Due to budget cuts at high
schools who normally host El Camino College’s after school outreach courses, I
was not offered any assignments for the spring semester. This was not
unexpected. Last fall, when Trump’s cuts to education began to take effect, my
colleagues and I knew that it was just a matter of time before this impacted
our program. I didn’t think it would happen so quickly.
The students I work with are
at-risk. I teach Theatre Appreciation and Intro to Acting on a rotating
semester basis. Students show up expecting a lecture course. Instead, they are
exposed to my learning by doing approach. The objectives of the curriculum are
achieved via theatre games and the class is conducted like an improv workshop.
My courses, which run from
3:30pm – 5:30pm (sometimes longer), keep the students out of trouble and from
being targeted by gangs. It also instills the idea that college is a
possibility for them. Being exposed to a
different approach in learning has a ripple effect on the students that
enhances their academic and social skills. Attendance improves as well.
Now we don’t have the budget
to keep this program going – on top of the recurring issue of no funds for
supplies and resources in classrooms where enrollment hits 40 or more. This is
not new for teachers. What is new is Trump’s proposal to arm teachers.
Here are my thoughts on that;
I have been working with at-risk teen populations in Los Angeles since 2002. First through Los Angeles City
College, then El Camino College (both
the Torrance and Compton divisions). I have taught at high
schools in Compton, Lynwood,
Carson, Inglewood,
Torrance and Hollywood. I have met and observed countless
teachers doing their job extraordinarily well under the most daunting
conditions.
I have also encountered a
large number of teachers who do not have the temperament, patience, empathy,
compassion or maturity to be working in education. Some are flat out sadists
who enjoy the control they have over their students. I have witnessed this
first hand. Believe me, a gun is the last thing you would want in their hands.
If they could get away with shooting a student by claiming self defense, they
would.
If I was teaching this
semester, I would explore scenarios of a political environment that has armed teachers
and how that would affect the classroom dynamic and relationships with
students. A missed opportunity for me, to be sure.
A large percentage of my male
students glorify guns. These students often want to improvise scenes about bank
robberies, kidnappings, and hostage situations. Guns are brandished side-ways
with a machismo that is simultaneously amusing and terrifying.
Occasionally, I’ll acquiesce
to a scene about a bank robbery, with the guidelines of no shooting or pistol
whipping. Additionally, the guns have no
bullets (or aren’t real). First time I tried that in a workshop with the
guidelines one of the students playing a customer yelled out “hey, that gun
isn’t real!” and I had to end the scene before it collapsed into a mass fight
in the bank. Now I instruct the students
playing customers and tellers “You don’t know that the gun isn’t real or has no
bullets.” The emphasis is on the threat
of the gun and power it wields – not seeing someone being shot.
I have a warm-up game where I
play a series of sound effects and students have to engage in an activity that
would correspond with it. The sound effects are typically bowling, ice skating,
rain forest, traffic, beach, pool hall, which the students perform with varying
degrees of commitment. When military battle sounds emanate from the speakers,
the energy and commitment from the students spikes and there is disappointment
from the class when after 30 seconds or so, the next sound effect pops up.
So, let’s review my
perspective on inner city high schools in Los
Angeles.
There is now no money for an
after school program that keeps high school students out of trouble, enhances
their academic and social skills and prepares them for college. A proposal has
been made to arm teachers (some who carry resentment towards their students)
around teenagers who glorify guns (and would figure out how to get the weapon
from the teacher). Classes are still overcrowded.
What could possibly go wrong?
Michael Golding is a writer, director and improv
teacher. He can be contacted for
workshops, festivals and private consultations at migaluch@yahoo.com. Michael participated in the evolution of the
Improv Olympics & Canadian Improv Games. Artistic director of the Comic
Strip Improv Group in N.Y. & created the Insight Theatre Company for
Planned Parenthood, Ottawa. He is a faculty member at El Camino College
in Los Angeles,
working with at-risk teens and traditional students. He wrote and co-produced
the documentary "David Shepherd: A Lifetime of Improvisational
Theatre" (available for free on YouTube).
His book, Listen Harder, a collection of essays, curriculum and memorabilia
on improvisation and educational theatre, is available on Amazon, Barnes &
Noble and CreateSpace. Michael holds a BFA degree in Drama from New York
University’s Tisch School of the Arts & an MA degree in Educational Theatre
from NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education & Human Development.
