The First Week

Hello everyone,

You've survived the opening week.

If you're in your first year of teaching, you're learning that you feel on the edge of total chaos all the time. It's normal to feel that way. It's like doing a show: it's a different show every day; you're making the script up as you go along; sometimes the audience likes it and sometimes they hate it and sometimes they just don't care; you can't really fix the script for another year until you perform that act again; you can fix your general things like timing, relationships with the students, management, planning; you're improvising a lot; improvisation sometimes works really well; repetition sometimes works very well; sometimes improvisation and repetition don't work at all; your character is changing (you're not playing yourself--keep that in mind; you're playing the part of a teacher); you're designing your own set, and if it doesn't work, you may need to improvise changes in the design.

On the other hand, the adrenaline rush is terrific, especially when things work.

For performing artists, there are three modes of thought: rehearsal, performance, and critique. They correspond to the teacher's "plan, execute, and review." I think that performers need to be really careful about keeping rehearsal and performance separate from each other; and it's deadly to start critiquing yourself in the middle of a performance. For teachers, planning, executing, and reviewing should be separate mind sets as well. True, you may throw out your plan completely in the middle of a lesson and start improvising along an emerging theme, but you must still plan as if you're going to follow every single word. Let your review help you know if you were successful.

See you next week. Enjoy your days off. Don't forget that rest is not just important, it's essential.

Jeff Combe