School Visit
Today was the first day that we visited the schools. The full cohort of NYU students were broken up into four groups and sent to four different schools around the city where they are to observe teachers and students, join in Drama lessons, and in the end, teach Drama lessons to the school students.
At my school, the time table was such that there were no Drama lessons offered on today. As such, our cooperating teacher arranged for us to attend an assembly for Year 7 and Year 8 at the top of the day which featured a 5 minute Drama Presentation on a Carnegie Award Winning Children's Book. The presentation had been shown at other schools in the area in competition and was awarded top honors. The piece worked almost like a Boal inspired piece of Image Theatre, presented the main themes and characters from the book, and foretold the skills gained through literacy.
Thereafter, the NYU students were each paired with a Year 9 student whom she traveled with through the two early morning and two late morning classes in order to get a real taste for the distinctions and similarities between the British and US educational systems. I followed along as well and witnessed a Technology Class (similar to Wood Shop), History Class, and English Class. The teachers were very welcoming and allowed us to circulate around the room, taking in the atmosphere and gave us the opportunity to chat with themselves and the students in order to get a feel for what life was like at that particular school.
After the lunch break, we had the opportunity to sit down with the Drama teacher and discuss what we had observed and interrogate how that information might inform the Drama lessons the NYU students will deliver next week. Further, we discussed the schedule for the remainder of the observation days and made a plan for teaching opportunities next week. The student teachers will meet with the Drama teacher at the end of day on Thursday in order to make final plans as to who will teach whom and when, and I will meet with them as needed in the following days to help with planning and preparation.
In the evening, we had the opportunity to attend a performance of Eugene O'Neill's first full-length play, Beyond the Horizon. There were fortunately many wonderful moments in the performance, and being unfamiliar with the piece, I was very moved by the text and felt quite confident walking out of the theatre that this was a play I would like to direct with high school students as well as teach in Drama and American Literature classes. Beyond the brilliant script and a few stand out moments, there was indeed some poor directorial choices which kept the performance form soaring as high as it might have. Witnessing this reminded me of how important it is to try out different energy and intensity levels during the rehearsal process in order to get the most out of each scene--and even each moment within a scene. A lot of the show was static and lacked depth and there were clear indications that the actors were capable of more, but the director didn't push them far enough to achieve their full potential. And as a former director of high school theatre, it was a shortcoming I knew of myself all too well--but seeing it tonight made me realize that I am capable of doing more and this play really made me want to jump back into the directing pool.
Images from the production:
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