Our Grade One Ground Squirrel

 

Brookie’s grade 1-2 class performed their autumn production just yesterday. She was a ground squirrel. And of course, Sean, Rosie and I were there to watch one of the shows.

Brookie was excellent. Firstly, she actually dressed in brown (apparently her fellow ground squirrels missed that memo), and she had even practiced her lines ahead of time with some parental coaching on the concept of “projecting” your voice for optimal effect. She even added some squirrelly hand actions and inflection in her voice to make things a bit more interesting. We were very proud, in a biased parent kinda way.

But as a whole, this had to have been one of the lamest class plays I have ever seen. I mean boring with a capital BORING! The kids all stood, leaning against the wall, chalkboard, whatever and they never moved. Never changed position. They delivered their lines with no emotion or enthusiasm of any kind. Half of them mumbled so we couldn’t even hear them. It was painful. Finally at the end, they didn’t even get to take a bow! I mean seriously if the goal was to suck all the fun out of it, the teacher succeeded. A+. Fun had left the building.

Which just begs the question, why? Why can’t we have fun in school generally and while putting on a play specifically? Why can’t we teach the kids the basics of public speaking and of making things interesting for their audience while at the same time encouraging them to have fun acting, imagining, pretending? I don’t know. But it made me crazy. It made me scared. It made me sad.

At the end of the production, Sean and I cheered like lunatics – lots of woo hoos and clapping and whistling – mostly to wake everyone up. And I encouraged the students to bow, even overtop of the teacher’s instructions about where they all needed to put their ears. Later, when Brook got home, I let her take as many bows as she wanted.

~Mandy