The Teacher as Performance Artist

I was talking to a parent today who is a professional actor. This was a very interesting conversation as I know nothing about the theater or the culture of the profession.

It is no surprise to educators that every lesson is part performance. I'm thinking aloud now as I extend this analogy as far as it will go.

Producer: The school district
Director: The principal
Script: The curriculum
Actors: The teachers
Patrons: The students
set design, costume, makeup, sound, lights, sets, props, stage manager, stage hands, publicity, fund-raising, backstage hands, ... etc: As available

What I learnt from my conversation today is that acting is not about the content, and therefore not specifically about the delivery. Acting is about what happens in the space between the actor and the audience. It is about the meeting of these two. The play is just the context for the meeting.

In the classroom-as-interactive-theater, the students are simultaneously audience and participants over an extended period of time. So acting is not just about what happens in the interstices, but more importantly about the relationships that develop within. The curriculum is just the context for the meeting.

Now I am going to argue that a work of art is not to be judged by how well it was delivered, or by how much the patrons were entertained, or how effusive the applause and reviews were. It is be judged by how it changed each (or any one) person's life.

Wouldn't it be nice if the success of each component part of an education could be evaluated based on how it changed a person?

But the teacher-as-actor has to work within the constraints. There are people paying good money for school students to have a set of skills at each milestone of the educational journey. And the people footing the bill want assurances that these targets are being met. This in itself is not unreasonable. At the theater, the audience wants to be entertained. So a production can get column-miles of critical acclaim, but be a flop at the box-office if enough people don't enjoy it. Turning that upside-down, the parent in me says "I am not sending you to school to have fun! I want to see some professional critic rave about your skills at the end of the season."

Producing this season's run of 3rd Grade is a thus obviously a delicate juggling act. A good script, great director and talented actors need to come together in a way that satisfies both the box-office and the critics, and leaves the lives of the patrons intangibly richer.