by Paula Davidoff
 |
| illustration by Marcia Brown |
Storytelling Arts artists have
been working together in the Morris County Youth Detention Center since 2010.
The work is usually rewarding. For the most part, the kids like hearing stories
and they like learning about them – about where the stories originated, and
about the customs and people of those places. On a good day, students will
discuss the stories and make insightful connections to their own experiences.
There are, however, times when our lessons fall flat: those days when the
students just can’t focus, or when one kid seems determined to sabotage the
workshop. Those days are hard.
I have been telling stories in
detention centers and other facilities for teens at risk to themselves and others
for nearly twenty years. So I know that when classroom dynamics aren’t working
it’s usually not the fault of my lesson planning or my instruction. The lives
of children in such facilities are in turmoil, so it would be solipsistic to
imagine that a student’s disruptive behavior was about me. That said, after a hard day, I always reflect
on what I might have done to make it easier for the kids. Should I have ignored
disruptive behavior? Could I have more clearly articulated my problem with
behaviors that crossed the line of what I find acceptable? These are the kinds
of questions that are hard to answer when they remain internal. When there is
only one person in the conversation, it’s hard, if not impossible, to be
objective. So, when Storytelling Arts was first awarded funding for the detention
center program, it was a no brainer that the work should be collaborative.
There are five artists currently
teaching in this program. Workshops are scheduled on two consecutive days every
other week during the school year. About half of these workshops are taught by
pairs of tellers; the other half are solo. The five us mix and match the
pairings so that each of us has opportunities to teach with everyone else. We
plan together in face-to-face meetings twice a year, and we fine tune lessons
and debrief in between on a private wiki site constructed for this purpose.
Even with this support, bad days are still bad days.
This fall, when we resumed
workshops after the summer, we had a particularly hard run. For starters,
protocol for classes at the facility had changed since our spring workshops,
and for the first time, there was no guard present in the classroom while we
were teaching. Although we discussed the question of whether our personal
safety might be threatened by this change, we didn’t really think it was an
issue. We have a good working relationship with facility staff and
administrators and trust their ability to keep us safe. The officers on duty
are always just a few feet away and they always have us in sight. A word or
gesture would bring them into the classroom. But the officers who sat in the
storytelling workshop had added a dimension that was suddenly missing. Most of
them participated in discussions and activities and, because they knew the
students much better than we could, they were often able to spot a potential
problem and stop it before it became an issue. So, when things began to go
downhill this past fall, our first thought was that the job was just harder
without an officer in the room.
And things really did go downhill.
For months, discussions on the wiki became downright depressing. The kids
seemed angry and discouraged. They argued with each other and with the
storytellers, they talked and gestured to each other during the stories. A
couple of times, tellers had to stop and send the kids back to lockup. Some of
us began to dread the days we were booked to teach the program. But, as bad as
it was, it was better – five times better – than it would have been if we had
been on our own. Through the hard time, we worked together, taught together,
planned together, debriefed together. We were always in communication.
Teaching artists knows how unusual
this collaboration is. Most of us are on the job on our own. We work in schools
with teachers but, at least in my experience, it’s rare to have an opportunity
to create a true collaboration in single residency or workshop. During the
tough months at the detention center, I questioned the value of our presence
there. If I hadn’t had my colleagues to remind me of better days, and that we
can’t always tell what sticks with a kid and makes a difference, I might have
thrown in the towel.
The experience made me realize,
once again, how important it is to work in a community of peers. I encourage
teaching artists who don’t have the opportunity to work with an organization
like Storytelling Arts to create their own networks for planning, discussing,
and assessing their work. It makes us better teachers and enriches our artistic
lives.
And things are better at the
detention center. When we returned after the winter holidays, the energy in the
building had changed. You could feel it as soon as you walked into the common
room. Staff was more relaxed, kids were calmer, and storytelling workshops have
been fun again. What happened? That’s another story.
