Student-Focused Approach

It seems trite to say it, but it's so true, and it is so important.  As adults, sometimes we can lose track of it as we navigate all of the various components of our daily work lives and personal lives.

Children are precious.  

They are what matters most.

It is our job to protect them and help them and be kind to them...even when, perhaps, they aren't being nice back.

It isn't easy.

But we are the adults...so it's on us.

When I was teaching full-time in public school, I was reminded of this daily...almost hourly...just through the moment by moment experiences we have when we teach.

Now that I am teaching on the Outschool platform and working fewer hours than when I was doing the daily grind, I am reminded of it less frequently, but when I get reminded of it, I am blown away.

That is what has happened this week in my Broadway Social Club and Discussion Group.  I am just getting started on the platform, so the "discussion group" is currently not a group at all.  The group is me and one other student.  And while I am hoping to gain more students in this class, I am having the time of my life sharing my passion for Broadway shows with this incredible child who has landed in my world at just the right time.  

I loved my public school career teaching chorus and musical theater, but my biggest "complaint" that my closest colleagues heard me say over the years was that I felt like I was running a factory.  84 students into the class at 9:50 AM.  84 students out of the class at 10:35.  46 students into the class at 10:40.  46 students out into the hallways at 11:25...rinse and repeat 4 more times that day and five more times that week.

I just wanted to know the students better.  

But there wasn't time.  

I'll call my Broadway Discussion Group student from Outschool, Sarah.

Sarah and I are totally Broadway nerds.  

Sarah is being homeschooled because she is in a wheelchair and has special needs that weren't being served in her public school.  

When I met her in the first class in January of 2023, I knew this was going to be a special experience for us both.  I had found someone who had already fought so many battles in her young life (and is winning!) that I was going to be inspired by her journey.  She had found someone who could teach her something about her greatest passion...musical theater.  

In the class each week, I share a different show.  I share some clips from the show and a plot overview and she shares her thoughts about the lighting, costumes, performances and anything else that she observes.  We discuss.  I try to open her eyes to new things that perhaps she isn't seeing/hearing or needs to learn to see/hear.   When I hit the mark, she goes out and finds the play list and becomes obsessed... Last week, after about 9 weeks of classes, I asked her which show she liked best, and she chose one of my all-time favorites that few people know about-  Sideshow.

Two weeks ago, I decided to "flip the class" and let her share a show she loved with me.

She chose Bonnie and Clyde.  I already knew that she loved this show, but I wanted to know why.  I was familiar with it because my own students had introduced it to me several years ago, and we performed some songs from it in our annual spring musical revue fund-raiser.

She was 10 when she first saw the show.

I asked her why it connected to her so deeply.

She said, "Because it really happened.  I had never heard of Bonnie and Clyde.  When I learned that this was based on a story that really happened, I wanted to know more.  What brought the two of them together...what were their childhoods like?"

She went further into detail, but at the end of the day, what was magical about this flipped classroom was the incredible joy she felt as she shared her passion for this show.   Her eyes.  Her smile.  I've seen it other times when I've shared my musical theater passions with her, and I've loved it every time, but this flipped classroom experience was next level.  She had edited together some of her favorite clips, but the very best one was a clip of her singing her favorite song from the show.

It was so amazing to see this child sing.  She loves it so much.  At 16 years old, she isn't deterred...not even a little bit...by how her body doesn't always do what she'd like it or want it to do.  She is just doing...because she loves it so much.

I have no idea what this beautiful human will do with her gifts...the most important of those gifts are her heart and her passion...but she's going to do things.  

Big things.

There is no stopping her.

And I am going to continue to share what I can with her to help her learn new things about our shared passion...Broadway/West End/Musical Theater.

I'm not sure what will come from my new Outschool journey, but what I do know is that every time I have followed my gut instincts about where I should be, I've been ok...better than ok...Happy and filled with goose bumps.

...Just like the ones I got over and over last week as Sarah shared her love of Bonnie and Clyde the Musical.

When I taught public school over the 30 years I did so, even though my classes were gigantically large, and I was running them by myself, my constant guiding light was to stay focused first and foremost on what the students who were in the classroom at that moment needed.

They were my steering mechanism.  

Every decision I made was about what was best for the child.

...Not their parents...not the administrators...not the new curriculum....not the faculty members who sometimes might have tried to block an experience for the students because of territorial disputes.  (We didn't have an auditorium so the students had to perform in the gym, and some of the gym teachers didn't like to share...but I digress...more on that later.)

This experience with Sarah reminds me of my experience with Jimmy, whom I wrote about in 2016 on this blog because of how my experience with him shaped my journey.  And now look at him.  He continues to beat down obstacles.

When powerful parents would sit across from me in a stressful conference because they couldn't face what I was telling them about their child, I stayed focused only on telling the truth about the bells their child was ringing in the only way the child knew how...by acting out.  

I wasn't concerned about my job.  

I was concerned about the child.

When administrators were caught up in their power and didn't do their jobs to support us or made decisions that weren't child-focused, I set up meetings one-on-one and had the difficult conversation, and the right outcome for the children happened.

In May 2022, when I was doing my first "live" show since Covid with my students and my final "live" show as a public school teacher, I had to take one final stand against an educator who was standing between children and what they needed when he didn't want to share the gym space for 1.5 hours so that we could have time in the gym to make sure they knew how to navigate the choreography, the acoustics, the costume changes and all of it...

I think that he thought (hoped) that Covid would end all "live" performances forever and that he'd never have to share the gym again.  

I'm not sure.

But what I was sure of was that these students, none of whom had ever done a "live" show with me because of Covid, had to have the gym for that short window of time to make sure they were ready.

I notified him months in advance...reminded him in person...copied administrators on emails.

But for whatever reason...probably because I was leaving...he sent an email to me an hour before I was going to have 300+ students in the space...including his own daughter...for the single, 1.5 hour rehearsal in the gym...he wrote me an email saying "You're not getting the gym."  

My anxiety was through the roof as one could imagine.

I went to the department chair, who was a friend of both of ours.

The department chair came back to me and said, "He isn't budging."

15 minutes left before the rehearsal...

I went to my principal.

I said..."He's said that we can't have the gym for our joint rehearsal that happens in 15 minutes.  PE students will be in there running around.  The show is tonight."

She turned around and looked at me in the eye and said, "Would you like to be here when I tell him or not?"  I said NO.  Before I was out of her office, she had called him on the walkie talkie to her office.

I went to my room to gather my things for the rehearsal when I heard a knock at my door.

It was him.

Not even 5 minutes had passed.

He was red-faced.

Honestly, I thought he was going to hit me.  It was that tense.  

So, I dug deep and opened myself up to receive what I thought might be coming...

...and it didn't.

Instead, he said..."Mr. Duncan, you're getting the gym.  You're one of the best teachers I've ever known.  You've always been focused first on the kids and their experience, and I'm not going to stand between you and that."

It was the most astounding turn arounds I'd ever encountered in my life.  I couldn't believe what I was hearing.  I still can't believe it.

And it wasn't necessary...

Because if we stay focused first on the students...the children...what they need....what they deserve...and we keep that as our guiding light, our decisions will be the correct decisions and everything will work out...for them.

They had an amazing final show.

They will never forget it.