Just a reflection
This is an e-mail that I sent recently to my Drama Education professor, who taught me the ins and outs of being a drama teacher.
"Hello John and welcome to September! You must be right and ready to go with a group of fresh recruits, all of whom are eager to spread their educational love to the students of Alberta!
I have completed my first year of teaching at a private school on the west coast, and as I reflected on the year, I was reminded of a something that I thought would be appropriate to share with you.
Feel free to share this with your incoming Drama Ed majors as well, if you see fit.
You taught us that it is important for a teacher on the first day of classes, and subsequently, to greet their students at the door to the classroom, and that a hand-shake was a great accompaniment to such a greeting. I always agreed with you and have done so with all of my new classes. But I also recognized in my class at the U of L, a hesitance, a reluctance if you will, to acquiece to our guru on this point.
I took over a well-developed program from a teacher deeply entrenched in the Victoria Theatre scene. A rather cliche, overly-exhuberant, outgoing, grand-motherly-type drama teacher, who was either deeply adored, or deeply um, not-adored, by her students. My goodness I was nervous as heck. I had "googled" her name and gawked at the thousands of pages that came up. It seemed that her resume was miles long. I thought to myself, "what the heck am I doing here?" "How will I ever gain the respect of these student who so obviuosly are attached to this retiree?"
Well, I just dove in. That's what you need to do, right? As I have always done, I stood at the door on Day #1 and shook hands as I introduced myself to my new students. I took their inquiring, confused, and judging looks as they came, and thought little about it after that. I dare say now that my year is complete that I did an admirable job of gaining the trust and confidence of the students, especially those in Grades 9 through 11. The 12's though..... they were another story. I guess it was just that they had a whole year more to bond with my predecessor, but they were not going to make the transition easy for me. The entire year was a struggle (with three of them especially. Of course, I only had 7 in my Grade 12 class, but still....) and by the end of the year I wasn't sure what I had accomplished with them in terms of relationship. As our days together drew to an end, one of the "three" came to talk to me in my office. She's an absolute sweetheart. Despite the difficulties, I love her to bits. We sat on my couches and eventually the conversation wandered into that territory where my mind had been so frequently. She told me, "you know Mr. H, I really wasn't sure about you at first. I didn't know how you'd measure up to Mrs. --------. And I know we haven 't made this the easiest year for you, but you know..... you had me on your side from the moment you shook our hands on the first day. No one's ever done that before. That's when I knew you'd be okay."
John, I just thought you deserved to know that that little tidbit (the hand-shaking) was a real help! So, thanks!
By the way, there's something else you should check out, if you wish, and also share with your potential Drama teachers. This year, I have made the decision to have my Grade 11 students keep their Portfolio journals online, in Blog form. Because it's always somewhat of a hassle to convince students that journals are a worthwhile endeavor, and don't have to take a lot of time, I have also decided that I will keep an online Drama Teacher Blog, a public teacher's journal. if you will. I can't promise that it will alwasy be interesting or inspiring, but maybe that's just reality, huh?
Check it out, and feel free to have your students check it out - the day to day happenings in a Drama departement.
www.hedivanteacher.blogspot.com
Cheers John, good luck with your "troupe"s
Colin Hedivan"
"Hello John and welcome to September! You must be right and ready to go with a group of fresh recruits, all of whom are eager to spread their educational love to the students of Alberta!
I have completed my first year of teaching at a private school on the west coast, and as I reflected on the year, I was reminded of a something that I thought would be appropriate to share with you.
Feel free to share this with your incoming Drama Ed majors as well, if you see fit.
You taught us that it is important for a teacher on the first day of classes, and subsequently, to greet their students at the door to the classroom, and that a hand-shake was a great accompaniment to such a greeting. I always agreed with you and have done so with all of my new classes. But I also recognized in my class at the U of L, a hesitance, a reluctance if you will, to acquiece to our guru on this point.
I took over a well-developed program from a teacher deeply entrenched in the Victoria Theatre scene. A rather cliche, overly-exhuberant, outgoing, grand-motherly-type drama teacher, who was either deeply adored, or deeply um, not-adored, by her students. My goodness I was nervous as heck. I had "googled" her name and gawked at the thousands of pages that came up. It seemed that her resume was miles long. I thought to myself, "what the heck am I doing here?" "How will I ever gain the respect of these student who so obviuosly are attached to this retiree?"
Well, I just dove in. That's what you need to do, right? As I have always done, I stood at the door on Day #1 and shook hands as I introduced myself to my new students. I took their inquiring, confused, and judging looks as they came, and thought little about it after that. I dare say now that my year is complete that I did an admirable job of gaining the trust and confidence of the students, especially those in Grades 9 through 11. The 12's though..... they were another story. I guess it was just that they had a whole year more to bond with my predecessor, but they were not going to make the transition easy for me. The entire year was a struggle (with three of them especially. Of course, I only had 7 in my Grade 12 class, but still....) and by the end of the year I wasn't sure what I had accomplished with them in terms of relationship. As our days together drew to an end, one of the "three" came to talk to me in my office. She's an absolute sweetheart. Despite the difficulties, I love her to bits. We sat on my couches and eventually the conversation wandered into that territory where my mind had been so frequently. She told me, "you know Mr. H, I really wasn't sure about you at first. I didn't know how you'd measure up to Mrs. --------. And I know we haven 't made this the easiest year for you, but you know..... you had me on your side from the moment you shook our hands on the first day. No one's ever done that before. That's when I knew you'd be okay."
John, I just thought you deserved to know that that little tidbit (the hand-shaking) was a real help! So, thanks!
By the way, there's something else you should check out, if you wish, and also share with your potential Drama teachers. This year, I have made the decision to have my Grade 11 students keep their Portfolio journals online, in Blog form. Because it's always somewhat of a hassle to convince students that journals are a worthwhile endeavor, and don't have to take a lot of time, I have also decided that I will keep an online Drama Teacher Blog, a public teacher's journal. if you will. I can't promise that it will alwasy be interesting or inspiring, but maybe that's just reality, huh?
Check it out, and feel free to have your students check it out - the day to day happenings in a Drama departement.
www.hedivanteacher.blogspot.com
Cheers John, good luck with your "troupe"s
Colin Hedivan"
posted by Hedivan at 3:23 PM
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