Blueberries

I went to the Arts Schools Network conference in FL last week and got to speak and lead a session about my favorite theatre educator, Viola Spolin! It was really fun. I had a room full of theatre educators K-college and got to teach Spolin’s philosophy of play as a way to access intuition and freedom in performance. She is the only person who came up with a theatrical philosophy and method that was developed to meet the needs of a diverse youth population (immigrant children in Chicago during the 20s and 30s). 

Also, the conference had a lot of fruit plates. A lot. (See thumbnail pic where one buffet line was near a giant dolphin). And on every one, scattered lonely blueberries. They are the confetti of the conference fruit plate. And you can never collect any with the large tongs meant for chunks of melon. If you actually wanted to dive for blueberries in the cracks and crevices of melon and more kinds of melon you have to hold up an already crawling buffet line of teachers to pick them out one by one. This is not fair to the buffet liner who really likes blueberries or the blueberry who really likes being eaten.

So then I thought about other things in life that shouldn’t merely be tossed on as a visual extra, but celebrated in their own dish. Education is one. We toss it on top of the other American institutions and yes it’s there and you can see it like the blueberries, but if a child really wants to absorb and take in the information and grow, it takes a lot of time to collect those blueberries and are there enough? Education needs its own bowl. It needs served as an important part of American society that can fill up its kids.

Okay then there’s the new class I’m teaching this year called “Theatre Studio” - designed to incorporate the executive functioning habits of theatre into the freshman year so that they stick...hopefully. I’m on a constant creative search for the best way to create a culture in an arts high school with long days and a diverse population. I realized that the work ethic and executive functioning skills an actor/artist/human needs to have, weren’t being explicitly taught - and most of our 14 year olds are complete novices. So instead of sprinkling this in like some scattered blueberries on a fruit plate, I gave it its own bowl. It’s been really cool. We’re 11 weeks in and finally able to see the real work happening because they now have some stumbles under their belts. You can’t reflect or grow in a meaningful way without stumbles.

This is the first winter we’ve had to spend actual money on Solly’s seasonal clothing. He’s not a baby this winter, he’s like a small person who needs stuff that adults need to keep warm. And you can’t sprinkle this on the plate: aka use a vest and extra three sweatshirts when it’s in the 20s. You’ve got to give winter toddler clothes their own blueberry bowl and it’s not cheap! Snow suit, mittens, boots, another coat that’s really warm but is not a snowsuit, a coat for the car seat that straps the kid in under the coat so if there’s an accident they don’t fly out of their car seat (which doctors tell you is a thing...but is it a thing?) And it’s expensive! 

Epilogue:

Things I’m okay leaving sprinkled without giving effort to having their own bowl.

--cleaning my son’s cups with all the little straws and tiny parts thoroughly

--cleaning the living room

--deep cleaning the bathroom

--deep cleaning anything

--having clothes that go together

--getting a haircut

--writing thank you notes for my wedding three years ago

--writing thank you notes for my son’s baby shower 2 years ago

--writing thank you notes