Letters from Lisa

Last fall we began a display outside the science room called the Great Wall of Questions. The original inspiration occurred when I noticed that some of my students were really laboring to articulate deep, thoughtful questions about science topics, only to have other kids in the class shoot them down, with pithy one liners like, “Duh! It’s GRAVITY of course!” Never mind that even Isaac Newton himself couldn’t give you a straight definition of what gravity actually IS. Since learning is basically asking questions, which lead to answers, which lead to more questions, I wanted to encourage questioning.

So we started tacking questions up on the wall. Pretty soon we were off the bulletin board and spread out on the walls. Kids love to ask questions! Sure, some of them are silly questions like, “How many Beanie Babies are in the world?” but others are quite serious. Some recent examples: Are all people related? What is static electricity made of? How are eggs made inside the body of an animal? I’ve been compiling all the questions (I’m kinda behind in posting at the moment, but I am going to catch up!) at http://churchillscience.edublogs.org.

Today at dismissal a former student of mine came up to me and said, “Lisa, I have a question for the wall that I really want to know, but it’s inappropriate.”

“Well, if you already know it’s inappropriate…” I began.

“Well, it’s not bad or anything, it’s just a bathroom question.” 

“Hmmm…. Well. Why don’t you tell me the question and maybe we can phrase it a different way so that we can post it.”

The question was, “Why is poop brown?”

Now I can think of different ways to phrase this one so that the word “poop” is not used. However, generally I post the question along with a relevant image, and… yeah, maybe we won’t be posting this one.

I feel like a stranger here, even though this site’s got my name right in the URL.

Basically, I’ve been working. Pretty much non-stop. It’s work in the best, most fulfilling sense - on any given day I have a different opinion about which of my job descriptions is my favorite. The reason is probably that I am the type of person who MUST be doing many different things in order to feel challenged and entertained. Parent conference day was Thursday, and after sitting the entire day in front of my computer - even though we had a steady stream of visitors and various interruptions - I understood why I will never, and could never, hold an office job. I just couldn’t look at the computer anymore. I wanted to get up and go do something.

What’s been taking up large chunks of my time is this year’s musical theater production. I probably should have predicted this, given how many kids told me at the end of last year that they were going to join, but we had an absolutely massive sign-up for the play, the largest enrollment that I’ve ever had (or, to be honest, that I could handle!) Combining onstage and backstage, we have literally half the student body participating. Why so much interest? My (admittedly biased) guess is that, aside from my most committed actors who join year after year regardless of what the show is, it was the perfect storm of storywriting, swordfighting, and social networking.

Storywriting - because we’re constructing the story and the script, and the premise caught the imagination of many kids who aren’t interested in traditional musicals. I gave kids some options as far as characters, but ended up going based on who chose Good, Evil, or Traitor. (Many of the boys who signed up wanted to be traitors! They were totally enthusiastic about betrayal. Should we all be worried?) We’ve had to flesh out the plot a LOT due to the number of actors onstage, which means that it’s gotten more and more complex as time has gone on. I’m struggling to keep our run-time below an hour, which I think is the maximum that most audiences can tolerate a live show without an intermission (and despite repeated lobbying from certain Monty Python and the Holy Grail fans who want to insert an intermission, we are NOT doing that). I’ve had to promise kids that if we can’t use their story ideas in the live version, we can always film “deleted scenes” for the eventual DVD recording. We may even have to do an alternate ending in which the bad guys win, since I’ve been subjected to repeated, heated pleas and threats about the fact that in all of my plays, I throw the victory over to the ‘boring good guys’ in the end. I’ve also been chastised about the need to include a lot of comedy and sarcasm. I don’t think any editor would be this demanding…

Of course, from the perspective of someone who spent all last summer working on developing our writing program, I’m delighted with this state of affairs. I can’t think of a better way to teach about dialogue, character development, setting, plot, and general story development than actually working on all of the above with the kids.

Swordfighting is pretty straightforward - I know my group, and they love a good fight, so I am going to give them several, albeit sanitized-for-their-protection. (Actual exchange between myself and one of my lead actors: “Do I fight the King?” “Yes.” “Can I cut his head off?” “No.”)

Social Networking - There’s always a core group of students who join theater because they love acting and singing. Some years, when I’ve had groups of 20-25 students onstage, this is the constituency I got. But other years, like this one, I’ve gotten additional members who are primarily joining because they want to spend the time with their friends and think that this will be something fun to try together. I don’t discourage this, so long as it doesn’t lead to kids joining who really don’t want to act or sing at all (which occasionally happens - but when it does it’s usually because their parents, not their friends, have talked them into it). It’s nice to have a mix of motives, actually, because the ones joining for social reasons usually don’t mind when the spotlight doesn’t fall on them much. If I had 60 actors all clambering to be the leads, I’d have to disappoint a lot of them!

In any case, this particular year, kids did an amazing job of recruiting their friends. It doesn’t hurt that many of them saw their buddies in the show last year (which also featured the first two ingredients, storywriting and swordfighting) and that they’ve spent a lot of time with me in class and on field trips, so there’s a comfort level that lowers the barrier for more participation.

I don’t think I could ever turn anyone away, no matter how crazy the level of enrollment got. When I was in high school, both the marching band and the chorus accepted absolutely everyone who wanted to join, no matter their level of experience or “talent”. The result was always impressive - there is a huge advantage in numbers, even if it creates inconveniences at times. Plus, there is no truly fair way to select among applicants without feelings being hurt or potentially talented folks being eliminated because they are too young or inexperienced. Besides, this is SCHOOL, not Broadway. It’s supposed to be a teaching and learning experience! Everyone has to start somewhere, and absolute beginners often have the greatest level of drive and enthusiasm and are the most likely to be good sports about doing whatever’s asked of them.

So I’m thrilled, and a little scared, about this production. Thrilled because it’s a great opportunity. Scared because we need a bigger stage!