As I look back over the year, one of the things that I am most grateful for is that theatre doesn’t hit the radar screens of those that want to control the future of education. I really do pity the teachers of any of the academics. In my early days of teacher I did have to teach a class or two of English – and I was fine with that. I could pick my own novels, choose my own thesis topics and plot my way through the year as I thought best – – but that is no more. Some of my cohorts at school that teach English speak of having to teach to an arbitrary, micro-managed lesson plan in which they simply fill in the blanks. Bad.
Luckily theatre has so little importance in school, that no one has set down to write the “plan” and no one has been hired to manage the “plan.” I can now actually pretend that I am a professional teacher that can look at my class, own my own years of schooling, reflect on my twenty some years of education and figure out what best serves the day. I plan but that plan changes the moment I see the faces of those I am leading. Does it scare me to teach without a “masterplan”? Occasionally, perps – bit nothing scares me more than a “masterplan” that pretends to know more then I do.