The Rollercoaster Rides Again

This Language through Arts class is just a rollercoaster ride. Brutal agony, sheer ecstasy, and nary a breath in between. Still a bit depleted from the obligatory overwork health conundrum, I was pleased to present this very active group of students with their long-awaited drama session. We are talking here about a roomful of twenty-one year olds about to graduate, several of them married and a handful pregnant. As per usual, they were all ears for the theory, fiercely scribbling down every word about method acting, imitation versus catharsis, and even a little ad lib about the shadow, the pet topic of their former Lit instructor.

And then we went practical. Just the very most basic relaxation procedure had them bouncing off the walls. That I can still begin to understand, but then we moved on to breath work for voice control- crucial for any teacher- and a group of girls just couldn’t calm themselves down again. Disrupting the procedure and utterly breaking the spell, they just couldn’t or wouldn’t stop erupting into side talk. All along I had been trying to keep the rest of the group focused on their procedure, and when I could finally address the compulsive talkers, I had no kind words left. I very quietly spat fire. This same group of students had delivered poor results in the debating course, leaving me to suspect that their weaker language and reasoning abilities might be behind the clowning around. In that course, they complained that I wouldn’t allow them to “participate” when I called them on their side talking in Arabic. Now they are annoyed again, which is not likely to reduce this kind of “participation”. The theory in the course is very high-level, and this might be a sign that I should provide something lower-level students can still manage. But surely breathing is manageable?!?

My disappointment eased a little when the students went to their role-playing groups. Each group received a scenario with characters far removed from their own personalities: pirates and schoolboys and kings. Many of them really stepped out of themselves to play the parts. I had planned to let small groups perform for each other, but they enjoyed it so much that two groups volunteered to perform for the whole class. They were great, and they had a blast.

So all is not lost. But I am beginning to worry when this roller-coaster goes up, because I know what invariably follows….