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.