Teaching Drama Class

"Life is drama! The way you express yourself to other people, this is uhm err acting. The best actors and actresses bring their own life experiences to their parts....crap. Uhm...I don't know what....I wasn't expecting to be teaching a class on my first day........Hi. Molo. What are all your names?"

I look at the children in front of me and they look back at me with blank expressions. What the fuck am I even talking about? I don't even understand the words coming out of my mouth. I don't know how to teach drama. I've just been left in the classroom by the art teacher who introduced me to the class as "Steven; your drama teacher from the UUUUU ESSSSS AYYYYY! Listen to him! Learn from him!"

I end up asking them who their favorite actors are and one girl raises her hand and says "Halle Berry in Catwoman." I'm sorry, little girl, I want to say, but I just have no idea how to teach you how to act like Halle Berry in Catwoman. Is that even acting? Doesn't she just jump from building to building?

Also- where are your teachers, children? Why are they not in the classroom right now? Oh, okay, teacher training, okay. Same with yesterday. Well. Hmmm. Hi, I'm Steven. Shit I already said that. What do you want to do?

Now the students really think I'm being weird. In South African schools, teachers are treated as authority figures. They don't just sit and talk to students. That's weird. There's no authority figure now.

Then, the most amazing thing happens; one of the girls asks if she can sing a song.

A song? To me? Like, right now? In front of everyone?

"Yes," she says.

She opens her mouth as wide as she can and sings "Listen" by Beyonce Knowles. The rest of the class joins in. They're singing, holding their heads backs as they hit the high notes. One of the boys, who looks to be around 7 or 8, is doing the vibrato perfectly. It is an incredible moment of awesome artistic power. They're teaching me now. I'm learning how to be performative, how to give it your heart, how to not give a fuck.

I try to regroup and pull some sort of lesson out of my ass, but I can't. There's really nothing left to say. I end the lesson by talking to them about how to deal with their own inner critic, and I tell them that this will always be a safe space where they can express themselves and talk about anything.

Tomorrow, I'll be more prepared.