Who teaches who?

For most people, Saturdays are about relaxing, spending the day at home or shopping or going out. To these people I'd like to say: I hate you.

Saturdays at the Waterfront Theatre School are marked by kids screaming, Hannah Montana booming out of speakers and little children (young enough to be in diapers) doing tap-step, shuffle ball-change, ball-change, step, stamp. For those of you who think that this is remotely enjoyable: it's not.
For one day in a week, we become Sea Point's prime day-creche and get subjected to attitudes and teenage hormones like no-one has ever experienced before. I sometimes also get the feeling that we have a contract with the Juvenile Delinquents Club of South Africa - we train their kids in drama and dance and they promise to dose them high enough just so that they don't kill us.

Personally, I have always liked kids - I was a very important part of raising my little brother and sister - but on a Saturday, the last thing I want to hear is: "Dude, you have to put me into a group with the girls - they are super-fine!"
Or: "Ah, man! I got so trashed last night!"
Both comments I have heard from a 14 year old student of mine. Shocking, isn't it?

But, as annoying as it is to try and get a class full of apathetic teenagers to commit to any exercise or activity they are given, it has it's rewards.
There are days that I want to kill them with a steak knife and then there are days that I prefer a butter knife - but regardless of these encounters: I guess it's safe to say that I love teaching.

Someone once told me: "Remember, teaching is not about lecturing, it's about guiding."
And I remember thinking at the time: ya, right!
But, more and more I am seeing this in my lessons. Which begs the question: who is teaching who?

My class (the class that I teach) is made up of 20-odd teenagers ranging between 14-16 year olds and constantly trying to find oout who and what they are, where they belong, how they fit in and why life is the way it is...
There is always one clown trying (and often succeeding) in getting everyone else to muck about as well. And it's these kids that drive me over the edge.
But, I haven't fallen yet.

In fact, what I have learned is that I teach my students a lot more than drama - I teach basic life skills. Teamwork, acceptance, apologising, fair play. These are things that they still struggle with - in class even, and it's in this that I find most of my work-satisfaction. Not in the drama teaching.

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." William Arthur Ward

These words are somewhat of a haunting for me - the last thing I want to be is a mediocre teacher, and yet, it's so easy sometimes to just "tell" your students. Perhaps my greatest teacher, Paul Griffiths, has taught me so much, but I would be lying if I had to say that the majority of what I have learned from him has been drama-related.
Could I be as great a teacher as he is?
How does he do it?

Inspire: (Dictionary) To infuse into the mind; to communicate to the spirit; to convey, as by a divine or supernatural influence.

Is this what I am doing with these kids?
Am I doing the right thing with them?

These kids in my class give me a first-hand taste of what fatherhood is like - suddenly responsible for (what seems to be) someone else's life.
Like any father, you want to be sure that what you are doing is exactly what they need at that stage.
I don't always know if what I am teaching them is useful.

But then I read a quote in a magazine by James Arthur Baldwin. He said: “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”
And I realized: how I live my life should be their inspiration.
Earlier, I said that PG taught me a lot - much of it not drama-related. But I would be lying if I said that what I have learned from him is from what he has told me rather than shown me.

Perhaps this is where the students start teaching the students - teachers are constantly reminded to be "better" human beings - because 20 pairs of eyes are watching us, because now we have to make decisions in life and in class that will be exemplary to our students... And it's in this that we start re-evaluating why and how we handle situations.
So - - - I need to "show" my students how I do things and perhaps they will be "inspired" and "imitate"?

Well, this is, perhaps, in itself an even more daunting thought.
But hey, at least now I know, I have something solid to work with...