Since drama is made up of life, teaching drama gives one the opportunity to teach life. However, I didn't think I ever taught as much as I was privileged to learn from my students. Such was the "Giant" named Jimmy, who walked into my class in 1963.
Jimmy was one of the "special education" students who had been mainstreamed, and I felt privileged to have him in my class. Not only was he "special," but he was to "educate" us all.
Drama students are great fun, as they are creative, spontaneous, outspoken and disarmingly honest. However, these very qualities sometimes get in the way of a thing called "consistency." So it was that after two months, the only student that had done every single assignment was Jimmy.
I could only imagine how hard it was for him at times. He was fighting muscular coordination difficulties as well as speech and vision problems, but he never shirked from any responsibility.
I constantly bragged about him being "excuse free." One day, I called on him, and he looked back at me, smiled, and told me he wasn't ready to perform. I detected a slight twinkle in his eye, and I asked him to stay after class for a moment.
"Jimmy, you were ready weren't you?" I asked.
"Yes sir," he replied.
"Why didn't you then perform, Jim? You did the work, you deserve the credit."
He shuffled his feet, looked up and smiled. "Well," he said, "I didn't want the other kids to feel bad. I have more free time than they do to get the homework done, and I didn't want any of them to get discouraged."
As the year progressed, the kids became more aware of their good fortune in having a genius in their midst who was so skilled in the art of humanity.
I have asked the following question to countless groups in seminars: When you see someone crying, you go up to them and usually say something. What is it you say?
"What's wrong?" is the answer that is given time and time again. Jimmy would never have answered with that phrase. In such a situation, he would always say, "Can I help?"
One day I was particularly struck by Jimmy's asking another student if he could help and asked him directly why he didn't ask, "What's wrong?"
"Well, Mr. Schlatter," he said, "I never thought much about it, but I guess I figure it's not my business, 'what's wrong,' but if I can help them fix what's wrong, that is my business."
We ended every year of the drama department with a banquet and speech modeled after the Academy Awards. That year, the students wanted to give Jim some special recognition for all he had meant to them.
I gave him a poem to read titled Myself by poet Edgar Albert Guest, which I felt best reflected his unspoken but totally lived philosophy.
We had saved his moment to be near the end of the evening.
After he was introduced, he approached the front of the auditorium without his book. He wasn't going to read it... Continue
Click on the "Featured Story" tab...
|
