A real class act

For teachers, the classroom is like a stage as they address and entertain their ‘audience’.

DILLA and I had been munching sunflower seeds in between watching a repeat of a programme on the local awards night for actors on television when she turned to me with a frown and said “Pshaww….”

I told her that talking with her mouth full of food was not done in polite circles, indicated a lack of good breeding and apart from that, scattered my newly-vacuumed floor with half-chewed particles of food.

Dilla took a swig of mineral water, and in a tone of deep disgust said, “Those people up there (she pointed a grubby finger at the television screen) shouldn’t be getting all those awards. Best actor, best actress, best supporting actor … all of that … going to the wrong people.”

I began to say that I thought some of the actors were “okay” when Dilla continued in the tone usually reserved for telling the student who got a 38% score on his test the reason why he didn’t deserve the extra two marks to make the passing grade.

She stood up like the awards presenter and announced: “The best actor award, should go to the school teacher.”

I laughed and nodded in agreement.

Dilla did have a point there.

After all, teaching itself is a performance of sorts. Each time we stand in front of the class and begin teaching, it is as if we are on stage. We are in front of a live audience whom we have to keep “entertained” throughout the lesson.

Of lessons and scripts

The content of the lesson we deliver becomes our script, but one that is often modified, adapted, or sometimes discarded completely.

It is replaced by another one that we create spontaneously as the lesson progresses.

Sometimes too, interaction with our student-audience leads to an entirely different direction from the one we had initially planned, and we have to take that, if that seems better.

Even that is a decision often made while we are standing on our feet. We sense the mood of our audience, and add our own props as the settings change.

At times, even the language of our performance changes. We are actors with no fixed role, and with no form of rigidity.

There may be times when we may have prepared our lessons well in advance, or may have done it so many times before that we are convinced that nothing can rattle our confidence in class.

Then after the first few minutes, you (the teacher) might realise that you are facing a bunch of teenagers who don’t understand a word of what you said.

This is when you realise that you need to change the entire “script”.

All that you planned cannot be carried out due to reasons such as this.

Perhaps you are all set to teach the brand new topic of simultaneous equations to a group of fourth formers, when, after a few minutes into the lesson, you realise that these students have not grasped the basics of even simple equations yet.

So the prepared lesson is put on hold and you do some instant on-the-spot reflection, mentally redefining the starting point. And so the script changes.

Then, there are also, as Dilla described, “happenings which are predictable for their unpredictability”.

The student who stops you halfway during an English language lesson and asks you for the meaning of “necrophilia”.

You get the feeling that these students have been using the Internet to source for information way beyond what their biology project requires of them.

However, as a teacher you have to tell them the facts they need to know, despite how squeamish you may feel about the topic.

There are also the times when you have among your “student audience” that one particular student who spends his days and nights thinking up questions that his teachers can’t answer.

That is the student, fellow teachers had warned you about. The one who gets a kick out of watching his teacher’s discomfiture.

“I have a list of answers for situations like this,” said Dilla as she waved her hand.

“Well for starters ... you can can give a hasty look at the watch and remembering that you have to attend a meeting soon, you tell them that you will answer the question when you get back.

“Or, you could put on your stern cold forbidding front (that works equally well to discourage such questions in the first place) and say in a freezing tone if that question is really relevant to the topic that’s being discussed.”

“From that point on the teacher needs to quickly go on with the lesson,” added Dilla.

Alternatively, she said, the teacher could always use this line: “Well that’s just a hypothesis, it hasn’t been proven yet.” Her advice was that one should “practise the art of artful dodging as that’s a class act in itself”.

Dilla suggested that a teacher should say “that’s not part of the syllabus, sit down and stop wasting precious time in class,” if everything else failed.

“Or, the teacher can be truthful and say that she doesn’t know the answer, but that she’ll find out and let them know. Well that works too,” said Dilla.

“However, in a situation like this, you may have just destroyed the teacher-knows-everything image, that teachers all over the world have tried to cultivate and preserve throughout the ages,” she added.

“Remember ... always remember that each time we step into a classroom we become instant celebrities, whether we like it or not.”

I was glad when she added the “whether you like it or not” part because there are many times we are in the “or not” frame of mind.

This is perhaps when our true acting skills come into play.

We don’t often sit to think about it but in a way, teaching is sometimes like giving the greatest performance of our lives, especially when we have to put on our “teacher’s face” despite the way we feel inside.

We could be having personal problems, facing heart-break or deep grief and all we want to do is crawl into a corner, but we can’t.

Unlike some other professions where people are allowed to be at their desks, we teachers have to get up and face a classroom full of students who observe our every move.

Perhaps our personal Oscar Awards moments are when we have to force a smile and enter the class and still teach with the enthusiasm required of us, although there is very little soul or spirit left towards the lesson.

At times we are forced to lick our wounds in private, cry silent tears and nurse our fractured hearts in lonely places. And after we have done that, we have to bounce back merrily to class because that is required of us.

As long as we continue teaching, we may have to stand in front of about a few hundred faces each day and pretend that all is right with our world, even if it is not.

And yet, the miracle of teaching day after day, regardless of the situation – as one teacher who was grieving from the death of a family member had told me – was it was deeply healing. It actually did help her to get back on her feet and move on.

So there may be something to this “acting” after all.

Perhaps the rewards of being the class performer, entertainer and stand-up comedian all wrapped in one, is what it does to us teachers, even more than what it does to our students.

Yes, and probably there is a deep truth in what someone once said about teaching: “The secret of teaching is to appear to have known all your life what you just learnt this morning.” credit