and the other monkeys need to find somewhere else to be.