Lessons Learned

I am a high school theater teacher. Some days are better than others, but on my best days I try to teach so much more than theater. I understand that I will make mistakes and I understand that it is my responsibility to learn from those mistakes. What I am beginning to understand more and more is that it is also my responsibility to learn from my students. I was blessed with a reminder of this on Friday during 4th period.

My 4th period Theater 1 class is an interesting mix of 23 girls (freshman thru seniors) and 2 freshman boys. They are always a fun class to walk into because they respond well to me and I am able to have a lot of fun with them. We usually start off the class with some sort of improv/icebreaker type game to get them talking and up on their feet. On Friday I introduced the game 2 Truths and a Lie. It's pretty self-explanatory. One student at a time they stand up and tell us 3 things about themselves, 2 of which are true and one of which is false. The class then tries to guess which one is false. It is a fun way to learn more about each other and get them used to standing up and talking in front of people. We had been playing for a bit when one of my students (we'll call her Mary) stood up and gave 3 facts that the class thought they for sure had figured out. Fact 1 was about her being a middle child, fact 2 was that she had Turrets and fact 3 was that her favorite color was pink. "Mary" has been at Goodpasture for awhile and has quite a few friends in that class. All of them knew that number 2 was false. Until she told us that #2 (her having Turrets) was true and that actually pink was NOT her favorite color. There were a variety of typical high school student responses to that ranging from "I've known you for like forever and you never told me that!" to "But you don't LOOK like you have Turrets." Mary went on to explain how it was worse when she was much younger but now it only affects her at times when she is super stressed (like exams) and that she is able to do things to keep it under control and to keep it from being too obvious. But one response in particular really caught my attention. One of my more outgoing students said this: "But I was just making fun of people with Turrets at the football game last week! You never said anything." Before I had a chance to try to respond with a "teacher type" appropriate answer Mary said this: "I know. I've had it my whole life so I've gotten used to people making fun of it. I don't want to be the one to ruin everybody's fun."

Holy cow.

It's moments like those that I wish I had a phone booth in my classroom that I could jump into and then jump out of 5 seconds later dressed as "Superteacher" so I can truly take advantage of those opportunities and use them to impact and change my student's lives. (on a side note: I wonder what Superteacher's costume would look like and if that's something I should look into for Halloween ...)However, I do not have a phone booth or a secret persona and this is only my second year so I did the best I could. I tried to tell them about how Mary was helping us be more aware of something that we had never noticed or thought of before and that it shouldn't make us treat her differently but instead, it should help us be more aware of what we say when we think it's "just a joke" or "just funny". I can only hope that it affected one person in that classroom like it affected me. Because I have not been able to stop thinking about it.

I love being funny. I love it when people think I'm funny. I love it that Josh is hilariously funny make people laugh all the time (including me). I love laughing and I love funny. How many times has my "funny" come at the expense of something or someone else? This has been a humbling question for me. I am the teacher who gets on her soapbox at the beginning of the year and bans words and insults that alot of other teachers don't ban. My students know that you do not use the word gay as an insult in my classroom. At all. The guys in my class know better than to use words like girly or sissy to try to insult another dude in class. It is a big deal to me. I believe and feel strongly that using the word gay to mean that something is stupid or bad or dumb is detrimental to an entire group of people. The same goes for girly and sissy. Using these words to describe something or someone as being weak or not good enough is harmful to an entire sex. They are insults and they are hurtful. But how many times do I look over things that are just as hurtful because they are not phrased as an insult but in a "just kidding" or joking manner. A lot of times I think that I know the people around me. But I haven't taken the time to really get to know them. Superficially and selfishly I want them to like me and I usually try to do that by making them laugh. I hope and pray that I have not every put any one in a situation like I'm sure "Mary" finds herself in all too often. But I know in my heart that I more than likely have.

For some reason, society (and understand that even more specifically I mean high school society) has made it an "uncool" thing to say that anything that was meant to be a joke was actually offensive and hurtful. Jokes are made every day about disabilities, different races or nationalities and lifestyle preferences. To stand up and say that those are anything more than jokes can be very socially damaging. People get defensive. "Geez. Can't you take a joke?" "Try getting a sense of humor." We have this way of turning the victim into the bully. They are the ones that are treating us wrongly and ruining our fun because they had the nerve to get offended. I understand that there are a lot of things out there that have the potential to be offensive to all different types of people. I refuse, however, to understand the excuse that because there is no way for me to know all of these things or be aware of everyone's situation that I shouldn't even worry about trying because people should just get over it. Hearing my students have this discussion really inspired me to begin taking more advantage of the position that I have and to start trying to be more aware myself.

I will be more aware of the jokes that I make, the statements that I laugh at and the attitude I have towards people. I will think twice before speaking to make sure that what I am saying does not come at the expense of anyone (whether that be the words and phrases that I choose to use or the things I say for a laugh). I will not get defensive when someone points out how something I say is offensive. And I also will be intentional about gently letting others know when they say something that is offensive to me. It may seem overwhelming and tedious but I really do believe that taking the time to learn more about each other AND all our differences can only help. I will not always succeed and I will not always be perfect but it is important to me that I try.