A Streetcar Named Desire gives me a lightbulb moment!

I had the pleasure to see A Streetcar Named Desire last night at the Walnut Street Theater, a Philadelphia institution that celebrates its 200th birthday today. Nearly every instant of the production pulsated with electricity, and this show pulled me in to the point where I felt both emotionally connected and repulsed by the characters.

Somewhere on the way home it hit me. There is another way to help solved the so called education crisis in this country...

Hire and train out-of-work actors to be teachers! Actors are inherently creative risk takers who need to be articulate. They need to work well on teams, improvise, and inspire - all skills required in a good teacher's repertoire. It seems to me that hundreds of thousands trained actors are waiting tables, and waiting for that big break that statistically will never come. Why not start a marketing campaign to recruit them and fast track their qualifications so that they can start teaching students who desperately need them?

The organization Teach for America recruits graduates from the best colleges to work in tough- to-fill schools. Why not go after the actors just as zealously? After all, there will always be talented people to play the gorilla-like Stanley Kowalski and the faded, tragic Blanche DuBois.

Facebook Reunion

FACEBOOK MADE IT HAPPEN!

I recently got in touch with a high school classmate whom I haven't spoken to in twenty-five years. One quarter of a century. Ugh! I'm getting older.

Anyway, we weren't terribly close back then. We were both kids who did well in school, participated in after school activities, and then went home. Both Steve and I really didn't have a network of close friends to hang out with, and needless to say we weren't party people.

I'm struck today by how much we have in common. His information list-of-interests practically reads like mine, and he's terrific writer. Within a day, we exchanged a huge batch of reminiscences, some good and some bad. We grew up in a very small town in upstate New York, a place that was claustrophobic for people like us - folks who like culture, museums, and diversity. He now lives in Yonkers, and lived previously in Manhattan. We probably would have been friends if we had given each other half a chance.

It was fun remembering our teachers- the boring ones, the zany ones, the amazingly inspirational ones, and the deceased ones that live only in our memories. It really hit me through my correspondence with Steve how much teachers matter and make us the adults we are today. We both remember how Mr. Wray played the B-52s in English class how we were both blown away, having never heard anything like it before.

Jumping Out of an Airplane Senior Project Style

Eleven hours ago, the students in the Senior Project Seminar Class jumped out of an airplane - not a real one, of course, but a metaphorical one.

Last night in the media center, students, sponsors, mentors, teachers, administrators, and family members gathered to help celebrate the official kick off of the Seminar. Mr. Snyder brought along Dunkin donuts and bagels because, hey, what's a celebration without food?

The students were all aware that they would have to deliver some kind of brief shpiel about their projects to the audience, but nothing could suppress the sweaty palms and racing hearts. For a few minutes each, they would plunge into a place that, according to The Book of Lists, more people fear over death or disease - public speaking. I remember Jerry Sienfeld saying once that at a funeral, most of us would rather be the stiff in a casket rather than the one giving the eulogy.

I could read the panic in some of the students' eyes and if you listened carefully, you could hear the pounding hearts. A couple students seemed desperate to want to cling to the paragraph they had prepared earlier.

And then it happened. They jumped out of the plane one at a time. There was no need to create an order. They instinctively knew who would follow whom. We had done some public speaking in class earlier this year, but this was different. We were literally surrounded by adults and strangers!

My dad told me stories of how he jumped out of planes during his soldier days in the 82nd Airborne. In some ways, our Lindenwold students bested him because public speaking, as I mentioned before, trumps death and disease, situations much more dire than jumping out of a plane with a parachute strapped to your back.

When they were through speaking, each student floated back to Earth. The adrenaline quickly washed away, but the memory will always remain with them. They can do this!

Joy - Inside the Actor's Studio

As I write this entry, I'm watching Inside the Actor's Studio, an eternally fresh, fifteen-year-old program on the Bravo network. Conan O'brien, the hilarious host of "Late Night," sits opposite James Lipton, who is a living paradox, a host who is both wacky and stoic. Over the years, he has interviewed hundreds of the most famous actors ever to grace the stage and screen. Try it by clicking on the link! You're sure to find a favorite actor sitting opposite Lipton:

http://www.bravotv.com/Inside_the_Actors_Studio/season/15/guests/index.php

I like to think I'm a creative bloke, but Conan is absolute light years ahead of me, and I am simply in awe of him. He is unpredictable and unreasonably funny. The man percolates with enthusiasm and joy. He would have made a brilliant teacher. I suppose good teaching is a kind of performance, and there needs to be somewhat of a sense of "What's-he-going-to-do next?".

Maybe I should watch more stand up and more of these exceedingly clever late night T.V. shows to keep getting tips and inspiration that could fuel my lessons.

Sadness

Nearly everyone who knows me well is aware that I'm a compulsive newspaper reader. Today a column in the Sunday Inquirer caught my eye. Tucked away on page A6 was a column about a Brazilian supermodel who died from horrible infection, and featured right alongside was this photo of a beautiful, smiling girl.

I'm not going to go into gory details about her a short life filled with potential, a life cut down by an insidious bacterial infection that required doctors to amputate both hands and feet in an extreme, futile attempt to save her life. You can read it for yourself. http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/38287079.html

The treatment failed. In December Mariana Bridi was riding a fast-track modeling career that promised to catapult her family out of poverty; a month later, her body is turning into clay and dust, a twenty-year old body shut down by a flukey virus

Of all the weighty articles that I read today, this one most captured my attention. Maybe it's because she is just a wisp older than many of my students, so many of whom think they're immortal, intoxicated by youth. Maybe it's because her life seems so tragic. For a supermodel to have her hands and feet amputated... Now I'm thinking of all the sad stories I've read about, all of those poor children from the wars in the Congo brutally robbed of their limbs by machete-wielding animals.

I told my students that I want their journals to focus on positive stuff and personal development. I realize now that this can't happen all the time. I'm very depressed as I complete this entry.

If I can carry away a positive from all of this, maybe it should be to simply be more thankful for my health, the health of my family and friends, and for the health of my students whom I shall see tomorrow. I'm reminded of our mortality, and that we're here for such a short time.

R.I.P Marianna Bridi

Dedication Around the Piano

I've been sitting in the band room for over an hour watching the music coach for the Spring musical, Tim Carroll, teach music to Jess Rowand, Matt Weil, and Craig Pate. Over and over and over again, they rehearse The Rain in Spain, dissecting it, buffing it, molding it, and blending it. Mr. Carroll really is the consummate professional, and he doesn't miss a nuance or a note. Sometimes he veers a little off topic, but every bit of what he does positively contributes to the the students' understanding of the music. He dutifully teaches the stuff from the musical, and as I write he's giving them context by telling them about Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody. Good teaching demands that we teachers meander, and Tim is a darned good teacher.

Most of the people in the audience haven't the vaguest inkling of the hours spent rehearsing. The Rain in Spain has taken manu days to prepare and it will be over in three minutes when showtime hits.

"Yes we can."

What does "Yes We Can," the message that propelled President Obama's ascension to the White House, mean for you?

This quote reminds me of a favorite quote by Henry Ford: "Whether you think you can or can't, you're right." Basically, it all boils down to choices we make. We can decide to harness our creativity, stamina, and focus in order to realize goals. Or we can choose to go through life limiting ourselves, putting down our capabilities, and allowing obstacles and negativity to smother our dreams.

The founder and former chairman of Kinkos, the copy shop bought out by Fedex, exemplifies the motto - "Yes We Can." His name is Paul Orfalea and when I was a younger man, he inspired me very much. I worked for Kinko's from 1993 to 2000, and for a handful of years savored a lucrative, fun career as a store manager. During our annual summer picnics in places like Honolulu, Orlando, Las Vegas, and San Diego, Paul cheerfully mingled with 600 of us managers, one from each Kinko's store. Here I am in a picnic photo with Paul.

He did horribly in school. Nobody knew he was dyslexic with ADHD because back in the late Fifties and Sixties people didn't know about this stuff. Teachers wrote him off, but he refused to let people label him as stupid. In college he had the foresight to start his own business by making the then new technology of photo copies affordible and accessible for college students at his Santa Barbara campus. The company started in 1971 with single copy machine and a dream. Over the years, Paul created a copy empire that generated over a billion dollars per year in sales, making him a fantastically wealthy man. To close with a quote from my old beloved boss:

"You can either complain or look for opportunity in every problem. I prefer opportunity," Paul says in his book . In other words, "Yes you can;" it's your decision.

Check out the link to learn more about Paul: http://www.evancarmichael.com/Famous-Entrepreneurs/2152/Paul-Orfalea-Quotes.html