In my last post, I discussed my inability to be vulnerable with my classmates about why I decided to become a teacher. As my first two weeks of grad school comes to an end, I reflect on a lesson given in my Classroom Management course on the importance of vulnerability….me and my group members were onto something there! My professor shared with us a lecture from Berne Brown on how vulnerability is the most powerful relationship building tool available to us as humans. She reviewed her belief that creating a classroom environment in which vulnerability is fostered, trust is built, and shame is worked through is the only kind of environment in which children will heal from past shame and where learning can truly happen. My high school years were fraught with shame. My teachers created courageous classrooms where I was free to speak my shame and connect with others about it – breaking me from it in some regards. Those classes are the ones I learned the most in – academically and about myself.
Now as I think about the role vulnerability plays in removing shame from the classroom, I reflect on the second reason why I decided to become a teacher. Not just to remove and heal the shame that students feel within but to be a part of removing and healing the shame in our communities and in our world.
The Second Reason: The World Was Changing
August 9, 2014. I’m not 100% sure where I was on this day. But I remember where I was in life. I had just finished interning at a Shakespeare company in Madison, New Jersey. Madison was quite affluent. The university that the theater was located at was the most expensive university in the state. I was teaching kids about Shakespeare and classical theater – kids from very privileged backgrounds attending a very expensive two week camp. It was my first professional theater gig. It was a peek into what I thought I would spend the rest of my life doing. And I was onto the next step in the rest of my life. I was about to start an internship at a repertory theater in Ithaca, New York. Also an affluent town, home to Cornell University. Here, I would have way more responsibility – I would be assisting the Artistic Director – the head honcho at a theater. So this wouldn’t just be a peek now – this was what the rest of my life as a theater professional was going to look like. Up until this day, I had been steadfast in thinking that this is where I wanted to be. Among creative people. Exercising the limits of my imagination day in and day out. Bringing awareness to audiences through storytelling about important issues. Empathizing. Reading, writing, breathing theater.
But August 9, 2014.
It’s not until I looked back about eight months later that I realized how much this day changed my life. But it sure did.
On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an 18-year-old unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed in the middle of a residential street in Ferguson, Missouri. It rocked the state and the nation to its core. The officer who shot Brown, Darren Wilson, was later acquitted. Ferguson, being a town fraught with racial tensions, exploded in demonstration and activism which was portrayed as rouge violence in most mainstream media. My personal opinions on the case are neither here nor there. But this case, struck a cord in my heart. Doing theater no longer seemed important to me.
Theater can be a fantastic tool for change. It can broaden people’s horizons and force them to examine an experience or perspective they have never been confronted with before. But for me, after August 9th, it just didn’t seem direct enough. Once the audience left, that was it. That was the extent of the interaction between me and them. And in the end, it all started to feel self-serving.
Was I really doing this to lift people’s consciousness? Or was I doing this mostly because it was…well….fun for me?
If I’m being totally honest with myself, the consciousness part was secondary. I was mostly doing it because it was fun. It had been since I was eight. It was only in college that I decided that I had to be a “responsible” theater artist and use it to “educate” people. Mostly I just wanted to dress up and play pretend for a living. And besides, who was I to lift anyone’s consciousness? Was my own even lifted? It didn’t seem like it while I sat pretty in an office with a cushy internship (as far as internships go) and Ferguson was literally being burned to the ground.
The events in Ferguson forced me stand toe to toe with my privilege. My privilege to go to a liberal arts school and get an art degree without having to worry about “how I would actually make money.” My privilege to move across the country for a professional opportunity. My privilege to complain about the free housing we received during our internship. My privilege to joke about being on food stamps because the stipend my internship offered us was low. My privilege to ponder all of these things in the safety of my own bubble.
Now, I’m certainly not saying that I am not thankful for every single one of these privileges that I have. I was and I am eternally grateful that I have the life I do. But Ferguson rocked my little world and broadened my horizons in a way theater never could – because, ultimately, theater is second-hand.
The world seemed to change for me after that. I saw very clearly that I had not only a responsibility to myself to change career paths, but to others as well. I felt a strong sense of citizenship with the people of Ferguson. They were all asking America to do better so another Ferguson would never happen.
Sigh.
In theater, we are always told to do what you can, with what you have, where you are instead of setting your sights right away on Broadway or Hollywood. Local theater and “theater on a shoestring” can be just as fulfilling. Just as powerful. So I decided to do what I could, where I was (or rather where I was going – Portland!), with what I had. I wanted to create a little slice of the universe where kids like the high school version of me and those living through circumstances I can only visit through second-hand mediums, can feel free to be themselves, learn, and build relationships with others through their authentic self. To feel safe to grow.
I won’t change the entire world through my teaching. I can’t save anyone. But the thought of partnering with students, other teachers, families, administrators, and community members to solve problems and love students where we can, with what we have, and where we are, gives me hope that these problems can be solved at the local level and can one day grow beyond that. The thought that I will be helping students discover the skills inside themselves that can link local solutions to national and, one day, global solutions is what keeps my fears about having such an enormous responsibility quelled to a dull roar.
Like hecklers in an audience, I’ll ask those thoughts to kindly shut up. Or security will have to usher them out.
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I’d love to hear anyone else’s experiences with a world event that changed their perspective on something? Or changed their life course? Send me a message or comment below!
Amateur Hour 