Stepping into the teacher's shoes...

 I can’t help but fixate on the teaching style of this week’s sketch writing teacher. It is an interesting contrast to last week’s teacher, as are his instructional objectives. Last week’s teacher’s objective was to set the groundwork, the structure of the sketch writing process. He was neither boring nor charismatic...he was consistent, very organized and amazingly explicit in what he required from us. His discourse was lean and always relevant. He was patient and incredibly accepting and supportive of all his students’ work...in a classroom with many inexperienced sketch writers.

This week’s teacher is charged with taking us from the basic sketch structure and formulas we learned last week to helping us find our own voices, our personal stamp on sketch writing. Classroom learning has gone from linear skill-based learning to a more abstract, creative brainstorm. Last week, I experienced explicit instruction and was given formulas/outlines for developing my ideas. The lessons were scaffold, beginning as short, one joke, and one-twist objectives and each day formulas were added that required longer and longer sketches with three or four beats to construct and heighten. I realize how essential explicit instruction is in helping students master any type of basic skills. In my quest to inspire my 2e students to work toward their potential, I might have failed them by focusing more on keeping them emotionally engaged than being explicit in stating and restating the objectives we were working toward.

2e students are adept at covering their incomprehension and it is up to the 2e teacher to beat them at this game. Many times, the high intelligences of 2e learners belie their lack of comprehension. They will smile and nod at you, pretending they “get it,” because admitting they don’t is like admitting they were mistakenly deemed gifted. This irrational belief is a consequence of both their chronological age and desire for peer acceptance, and their asynchronous emotional and cognitive development as 2e learners. Regardless, a good strategy for checking who is clear in the task objective and who is not is asking each student to state the objective orally before beginning the task, and asking a few quick follow up questions that ensure the student is using his words and not repeating yours. This can and should be done discreetly, so the student does not feel his lack of understanding opens him to ridicule by his peers.

Though I believe I am learning useful formulas and exercises for teaching basic writing skills through sketch comedy writing, my long-term goal in fulfilling my fellowship, I am also processing the way in which I am being taught these skills, and see the areas in which I can improve my own instructional approach...a welcomed, additional benefit to learning sketch comedy writing that I did not expect.

Fast and furious!

The writing intensive class is heating up! We have a new teacher for Level II, Joe, and he is full of energy and his energy psyches all of us into a creative state of being. He asks for more writing in less time, but since the class environment is safe and I am free to learn as I work, I dig in and try to think of “situations” to expand into sketches. We are asked to write down twenty situations/plotlines in fifteen minutes. Joe states emphatically, “Quantity over quality!” The hard thing about this request is that there is no room for self-criticism, something that comes naturally to many of us. However, when you are trying to beat the clock, you have to free your mind of any negativity and push forward or you will never meet the objective. Once we hit the number twenty or fifteen minutes, whichever comes first, we choose five of the twenty that we like the most, read them to the class and the class decides which plotline each of us will develop into a sketch to be read in class tomorrow. Majority rule!

This process will be a fabulous pre-writing exercise for my 2e students, who tend to be overly critical of their writing skills and many times freeze over their laptops, hypnotized by the cursor and unable to get one word from their brain into their word document. I will need to cut the number of ideas down from twenty to ten, or surely there will be several spontaneous combustions to deal with in the classroom. But this exercise in pushing through the fear and critical voices will become a fixture in our writing curriculum. If I can get them to accept less than perfect ideas as a beginning, instead of an end, my students will be closer to the flexibility and cognitive shift necessary in producing written expression.

Now I must flex my own cognitive muscle and write!

Three strikes and you're in!

One of the shortest formulas given to my sketch writing class was the Blackout sketch, a sketch that stands on its own with one joke and one twist. The formula outline is as follows:

THE WHO

2 characters (can be more, but two works best)

1 character on stage

1 character enters

THE WHAT

Character #1 on stage is doing an activity

Character #2 enters with “What are you doing?”

THE PUNCH

Character #1 answers question with a fabulously funny answer

Here is my version of the formula-still one joke, one twist

THE GAME

Dropped calls that would have changed history

LIGHTS UP!

Innkeeper is serving steins of beer when his cellphone rings.

Innkeeper

Is there a Paul Revere here?

Paul Revere

I’m Paul Revere.

Innkeeper

You’ve got a call.

Paul Revere

Thanks. This is Paul. The British are what... The British are what? Damn, lost ‘em.  Another beer here!

BLACKOUT!

Then you take the game and put it within two more contexts where dropped calls would have changed the course of history, and you have a Blackout Trilogy.

In my experience of teaching writing skills to 2e learners, I noticed that the most usual challenge was avoiding getting bogged down in the details that take them on side trips away from their main idea. Many 2e learners find it difficult to identify the main idea in their reading due to distraction by the details supporting the main idea or plot. So, how can this simple sketch writing process be used to strengthen basic writing skills in 2e learners? This simple sketch formula includes nothing but the main idea. No details allowed or you’ve lost the game. This formula also allows the 2e teacher four instructional strategies that both support 2e cognitive strengths and accommodate their weak executive functioning skills. These instructional strategies will:

1. Attend to 2e learners’ cognitive strengths (Intellect and humor)

2. Accommodate 2e learners’ attention and memory deficits (Through  

    setting short term goals)

3. Accommodate different learning styles of 2e learners (Auditory-

    talking it through, kinesthetic-improvise before writing, and visual-

    storyboarding before writing.

4. Provide opportunities for task completion due to its short term

    objective, which builds personal self-efficacy.

It is also asked of the Blackout Trilogy writer to remake his game three times using different situations, but remaining true to the original game. This practice of repetition, something so necessary in skill mastery, is something that 2e students are loathe to do. However, since the context is ever changing, they will not feel as if it is repetition; they will be engaged and motivated in their quest for humor.

Laughing through the writing process...hopefully.

Everyday, we are given a new formula (two on the first day!) and asked to write a sketch using that particular structure. What I discovered is that a formula does not guarantee “funny”; It can only produce a blueprint allowing for funny. In sketch comedy, out-of-the-box thinking is required for truly successful sketches, and this is exactly what my 2e students excel at. Their ideas and concepts are never really of this world. It's a perfect match in theory.

However, the formulas that produce longer length sketches require meticulous preplanning, as in essay writing. The executive functioning skills necessary to produce all written expression- the ability to plan, initiate, organize, execute and shift ones own cognitive effort-are areas of weakness in most 2e learners. Representing ideas on paper, applying basic skills such as capitalization, punctuation and spelling, organizing, sequencing, elaborating on ideas (what is relevant, what comes first, what comes next, etc.) present challenges in task completion. Add to this mix, deficits in working memory, short-term memory, and processing speed, and you can see why written expression is a painful and frustrating process for these gifted individuals.

Sketch comedy writing provides me with the carrot to engage my students’ strong senses of humor and motivate them toward task completion. The sketch comedy writing process is well suited to scaffolding, an instructional strategy. For example, the writing task is easily broken down into beats, even smaller bits of information than paragraphs. For the visual learners, we can watch professional sketch comedy as examples of the desired outcome before they begin the task of writing, and brainstorming and collaborating on the sketch ideas and their execution will allow the students to “think aloud,” another great strength of 2e learners.

As I mentioned in the previous blog, in sketch comedy, the game or main idea, is everything. Just as in essay writing, no side trips are allowed. Each subsequent beat in a sketch must be true to the game you set up in the beginning of the sketch. Also, like in essay writing, the fourth or last beat must reiterate the game established in the first beat. There is a correlation here that might serve my 2e students well in their development of stronger writing skills. 

Follow the fear...

My 3-week Sketch Comedy Intensive class has begun-and they weren’t kidding with their use of the word “intensive.” Level 1 consists of three hours of rules, formulas and structure for five days before we pass on to Level II and a new teacher. This week’s teacher is a fast talker and I believe he was hired for just this reason. There is an amazing amount of information to get out and into our heads in one week.

I am surprised by our little United Nations of aspiring sketch comedy writers. We have a student from as far away as Austria; Canada is represented, and various cities over the United States contribute to our writing group of twelve. I am also happy to see a range of ages from early twenties to yours truly.

A banner with the motto, “Follow the Fear” hangs across the back wall of the small theater. For an artist, playing it safe is counterproductive to creativity, but oh how much more comfortable it feels than risking looking foolish. I know this; my students know this. Accordingly, my first objective in teaching sketch comedy writing to my students will be to help them push through the negative voices inside their heads and guide them toward the light of creative courage...

I noticed over these past two days that the negative voices in my own head will do anything to stop me from writing. Telling these voices to shut up is part of the writing process. Dan, our teacher, could not stress this enough. I get it. Something mediocre can ONLY blossom into something special if you push through the muck and the fear. I know that for highly gifted learners, finding themselves in areas of the unknown and open to criticism from teachers and peers is as threatening as swimming in shark-infested waters... worse. Convincing my students to work through this fear is the greatest challenge I will face.

I wish I were a cleverer writer. A few of the students in my comedy writing class are unbelievably “out there” and it is such fun hearing their ideas. My 2e students are the same...far cleverer than I when coming up with ideas for sketches...but fall flat when breaking their ideas down into outline form and expanding on them within a structured form of written expression...especially, essay writing. Beats are the smallest form of information in comedy writing and can translate easily into other forms of structured written expression. 

The professional vocabulary used by sketch comedy writers is as vital to their discourse as pedagogical vocabulary is to the discourse of educators. Here is a list of some important words in sketch writing:

Formula, structure, heighten, twist, rule of threes, set up, punch, crazy man, straight man, beats, reiteration, destruction and most importantly, the game.

I will start with the game. It is best described as the sketch’s succinct plotline, the main concept or idea of the sketch. Playing the game means constantly adding new information to the plotline, no side trips, just like in improvisation. The difference between the two mediums of communicating story is: in improvisation “yes, and” is used to build a story as an ensemble, while in sketch comedy the humor comes from the writer building the game with “No, but.”  Negation is allowed in comedy sketch writing because the game is controlled by writers who are planning, not performers working in the moment. Yet, both are strategies for storybuilding.

We were given a few formulas over these two days and then asked to write a sketch using each formula structure. This was another intimidating moment for us; “Here’s the formula, now write something funny!” Talk about pressure. Oh, such sensitive egos we have, which is why it is critical for teachers to set down rules beforehand for supporting peers with applause and positive feedback FIRST,  and then they must learn how to give constructive criticism in a positive way. This feedback etiquette will take much practice before it becomes automatic in middle school 2e learners, who are out to protect their egos at all costs, even at the expense of their peers, and most certainly their teachers.

Tomorrow, I will give examples of a couple of formulas used in sketch comedy writing and try to find the correlation to formal written expression taught in the classroom. 

Humor in the Classroom

Mine! You can't have it...

I am not going share in detail the storyline of "Next to Normal," the Broadway show I saw Thursday night. I do not want to diminish its power that took me by force, wrenched me inside and out, ravaged my sense of equilibrium, played me like a stringed instrument, strumming one string to make me laugh and another to make me cry.  Never, in all of my Broadway show experience have I been so overwhelmed by talent, story, music and setting. And may I add, all of these elements, except the talent, were presented in their simplest form. There was nothing bigger than the play's story and that's why the message was so profoundly poignant. During certain moments,  I truly had to stuff my pashmina down my throat to keep from sobbing out loud...it was the honesty that slayed me. The simple truth. So, there! I hope I've encouraged you to see it when it comes to L.A.'s Ahmanson Theater in November. Believe me, it will overwhelm you too!

On another note, I want to say that the expression, "It's all relative" cannot be truer than in the comparison of New York City and Los Angeles. On New York City's upper westside, there are baby strollers as big as Smart Cars. In Los Angeles, there are Smart Cars as small as baby strollers. Both Smart Car drivers on the freeways of L.A. and baby stroller moms on the sidewalks of New York are something to contend with!

You will be happy to know that my Fellowship begins on Monday, and so my posts will be focused on comedy sketch writing...no more blathering on random topics that strike my fancy. However, heads up, it will probably be these same personal experiences that will appear in my sketch writing. In my drama classroom, I always encourage the kids to use their personal interests and experiences in writing their sketches. The fun part is when you ask for personal interests of Twice-exceptional learners, you can get topics ranging from politics to the evolution of the snapping turtle...strangely magnificent creatures...not snapping turtles...2e learners. You gotta love them.

The surprise ending...

I mistakenly thought tomorrow would be my last day at camp with the kids. But, tomorrow is their beach day...so today was my last time with them. Like an assembly line, kids move by you, and your job as their teacher is to fill them up with as much knowledge and skills as you can as they pass by and on to the next teacher. I don’t know who is the last one to close the box and seal it so all of the goodies don’t fall out, maybe their parents, but it is never the middle school teacher. I want to say this is difficult, but it is not. I know that I have never forgotten what my dance teacher taught me when I was nine years old, “Always give an audience a good ending. They won’t remember that you made a mistake if you give them a good ending.” This advice came after falling flat on my face during a dance performance. I still use this advice today. So, though I will probably never see these fabulous boys again, I know that some seed I planted this week will sprout into words that will replay at another time in their lives.

I am just sorry that I won’t have more time with them. The talented director was given the opportunity to direct today, the talented writer was allowed to plan his improvisation, and doubting Thomas volunteered to perform, first with me as his partner, and then, much to my surprise, in an improvisation with his peers. He felt safer and able to withstand their judgments, if they occurred...which they did not!

The kids had written and drawn good-bye letters and pictures for me, and I couldn’t stop myself from tearing up. See, here’s the thing about highly gifted learners who feel you genuinely understand them and want to help them...they are so loyal. There is nothing you can do to shake this loyalty once you have made it into their quality world. I once had a student who told me not to worry about getting old with no pension, he said he would be rich and promised to take care of me. Unfortunately, he has moved on to another school and I didn't get his new phone number.

It was a happy ending for all of us and hopefully, a new beginning for some. 

Tonight, courtesy of my CTG Fellowship, I am going to see the musical, “Next to Normal,” on Broadway. This will be my first Broadway show in thirty years. There is something magical about walking to see a Broadway show. It just seems so “theater of the people”-ish. It is how theater was meant to be...accessible.

Knowing too much...

Thomas is happy to see me. Does he smile at me, no.  Does he say, hi Pat, no...but he acknowledges my presence by turning his whole body toward me, instead of sitting in his usual, self-made cocoon. The game continues. Today, I use rock music as background for cleaning up. I can see Thomas is interested in what music I will choose. He does not complain about my choice, and it's a pretty safe bet that this young lover of classical music does not like rock. 

I was told that the morning had been a hard one for several of the campers. The problem, as usual with gifted and highly gifted learners, had been control...wanting control over everything. The higher the IQ, the more need to head off anxiety by controlling the environment and the people in it. These extremely bright kids know too much. Knowing too much can make you anxious. For example, think about flying on a plane...I try not to, but think about flying on a plane. What if you knew everything about aerodynamics, wind velocity, streamlining, tailspin and the effects and odds of a bird strike? You would not be lulled into a false sense of security by the lack of outside noise, carpeting, a TV set and a comfy (I am using artistic license to prove a point) seat. You are not in your living room. Well, these kids know it. They can tell you more than you want to know about the scariest things on this earth. Remember, these kids like facts. They have no idea that when you put many facts together you sometimes get scary information. We teachers who work with highly gifted kids must remember that their world is a lot scarier than ours...unless you are highly gifted, too. I have never been so happy to be just pleasantly intelligent! 

With this information about their morning, I decide to give a very short description of how messy life can be. As is always the case, when I am processing ways to get to these kids, information just pops out of nowhere and it is always exactly what I need. This popped out while I was commenting to a friend on Facebook; on the side of the page was a quote by George Bernard Shaw, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”  How perfect is that! Succinct. These kids do not like lectures. So, after reading the quote, I decide to start our game time with a game that is only funny to an audience when you make mistakes...when you are not in control. It took them awhile to get used to “mistakes are good,” but they kept trying and eventually no one was upset when buzzed out for a mistake. 

The kids wanted to show me their skits for their upcoming talent show; wanting my feedback and suggestions. I can never stress enough how the skills necessary for performance are the exact same skills necessary for survival. So many life lessons come out of the challenges that occur during our improvisation and theater games. Developing the disposition of the artist in these learners is my way of giving them the ammunition they will need to navigate life.  So, today was a lot about collaboration and compromise...and they did pretty well with it.

I could see a couple of kids struggling, and I knew why. They needed talent development opportunities and there were none. Tomorrow, I will present an opportunity for one of the boys to direct; his instincts are right on the money, he knows exactly what and how and is desperate to tell everyone, but his gift of direction is interpreted as bossy and controlling.  Another camper is a writer, desperate to create stories that are thought out ahead of time and not changing moment to moment as in improvisation. He needs a chance to control the story or he will remain frustrated and disappointed. I will suggest that he write and direct a short one-minute sketch tomorrow, before we lose him completely.

The head of the camp said, “You must be exhausted,” as I was packing my things to leave. The truth is, creative energy begets creative energy. No drugs required. I float about five inches above the ground to my temporary apartment in New York City and feel incredibly lucky to work with such intelligent, future citizens of the world. I remember an old fried chicken commercial from decades ago, where a mother with a strong southern accent talks about how she made this fabulous chicken for dinner, and her little girl proudly pipes in, “...and I hayellped.” I love my job.

Tennis anyone?

Okay... ten middle-school boys with very high IQs at a day camp, and I’ve been asked to teach them theater games this week, before I begin my Fellowship on Monday. I am warned that some might have meltdowns, some may retreat into themselves and some may listen, but never join in our games. These words are like gauntlets thrown down in challenge.  I will win them ALL over and they WILL play, because being on stage is where the power is, the power to make people feel, understand, think, laugh and question. Intelligent people must love power, right? These boys don’t know this yet and I have to engage them long enough for them to experience the sensation of moving an audience to laughter.  Believe me, it is addictive.

One boy in particular is mentioned as difficult to engage and I zero in on him like a cat on an unsuspecting mouse. It's a fine-tuned strategy to get a child to do something you want him to do without his knowing. If children find out you are manipulating them, you’re cooked and you can forget about getting their trust back.  So, the trick is not to look at them when you are talking about things that specifically apply to them. This allows them to actively listen and process what they hear without feeling self-conscious and forced to react. It is important to allow them the space to, when they are ready, make their own choices with no pressure under the teacher's gaze of expectation. 

This extremely sensitive boy that I will call, Thomas, perceives his peers’ remarks as put downs and a rejection of him. This is a misperception. I know this, because I witnessed the imagined slights. Even asking him to repeat what he says (He speaks ever so softly), evokes the reply “Never mind." All the kids were choosing songs for their talent show and he refused to offer his choice because he said that last year no one like his choice of a classical piece. Aaah, it would be so wonderful to wave a magic wand over his head and have his demons disappear. But, I am living in reality and I will have to find a creative way to help set him free. I am willing to wait. In the end, I always win. I always win, because I am willing to wait.  

That first day, Thomas sat separate from his peers and refused to participate in anything we did, but he gave me some valuable information...he liked classical music.  So, today, I bring my Ipod and put on some lively Vivaldi as background music to their cleaning of the space to prepare for theater games. I never alluded to the music. That would be a mistake. One camper took the bait and said he hated the music I was playing.  My cue! It was time to role model. I responded with a laugh and said, I know, people have different tastes in music. I mentioned this particular student's love of video game music and said that I didn’t particularly care for that type of music, but maybe he could help me change my mind by bringing in a sample of it. He said he would. I know Thomas took in this conversation. I didn’t need to look at him to know the ball was in my court. As the snake in Kipling's  “The Elephant’s Child” says, “Vantage one!”

I never force students to perform. Some need time to observe their peers, me, and how situations will play out, especially, situations where mistakes might occur. I emphasize to the class that besides being an audience member, those who don’t want to be main performers could play supporting roles on stage...like my assistant in the game I was about to play with them, "The Audition."  This game requires each student to audition for the part of a monster for a horror movie. I said I would play the part of the director (Thomas was not yet ready to trust and play with peers, and I wanted him to be the assistant), and I would need a director’s assistant who would walk the auditionees in, collect their imaginary resumes and hand them to me. Thomas's hand shot up and he volunteered to be my assistant. Volunteered.  “Vantage two!” He was beginning to trust me.

What I didn’t expect from Thomas was an ability to pretend...pretend to be someone who is not the human version of Eeyore. He not only played his part with a commitment to being an efficient assistant, but when I handed him an imaginary set of vampire teeth to put on the floor, he took them as the same heavy weight I had applied to them and carried through until he placed them on the floor. Wow! But there’s more...when I asked him to get the set of teeth to give back to the vampire who had finished auditioning, he went to the exact same spot where he had put the imaginary teeth and picked them up with the exact same weight I had established and he had supported. I know this sounds like nothing spectacular...but I dare any painfully shy and anxious adult to get up in front of peers and risk looking like a fool...Thomas, a child, an anxious one at that, took a big risk.

I couldn’t let that go without speaking about it. First, I talked about the other players and their contributions to the game and then I brought up Thomas, indirectly. I said that there is no greater gift to an actor than to be supported by fellow actors on stage. Thomas (first mention of his name)supported me, and his support made my character more believable, the scene more believable. I explained that this is the way a professional behaves on stage. It is always about the ensemble. Of course, I never once looked at him as I spoke these words. But, there is no doubt that his fragile psyche got a little boost of confidence today, and it was very well earned by him. “Vantage three!”

The game is over for today.  I'd say it ended in a tie. Bravo, Thomas.

Up the steep and narrow stairway...

I decided to take a beginner jazz class. Understand; I used to be a dancer. A real one. No longer. I am twenty pounds overweight with aches and pains and haven’t moved to music since my daughter was born twenty-four years ago. It was the time in my life when I made the transition from body to brain and I don’t regret it.  At least, I didn’t until yesterday when I went to a beginner jazz class.

Truthfully, I did not expect much of myself...and this was good. I tend to push myself in areas that I have no business expecting perfection and then have fits when I don’t succeed...this time, I just wanted to feel myself moving through space to music and didn’t even imagine I would have the stamina to finish the hour and a half class. The old me would have never dared let myself take a break, and I would have passed out and needed medical attention. My friends know I am not exaggerating. I’ve grown wiser and more easily accept my limitations... a challenge my students face now. Who doesn’t want to be perfect?

 I found myself more interested in assessing the dance teacher and his method of teaching than beating myself up for not being able to do a dance step.  This teacher would never be successful in a Twice-exceptional (2e) classroom setting. He was not there to motivate, support or praise. He barely smiled. Granted, he was a dancer and we were not, but come on, a little encouragement please. It only took a few minutes before I found my chance to insert, “I haven’t danced in 25 years” into the conversation. It was my way of assuring myself that the teacher would not be too judgmental. Well, he was anyway and wasn’t going to throw a crumb of praise my way.  No sir. You came here to dance, so dance! I had to be content with my own inner dialogue of support, something that I consistently stress the necessity of to my students. I allowed myself the room to make mistakes and this embrace of imperfection allowed me to IMPROVE! Irony.

My students are their harshest critics and I guess when you have IQs above one hundred, some way above, you must expect a lot of yourself. My students tend to be cynical and the worst thing you can do is patronize them. They want the truth. A student once dismissed me, “Oh Pat, she thinks all of her students are wonderful.” What he didn’t understand is that I FIND something wonderful in all of them, but this way of looking at others is not what comes naturally to these bright learners.  So, as I dance, I keep a dialogue of support running in my head and think about my students who don’t have this skill yet.  I will use this experience during our “Morning Spew” to help nurture their self-acceptance.

Two Conundrums!

 I’m in heaven...the New York Times is delivered to my door each morning AND on Saturday, I get not only the Saturday paper, but the Sunday one as well with that glorious maker of migraines (for some), The Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle.

Growing up, it was a staple in my house in Lakeland, Florida. LAKELAND, Florida.  At the time, it was a small town in the heart of central Florida and as typical as one would think of people in the South in weather that kept your hair curly, your skin glowing and water weight dropping by the pound in the morning, midday, and afternoon sun...except for one particular resident, my mother, a Viennese, who settled in Lakeland after WWII.  When she met my father, she could barely speak English. He fell in love and married this petite and demure woman with an Austrian accent and promised to love and protect her. There was no need to protect this woman. She learned English within months, perfect English; she spoke it better than anyone in Lakeland, including my dad. As her facility with the English language grew, it became clear that this woman was bigger than life, intelligent, dramatic, and capable of sending grown men and women in the South back to the drawing board to contemplate bigotry and bias. She had had enough of that during the war, thank you very much. The only bias I had ever heard my mother express during her lifetime was against the ignorant. She used to say, “I can forgive stupidity, those people cannot help themselves, but ignorance is criminal.”

So, this woman who spoke English as a second language and lived and breathed in anticipation of getting that New York Times crossword puzzle on Sunday mornings, with pen in hand, answered every single clue.  Though, admittedly, once in a while I was asked to make contributions to the completion of that puzzle and was very proud to do so. “Patricia, who is the lead singer of the Rolling Stones?” “Patricia, what is hippie slang for ‘wonderful’?”  You get the idea, but it felt so good to see my answers neatly settled in their proper spaces; a perfect fit. I was hooked.

As an adult, I have yet to finish the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle by myself by the end of Sunday, and marvel how my mother mastered a second language well enough to do the puzzle quickly and alone. But if I am anything, I am persistent, and I will never stop trying. So, I am gearing up for tomorrow morning by reading all of the New York Times today for some quick short-term knowledge.

IN THE NEW YORK TIMES’ “The Arts” section, I discover an article about economic Fellows training for the global stage by taking theater classes. What? It seems over the years performing arts wasn’t viable ($) for artists for its own sake, so many branched out into the civilian world and began integrating their performance skills into programs that have nothing to do with performance in front of an audience. Not only have the skills of performance entered academic classrooms, but the business world as well. Pretty soon, we will have dancing economists, singing CEOs, and Presidents who mime.

For example, the company, Pixar, uses improvisation to train their animators in the art of collaboration, just as I use improvisation to develop social/emotional strengths and skills in my Twice-exceptional learners.  The main tenet of improvisation is, “Accept every offer!” No negation is allowed. Asking people in the business and financial worlds to develop the disposition of the artist gives me renewed hope that the world can become a better place for EVERYONE. The artist must be flexible, accepting, open to the ideas of others, representative of the ideas of others. The artist must be able to take direction, be a leader, be a follower, collaborate, compromise and nowhere is the mention of greed and selfishness.  These are the very qualities that kill creativity. So, yes, let the economists and CEOs of banks and oil giants take performing arts training. Let them brainstorm as an ensemble endeavor to create something valuable.  Performing arts training may be crossing the apron of the stage into the audience of non-performers, but this phenomenon can only make the world stronger because performing arts produce core reflections of our society, our humanity, what was and what can be.  So sing, dance and perform away braniacs and corporate heads, and then take a bow with great humility all the way to the bank!

Processing the "before" with humor...

The Arrival
New York energy seeps in through my walls, doors and windows. I am in the Big Apple to begin my CTG fellowship on July 18th. I am looking forward to entering a creative writing environment with my fellow comedy writers, and terrified at the same time. These feelings must mirror those of my Twice-Exceptional (2e) middle school students on the first day they enter an unfamiliar classroom environment where rules, expectations and faces are still an unknown.  Same questions must rumble around their brains: Will I like my teacher? Will my teacher like me? Will my mistakes embarrass me or will they be learning opportunities? How will my gifts and weaknesses compare to my fellow classmates? I have the luxury of experience and maturity to assuage my fears…my 2e adolescent learners have neither...yet. I am already thinking of ways to help them cope with the natural anxiety that comes before facing an unknown.

One of the ways in which to offer my students the time and space to rid themselves of nagging thoughts that build over time and enter classrooms with them is what I call, “The Morning Spew.” Each student is invited to do a two-minute stand up before we begin our class. I tried this exercise during my drama camp in June and it was a huge success. Initially, I was the one to begin the spew process, role-modeling how to take a negative experience and speak from a humorous perspective. I explicitly made myself the target of my humor.  When we use humor directed at ourselves we learn to laugh at ourselves. This skill has kept me sane and made me more resilient. I want to give this gift of humor to my students. It is imperative that I find common grounds of, yes, pain and anxiety, with my students so they will trust me. They laugh heartily at my travails because I join in with the laughter. When I am done, the kids couldn’t wait to spew their own thoughts, using themselves as the targets of their humor when sharing their frustrations of not being able to sleep the night before or their morning drives and even concerns carried deep inside for years.

Indicative of Los Angeles, many students’ stand up spews began with the stress of getting to school in bad traffic. Imagine…even as passengers, the behavior of drivers sharing the road with their parents directly impacted their moods and added to their daily stress. Once we shared our communal angst of navigating LA traffic, we were ready for the real stuff: sibling rivalry, frustration with peers in general and middle school age agony over wanting more control over their lives and less interference from parents. As an educator with a BA in Psychology, I knew to guide them away from accusations of others and toward finding the humor by shifting their own perspectives and attitudes. The readiness to begin working toward our classroom objectives was visible after each student had their time to share what was on his or her mind. They were no longer stuck in the previous, but now focused on what was to come.

Next week, I will stop by a camp in Central Park, run by the psychologist from my school in L.A., to help her campers organize and develop a talent show. I look forward to being the teacher for one last time this summer, before I begin sketch comedy writing at P.I.T., People’s Improv Theater. I will write my blog from three perspectives- that of teacher, student and little ole personal me. I can’t wait to begin my learning adventure!