A me moment

August 8, 2010

This is a moment I need.  A fair warning to those queasy about self-congratulatory moments like the one that will follow.  Look away, hold your nose, prepare to chuckle, or to stop with this sentence; whatever serves you best.  But for me, for this moment, I need to capture some of the small achievements, the beautiful moments that keep me walking the thin tightrope of working with children through the arts.  If you’ve read past blogs, you understand the momentary craving of this instance.

This week, a young girl named Srinidhi looked me straight in the eye and said, “No, no, no, we want to do this…” and proceeded to describe what the small group she leads was about to create.  What makes this significant is placing the tiny moment up against a situation I experienced here several years ago when I introduced to a partner (local) teacher something the students we were working with created.  He hardly glanced before saying, “It doesn’t matter, we will tell them what to do.”  So much of the telling happens, and often in the name of ‘helping’ the children ‘learn’ or even more significantly ‘perform well.’ So, for me, the children become show pieces, but of adult-driven ideas.  So when Srinidhi excitedly encapsulated her group’s creative journey by negating my suggestion, preferring their own, I smiled, backed off and said, ‘I’ll come back and you can show me.’

Also this week, Jonathon took the lead in steering several groups to suddenly consider how to revise a story they are creating based on a mythological temple carving, encouraging the group to expand the story beyond the simple storyline they have been working with for a couple of weeks.  Jonathon has suffered difficulties at home, such that he was missing school, often by choice.  But early in the drama class he stated to his mother at home that he couldn’t miss school because he would miss drama.  This is a boy who didn’t easily interact with other students and now is a strong voice in his group and often volunteers to demonstrate ideas.

A couple of weeks or so ago, as I caught an auto rickshaw home from a meeting, in a part of town I have never been in, a gentleman called out, stopping the rickshaw.  He came jogging over and asked if I had taken pictures at Mahabalipuram (the temple caves).  Confused, I didn’t immediately respond.  He then explained that his daughter was in my classes and he wanted to have the pictures that I had taken.  This event excited the principal of the school as this girl always withdraws from interactions or participation.  She did so in the first couple of weeks in drama class.  Would back off or walk away.  But the principal was excited because the girl had obviously showed excitement at home about visiting the caves.  And what does she do today in drama class?  Participates. Always.  Collaborates with her group.  No one needs to coax her.  The students work it out themselves.

Karthik, a boy who could not even communicate several years ago, and who still has a strong speech impediment, surprised us all one day.  As the students recreated the statues from the temple caves, Karthik dragged his group over to the wall, turned himself upside down and backward to recreate one of the smallest characters portrayed in the cave statue.  The teacher initially walked over toward him to stop him from fooling around and then suddenly realized what his was doing and burst out laughing.

I think, right now though, my personal favorite (stated only here, not with the students) is little Mahalakshmi, shortest girl in her class.  She has taken the role of the overbearing demon character in her group’s story.  When all six groups are practicing, 41 children filling the room with action and interaction, Mahalakshmi’s voice, the sole individual using dialogue of any sort at this point, carries over the flurry of activity.  Now, you might say, of course because there is nothing to fear when she is lost amongst all that activity.  However, when her group shares, she repeats the same achievement.  Still the only one to have ventured into playing avidly and emotionally with dialogue.  A true ‘little’ leader.  She will become the beacon that all others follow, much stronger an exemplar than me.

The excitement is there for many of the students.  The fear and shyness is there for others, as well.  There are no miracles, but there are tiny miraculous moments that I seek to help me best understand where this work takes all of us.  They are necessary moments for me to celebrate because they are never flashy, they won’t come through in the completion of the project, but I hold onto them as the reasons why this work continues to be important to develop and pursue.

Thanks for not ‘jumping blog’ (as in ‘ship,’ you know?  Or was it obvious?)