I want to write here more regularly and let my own experiences find their voice in the greater picture of the push to privatize education. But first, I must come clean on my own philosophies of education that grew out of a unique family life and my own anti-authoritarian leanings that began in high school during the US involvement in Viet Nam.
My parents were passionate supporters of A S Neill, whose book Summerhill described life at a radical boarding school in England where students didn't have to learn if they didn't want to and the place was run on democratic principles, with school meetings where staff and students each had a vote in decision making. Our family modeled itself on those democratic principles. This was quite a unique way to grow up in 1950s rural Republican Granger, Ohio. My parents were the only Democrats in the precinct and I can't imagine there were any more left-wing in the entire county!
I was the only one of the three kids in our family to go through K - 16 straight through. My youngest brother went to several different "free" schools, including one started in Akron by a group of parents including my folks. But I was a good student all the way through the regular ranks of rural all white public schooling. The biggest diversity would be along religious lines of Protestant vs Catholic with maybe a couple of Jewish families as the minority population.
I liked reading, writing, science, social studies, drama and art from elementary school through college. I hated math but I loved the cut out colorful felt ducks and rabbits on the felt board used to teach basic addition and subtraction. In second grade, I attempted to avoid math by turning in blank sheets without a name on them when math homework was collected. That tactic did not last very long.
In fourth grade, I appeared on stage for the first time in a play. I was First Mother in the chorus of Rip Van Winkle, a children's operetta. I remember being in the cafeteria prior to the performance and looking around with great wonder and delight at my friends now magically transformed into dwarfs with beards and townfolk dressed in pre-Revolutionary war costume.
In 5th grade, we had a teacher who liked to put us in groups to collaborate upon a variety of tasks. This was revolutionary to me at that time. The teacher, Miss Lyle, was young and energetic. And she earned my undying devotion for putting us into groups to write, rehearse and perform a play based upon a historic event. I wrote and directed a play based upon a youth historic fiction book I had just read about Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile. I made the fatal novice mistake of casting the most beautiful girl in the group as Cleopatra. She could not remember her lines and our performance was a disaster. It was one of the best learning experiences from elementary school.
I ended 6th grade with an F in math for the final 9 weeks. Our teacher had vanished without explanation, whispers went around that he'd been removed from the classroom for inappropriate behavior. We had a long term substitute and somehow for me paying attention to math got lost in the drama of all that was going on.
In middle school, I continued to explore various interests, reading a whole lot, drawing and sculpting with clay. I began to experiment with group pranks for April Fools Day. I also got into Shakespeare big time, going with my family to see so many memorable productions at the Lakewood Shakespeare Festival. I was in a Christmas Play, but didn't get the lead angel -- that went to the girl who would become the high school valedictorian. I directed my own adaptation of the last act in Hamlet in 8th grade. Talked my English teacher into letting me cast it and rehearse it during lunch recess in an empty classroom. We got to perform it for all the other English classes! Clearly, directing was going to be a part of what I do on a regular basis.
High school could be an entire blog post by itself -- or not, depending upon what sort of a mood I am in. High school was not a good time for me as I really didn't fit into the structure of it -- the great sorting into societal roles. Suffice it to say at this time -- I continued to draw, write, sculpt, act and did well in English, Science, History, Latin and German. Geometry was fun but Algebra was a misery. I refused to take Algebra 2 and Calculus, signing up for Journalism and Typing instead, two classes that have served me well over my life time.
I must say that college was my best educational experience! I started my freshman year majoring in visual art and supporting the Black United Students take over of Buchtel Hall, and ended that first year as a theatre major, camped out on Jackson field. The campus was closed down and hundreds of students put up tents on the athletic field, camping out and mourning the deaths of students on the campus of Kent State University, some twenty minutes away from the University of Akron. Those were heady days to be on a campus anywhere in the US.
I am still very inclined toward radical philosophies of education. I never set out to be a regular teacher in a public school. I did find out quite early on while in college, that I enjoyed working with young actors and began teaching creative dramatics at summer camps at the Akron Urban League. I've been doing similar work ever since, and getting better at it along the way!
That's the context, something Common Core doesn't want your child to be studying. No context, nothing but the facts. More will be forthcoming on how I developed my drama practices over time and how I use them today and how I expect they will be changed if the education reform madness continues.
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