Improvised Introductions

Every year I attend the conference of the American Educaitonal Research Association, which has over 20,000 members (that is an awful lot of educational researchers). This year I also presented a pre-conference event titled CULTURAL HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON PLAY, IMAGINATION, CREATIVITY IN DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING sponsored by the Cultural Historical Special Interest Group of AERA and organized by Lois Holzman and Ana Shane. In addition to my presentation on the Developing Teachers Fellowship Program that I direct at the Eastside Institute in New York City, my colleague Tony Perone and I also led the group in an improvised warm-up/introduction game. This was interesting to plan since this was not a performance conference or workshop. People came expecting something resembling a normal conference enviornment where the presenters present (usually with the aid of a powerpoint) and the audience listens and then asks questions. Tony and I wanted to get the group playing, imagining and creating together.

Here is what we did. We started with a game of Sound Ball (from Unscripted Learning). In Sound Ball everyone stands in a circle and one person starts by connecting to someone across the circle (through eye contact mostly) and passing them a ball of energy that has a sound and a movement connected to it. So, I might pass Joe a bouncy ball that says, "budump, badump, badump). He "catches" the ball by looking me in the eye and imitating my sound and catching my ball. He then transforms it into a new sound and ball and passes it elsewhere.

We did that for a few minutes and then we advanced it. Now, instead of passing the energy, the person who has it and the new person share the energy for a few moments in the middle of the circle. So, I might walk towards Tabitha shile tossing a very light ball of energy in the air and saying "woooo, woooo, woooo." Tabitha joins me in the middle and we both toss the light ball and say "wooo, wooo, wooo" while looking into each others eyes. Eventually I leave her and go to her spot in the circle and she transforms the sound and energy and goes towards someone else.

Finally, after had done that a while. We had people do the same activity except the sound and movement now said something about you (the person with the energy). For example, when it was my turn I made the sound of a computer keyboard and walked into the middle saying, "Carrie...writer, Carrie...writer, Carrie...writer). Mary then joined me in the middle and shared my "Carrie...writer" refrain for a while until I went back to my spot and she made a new offer.

It was a really fun and intimate way to begin to get to know each other before we began a day of conversation on play and creativity. Interestingly, after we had talked for several hours people spontaneously begin introducing themselves in a more traditional way, but by then we were old playmates.

Developmental Learning for All!

As both Matthew and I have said before, one of the most important and least talked about educational discoveries in recent years is that much of the achievement gap between rich and poor kids can be attributed to the cultural experiences that middle and upper middle class kids get outside of school. This is clearly not a secret to upper-middle class and wealthy parents, as can be seen in Alison Cowan's article in the New York Times (Schools Deep Pocketed Partners). This article discusses the role played by wealthy parents in school districts across the country who are forming private foundations to raise money to bring among other things theatre, sports, greenhouses, music, dance, mountain bikes etc into the schools in their towns.

Unscripted Learning is our attempt to open that secret up to everyone, rich and poor, urban and suburban--real learning, developmental learning, requires that children be involved in and exposed to human creativity and culture. The well-off have always known this, but if we are to do anything about the achievement gap between rich and poor then we need to bring that kind of learning to all children. While the article discussed ways in which these foundations are working to serve all the children in their suburban districts--both the well off and the not quite so well off, our goal is to bring creativity into even the poorest school in the poorest district in the country.

REMINDER Book Launch on June 9th

Just a reminder that the launch of Unscripted Learning is fast approaching! On Saturday June 9th at 11am Matthew and I will host a panel of teachers who have trained and the East Side Institute and in the Developing Teachers Fellowship Program. If you have ever felt depressed about schools in our city, come hear these amazing stories of creativity told by NYC public school teachers. Then...it will finally be time to buy your very own copy of the book and of course have it personally autographed by us. We hope to see you there!

And then in the evening--come out for a night of truly hilarious improv comedy. Matthew will be joining the cast of This is Your Ridiculous Life at the Castillo Theatre at 543 42nd Street at 7pm with a second book signing to follow.

A Playful Antidote to Standardized Test Stress

In the past few years the release of New York City's standardized test scores has become a spring ritual for anyone with connections to children, teachers, schools, or politics (pretty much anyone). Each year there seems to be one grade level which everyone hails as a huge success and another whose scores evoke concern. This year, according to the New York Times article by David Herzenhorn (New York Eighth Graders Show Gains in Reading), its the Eighth Grade that has made significant gains and the third and fourth grades that showed decline. Last year, if I remember correctly, the opposite was true. One of the more disturbing aspects of this constant shifting of concern and pride is that it leads to an enormous amount of stress among teachers, parents and children.

In writing Unscripted Learning one of Matthew's and my goals was to create a book that could be used by teachers who worked within the real world of high stakes testing and its ever shifting priorities. While I believe that the assumptions behind standardized tests are about as undevelopmental as you can get, I think there are opportunities to create test taking performances that have the potential to be developmental for everyone involved. The best program I've ever seen that does this is called TeamPlay for Test Stress developed by Gwen Lowenheim and Stuart Sears. This program uses improvisation and team-building to help inner-city elementary school students and staff deal more productively with test anxiety and stress. The teachers and kids work together to come up with test taking performances and while obviously each child has to take their own test, the class approaches the test as a team and works hard to help everyone succeed. Its one of the best examples of creative teaching out there.