It's going to be a busy weekend, with not much writing time, so I'm offering the following piece I composed and performed for a workshop production at the University of Illinois in October 2006. If the subject interests you, I recommend a new book by an old friend. You can read about it and order it at http://www.storiesofracialhealing.com/.
Whatever else we can say about racism and race relations in the U.S., outside of all the confusions and conclusions and the psychic contusions that the subject causes, leaving aside the causes espoused by various groups and factions, and the questions of what is fiction and what is fact, beyond all that at least one thing is clear and self-evident – that we know who is who, me and you, who is White and who is Black.
Don’t we?
I say I am White. My six year old grandson, looking at me without the aid of bone-deep knowledge of our skewed history, says I am peach. Each of us on this stage tonight is a different color, a different shade on the spectrum from light to dark, from peach to brown, yet we choose to simplify and amplify and defy reality by calling ourselves, merely, Black and White.
If only it were that easy.
A neighbor, a woman of color – in her case a mellow, slightly reddish brown – and a woman whose sympathetic and empathetic brown face attracts trust and confidence – this woman once told me that she often meets others, clerks in stores, for example, men and women with light complexions, who suddenly lean in to her and tell in her low voices, in careful whispers, after looking around to make sure they can’t be overheard, that actually, really they are Black, but no one else here knows that.
“It’s amazing,” my friend says, “how many people are passing.”
“Really?” I say, amazed. “I’ve never met one.”
Not one of the smartest statements I’ve made in my life.
But what do these people mean when they call themselves Black? They don’t mean skin color. Theirs doesn’t qualify. They must mean something else, or maybe a lot of somethings else, a shared history, a group membership, a heritage, an assumed set of characteristics? All that and more seems to be inherent in the simple color name, Black.
White, on the other hand, means what? When I hear that designation, do I hear a shared history, a group membership, a heritage, an assumed set of characteristics? No. All I hear is Not Black. And that only if Black is nearby, to be compared against.
I met a young man on a bus one day. We started talking, about who lived where, who worked at what, that kind of thing. He was a fair-skinned man, with straight brown hair, unremarkable features, just an ordinary, everyday sort of White guy look. Then he mentioned – and I don’t remember why, it was just a comment that fit in to the conversational topic of the moment – he mentioned, in a casual way, that one of his parents was White and one was Black. In the twinkling of an eye, faster than it took Cinderella’s coach too turn back into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight, that man changed right before my eyes. He became Black. Just like that.
Not one of the proudest moments of my life.
What do my eyes see? What my grandson’s eyes see, simply skin color? No, I see categories called Black and White regardless of the colors that are actually in front of me. I see a light-skinned friend of African ancestry as Black, and a dark-skinned friend with Mediterranean genes as White, because I place significance on those designations. Significances that I’ve learned through growing up in a society shaped and defined by those man-made, self-serving, economically useful significances.
A Chinese girl came to the university department where I work, looking for Dr. Anderson. We had three Dr. Anderson’s on our faculty, which one did she want? She wasn’t sure. She didn’t know his first name. His. OK, that narrowed it down to two. Did she know what he looked like. He’s tall, she said. No help there. Finally after a little more prodding, she came up with a descriptive characteristic that worked. He’s very dark, she said, his skin, very dark. Aha, mystery solved. She didn’t want any of our Dr. Andersons at all, she wanted the one who is head of another department in our college. The Black Dr. Anderson. I directed her to that office, one of hundreds of students I’ve seen and served, but one I’ll never forget. Because she saw the same dark skin I saw, but she didn’t see the same significance of that color, so his skin tone was way down on her list of identifying characteristics.
And what of my identifying characteristic, and that of most of my fellow Americans? The characteristic that defines us, the one that limits us and shames us and enslaves us, is our persistent, pervasive, unshakeable insistence on seeing everyone in terms of the meaningless, erroneous, and simply untrue categories we call Black and White.
-30-
Friday, March 26, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Doors: a personal note
Since I know a lot of you are waiting to hear about the result of my application to graduate school, and because I am inexpressibly grateful for your support, the first thing on today’s agenda is to tell you that the letter came and, as I expected, my application was not accepted. It was a pleasant and encouraging letter, very similar to the ones I send every year to about 90% of the students who apply to the graduate program in the department where I work. As with this whole experience, from GRE exam through getting recommendation letters to final decision, it has been an interesting and instructive adventure to be on the other side of such a familiar fence.
So many people were sure I would get accepted that it was quite gratifying to my writer’s ego, even while I knew – both as a writer and as an admissions coordinator – that the chances of that happening were low. Remember limbo contests? How low can you go? I knew that the probability of acceptance, for me or any candidate, was very very very low, for a variety of reasons. I also knew that the English Department most likely had received a high number of applications this year. The prevailing wisdom says that when the economy goes down, grad school apps go up. If the letter had said I was accepted, I would probably have fainted from sheer shock before I finished reading it. Finally getting the word hurt, but it was more of a sting than a slap.
It was also a release. Other options that I had put in a mental pending file can now be pulled out of the drawer and more carefully considered. I tried to submit the best application possible so have to acknowledge, with joy rather than sorrow, that graduate school, at least in this particular time and place, is not the door that is open to me, and that a closed door over there simply means another door will be open over here. And that God knows which door is the right one for me and for whatever avenues of service are tagged with my name.
These thoughts connect well with the ones I had already started writing for this week’s blog. Due to a Facebook conversation, I had been thinking about the
Bahai belief that there are two simultaneous processes going on in today’s world, one destructive of old ways of thinking and behaving and one constructive, which includes many things that many people are doing to create new building blocks of civilization.
My understanding of this view is that these two processes are as logical for world progress as they are for personal growth and change. For a prosaic example, if I want a new kitchen, I first have to tear apart my old kitchen (the destructive process) to make space to build something better (the constructive process). And during the transition between these two processes I have to live with necessary chaos and inconvenience In that light, the destructive process is a painful but positive step.
On a more personal level, if I want to make space for new spiritual growth I have to be willing to let go of old thoughts and behaviors, to leave and if necessary destroy my comfort zone (the spiritual equivalent of an old, no longer functional kitchen). If an old pattern of thought and action is clearly not working, I need to let it self-destruct while I focus my energies on building new habits. If I ask God for a specific favor, even one that appears inherently beneficial, and the answer is “no,” I need to be grateful for that answer and ready to understand the guidance it provides for other paths of service.
Looking at the world situation in this way can help me stay sane on a planet that seems to be going bonkers. I can choose to focus on building new structures, new patterns, new ways of relating, and (to borrow a Twelve Step program phrase) to “let go and let God” deal with clearing away the rubble of the old. As a member of the Bahá'í comunity, this means doing my part to help develop a spiritually based governmental model that places priority on justice and unity rather than winning power through warring factions. It also means focusing on my participation in, and growing understanding of, our mission to learn and teach specific skills for human interaction, skills that help individuals begin to see themselves as noble beings created to serve one another. I believe and see solid evidence that this task we have been given is ultimately the way to begin changing civilization, from the bottom up.
Whether the mechanism is described as one door closing so another can open, or twin processes of destruction and creation, what it all means to me is accepting the events of my life and moving forward with confidence that the right path will become clear, so long as I keep my eyes, my mind, open.
-30-
So many people were sure I would get accepted that it was quite gratifying to my writer’s ego, even while I knew – both as a writer and as an admissions coordinator – that the chances of that happening were low. Remember limbo contests? How low can you go? I knew that the probability of acceptance, for me or any candidate, was very very very low, for a variety of reasons. I also knew that the English Department most likely had received a high number of applications this year. The prevailing wisdom says that when the economy goes down, grad school apps go up. If the letter had said I was accepted, I would probably have fainted from sheer shock before I finished reading it. Finally getting the word hurt, but it was more of a sting than a slap.
It was also a release. Other options that I had put in a mental pending file can now be pulled out of the drawer and more carefully considered. I tried to submit the best application possible so have to acknowledge, with joy rather than sorrow, that graduate school, at least in this particular time and place, is not the door that is open to me, and that a closed door over there simply means another door will be open over here. And that God knows which door is the right one for me and for whatever avenues of service are tagged with my name.
These thoughts connect well with the ones I had already started writing for this week’s blog. Due to a Facebook conversation, I had been thinking about the
Bahai belief that there are two simultaneous processes going on in today’s world, one destructive of old ways of thinking and behaving and one constructive, which includes many things that many people are doing to create new building blocks of civilization.
My understanding of this view is that these two processes are as logical for world progress as they are for personal growth and change. For a prosaic example, if I want a new kitchen, I first have to tear apart my old kitchen (the destructive process) to make space to build something better (the constructive process). And during the transition between these two processes I have to live with necessary chaos and inconvenience In that light, the destructive process is a painful but positive step.
On a more personal level, if I want to make space for new spiritual growth I have to be willing to let go of old thoughts and behaviors, to leave and if necessary destroy my comfort zone (the spiritual equivalent of an old, no longer functional kitchen). If an old pattern of thought and action is clearly not working, I need to let it self-destruct while I focus my energies on building new habits. If I ask God for a specific favor, even one that appears inherently beneficial, and the answer is “no,” I need to be grateful for that answer and ready to understand the guidance it provides for other paths of service.
Looking at the world situation in this way can help me stay sane on a planet that seems to be going bonkers. I can choose to focus on building new structures, new patterns, new ways of relating, and (to borrow a Twelve Step program phrase) to “let go and let God” deal with clearing away the rubble of the old. As a member of the Bahá'í comunity, this means doing my part to help develop a spiritually based governmental model that places priority on justice and unity rather than winning power through warring factions. It also means focusing on my participation in, and growing understanding of, our mission to learn and teach specific skills for human interaction, skills that help individuals begin to see themselves as noble beings created to serve one another. I believe and see solid evidence that this task we have been given is ultimately the way to begin changing civilization, from the bottom up.
Whether the mechanism is described as one door closing so another can open, or twin processes of destruction and creation, what it all means to me is accepting the events of my life and moving forward with confidence that the right path will become clear, so long as I keep my eyes, my mind, open.
-30-
Monday, March 15, 2010
Modems, maids and mice
How, you might be wondering, am I going to meld three words that share nothing but a beginning “M” into one blog? How indeed? Since you asked, I’ll tell you.
Let’s start with modems, or more specifically, my DSL modem that just suddenly decided to kick the bucket a few nights ago. Earlier that same evening, my cell phone had also died, or so it seemed. The normal display was replaced by a picture of a battery, and the danged thing refused to charge, or start, or do anything. Since we no longer have a land line in our home, a working cell phone is a necessity, so I told my husband I’d be going to the AT&T service center to get a new phone.
That’s what I told him, that’s not what I did. I was recovering from a brief bout of the usual nameless bug (the one that’s always “going around”), had come home early from work and retired to the couch, and just couldn’t work up enough angst about the phone to get dressed again and leave the house.
A couple hours later I discovered that my modem was also among the deceased and had to call the technical service people for assistance. I could manage that, it didn’t involve going anywhere. Of course, I would need a phone to do it and was gong to use my husband’s when suddenly my own phone came back to life. Kind of miraculous, no? OK, maybe not. But it does confirm one of my long held beliefs: that the various kinds of machines and devices that we use to operate our lives secretly communicate with one another.
I became aware of this phenomenon back around 1991 when I was working as a typesetter in a small shop in Evanston, IL. This was in the days before desktop publishing appeared and led to a graphics-capable computer in every home becoming the order of the day. Now just about anyone can produce basic typeset materials – flyers, for example, or newsletters, signs, whatever – because the programming to do that is a standard computer feature.
But in tech world 19 years ago is the dark ages, so instead of modern do-everyhing-except-cook-dinner computers, our shop had three dedicated Compugraphic typesetting machines and another very large photoprocessor that sucked in the film produced by the Compugraphics, moved it through a long channel (5 feet long, maybe 6) of photo developing mechanisms and fluids, and spit finished type out the other end.
This machine was essential to our operation. We could typeset our fingers to the bone but wouldn’t have a product to give our customers if all those keystrokes couldn’t be translated into paper that could be cut and pasted to make masters for brochures and such. And Mr. Photoprocessor knew how important he was to the business and generally managed to break down or jam up or whatever only on days when we had major jobs due.
It was obvious, at least to me, that after we turned off the lights and locked the doors at 5:00 p.m. every day, the Compugraphics and their buddy consulted about whether the next day would be a good one for a work stoppage. Not much due? Keep running smoothly. Urgent deadline? Go on strike. Or not. If they were feeling charitable, the processor would keep functioning and let us finish the job on time.
So I wasn’t at all surprised last week when my phone and modem conferred and decided to provide phone service so I could call AT&T and find out what to do to get back online.
That typesetting shop was a small place, just four full-time employees including the owner, and for a while, one part-timer, a student from Northwestern University. Can’t remember his name. Let’s call him Reginald. Reginald was from Seattle or Portland or somewhere like that, came from a prosperous family and was only working for extra spending money.
One day when we were typesetting a job in Spanish and talking about our various language capabilities, Reginald casually mentioned that he could speak a little Spanish. Not much. Just enough to talk to his family’s maid. The rest of us were stunned into silence as we contemplated the kind of lifestyle that would include casual mentions of a maid. Fortunately I don’t think Reginald noticed that he had suddenly become the shop freak.
Having a maid would not be easy for a lot of us. A woman who lived in Barbados for a couple years once told me about having a maid there. She didn’t particularly want or need a maid, but if she, an American, didn’t hire one it would be considered very bad form, since she would be denying a job to someone who needed it and flouting the local culture.
She had a full-time job as a teacher and you might think she would have enjoyed the new experience of not needing to do housework in the evenings, but instead she was often at loose ends with too much free time. Plus, she said, it was hard for her to relate to the woman she had hired. She tried to be friendly with her and the woman made it very clear that Barbados protocol demanded a hierarchal employer-employee relationship.
I thought about all this when the student who has been coming to my home for two hours every Friday to provide housecleaning services asked if this week she could come on Saturday instead. Which was fine, except that would mean I might be here at the same time. Ordinarily I come home from work and voila, the kitchen floor is shiny, the bathroom sparkles, the living room is swept and dusted and much neater than I left it that morning. I’ve become used to that, and I’m lovin’ it. But if I’m home when she comes, like I was one day a few weeks ago, it seems very strange to actually see someone else cleaning my house. I feel like I should apologize, or jump in and help, or insist she sit down for a cup of tea. So on Saturday, I made sure she was coming during a time I wouldn’t be there and couldn’t engage in guilty hovering.
OK, how am I doing so far? I’ve covered modems and maids, now how about mice? That’s easy. Have you seen the email that is going around about the mouse who was caught in the computer printer? It includes a picture of his little mouse head, looking dazed and amazed, sticking out between the rollers. That picture (attached here) inspired a conversation with a co-worker about our shared terror of mice. We both admitted to becoming completely unglued at the sight or sound of a teeny tiny rodent, alive or dead. I’ve been known to run screaming through the house because I reached down into a closet to put something away and touched a furry little body. Dead. Not moving. Couldn’t do a thing to me.
Didn’t matter.
And there was the time I hid for 15 minutes in a bedroom while our four cats (not our current four cats, an earlier contingent) batted around a mouse who had very stupidly wandered into our home. My husband couldn’t get to the mouse to toss it out, under threat of being scratched to death by those suddenly vicious felines, so he just watched and transmitted a play-by-play color commentary until the mouse lost 4-to-1 and was gone, and it was safe for me to come out of the bedroom.
Another time, in a different place, there was a mouse that ran behind the TV every night at the same time, so fast my daughter and I never really saw it, just saw a shadow streak past. That I could live with. When the mouse ran itself into oblivion and was discovered lying dead on the floor, I started running instead and pounding on the maintenance man’s door in total panic.
So here’s what I figure. The mouse in the picture was invading the office of a maid service, and the printer conspired with the computers and the copier to nab it and present it to the office staff first thing in the morning. On the busiest day of the week, no doubt.
There. Told you I could do it!
-30-
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Settling in for the ride
Week 3 down, 13 to go. After a slightly bumpy take-off, yesterday we started to settle in for what looks like a smooth and pleasant ride.
What in the heck am I talking about, you are wondering? Since you asked, I’ll tell you. The subject is the Soul Miners Children’s Theatre Company of Champaign-Urbana. A couple weeks ago I described how it started but not much about what it is. Sort of left it as a “to be continued,” because that’s how I felt, like I had just stepped onto a new road and didn’t know where it was taking me.
Kind of like life, huh?
OK, OK, enough glib profundity, let’s get on with the story.
Soul Miners joins a virtues class to theatre arts classes in order to create a spiritually oriented theatrical production company. An account of today’s session should help shape that definition into a more concrete picture.
Heidi and I arrived at the Bahá'í Center in Urbana around noon yesterday (Saturday) to prepare the space for the children who would be coming soon. At a little after 1:00 p.m., the virtues class began. First the students listened to a story and then consulted to figure out the virtue that would be the subject of the class. (Today’s virtue was “determination,” one of the 13 virtues that are expressed in the story we will be presenting on stage. There are probably more than that, but we stopped at 13 because we have 13 weekly virtues classes in our schedule.) During the rest of the class the children studied a couple of quotations about determination, then pasted copies into their books. Each student has a big photo album that they will take home when the term ends, albums filled with pictures they drew and quotations from both eastern and western religious texts and from other inspirational sources. They also played a game, talked, and generally kept busy learning about determination through a variety of activities.
Yesterday’s class was taught by two of the parents. Parent and non-parent volunteers are the scheduled teachers for the next 10 weeks, with as much overlap as possible to preserve consistency for the students.
At about 2:00 p.m. the kids separated into two groups by age, to work with our theatre arts teachers, Katie and Sarah, enthusiastic young women with experience and training in both theatre and working with children. For a necessarily small stipend they have taken on a big job – melding 10 children into a skilled performance troupe. Their charges, ranging from 6-10 years old, are a diverse group of girls and boys from different racial and ethnic categories, from different schools and home schooling, with different religious backgrounds. Some were well acquainted before Soul Miners started, some never met before.
In the workroom formatting a parent contact list, I heard lots of laughter and movement. Curious, I poked my head into the closest class and saw 6 children, a teacher and a parent volunteer sitting in a circle playing “telephone,” with the emphasis on learning how to speak clearly and distinctly for audiences.
After the first hour of theatre arts class, it was snack time. Complements of still more volunteers, the children replenished their energy with apples and applesauce, nuts and peanut butter, raisins and carrots and hummus and home-baked gluten-free cookies. It was an amazingly orderly snack break, because in order to eat the kids had to sit quietly and wait to be served. Heidi’s idea. Impressive!
Then it was time to jump up and get moving again, as the younger and older age groups switched teachers to continue theatre arts training for another hour, followed by the last activity, a 20-minute appreciation session. Sitting in a circle of chairs in a room that was set up with dim lighting and soft background music, children and teachers and parents related what they had liked about the day and expressed gratitude for specific acts of service or helpfulness or public struggles to overcome personal challenges.
By now it was almost 5:00 p.m., the end of a long afternoon, but no one seemed in any hurry to leave. The playroom filled up with kids dealing Uno cards and creating dollhouse families, a small group of parents and teachers discussed how to handle one child’s needs in ways that would help both him and his classmates, one parent wrote a check for tuition while getting a full report from her daughter about the day’s activities, and another student read and signed his commitment statement.
Yep, you read that correctly. We are asking all the children to make a promise in writing to the theatre company and to themselves. In the statement that they sign, they commit to their best efforts at working with others cooperatively and lovingly, to pay attention, to show up every week and participate in performances, and also to acknowledge that they are making a commitment for which they are personally responsible.
There are a couple of reasons for these statements. One is simply that we need a consistent group in order to mount a theatrical production. But beyond that, Heidi and I have strong anecdotal evidence of the value of a child’s personal commitment. (I can tell you my recollections of this story because she published hers recently in her own blog.)
When Heidi was in eighth grade in Evanston, IL, her teachers recommended her for a local program called Earn and Learn, which tied school performance (defined by whatever each student needed for academic or social or behavioral improvement) to the opportunity to meet at an after-school worksite and earn money by doing work for local businesses. Students and parents were invited to an informational meeting, and at the end of the meeting, kids who wanted to be in the program were required to sign a personal commitment statement, and parents were asked to help their children honor that commitment.
Our daughter loved the first Earn and Learn event, a camping trip, but after one day on the job she hated the whole thing and vowed never to return. “Vowed” meaning hollered. She was absolutely, positively, in no way whatsoever going back, and that was that! Except she had signed that piece of paper and we had agreed to it, so the next day we literally high-jacked her after school and drove her to the work site, despite blood curdling screams and kicking of dashboard and threats of mayhem. Seeing she had no choice by the time we arrived, Heidi scowled and growled out of the car and into the work site. I don’t know what Rick, the guy in charge, said or did, but within a few minutes she was laughing and ready to roll. That year in Earn and Learn was one of her best experiences and a major contributor to the person she is today. Without her commitment statement, it wouldn’t have happened. And without the Earn and Learn experience, our Soul Miners venture probably would not be happening, either.
Because although the initial idea for this theatre venture was mine and we worked together for several months on the investigation and learning and planning phases, now that we are in operation as an actual school, Heidi is the lynchpin. She’s planning the virtues classes and scheduling volunteers and overseeing the afternoon’s rotation, attending to myriad details that I wouldn’t know how to handle or even know were needed. So Heidi, this is my very public statement of appreciation. Please ignore me when I get grumpy or impatient and know how thankful I am for your spirit and enthusiasm and skill.
So … back to the present. Week 3 down, 13 to go. As we progress through the term the theatre arts classes will increasingly become rehearsals for our first production, a musical adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s Horton the Elephant story, provided by the New York Children’s Theatre Company. The various parts and pieces of each Saturday’s activity will be tied together by the virtues exemplified in the tale of an elephant keeping a most un-elephant-like promise because “an elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent.” (That was last week’s virtue, faithfulness.)
Week 14 will be devoted to final rehearsals, with maybe a week 14-1/2 rehearsal thrown in for good measure if needed. Weeks 15 and 16 will be performance weekends, two shows each. Then a closing celebration, and a metaphorical long nap for you-know-who before we continue our planning for the next term.
Soul Miners is not a business – tuition and ticket revenue will be used only to pay theatre arts teachers, rent performance spaces, buy supplies and cover other necessary expenses – but it is a very serious venture that we hope will be as successful as the original, award-winning New York group. Even half as successful would be fantastic! After all, we have a modest agenda: providing spiritual education, promoting religious unity as well as just about any other unity you can name, developing talent, producing great shows with both substance and style. That’s all.
Week 3 down. 13 – and many more – to go.
-30-
What in the heck am I talking about, you are wondering? Since you asked, I’ll tell you. The subject is the Soul Miners Children’s Theatre Company of Champaign-Urbana. A couple weeks ago I described how it started but not much about what it is. Sort of left it as a “to be continued,” because that’s how I felt, like I had just stepped onto a new road and didn’t know where it was taking me.
Kind of like life, huh?
OK, OK, enough glib profundity, let’s get on with the story.
Soul Miners joins a virtues class to theatre arts classes in order to create a spiritually oriented theatrical production company. An account of today’s session should help shape that definition into a more concrete picture.
Heidi and I arrived at the Bahá'í Center in Urbana around noon yesterday (Saturday) to prepare the space for the children who would be coming soon. At a little after 1:00 p.m., the virtues class began. First the students listened to a story and then consulted to figure out the virtue that would be the subject of the class. (Today’s virtue was “determination,” one of the 13 virtues that are expressed in the story we will be presenting on stage. There are probably more than that, but we stopped at 13 because we have 13 weekly virtues classes in our schedule.) During the rest of the class the children studied a couple of quotations about determination, then pasted copies into their books. Each student has a big photo album that they will take home when the term ends, albums filled with pictures they drew and quotations from both eastern and western religious texts and from other inspirational sources. They also played a game, talked, and generally kept busy learning about determination through a variety of activities.
Yesterday’s class was taught by two of the parents. Parent and non-parent volunteers are the scheduled teachers for the next 10 weeks, with as much overlap as possible to preserve consistency for the students.
At about 2:00 p.m. the kids separated into two groups by age, to work with our theatre arts teachers, Katie and Sarah, enthusiastic young women with experience and training in both theatre and working with children. For a necessarily small stipend they have taken on a big job – melding 10 children into a skilled performance troupe. Their charges, ranging from 6-10 years old, are a diverse group of girls and boys from different racial and ethnic categories, from different schools and home schooling, with different religious backgrounds. Some were well acquainted before Soul Miners started, some never met before.
In the workroom formatting a parent contact list, I heard lots of laughter and movement. Curious, I poked my head into the closest class and saw 6 children, a teacher and a parent volunteer sitting in a circle playing “telephone,” with the emphasis on learning how to speak clearly and distinctly for audiences.
After the first hour of theatre arts class, it was snack time. Complements of still more volunteers, the children replenished their energy with apples and applesauce, nuts and peanut butter, raisins and carrots and hummus and home-baked gluten-free cookies. It was an amazingly orderly snack break, because in order to eat the kids had to sit quietly and wait to be served. Heidi’s idea. Impressive!
Then it was time to jump up and get moving again, as the younger and older age groups switched teachers to continue theatre arts training for another hour, followed by the last activity, a 20-minute appreciation session. Sitting in a circle of chairs in a room that was set up with dim lighting and soft background music, children and teachers and parents related what they had liked about the day and expressed gratitude for specific acts of service or helpfulness or public struggles to overcome personal challenges.
By now it was almost 5:00 p.m., the end of a long afternoon, but no one seemed in any hurry to leave. The playroom filled up with kids dealing Uno cards and creating dollhouse families, a small group of parents and teachers discussed how to handle one child’s needs in ways that would help both him and his classmates, one parent wrote a check for tuition while getting a full report from her daughter about the day’s activities, and another student read and signed his commitment statement.
Yep, you read that correctly. We are asking all the children to make a promise in writing to the theatre company and to themselves. In the statement that they sign, they commit to their best efforts at working with others cooperatively and lovingly, to pay attention, to show up every week and participate in performances, and also to acknowledge that they are making a commitment for which they are personally responsible.
There are a couple of reasons for these statements. One is simply that we need a consistent group in order to mount a theatrical production. But beyond that, Heidi and I have strong anecdotal evidence of the value of a child’s personal commitment. (I can tell you my recollections of this story because she published hers recently in her own blog.)
When Heidi was in eighth grade in Evanston, IL, her teachers recommended her for a local program called Earn and Learn, which tied school performance (defined by whatever each student needed for academic or social or behavioral improvement) to the opportunity to meet at an after-school worksite and earn money by doing work for local businesses. Students and parents were invited to an informational meeting, and at the end of the meeting, kids who wanted to be in the program were required to sign a personal commitment statement, and parents were asked to help their children honor that commitment.
Our daughter loved the first Earn and Learn event, a camping trip, but after one day on the job she hated the whole thing and vowed never to return. “Vowed” meaning hollered. She was absolutely, positively, in no way whatsoever going back, and that was that! Except she had signed that piece of paper and we had agreed to it, so the next day we literally high-jacked her after school and drove her to the work site, despite blood curdling screams and kicking of dashboard and threats of mayhem. Seeing she had no choice by the time we arrived, Heidi scowled and growled out of the car and into the work site. I don’t know what Rick, the guy in charge, said or did, but within a few minutes she was laughing and ready to roll. That year in Earn and Learn was one of her best experiences and a major contributor to the person she is today. Without her commitment statement, it wouldn’t have happened. And without the Earn and Learn experience, our Soul Miners venture probably would not be happening, either.
Because although the initial idea for this theatre venture was mine and we worked together for several months on the investigation and learning and planning phases, now that we are in operation as an actual school, Heidi is the lynchpin. She’s planning the virtues classes and scheduling volunteers and overseeing the afternoon’s rotation, attending to myriad details that I wouldn’t know how to handle or even know were needed. So Heidi, this is my very public statement of appreciation. Please ignore me when I get grumpy or impatient and know how thankful I am for your spirit and enthusiasm and skill.
So … back to the present. Week 3 down, 13 to go. As we progress through the term the theatre arts classes will increasingly become rehearsals for our first production, a musical adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s Horton the Elephant story, provided by the New York Children’s Theatre Company. The various parts and pieces of each Saturday’s activity will be tied together by the virtues exemplified in the tale of an elephant keeping a most un-elephant-like promise because “an elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent.” (That was last week’s virtue, faithfulness.)
Week 14 will be devoted to final rehearsals, with maybe a week 14-1/2 rehearsal thrown in for good measure if needed. Weeks 15 and 16 will be performance weekends, two shows each. Then a closing celebration, and a metaphorical long nap for you-know-who before we continue our planning for the next term.
Soul Miners is not a business – tuition and ticket revenue will be used only to pay theatre arts teachers, rent performance spaces, buy supplies and cover other necessary expenses – but it is a very serious venture that we hope will be as successful as the original, award-winning New York group. Even half as successful would be fantastic! After all, we have a modest agenda: providing spiritual education, promoting religious unity as well as just about any other unity you can name, developing talent, producing great shows with both substance and style. That’s all.
Week 3 down. 13 – and many more – to go.
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