SO as many of you know...I blogged about a special unit of instruction I was attempting with my advanced acting students. To refresh your memory, it was a unit on social issues and how theatre could be utilized to bring about awareness and possible help effect a change.
My kids were instructed that they needed to present a 10 to 15 minute presentation on a topic of their choice, work together in a group, utilize technology in their presentation, whether it be to create a movie or even use a power point, include factual evidence, and modify the performance to a middle school mindset. Lots of requirements it seems. Their performances were scheduled for the last week before Spring Break and they have had the entire class time since January to help facilitate this unit. Even though they procrastinated their use of their time to achieve the end product and each performance showed a lack of rehearsal time, the outcomes were just as diverse and were extremely powerful and moving.
One group decided on a "reader's theatre" style of delivery and had planned on using Youtube videos to enhance their performance. The title of their selection was "Everything a Freshman should know to Survive High School" and included topics that ranged from sex and drugs to bullying and overeating. To say the very least, it was very powerful and memorable. It was chock full of factual evidence that no one could refute. And the scenes the student writer had put on paper were very connected. Awesome job!
Two of the groups dissolved into smaller groups for various reasons. One issue was that the folks voted to be the leaders in their group decided that they just could not get to class on a regular basis. The other dissolved over personal issues. What came out of this were mini performances involving 2 or more students.
One performance in particular stood out and had everyone in the class in tears and on their feet upon completion of the performance. The young lady stood up and announced that she and her partner would present a performance on verbal abuse and rape and that this was very hard for her as it was about her scary experience. What ensued was a horrifying, loud, angry, back and forth fight between two people struggling to make it work and going to bed angry after tearing the home apart. It then turned into a soft, quiet, very honest moment, where the young student read a poem she had written to him while he slept about how his words hurt, his hands across her face stung, and how it was not right, nor was it ever right to take something that was not rightfully his. In tears, she poured her heart out there for all of us and was probably the most amazing moment I have yet to experience in my minute teaching experience so far. Absolutely eye opening and honest and raw and so powerful. SO as the tears rolled down all of our eyes, we stood and applauded them both and thanked them for their strength to bring such a personal experience to us.
I am always in awe as to what children these days bring to the table to have to work through with all the pressures we as adults put on them to "succeed". What I am most proud of is that this entire group brought such maturity of thought to the table. Granted they have things they need to work on (i.e. procrastination, rehearsal time, using class time to the best and fullest it can be) but I have found that students of today have many profound things to say if only we will just take the time to listen and value their opinions.
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