I began a course for new teachers this week at the university, and on the first day our instructor showed us this clip, of the very talented Miyoko Shida. She asked us to think about the meaning it had for us, as teachers.
The responses were varied, but centered upon ourselves as "juggler" - we put ourselves in the place of the performer and contended with that - one bedraggled young man fought with the concept, saying he refused to be a "one man show" while others embraced the concept. The students were compared to the branches, the audience, the judges.
Later I thought, how funny that none of us had thought to put the students there, on that stage. How we had forgotten the precariousness of existence at their ages, when one must perform incredible and unexplained feats of unlimited poise and concentration before the judges, the adults - parents, teachers, family. How terrible is the audience of the peers, before whom one hopes to leave a lasting impression, the fear that the whole odd and unstable structure will collapse and leave one shamefaced. Everyone is always watching you at that age, a thousand eyes ogle one and await inevitable failure.
And the whole of one's reputation, as it stands before the audience, the judges, the world tuned in, rests on shoulders as fragile, shaky, transient as a feather.
No comments:
Post a Comment