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!
So glad you are enjoying New York! You deserve it- you give so much to the kids. Kitty
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