Seemed Like a Good Time to Throw a "Scripted Workshop" into a Graduate Course, Because It's the Time of the Year When So Many Of Us Simply Need To Laugh

I love my colleague Dr. Michelle Farrell. Why? Because I know she is a phenomenal educator, she came to higher education from a K-12 background, and because I hear students celebrating everything and all from her classrooms. She's become a reliable, professional friend of mine, too, and in a recent dialogue about teaching, when I said I hate the "Actor" metaphor for teachers, performing on the stage, and prefer the notion of Improv comedy and being on our toes, she simply tapped her theatrical background and said, "Actually, the work of teachers is more of a Stage Manager...the kids are the performer, and the manager is the master of ceremony: knowing the objectives, having prompts in place, understanding lighting and direction, and basically being behind the scenes for everything and everyone is what we do. We know how the show should go.

I simply love that.

Last night, I decided to run the 2nd to last class as a performative script. I wrote the entire lesson with actors, actresses, movement, course content, and humor as a screenplay. The students simply performed the learning, which I was able to tap as a point for their own lesson plans. Think of lesson-plan as stage-managing. Make sure you know all the behind-the-scenes work needing to be done: content, expectations, objectives, anticipation of what will go right, and what will go wrong. The entire night was scripted.

I took the shot above of a student dancing in the middle of the lesson to Pharrell (as the directions required, although there was no call for coconuts or lizard masks. That was her improvisation). I absolutely love teaching, especially during exercises like last night. 

Then I walked out to my car. During the day, the lot is full with cars of students, staff and faculty. Graduate academics were given the opportunity to be online or in person. In the words of one student who is in this class, "I finish this semester with my coursework. I will then have my Masters degree. You're the only professor I've met in person and has come to campus." Strange to think that this is the reality of Covid-restricted graduate students. It's hard to believe, but I've hosted all my courses, except two, in person. My students voted they wanted to be on campus and I listened to them while adhering to protocols (I mean, after all, my K-12 work has me in fully populated schools on a daily basis and instruction has gone forward, with adaptations, as usual). 

I'm still in a leg brace, so the walk is lengthy, but when I came out the door, cutting through another building, I looked out to the lots that were empty. I said, "Oh, look, Kermit. You're still the Hulk I've always known you can be. So glad you're still here to bring me home."

And then I came home to plan for tonight's class. Boulder. Hill. Defeat. Repeat.