Meeting Two Cincinnati, Feb 9 - 10

Day one went by so quickly, I need to stop and reflect upon it before the next day dawns.

The first hour was spent sharing our teaching and personal lives with each other. The depth and breadth of theatre teaching knowledge round our table is a powerful support for all our individual goals. We come at theatre from all directions: our programs range from elementary to middle to high schools, and include vocational, parochial, and performing arts schools, in the form of either co-curricular or extra-curricular. We teach in urban, rural and suburban landscapes, and our populations are varied in terms of socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicity, and special needs students.

Most of us are solitary dwellers within our school districts. While music and visual art are usually found in every building of a district, drama/theatre remains a sporadic specialty. Even though there are now state standards in theatre, with benchmarks and indicators of theatre knowledge that every student should achieve at levels K - 12, there is no state funding to implement them.

To be together for these meetings, with time spent in intensive focus on what we do and how we can do it better, is invaluable. We are learning how to look at our work with the eyes of a researcher in order to solve specific problems and/or to refine methodologies or prove long-held assumptions.

Today's work was all about our individual inquiries. We took our guiding questions and asked more questions of the question. Others also asked questions as we worked in small groups to sharpen our focus while expanding upon the initial inquiry. Multiple perspectives and points of view came into play as a result of the small group work.

Personally, I felt very glad that I had changed my initial inquiry from a general nebulous concept to one that is very concrete. The climax of the day for me was the moments when the other in my group began asking questions and one said, "Why are you doing this? What is so important about voice training?"

I talked about wanting to help non-drama students develop their projection and articulation. But it was Mary who put it best. She said, we must develop our voices to initiate change. (I couldn't help but think of Barack Obama when she said that!) She is right, without the ability to speak clearly and reach others, we will never be able to articulate ideas that can reach others.

Tomorrow, we are practicing presenting our findings, as preparation for the final meeting in May.