The challenges of being a theatre teacher

New country, new culture and the same old lack of knowledge on how and why to teach theatre in school.

In Brazil, not only once or twice, but several times I had to affirm myself in front of my working colleagues (the other teachers) in order to validate my right and my knowledge of teaching theatre.

In a country where Art is totally underestimated and underappreciated it was easy to understand why you need to fight for Art itself, and even more for teaching it. I had to struggle a lot with the students, to show them the value of Art. I had to fight coordinators and other teacher colleagues, when one of them told me that for me it was easy to have the students under control in the classroom because I was there as a mere entertainment piece, like in a circus. Or when another colleague actually told me that I was teaching circus, so that’s why the students loved my class. Like it was an offense to me calling my class “circus”, I just love the Circus so much, especially the clowns. So much that I found me a way to make myself one of them, took the classes, made courses and woke up my inner-clown. But this is another story.

My point is, when you are not appreciated not even for those who were supposed to be the open minded ones and the modelers of citizens, it’s a very hard and lonely fight for being respected.

Art teachers should not have to fight for respect. We are teachers for God’s sake! We went to the university, and studied a lot, just like any other teacher. We had to present our monograph, like anyone else. We had to spend hours studying, preparing ourselves for the exams, like anyone else. So why on Earth we don’t deserve respect?

In my case, I did postgraduate studies in Theatre, my area of expertise. I travelled to see what the books were talking about because I wanted to see with my own eyes, so I could speak with authority about the subject I was teaching. 

And to be honest, I learned so much more from my trips then from the books. Please, understand me here, I love books and I think books are awesome. But somehow they are limited and I needed more, so I went to learn by observing the art pieces. Speaking about Shakespeare, so I went to see Shakespeare’s theatre, and watch a play in the old and good British Shakespearian English, in the good-cold-dark-wet-beautiful London. All of this because I love Art and Theatre, but also because I wanted my students to love Art as well. If it was too much to ask, so that they could – at least – respect Art like some of my colleagues couldn’t.

So, there I was. Armed with all my arsenal of passion for the subject and the knowledge acquired over the years, having to convince this school’s principal that you cannot expect an actor to teach theatre for regular students in a regular school. For the obvious reasons: first of all, the majority of the students don’t want to be actors. Second of all, is that an actor knows how to act, and not necessarily knows how to teach art, especially for this kind of audience. They say that, one who cannot make, teaches. I partially agree with that, probably why I became an art teacher instead of an actress or an artist of any kind. But the thing is, it is different! Period.

You must know all the pedagogy behind Art AND Theatre so you can put yourself in a situations of teaching Art and Theatre for regular students. Teenagers. Everyone who deals with them knows what I am talking about. They are not easy. They are so cute when they are alone, but when they are in flocks they can be terrifying. And they will challenge the hell out of every teacher’s soul. So you have to be prepared!

Teaching theatre for regular school is such an amazing challenge. Because you have to gain the students first, show them that they can do it! Show them that “talent” is just a word created by stupid people  to prevent normal people to succeed in a matter where talented people have been the kings and queens for ages. It’s a huge fight, but totally worthy it.

PS: talent is something that one have when something is so easy for him or her to do. It doesn’t mean that you cannot learn talent. If you work hard, you can be a talented person.

If you don’t have the pedagogical eye, you will hurt students, probably traumatize them, scare them, and make them block themselves from it. And when I say that I say it with authority, because I saw this happens with my own eyes, and again, not just once or twice.

I have been turned down as a theatre teacher. This school I used to work just found an “actor” – yeah, with the quotation marks and everything – so they thought that guy was more prepared, more “talented” then me, so he got the job. And for my pleasure – which I still think I’m totally going to hell because of this little moment of pleasure – that “talented actor” just disappeared with all the students’ money for this big musical they were making. So the presentation day came, and the guy – who was supposed to have all the costumes and scenarios for the musical – didn’t come. So, guess whom they asked for help to save the situation. Yeah, me! The “untalented” theatre teacher, who had been neglected all along.

And since I know how to teach theatre, since I know how the pedagogy works in this area, and since I knew all the students and had this connection with them, we did it! We did the musical, without scenario, without costumes, just using the old and good acting making-believe. And it was awesome!

In another occasion I have been turned down again, for the same school – after all this incident!!! -  because they found a “theater director” this time. So, again, this guy was more “qualified” then me because he was a director.

Again, you need to know the pedagogy behind the subject, and you have to know the minimum psychology to deal with students. Every teacher, especially when you are young, faced this platonic love on the part of the students. It is normal. If you are not that old that you cannot remember, you yourself had a crush on one of your teachers. It is completely normal. I had a crush on at least 3 of my teachers along my years in the school.

Teachers know that, because we are prepared for that when we are being formed teachers at the university. We study a little of psychology, so we know. And we know how to deal with this.

But this guy was just a director. He knew about directing, but he didn’t know shit about teaching easily impressionable 14 years old girls.

So guess what happened?

Exactly! The guy had a bizarre, disgusting, pedophile relationship with one of the girls.

But this time I didn’t have any pleasure on knowing this, so I made a decision: I quit. I could no longer work in a place that never takes a firm stance and also never appreciated me as a professional.

But now I am in Denmark. In the fairy tale kingdom, living my own fairy tale.

Once I’m in this so old and serious country, where people value education and all this fairy tales, I seriously thought that things were going to be different.

But I am going to say something now without ANY knowledge of the situation, because I still don’t know how the educational system works here. But apparently a Math teacher can teaches Art in regular school. I know this woman, who is also an Art and Theatre teacher, and she teaches physical education!

So yes, I have the impression that you don’t need to be an expert in some subjects to teach them here. Maybe because you don’t need to have an university degree to be a teacher. Here you go to something they call seminarium, so you can teach for elementary school. I think you only need a Bachelor Degree for teaching in what here would be high school. But again, that is what I’ve been told. I didn’t do any research on the subject. This article is more like an outburst after being turned down again as a theatre teacher – now in foreign territory.

That being said, I was very disappointed when I applied for a position as a theatre teacher in one of the “Efterskole” they have here. Efterskole or after school it’s a place where students go for 1 year usually, between the 8^th and the 10^th grade, in order to find out more about themselves and have some extra experience before they go to Upper secondary education[1].

So there they have many different classes, in such cases they can have a class to learn how to decorate cakes, or how to make a project, how to cook, to sew etc.

So I went there and asked about theatre, because you know. And I was very surprised when the principal told me that they were not interested, even though they have this week when they perform a musical. She told me that they tried in the past, but it was so horrible the performance the students presented that they gave up on theatre.

I wonder why the performance was terrible. And I can think of many reasons, but I am going to wonder here only these:

-          - Was some math teacher that was teaching theatre to the students?

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    - Were they only students, teenagers that not necessarily want to have a formation as actors and dancers?

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-       - Were the expectations on the poor students too high?

A theatre teacher would have the right tools to work with those students and prepare them to make a good job and a nice presentation.

A theatre teacher would have the right arguments to lower the expectations of the school and the parents.

A theatre teacher would have the right motivational words to use with the students, so they would feel that they can do theatre.

And last but not least, a theatre teacher would know how to do the goddamn job.

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[1] Upper secondary education covers 2 to 5 years of education. There are 3 choices for 16-19 year-olds covered by the umbrella term youth education programmes (ungdomsuddannelser):

General Upper Secondary School.

Technical and Commercial Upper Secondary School.

Vocational Education and Training.

Youth education programmes provide the student with various levels of vocational training as well as educational and personal qualifications. There are 4 different types of upper secondary education programmes in Denmark:

1. STX - gymnasium.

2. HHX - higher commercial examination programme.

3. HTX - higher technical examination programme.

4. HF - higher preparatory examination.

In : https://international.kk.dk/artikel/how-danish-school-system-structured