The Most Amazing Thing

Children never cease to amaze me. I'm serious. One second I am so worn out and sick of telling them to check their props seventeen times, and then they get out there and steal the show and are doing just what I wanted them to do, and I can't help but love them and love what I'm doing. I would tell kids to go check their props every single night of my life as long as I got to sit in the audience and watch them succeed.

And that is just this truly incredibly thing about the arts that kids can't really get in other subject areas. Their math gets better, they get better test scores, but who remembers the first time they did really well on a math test in elementary school? Probably very few people. These kids, though, they will remember what it felt like to come out at the end of the show and take a bow and hear the audience cheering for them. I can see how proud they are of themselves when they come up to me after a rehearsal. I mean, to see that one kid who is always just a couple beats behind the rest finally get up there and nail that choreography is so magical it makes me want to cry. When I look at them in "Close Every Door" and see them all focused, all intent on telling the same story at the same time, all holding hands, that gives me goose bumps.

When I came into this production of Joseph, I was really afraid that I wasn't going to be able to connect with these kids. One or two latched on right from the start, but the others all knew each other, had all just come out of being in a production together, and the world's sweetest person had been the director and also happened to be in the show. There was one little boy in particular who I could just not seem to get through to about anything. For several weeks, I would leave rehearsals feeling kind of disappointed, but the next morning that disappointment would be gone, and my mind would be spinning with all these ideas of what to try that night to reach them.

Finally, I thought that maybe these kids just needed to feel appreciated, so I started bringing them candy and things to give to them at the end of rehearsals to say thanks for working so hard, and from that point on the kids were completely different. They wanted to ask me questions, they wanted to tell the best story they could, they wanted to know how they were supposed to react or when the perfect moment was to exit. Now, don't get me wrong, it still takes a fair amount of energy to get them all to pay attention to me at once, but now that little boy who seemed so distant from me in the beginning comes up and hugs me multiple times at rehearsals. Parents seek me out and e-mail me to tell me what a great time they're having and to thank me for being so great with them.

I guess maybe in the beginning, I thought that these kids would never be "my kids". My kids are the JTC kids, the MTC kids, the HCT kids; those kids are mine. Maybe I didn't think I could come to love these kids the way I do the kids at home, but that isn't true. No matter where I go, kids are going to be kids. Sure, their environment might be different, but most kids deal with the same basic problems, all I have to do is never stop trying to find a way to connect with them.

Sometimes, people give me these wary looks when I tell them I want to teach theater because arts programs everywhere are getting cut, but it's nights like tonight when I know that this is what I am meant to do. Sure, I am good at working with computers, my organizational skills are great, my real writing is very good, somehow I've acquired a decent sense of business and advertising, neither math nor science have ever really been a struggle for me, and I am a great communicator and public speaker. So, I guess a lot of people think that I could be anything in the world so why on earth would I want to teach theater? It's because teaching theater requires all of those qualities I've listed along with compassion, patience, fairness, creativity, humility, love, passion, strength, courage, and a whole host of other traits that I don't feel like listing. This path I've chosen is physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially exhausting, but I don't care. I would give everything I have to change the life of just one child for the better, to make a difference in the life of one kid.

Kids amaze me everyday, and I will never get tired of being amazed by them.