Hard News: Luck

...the readiness is all.

Hamlet Act V, Scene II

Some say luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

Demian Bichir, it appears, was ready in body, mind and voice to take on an acting career in the U.S.

Raised in a prominent theatre family in Mexico, Mr. Bichir learned the discipline required to tackle Chekov and Shakespeare. When he came to this country, he worked as a dishwasher in New York City while pursuing his dream.

Last week, he was nominated in the leading actor category by the Screen Actors Guild for his performance in "A Better Life."

Congratulations, Demian Bichir. You have set a great example for so many.

SAG Awards: Demian Bichir on his surprise nomination (24 Frames/LA Times)

Hard News: Let's Learn This

In 2005, I read astonishingly high statistics on student dropout rates. Children were quitting school in large numbers as early as ninth grade, in large part because they thought they would never make it, never catch up, never be able to read and never succeed at algebra.

I could do absolutely nothing about helping with math, but determined I could do something about language arts.

In the six years I've had with The Shakespeare Club, I've witnessed even the meekest of children gain confidence as a passion for words and story were sparked.

"If I can do Shakespeare, can do anything!"

They stomp their feet and shout this claim because they believe it.

Read on:

Report: Why we need arts education (not only to improve test scores) (Valerie Strauss, The Answer Sheet)

Hard News: The Green-Eyed Monster

IAGOO, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.

Othello Act III, Scene III

Check this out: The entire community of San Diego, a mere two hours south of Los Angeles, not only encourages the exploration of Shakespeare in their schools, they celebrate it with a festival.

Check out the size of the classrooms they rehearse in. Check out that they work during regular school hours and aren't relegated to the status of an after-school anomaly.

I'm so jealous that I'm checking out. I can't watch it.

7 Quirky Ways Students Learn Shakespeare (The Huffington Post)

Hard News: In the Clouds

I'm a big fan of downtime. Lots and lots of downtime. The kind of time where I lay on my back and watch clouds stream overhead.

Oh look, an apple...an elephant...a massage therapist.

For the first time in my six years of teaching little kids the disciplines of stagecraft, meditation, yoga, identification with character, Elizabethan history, scansion of iambic verse, vocal technique, journal writing and the plots of Shakespearean text, I am seriously considering that this program may be too ambitious.

Perhaps I am part of the problem and adding one more pressure to already full plates.


"No child left behind" is a well-meaning mantra with a cruel spine of standardized testing that, in my opinion, muddies its good intentions.

But it is a real thing and stressful both for teachers and students.

Eager parents want everything for their children, but when is it simply too much?

This article addresses the question better than I can:

Parents, take a deep breath (Mary MacVean, LA Times)

Hard News: Waiting for Something

In 2010, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth") released a new story.

"Waiting for Superman" is the heartbreaking chronology of how the United States' mountainous education system is crumbling and spilling our youngest citizens in disarray off its peaks.


The film is about to be released on DVD and Blu-Ray and I recommend it. It's compelling and honest. There is lots of blame to go around, there are ideas for change and there is a belief that we can and will do better.

I'm a volunteer in the system. I don't have a teaching degree and I'm not a card-carrying member of a teachers' union. I do what I do with what I know, and that's pretty limited to Shakespeare, acting and theatre craft.


That said, I have enormous admiration for the teachers I know who struggle every day to inspire their charges.

And that said, it's impossible to ignore the degree to which school boards, education administrators and teachers' unions have stood in the way of others trying so hard to teach and, more significantly, learn.

Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times is on the ground spying on some of those looking for a better way and a route to our becoming the best we can be in the education biz.

Have a look: Dissident L.A. teachers want more from their union

Hard News: If You've Got a Minute

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions, but I have no problem handing out hints.

Read this article and please consider adding a volunteer component to your 2011.

You don't have to live in Los Angeles. I'm certain wherever you are there is a need like this one.

These kids are breaking my heart. They carry on, every day, with tenacity and coping skills most of us have never had tested.

The infrastructure is failing them. Please consider helping.

In tough times, schools try to keep homeless students' education on track (Rick Rojas, LA Times)

photo by Mariah Tauger/LA Times

Hard News: What to Do

Note: I do not have children; I work with children.

But I myself was once a child and, if I were a parent, I might be inclined to approach child-rearing with a foreknowledge of what not to do.

What to do appears to be a tougher reach.

The kid's job: grow up and leave
The adult's job: nurture and encourage individuation

There's all the in-between part that's difficult because we don't want kids to suffer the slings and arrows we had to endure. We want them to be "happy" and "successful" and "empowered."

And some days that seems like such a crapshoot.

I like this article, this list of guidelines — or rules may be a better term — because we all have to help them grow up and leave, and we have to be better adults to accomplish that very thing.

How America Messed Up Its Kids... And How We Can Fix Them (Mark Goulston, M.D., The Huffington Post)

Hard News: To Quit or Not to Quit

(Not really!)
During my first year of this enterprise known as The Shakespeare Club, I wrestled on a weekly basis whether to pursue it or whether to throw in the proverbial towel.

I wasn't alone. The children of that first season also battled me and themselves. They quit, they came back, they quit and they stayed away as I juggled their roles up, down and sideways.

Quitting anything is big decision. Sometimes it's the right and only thing to do, but more often it can lead us onto a road of habitual running. Staying put, sticking it out and trying again can result in our owning a basket of rich fruit we might otherwise have missed.

But how to do it, how to persevere when it's so damn hard? This is a tricky thing.

Here is an article addressing this very question.

Some people just won’t quit (Heather Summerhayes Cariou, Troy Media)

Hard News: Keeping It in Perspective

As the nationwide conversation on public education heats up, we're offered a break from the intensity from comedian Lewis Black.

Hard News: A Tech Day Newbie

I wrote recently of my terrible behavior when I was a young actress in a technical rehearsal.

I was delighted to read this interview with Brooke Shields and her discovery of what a "tech rehearsal" entailed.

I am going to see "Leap Of Faith" and will post an opinion soon. I'm thrilled to read that she rallied for the rehearsal and dropped all Hollywood expectations.

A giant 'Leap' for Brooke Shields (Margaret Gray, LA Times)

Hard News: The Names We Remember

Chances are the names you recall are either those of teachers you remember fondly or the other ones...not so much.

Miss Grey wore her face in a scowl and her faded hair in a tight bun. She paced the rows of our fourth-grade desks slamming a pointer stick into her hand and offering quips like "Does a plumber go to work without his tools?"

Beats me. My mom says we can't afford a plumber and my dad has to fix the sink.

Miss Grey wasn't big on jokes.

Mrs. Woolcomb dressed in a mini-skirt and crossed her long legs, one over another, ON TOP of her desk and read us the lyrics from Leonard Cohen's songbook.

Mrs. Woolcomb offered counsel on how a thirteen-year-old could heal a heart smashed into smithereens after a first crush. She was super-cool and we all wanted to be her.

The L.A. Times has unleashed a vigorous conversation regarding test scores and how teachers are to be judged. I think writer Sue Horton's commentary is worth a look:

There's teaching, and there's learning (Sue Horton, LA Times)

Hard News: Hip-Hop Hamlet

Whatever it takes to get them engaged, try it. Rap, hip-hop and video will get teens' attention. Marry Shakespeare's words, plots and characters to those devices and anything can happen, as illustrated in the article below.

In our club, we're going even younger than high school and it's working. One of the keys is to get them up and moving while speaking.

Teaching Shakespeare in the old-fashioned way of dryly reading the text whilst trying to sit up straight and stay awake is just that: old-fashioned.

Teachers Shake Up Shakespeare with Digital Media (Edutopia)

Hard News: What Can't They Do?

I'm often asked this question:

"Mel, do the kids really understand Shakespeare's language and all those words?"

Not entirely. I have them circle difficult words when we read the script aloud, and when I meet privately with each club member I yank out ye old dictionary. We discuss the new words and they write the definitions into their scripts.

Do they remember them? Not all, but we've cranked open the vault of possibility.


Stories abound of extraordinary children taking on huge responsibilities or surviving what seem impossible circumstances. Charles Dickens penned tales of children enduring against terrible odds and our current headlines match whatever he fantasized.

I don't wish any child to have to climb adult-size mountains, but when I read of a young boy raising four small siblings on his own, or a girl working in a factory and taking care of ill parents, I think Shakespeare's language is doable.

6-Year-Old Becomes First Child To Complete Solo Ride Around Block (The Onion)

Hard News: Self-Esteem

I'm all for praise. I like it a lot and could dine on it every night...but if I did, I'd be a bloated fatso.

Approbation is meaningful when earned. I wish it were possible to hand out self-esteem and confidence like gifts stuffed into stockings, but this isn't so.

In my experience, the recipe for plucky self-assurance is found in the adage of falling off the horse and crawling back on.

Let's help kids get the real thing. This article makes a valid point.

A downside to high teen self-esteem? (Chicago Tribune)

Hard News: For Big Ears

A lesson for teachers (Mike Rose, LA Times)

What I like about Mike Rose's encouraging letter to teachers is that he mentions aspects of failure with the admonishment to get up and get going again. I'm learning this business of leading children in a classroom as I go along. Fresh, young talented teachers also learn as they go along. I depend on the talent at our school for guidance and am heartened to know that in the community of educators, this is common practice.

Hard News: For the Health of It

Doris Eaton Travis dies at 106; last of the Ziegfeld Follies chorus girls (LA Times)

May she rest in peace as she taps her way up the stairs to heaven. Congratulations, Doris Eaton Travis, for showing us that a life in the theatre is its own health plan. One hundred and six years old!

Once again, folks, an example of physical and mental longevity via hard work on the boards and bowing to the applause of an audience.

I like that her publicists did not announce the cause of death. At 106 she may have simply been ready for the curtain to drop. Ms. Travis, well done!

photo: Photofest

Hard News: Whatever It takes

Poetry in motion (Robert Oliphant, LA Times)

Professor Oliphant, congratulations to you for taking iambic verse to a whole new level. Further kudos for not only teaching, but embracing a willingness to be taught. Seems to me this is a key to keeping young.

NOW is the WIN-TER of our DIS-CON-TENT made GLOR-I-OUS SUM-MER by this SON of YORK!

Okay everyone, join Professor Oliphant. Hit the deck and give me fifty!

illustration by Justin Renteria/LA Times

Hard News: Mr. Big Pants

Macbeth, a talented military general, wins the war for Scotland against Norway. King Duncan, pleased with Macbeth's efforts, ordains the general Thane of this and Thane of that.

*Note to King: No good deed goes unpunished.

Macbeth buys into his good press, becomes intoxicated on the heady aroma of power and listens to his wife's encouraging whispers. Thus begins a litany of social boo-boos. Killing a king when he drops in for an overnight is the sign of a man on a reckless quest for stardom. Macbeth's ego expands to three times the size of Glasgow and there's no stopping him.

In my opinion, his notorious rampage results from an idea that he is above the law, above decent behavior and above the rest of us. He adopts the misguided notion that he won't be caught.

Mmmm-hmmm. Got me thinkin'.

The two most important items Lord Macbeth omitted from his checklist:

1. His own conscience would reduce him to a blithering idiot.
2. Women talk — even in their sleep, Mr. Macbeth — we talk.

When will we ever learn, gentlemen? When?

Hard News: In Movement

I'm not going to pretend that the Shakespeare Club has big answers for the bigger problem of boys falling behind in school, but I will say a sword in hand can help. Studies say that girls do well in structure and like to organize. Boys, on the other hand, have trouble sitting still and tend to absorb more when they are on the go.

I ran into Dominick's father recently and told him how well his son was doing in the role of Macduff. I related how disciplined Dominick had become in rehearsal and that his performance looked very promising.

"It's clear how much you've been working with Dominick at home and I really appreciate that," I said.

"I'm not working with him. I've asked to help him and would like to but he doesn't want my help."

"Then he's doing this all by himself?" I was shocked.

"Looks like," the dad offered.

"His journal writing is gaining traction as well," I went on. "And he's always eager to share his writing with the group."

"Last year we stood over him and couldn't get him to write a complete sentence," the dad added.

Maybe there's something to having boys learn on their feet. Maybe they need an experiential approach to academics. Boys are doers, after all.

With swords in hand, they get the story.


I found this interesting. From "The Trouble With Boys" by Peg Tyre in Newsweek:

By almost every benchmark, boys across the nation and in every demographic group are falling behind. In elementary school, boys are two times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with learning disabilities and twice as likely to be placed in special-education classes. High-school boys are losing ground to girls on standardized writing tests. The number of boys who said they didn't like school rose 71 percent between 1980 and 2001, according to a University of Michigan study. Nowhere is the shift more evident than on college campuses. Thirty years ago men represented 58 percent of the undergraduate student body. Now they're a minority at 44 percent. This widening achievement gap, says Margaret Spellings, U.S. secretary of Education, "has profound implications for the economy, society, families and democracy." [...]

The problem won't be solved overnight. In the last two decades, the education system has become obsessed with a quantifiable and narrowly defined kind of academic success, these experts say, and that myopic view is harming boys. Boys are biologically, developmentally and psychologically different from girls--and teachers need to learn how to bring out the best in every one. "Very well-meaning people," says Dr. Bruce Perry, a Houston neurologist who advocates for troubled kids, "have created a biologically disrespectful model of education."

And this, from "UF study explores why boys are falling behind girls in school" by Joy Rodgers of the University of Florida News:

"Curricular materials, particularly reading, may need to be more inclusive with regard to male interests. The use of physical space and need for movement should be taken into consideration," Clark says. "We also need to recognize that developmental stages differ between males and females, with females maturing earlier, cognitively as well as physically."

Hard News: What's Best?

My hat's off to Florida governor Charlie Crist for bucking the trend and not passing this education bill.


Here's what I know after five years of attempting classroom rule: You can't learn to manage the room in one, two or three years. It takes time and accrued experience.

Here's what else I know: Incessant mandated testing does not equate with real learning and is both sapping creativity in teachers and killing the desire for knowledge by students.

Testing seems to me to be someone's idea of a quick fix. If we take a quick glance at scores we can deduce levels of academic absorption. If we jam facts into growing brains it means they know something.

Children are being left behind. There is no quick fix. Lower classroom size and let teachers teach. Get parents robustly involved in helping on campuses and at home.

Crist Bucks Florida GOP and Vetoes Education Bill (The Wall Street Journal)