Cultivate Relationships. Community Matters.
by Ben Dicke, Theatre Department Chair
This post is part of The Academy Method. The full list can be found here.
It’s a rare week when I don’t receive a text from a Theatre Department student that reads something like this, “Hi Ben. When will you arrive at school tomorrow? I’ve got some stuff going on I’d like to talk about.”
I have received this text, or something similar, from nearly every student in my department at one time or another. And it’s one of my greatest privileges as an arts department chair to have conversations with the students about their worries and their concerns. Whether that conversation is centered around college planning, their precalculus class, or the difficulties adolescents face as they begin to see their world expanding in unexpected and sometimes frightening ways.
Art reveals truths about the human condition. The art itself asks for a relationship with the viewer and the hearer. Thereby, the instruction of art is one predicated on deep and meaningful relationships.
The Theatre Department ensemble after their production of Everybody
In the theatre, specifically, we are often asking students to bring not just a textbook to class, but also vulnerability and emotional availability. These are big asks, but the art demands it. Without the environment wherein students feel secure to take the risks associated with vulnerability, most of our work will remain surface at best.
Learning a performative art in a studio setting means having an audience of one’s peers. Not only do theatre students require a studio instructor who allows for emotional risk and failure, they also require fellow students willing to lend them the same opportunities. This also requires attentive relationship building and an understanding of student’s inevitable insecurities. Asking high school students who know one another’s dreams, habits, desires, and faults to develop this environment necessitates trust from the faculty member up front to the incoming freshman or transfer student.
The French notion of “ensemble” is about building a bridge with many hands at the same time. And as a piece of great theatre is rarely, if ever, built by a single individual, theatre-makers know intimately that a strong ensemble is vital for powerful productions. This type of collaboration is not achievable if its members are at odds with one another or at odds with the architect.
Relationships with students are often seen as the priority in schools, but other relationships are also key to successful educational models. Just as we attempt to foster strong peer-to-peer bonds between our students, strengthening those bonds as faculty becomes as important.
The faculty lounge at The Chicago Academy for the Arts is not just a place to eat lunch or sip coffee, it functions as a nucleus for faculty, staff, and student well-being. Given The Academy’s unique set up of morning academic classes and afternoon arts classes, the lounge is a place where student concerns can be addressed across all disciplines. Arts chairs like myself, gain vital information on a student’s progress in their morning efforts, giving us even more opportunities to show care and concern.
The Academy Arts Department Chairs, 2019
Relationship building as faculty and staff who care for one another also serves to strengthen the function of the school. While measuring this strength can be elusive (rarely, if ever, do accrediting bodies ask how well teachers get along), The Academy leadership believes that teacher morale allows for energetic and passionate instruction throughout the school day. This morale becomes a key to success at the school.
Students also recognize the bonds our teachers have with one another. Modeling flexible, forgiving, and cooperative relationships as instructors is a necessary part of the work. When students see what’s possible for creating cohesion within a group, they naturally want to foster the skills necessary to form that within their own peer groups.
The parent/teacher relationship is the final piece of community building. Opening nights for our theatre productions are some of my favorite evenings in the year. Not only because our community is afforded the opportunity to witness the extraordinary work of our students, but because that gives the department chair an opportunity to engage with parents.
Those 30-40 minutes before curtain as parents arrive to volunteer with concessions or bring pizza to the cast essentially functions as an extra parent/teacher conference. Most of the time the interactions are spent on praise of the student and their progress. And occasionally, it allows the parent and teacher to discuss more sensitive matters involving a student’s well-being.
Of course, our department sends regular email updates to families in addition to the occasional necessary phone call home, but I have found that serving as head usher for our productions gives parents an opportunity to receive a hug or a handshake and an encouraging word about the progress of their child.
Cultivating relationships is a part of our Academy Method, just one component of this list that is developed through the process of art making. Engaging theatre requires a strong ensemble. The art necessitates the methodology of creating community. And as an Academy teacher, it is my privilege to implement that methodology and witness its transformative power in the lives of each of my students.