There Are More Things In Heaven And Earth, Horatio…. February 20, 2008
In trying to get a website off the ground, I’ve been trying to connect to other websites and blogs where there might be a need for information about drama in the classroom. Teaching websites mainly, but also some church websites where a children’s choir director who might be able to teach a group of third graders how to sing something, but really has no idea where to begin putting together the Children’s Christmas musical. But in my short time of looking, there’s not a whole of teachers out there considering drama as a teaching tool.
Maybe I’m just sensitive about it. It is my calling after all. Someone’s actually told me, “Aren’t you getting a little old for that kind of thing?” No I’m not and I hope I never do. Have you ever visited Gettysburg? The people who have the coolest jobs there are the tour guides who really make you feel the drama of that battle (it’s my dream retirement job). Obama wouldn’t really be Obama if he couldn’t make a speech, now could he? And there’s a reason why people buy those How To Host a Murder party games.
But there are so many uses for drama to teach. In Viola Spolin’s Theatre Games for the Classroom, the educator goes through the whole book pointing out opportunities to use acting games in multiple teaching situations. With just a little bit of thought, there’s not a subject, not a grade, not a teacher, not a student that couldn’t use a little drama to point things out. Just off the top of my head…
Noah’s Ark: Teach little kids the Bible story by letting them walk around like their favorite animal
English: Diagram sentences by moving around the people playing verbs, nouns and adjectives
Science: Charades with you glossary of science terms.
Music: Learn the shape of all the different notes, by making them with your whole body.
Math: Do a classroom survey with a compass and see if you can get the inside angles of your plot correct (you should finish up with 360°). I do this with my George Washington one-man show I take around to elementary schools.
Character Guidance counselors do this already when they prepare the kids to say no to drugs by giving them different situations that they to react to.
History How to Host Lincoln’s Assassination; don’t do a report on somebody, let the somebody do the report on themselves. Thomas Edison actually talking to the class would be a cool thing.
Even if the artistic side of it isn’t any good, it sure is fun. I’m an actor because it’s fun for me. And something fun will stick in the memory a long time. I’ve heard it said that a teacher doesn’t really teach. A teacher makes a student desire to learn.
Why not have one more tool at your disposal?
| Coloring Inside the Lines February 28, 2008
What did you learn back in the first grade about coloring? Take your black crayon, if you can find one, outline the picture you want to color in black. Then color it whatever color you want to color it. Just stay inside the lines. Stay inside the lines.
If you go outside the lines, your work looks sloppy. Color it whatever crazy, hopped up, non-realistic, spasmodic, operatic, rinky-dink color you want, but STAY INSIDE THE LINES!!!
This month, my son’s Cub Scout den (I’m the Den Leader) is in charge of the Pack meeting. We have to do the flag ceremony and a skit. During our planning session, I thought I could use the skit as an opportunity to earn the Webeloes’ Showman badge. Since I am an actor, I’m the one who has to figure out how to get this done. One of requirements to get this badge is to write a script for a puppet show. First, my nine boys each made a sock puppet. When I asked them what they would like to name their puppet, mostly I got “I don’t know; What do we have to name them for?; Crusher; Destroyer, Godzilla.”
Then I told them the theme of this month’s Pack meeting: Litter to Glitter. We then tried to come up with ideas for a story to put the puppets in. Here’s a list of the puppets’ names and various ideas they had.
The Junk Man Collects Trash and makes sculptures out of it.
Midnight the Owl Flies around and gets hit in the eye by litter
The Litter Bug Gets crushed by falling trash
Monsieur Garbage CEO of French Company S. Cargo, pollutes everything
Monsieur Debris Monsieur Garbage’s personal assistant
Glitterman
Superhero of Recycling
Mary Monsieur Garbage’s wife
The Unknown Man Not quite sure about him yet
Godzilla Destroys and eats things of course
Suddenly, they could see the lines and immediately began to color inside them. Probably while you’re looking at the ideas and the characters, you can see a story emerging there too. Creativity, art, only happens inside boundaries. If there are no boundaries, it just seems sloppy. It looks like an accident, a mistake rather than on purpose. So have outlines for kids to color inside, whether they’re acting in your play or writing their own.
And don’t worry. No matter what your boundaries are, you’ll always have a Godzilla.
| Earning Our Showman Badge
February 28, 2008
Recently I wrote about my son’s Cub Scout den taking charge of the monthly Pack meeting. I thought we could use this opportunity to earn our Webeloe’s Showman badge. Since I am an actor, I’m the one who had to figure out how to do it. One of the options for getting this badge concentrates on puppetry. The last of the requirements we had to meet, was to put on a show.
I think it might be informative to point out what happened in the performance that could happen with any other group of 10 year olds. There were three parts to our show and three lessons to learn.
1. The opening song (Happy Birthday)
2. The tribute to Arthur Baden Powell (the founder of the scouting movement rendered as a giant, brown paper puppet)
3. Litter to Glitter (our play)
Always have something for your actors to do. The boys had tons of energy. They arrived at 6:00 and started running around. The show began at 7:00 so I had to figure out a way to put all that energy to use. It was Blue and Gold night, a night to celebrate the birthday of modern scouting, so parents were all over the place, putting up chairs and tables, plates and cups, and blowing up balloons. Until it was time to rehearse, I made sure the boys were helping out with the setup. Then the boys rehearsed the show. If I didn’t have something for them to focus on and work on, the boys would have lost control of all that energy. The boys started by singing Happy Birthday to the scouts (different words), using simple paper bag puppets. Singing, an easy way to start, required them to burn their extra energy at the beginning so they could control their energy later in the performance.
Involving yourself in the creation doesn’t take away from it, it makes it richer. One of the reasons I chose to do a puppet show, was that some of the boys in my den were reluctant to speak in front of large groups. When you’re working with puppets, no one is seeing the person, they are seeing the puppet. It freed the boys to say what they wanted to say, freed them to be themselves. I served as the emcee for the night and that had the same effect on the boys. I controlled the time and announcements. I served as a narrator when necessary to move the play along. If anyone needed me to remind them of what to do next, I was there. During the play, one boy became so excited his head came appeared while his puppet talked. I could remind him that the audience only wants to see the puppet. I freed the boys to concentrate only on what they had to do.
Be ready to add new ideas. We added a lot of new ideas at the last minute. I told the boys I was going to introduce each of their puppets to the audience. They quickly spent several minutes deciding what they were going to say. I named one of our puppets ‘The Unknown Man’ in the script, but no one claimed the name in the rehearsal. So the Unknown Man became a push broom. We added a puppet fire, a puppet tree, a puppet sculpture, puppet trash and we grew Godzilla from a sock puppet to a pillowcase monster puppet as a joke. Right up until the last minute, we were coloring, cutting, gluing and writing.
It is difficult for kids to stay quiet during a performance. I knew this was going to be a problem. I wanted the scouts backstage for the whole show. Most of our rehearsal time was spent on creating and acting with energy, not controlling our energy backstage during a performance. Ten boys were crowded into a small space with live microphones on either side for thirty minutes. I had planned to leave them there longer, but I moved them out when a few of them went berserk. We had finished the three parts of the performance and there was no reason to stay backstage any longer.
So what did we learn? Always have something to do, involve yourself in the action, be ready to add something new and practice staying quiet. These things will help you direct your next classroom play.
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